Fed’s QE Unwind Reaches $501 Billion, Balance Sheet Falls Below $4 Trillion. “Autopilot” Engaged - Wolf Richter - Over the next few months, the Fed is expected to announce its new plan for its balance sheet. Meanwhile, as we’re riveted to the edge of our seat, the old plan continues on autopilot, and February was one of the few months when the Treasury “roll-off,” as Chairman Jerome Powell likes to call it, hit the “caps.”In February, the Fed shed $57 billion in assets, according to the Fed’s balance sheet for the week ended March 6, released this afternoon. This slashed the assets on its balance sheet to $3,969 billion, the lowest since December 2013. Via its “balance sheet normalization,” the Fed has now shed $501 billion. And since peak-balance-sheet at the end of 2014, the Fed has shed $547 billion: During peak-balance-sheet at the end of 2014, total assets ($4.52 trillion) amounted to 26% of GDP. Today’s assets amount to 19.4% of GDP. In the years before QE started, the balance sheet ran around 6% of GDP.By comparison, the ECB’s balance sheet assets now exceed 40% of GDP, and the Bank of Japan’s assets amount to 101% of GDP.February’s drop of $57 billion is larger than the scheduled QE unwind that is capped at $50 billion. But the Fed has other activities that impact the balance sheet. QE revolved around Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). And so does the QE unwind.According to the Fed’s plan revealed in 2017, the QE unwind is supposed to take place on automatic pilot, based on a formula by which the Fed is scheduled to shed “up to” $30 billion in Treasuries and “up to” $20 billion in MBS a month for a total of “up to” $50 billion a month, depending on the amounts of bonds that mature that month. The Fed sheds Treasury securities by allowing them to “roll off” without replacement when they mature. It does not sell them outright. When Treasury securities mature, the Treasury Department transfers money in the amount of face value plus outstanding interest to all holders of those securities. Treasuries mature at mid-month or at the end of the month. On February 15, three issues of Treasury securities on the Fed’s balance sheet totaling $43.5 billion matured. On February 28, three issues totaling $12.5 billion matured. This brought the total for the month to $56 billion – above the cap of $30 billion. So the Fed reinvested $26 billion in new Treasury securities and allowed $30 billion of Treasuries to “rolled off” the balance sheet without replacement.This reduced the total balance of Treasury securities by $30 billion, to $2,175 billion, the lowest since December 2013 – and down by $290 billion since the QE unwind began. This has whittled down the Treasuries acquired during the infamous “QE Infinity” by about one-third:
The Fed's Wealth Effect Has Enriched The Haves At The Expense Of The Young - The Fed is the mortal enemy of the young generations, and thus of the nation itself. "The wealth effect" generated by rising stock and housing prices has long been a core goal of the Federal Reserve and other central banks. As Lance Roberts noted in his recent commentary So, The Fed Doesn't Target The Market, Eh? (Zero Hedge), Ben Bernanke added a “third mandate” to the Fed – the creation of the “wealth effect"--in 2010, the reasoning being that higher asset prices "will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence" which will then lead to higher spending and all the wonderfulness of endless economic expansion.But as Chris Hamilton explains in his recent essay Economic Doom Loop Well Underway, "the wealth effect" has enriched the already rich at the expense of the young who didn't get the opportunity to buy the assets the Fed has pushed to the moon at pre-bubble prices. That privilege was largely reserved for those who bought a decade or two ago, before the Fed made boosting asset prices the implicit goal of all its policies.Take a look at the chart of household net worth below. Household worth has soared from around $40 trillion in 2000 to $100 trillion in 2018--a gain of $60 trillion while the economy grew at a much more modest pace. Household net worth has leaped from $55 trillion in 2010 to $100 trillion in 2018--$45 trillion in gains for those who already owned stocks and houses.As Chris observed,"non-discretionary items like homes, rent, education, healthcare, insurance, childcare, etc. are skyrocketing versus wages." This is visible in the second chart of wage growth, which has hobbled along at 2% or 3% while stocks and housing have doubled or tripled.The wealth effect has benefited the haves at the expense of the have-nots, the young who can no longer afford to buy homes or start families unless Mom and Dad provide the capital.The nation is losing an entire generation as a result of the Fed's cargo-cult like obsession with boosting the wealth of the haves. The wealth effect is the m ost generationally lopsided policy possible, the equivalent of a "tax on youth."
Fed's next move more likely to be a cut in interest rates: Kemp (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve’s next move on interest rates is more likely to be cutting than raising them – given the late stage in the business cycle and its response in similar circumstances in the past. Federal Reserve interest rates are set in a judgment-driven discretionary process by the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) rather than following strict rules. Nonetheless, policy-controlled interest rates tend to follow a well-defined cycle as policymakers confronted with similar economic data tend to make similar choices (tmsnrt.rs/2VEKGKl). In cases where the FOMC has put interest rates on hold after a series of previous rate increases, while it re-evaluates the balance of risks, the next move has normally been to cut them. The FOMC tends to hit pause when the economic expansion is mature, the yield curve is threatening to invert, inflation appears contained and the economy is expanding at a moderate pace. By this stage, the principal cyclical indicators, such as the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index have normally peaked and are trending lower. If the rate of expansion subsequently slows further, or hits a “soft patch”, the committee normally responds by cutting interest rates to sustain growth. Lack of clear inflationary pressure enables policymakers to prioritise sustaining growth over controlling prices and justifies the interest rate reduction. In recent decades, it has been rare for policymakers to resume raising interest rates after hitting pause for any length of time.
Fed's Beige Book: Economic Growth "Slight to moderate", Labor Market "Tight" - Fed's Beige Book "This report was prepared at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City based on information collected on or before February 25, 2019."Economic activity continued to expand in late January and February, with ten Districts reporting slight-to-moderate growth, and Philadelphia and St. Louis reporting flat economic conditions. About half of the Districts noted that the government shutdown had led to slower economic activity in some sectors including retail, auto sales, tourism, real estate, restaurants, manufacturing, and staffing services. Consumer spending activity was mixed across the country, with contacts from several Districts attributing lower retail and auto sales to harsh winter weather and to higher costs of credit. Manufacturing activity strengthened on balance, but numerous manufacturing contacts conveyed concerns about weakening global demand, higher costs due to tariffs, and ongoing trade policy uncertainty. Activity in the nonfinancial services sector increased at a modest-to-moderate pace in most Districts, driven in part by growth in the professional, scientific, and technical services sub-sector. Residential construction activity was steady or slightly higher across most of the U.S., but residential home sales were generally lower. Several real estate contacts noted that inventories had risen slightly but remained historically low, while home prices continued to appreciate but at a slightly slower pace. Agricultural conditions remained weak, and energy activity was mixed across Districts. Employment increased in most Districts, with modest-to-moderate gains in a majority of Districts and steady to slightly higher employment in the rest. Labor markets remained tight for all skill levels, including notable worker shortages for positions relating to information technology, manufacturing, trucking, restaurants, and construction. Contacts reported labor shortages were restricting employment growth in some areas.
Global Economy Is Sinking Fast, And It Will Take The US With It -- Although many declared the deceleration in the economy in December to be a “soft patch” that we’ve somehow recovered from, others aren’t so sure. The rest of the global economy is slowing down and sinking at a fairly rapid rate, and the U.S. economy will likely go with it. According to a report by Forbes, there is no “economic immunity” for the United States once the global economy is in tatters. The report points to many problems in the global marketplace that could signal a major downturn for the economy pushing the U.S. ever closer to an unavoidable recession. When the U.S. consumer goes on strike (quits buying things for any reason), the odds of a recession skyrocket. So, it would behoove market watchers to stop ignoring the growing potential for a significant economic slowdown.Japan’s latest employment data was very poor while China’s high and rising bond defaults are still showing a contraction although the February number (49.9 PMI – still slightly in contraction) moved up from the 48.3 January disaster. Other problems are arising in the Eurozone as well. The manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) of 49.3 is the lowest since 2013. The latest U.S. trade deficit number was a record -$79.5 billion. Exports fell -2.8%. This confirms the weakness in foreign economies. Perhaps the only good news is that Germany did show decent January retail sales growth. That means consumers spent more of their disposable income. The U.S. did not fare well when it came to auto sales either. New car sales in February were at an 18-month low. Part of the problem is that new and used car prices are now at record highs, and bank credit has tightened making getting into a brand new vehicle simply too expensive for many. A report earlier in February also indicated that auto loan delinquencies are now at highs seen right before the Great Recession.
The Clock Runs Down on Mainstream Keynesianism - Stephanie Kelton - A couple of weeks ago, Paul Krugman decided to write about modern monetary theory. He didn’t cite the scholarly literature written by any of the academic MMT economists (books, book chapters, published articlesor an abundance of other writings). Instead, he declared that MMT was pretty much just the economist Abba Lerner’s “Functional Finance” approach from the 1940s and offered a critique of Lerner that he maintained was effectively a critique of MMT. Ipushed back, situating modern monetary theory in a broader intellectual history.Krugman returned, accusing me of moving the goal posts and asking for straightforward answers to four questions. I responded with what I thought was a well-reasoned, respectful and direct set of answers.So-called “finance twitter” buzzed as the tension between mainstream Keynesian analysis and MMT was put on display. Krugman then took to Twitter with a series of tweets calling my analysis “a mess” and declaring MMT to be “a losing game.” He also reminded us of his own record when it comes to “denouncing austerity policies.”I want to address what Krugman claims I got wrong and also compare the record. I argued that deficits put downward pressure on interest rates. Krugman says I got that wrong. The standard line — Krugman’s line — is that deficits normally lead to rising interest rates. I argued that deficits actually put downward pressure on the interest rate and that policymakers have to fight against this natural gravitation by doing something to prevent the overnight rate from dropping toward zero. This is really just basic supply and demand.
The Incoherence of Larry Summers, a Serious Economist --J. D. Alt --Lawrence Summers, according to Lawrence Summers, is a “serious economist.” He has just written an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he seriously explains why Modern Money Theory—as proposed by “fringe economists,” as he calls them—is a recipe for disaster. I am going to leave it to the “fringe economists” to rebut Mr. Summers; (I’m confident that professors Wray, Kelton, Tcherneva, Tymoigne, and Fullwiler can take care of that job quite easily). What I want to consider is something even more fundamental: How is it that someone who presents himself as a “serious economist” can get away with speaking incoherently while expecting us—the everyday citizens of America—to take what he is saying as true?Here is Summers’ first point about why MMT is a recipe for disaster: “Modern monetary theory…holds out the prospect that somehow by printing money, the government can finance its deficits at zero cost. In fact, in today’s economy, the government pays interest on any new money it creates, which takes the form of its reserves held by banks at the Federal Reserve. Yes, there is outstanding currency in circulation, but because that can always be deposited in a bank, its quantity is not controlled by the government. Even money-financed deficits cause the government to incur debt.”Yes, that’s very clear and logical, isn’t it? The government “prints” money and then pays interest on it? The interest it pays become the “reserves” in the Federal Reserve system? And what exactly does that have to do with “outstanding currency in circulation”? And what is it exactly that happens when that “outstanding currency” gets deposited in a bank? And if “money-financed” deficits cause the government to incur debt, maybe we should think about financing our deficits with something other than money? These are all serious economic questions.Summers’ incoherent rambling reminds me of another case of incoherent ramblings reported, coincidentally, in the same edition of the Washington Post: Donald Trump’s CPAC speech as evaluated by columnist Eugene Robinson. Here are a few instances of Trump apparently giving his best impersonation of Lawrence Summers: “When the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric. Let’s hurry up. ‘Darling—Darling, is the wind blowing today? I’d like to watch television, Darling.’ No, but it’s true…. Now Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself. I’m going to recuse.’ And I said, why the hell didn’t he tell me that before I put him in? How do you recuse yourself?”
US Budget Deficit Soars 77% As Federal Interest Expense Hits Record High - Another month, another frightening jump in the US budget deficit.According to the latest Treasury data, the US budget surplus in January - traditionally one of the few surplus months of the year due to tax receipts vs refunds timing - was only $9 billion, badly missing the $25 billion surplus expected, and far below the $49 billion surplus recorded last January; it was the smallest January gain since 2015.As a result, the budget deficit for the first four months of the fiscal year, widened to $310 billion, a whopping 77% higher than the $175.7 billion reported for the same period last year, largely the result of the revenue hit from Trump's tax cuts and the increase in government spending. The deficit was the result of a 2% drop in fiscal YTD receipts to $1.1 trillion, while spending jumped 9% to $1.4 trillion. The jump in the deficit was despite the bump in customs duties, which almost doubled to about $24.5 billion this fiscal year from $12.6 billion a year ago, reflecting the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports. What was more concerning perhaps is that rolling 12 month receipts declined 1.5% Y/Y, after posting a 0.4% drop last month which marked the first decline since March 2017. Worse, the absolute drop in tax receipts, which declined for both corporations and individuals, was the biggest since the financial crisis; and, as shown in the chart below, every time that receipts have posted an annual decline, a recession either followed shortly or had already arrived.Unfortunately, since receipts are set to decline even more in the coming months, the overall budget deficit is set to widen further in the coming years as the Republican tax cut package and increased spending for defense and other priorities boost government outlays. Some policy makers and economists are flagging concern about the growing debt burden, saying it risks America’s credit quality among borrowers, while other economists see more room to run. According to the CBO, the budget deficit in fiscal 2019 will widen to $897 billion, up by $118 billion from a year earlier; any economic recession will result in a far greater number. Finally, and perhaps most concerning, is that for the first four months of this fiscal year, interest payments on the U.S. national debt hit $192 billion, $17 billion, or 10% more than in the same four-month period last year and the most interest ever paid in the first third of the fiscal year.
Trump budget to propose slashing domestic spending, boosting defense President Trump on Monday will propose major spending cuts across a range of domestic government programs while seeking a large increase for the Pentagon, a budget plan that’s already encountering withering opposition from Democrats who control the House, as well as some Republicans. The budget has little chance of becoming law because of bipartisan resistance to many of its elements, but it sets forth the White House’s vision ahead of what is expected to be a fierce battle over government spending later this year. Even with deep spending cuts, the president’s plan would not balance the budget until the mid-2030s, two people briefed on the plan said, falling short of the 10-year time frame that Republicans have sought for years. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plan ahead of its public release. Instead, Trump’s advisers say the budget would balance after 15 years because they presume that economic growth will continue at high levels and bring in more revenue, a prediction that many economists have said is not possible. Still, the White House’s new 15-year deficit target illustrates the fiscal constraints of an agenda that prioritizes tax cuts and increased defense spending while simultaneously protecting big-ticket items like Medicare from any major changes. The proposal is Trump’s first comprehensive budget blueprint since Democrats took control of the House in January. Unlike in the past two years, White House officials say they plan to forcefully fight for the proposed cuts, hoping to draw a sharp contrast with Democrats on Capitol Hill. And the White House plans to expand its effort to cut anti-poverty programs. It will propose strict new work requirements for “able-bodied” Americans across a range of welfare programs, including health care, housing and nutrition assistance.
David Stockman: The Undrainable Swamp & The Inevitable Recession - Love it or hate it, the potency of the Trump Administration is on the wane, soon to be stuck in the mire of the Swamp it has deepened instead of drained, while the economy falls into one hell of a recession -- so claims former Regan-era Cabinet member and Congressman David Stockman.In his new book Peak Trump, Stockman notes how the wide divergence between Trump the campaigner and Trump the president appears to be proving to be his undoing.Rather than fight to dismantle the institutions he railed against as a candidate -- most notably the Deep State and the Federal Reserve -- Trump has embraced them.Now, when this latest asset bubble bursts (and Stockman believes the markets saw their peak back in Fall 2018), Trump will 'own' that. Having chosen to tie his administration's success to the rising price of the S&P 500 since taking office, he won't be able to foist the blame of a market crash on his predecessors. Similarly, the Deep State -- especially the military industrial complex -- is experiencing a bonanza under the Trump administration. As a result, the Swamp is deeper than it has ever been:I learned a long time ago as Budget Director and even before that as a member of Congress that the real deep end of the Washington swamp is on the Pentagon side of the Potomac. What Trump has done is basically taking a defense budget at $600 billion that was already swollen with waste and extending it far beyond anything you need for a homeland defense. I have a whole section in the book about how a homeland of defense wouldn’t cost $600 billion that he inherited or now the $700 billion that we have. $720 billion actually, that after two huge Trump increases. But you can do an honest, effective, and safe homeland defense for $250 billion. Remember, the walking around dollars that create the prosperity in Washington and all of the lobbies, NGOs, think tanks, and all the rest of it comes out of the DOD, National Security, State Department, Intelligence Community budget. It becomes a self-perpetuating lobby for its own, ultimately if you add everything up, $800 billion per year fleecing of the tax papers. But the impact on governance and what he rightly called the swamp, comes from the National Security side. The warfare state, not the welfare state. He’s obviously... It was a nice phrase but unfortunately he has embraced policies that go into the opposite direction and made the swamp even far deeper than it already was on the warfare state side of the equation. Click the play button below to listen to Chris Martenson’s' interview with David Stockman (55m:51s).
Republican Sen. Rand Paul says he will vote for measure blocking Trump’s emergency declaration, paving way for passage - Sen. Rand Paul is throwing his support behind a resolution that would block President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall, defying a warning from the president and putting the measure on track to passage.Paul (R-Ky.) said in a speech Saturday at the Southern Kentucky Lincoln Day Dinner that he “can’t vote to give extra-Constitutional powers to the president,” the Bowling Green Daily News reported.“I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress,” Paul said, according to the newspaper. “We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing.”Paul joins fellow Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) in opposing Trump’s move, a reflection of some resistance within the GOP to what lawmakers see as executive overreach and a test of the constitutional separation of powers.The disapproval resolution has already passed the Democratic-controlled House and requires a simple majority to pass the GOP-led Senate. Fifty-three senators caucus with Republicans and 47 caucus with Democrats, meaning that four Republican defections would be enough to ensure passage. While the resolution is likely to clear the Senate, an embarrassing rebuke to Trump, lawmakers in both chambers lack the votes to override a threatened presidential veto.
Trump on brink of GOP rebellion over emergency declaration - President Trump is facing a potential revolt among Senate Republicans over his decision to declare a national emergency to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) public announcement over the weekend that he will oppose Trump’s declaration ensures a resolution blocking it will be approved by the Senate after already passing the House — unless Senate Republicans can find some kind of last-minute way out of the showdown. Republicans have been hunting for a way out of a fight over the declaration that has badly fractured the caucus, but Paul’s decision underscores the difficulty leadership faces in finding a successful exit strategy. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who is expected to oppose a resolution of disapproval, floated that Trump could be rethinking his decision given the likelihood that he’ll have to use his first veto. “I do think he is probably rethinking the situation,” Kennedy told CNN’s "State of the Union." “I don't think the president has the votes on a straight-up vote to sustain his position. Now, if the Senate says, 'Mr. President, you don't have the authority,' as the House did, I expect the president to veto it, and we will be right back to where we are now.” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) took the unusual step last week of publicly urging Trump to back down. He called on the president to reverse the emergency declaration and instead use transfer authorities that are already granted to him to find money for the wall. “There is time for the president’s lawyers to take another look and determine whether we can both build the 234 miles of border wall that the president has requested and avoid this dangerous precedent,” Alexander, who is retiring at the end of the current Congress, said in a closely watched floor speech. Alexander said Trump should find a way to let Republicans “who want to support him on border security be able to do that” while also “keeping our oath to the Constitution.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to give a resolution blocking Trump’s emergency declaration a vote before lawmakers leave for a recess on March 15. GOP aides say the vote is more likely to happen next week, giving Republicans just under two weeks of breathing room to negotiate. Republicans in both chambers have criticized the Trump decision as an assault on Congress’s authority that could lead a Democratic president to circumvent lawmakers to take action on climate change or gun control.
McConnell: Senate will pass resolution blocking Trump's emergency declaration - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday said that he expects a resolution blocking President Trump's emergency declaration to pass the Senate, but he does not believe lawmakers will be able to override a veto. "I think what is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president and then in all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the House," McConnell said while speaking to reporters in Kentucky. The Senate will vote on the resolution before lawmakers leave town on March 15 for a weeklong recess. The resolution blocking Trump's emergency declaration appeared to clinch the 51 votes needed to pass the Senate when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced over the weekend that he would vote for it. In addition to Paul, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have said they will vote for a resolution of disapproval. Several other GOP senators, including Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), have yet to say how they will vote. Trump announced that he would declare a national emergency to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall after Congress passed a funding bill that included $1.3 billion for physical barriers, below the $5.7 billion the president requested. But his decision has put Republicans in a bind. GOP senators have been wary of breaking with the president on border security, but they've also been concerned that Trump's decision could let a future Democratic president use a national emergency declaration on issues like climate change. McConnell added that while he was supporting Trump's emergency declaration, he was "hoping he wouldn't take that particular path."
GOP wants Trump to back off on emergency - Senate Republicans are sending a pointed message to President Trump to back off from his national emergency declaration, arguing that he has $6 billion currently available from multiple funds — more than he requested — to build border barriers. The eleventh-hour effort to persuade Trump to rescind his declaration will probably not work, but it reveals the growing anxiety within Republican ranks about a looming vote to rebuke the president’s move. It’s a tough spot for many Republicans who both don’t want to publicly cross Trump and also believe the emergency sets a bad precedent. Republicans in the upper chamber argue the administration will have an additional $4 billion in fiscal 2020 to redirect to building border barriers when Congress replenishes a drug interdiction fund under the jurisdiction of the Defense Department. “The amount of money that’s available to him without declaring an emergency does meet his request,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. “That is definitely the message.” Capito represents a state that Trump won by 42 points in 2016. “I think there’s an easier way to do this,” said a second Republican senator, who requested anonymity to make the argument that Trump’s national emergency declaration is unnecessary. GOP lawmakers hope that Trump might relent and defuse a clash next week when the Senate is scheduled to vote on a Democratic-sponsored resolution disapproving of the president’s declaration. As many as 15 Senate Republicans have serious misgivings over Trump’s declaration and are threatening to vote for the disapproval resolution, say GOP senators. “A lot of people are concerned in our caucus,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who plans to vote for the disapproval resolution, said Wednesday. “There have been quite a few who have expressed concerns.” GOP senators who are privately urging the administration to back off the emergency declaration note that the recently passed spending bill provided $1.375 billion for border barriers. Trump announced last month that he would reprogram funds in a $600 million asset forfeiture fund under the Treasury Department’s jurisdiction and pull $2.5 billion from a drug interdiction fund at the Department of Defense. GOP senators say he can take as much as $4 billion from the drug interdiction fund.
Russia Officially Suspends INF Treaty With the United States — On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree which suspended Russian participation in the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The decision came after the US announced their intention to withdraw from the same treaty earlier this year.The INF was negotiated in 1987 between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and banned land-based nuclear missiles of a certain range. It effectively took nuclear arms out of Europe.The deal was successful for years, though in the past decade the US started accusing Russia of a perceived violation surrounding a single class of missile. Russia offered inspections of the missiles, and even put one on public display for foreign reporters and officials to access. The US insisted this was insufficient.The alleged violation was based around the potential range of the missile. Russia maintained it was tested and fitted for shorter range than the INF covers. The US saw it as similar enough to a sea-based missile that it would have a range that the INF might cover. But the US never proved it, and instead spent years complaining until they finally abandoned the deal this year.This has led Russia to believe that the US intends to put missiles back into Europe, which the US denies. Putin has threatened a substantial nuclear buildup if the US does so, and in suspending the deal, might start developing missiles that are actually designed to violate INF.If the US is telling the truth about not wanting missiles in Europe, then the decision to withdraw from the INF was foolish, as it only ends Russia’s obligations, and permits them to develop more missiles. Either way, the INF seems virtually dead now, and the US has made all the decisions on killing it. The failure to engage with Russia on the perceived violation shows it was never about a single class of missiles, but about giving the US a pretext to dishonor the deal.
Did Bolton Blow North Korea? - by Ron Paul - President Trump’s second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un last week was criticized by both parties in Washington long before Air Force One even touched down in Hanoi. Washington’s political class seemed terrified that the nearly 70 year state of “war” with North Korea might actually end. In the end the only positive thing they could say about the meeting was that Trump apparently walked away with nothing to show for it. The location of the meeting – Hanoi, Vietnam – serves as a great example of what can be won in peace versus what is lost in war. After losing nearly 60,000 US service members in an unnecessary war that took a million Vietnamese lives, the US loss of the Vietnam war resulted not in a communist takeover of southeast Asia but something very different: the domino theory failed because communism was destined to fail. Now we are close trading partners with an increasingly pro-market Vietnam. The result of trade and exchange versus war is a better life for all. Unfortunately for Washington, the real lesson of Vietnam has not been learned. That is why the Republicans, Democrats, and the entire mainstream media spoke as one against President Trump’s decision to take a bold step and actually meet again, one-on-one, with one of our “enemies” to see if we can avoid nuclear conflict. One leading Democrat, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), attacked Trump for meeting with Kim because speaking to the North Korean “gives him legitimacy.” Does it make any sense that we should not even speak with our nuclear-armed adversaries because it gives them “legitimacy”? He’d rather have a nuclear war as long as Kim remains “illegitimate”? This is sadly the kind of thinking that prevails in Washington. Meanwhile the North Koreans held a rare press conference clarifying that they only asked for partial sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling one of their main nuclear facilities. Further, press reports began to surface that National Security Advisor John Bolton threw additional demands on the table which led Kim to draw the meeting to an early close. Who’s telling the truth? We likely won’t know. But given Bolton’s strong opposition to any kind of peace agreement with North Korea it’s hard to doubt that he had something to do with the blow-up of the summit. As the New York Times reported over the weekend, while Trump’s advisors were shocked when he decided to meet Kim face-to-face the first time for negotiations, John Bolton wasn’t worried at all. As the Times writes, “Mr. Bolton told colleagues not to worry. The negotiations, he said, would collapse on their own.” And so they did.
Trump says Cohen hearing may have contributed to nuclear talks' collapse - President Donald Trump suggested Sunday night that the high-profile congressional testimony offered last week by his former personal attorney may have contributed to the collapse of nuclear negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a summit in Vietnam. Trump thus far has attributed his decision to walk away from those negotiations about North Korean denuclearization efforts to Kim’s demands for total relief from U.S. sanctions in exchange for incremental steps toward denuclearization — a retelling North Korea has disputed. But Trump on Sunday offered up another explanation for the abrupt end to his summit with North Korea's leader.“For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the ‘walk,’” he tweeted. “Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!” Michael Cohen, the president’s former fixer, spent three days testifying on Capitol Hill last week, including one day of public hearings, appearing before both Republican and Democrat-led committees ahead of a three-year prison sentence for lying to Congress and campaign finance violations, among other crimes. Despite Trump’s second summit with Kim taking place halfway around the world, with a 12-hour time difference, Cohen’s public testimony before the House Oversight Committee about his time working for Trump loomed large over the nuclear negotiations. After reporters shouted questions about Cohen’s testimony during an initial photo opportunity with Trump and Kim, the White House limited how many reporters would be allowed into a subsequent appearance of the two leaders because of sensitivities to shouted questions.
North Korea rebuilds part of launch site it promised the US it would dismantle - North Korea has begun rebuilding a rocket launch site that had been partially dismantled as a goodwill gesture after the first summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in June last year. Satellite images show the reconstruction work was carried out shortly before their failed second summit in Hanoi last week, and their publication on Tuesday evening contributed to fears that the peace effort was in jeopardy. The US national security adviser, John Bolton, warned that if the regime did not disarm, the already severe sanctions regime would be ramped up further. Bolton told Fox Business Network that Washington was waiting to see whether Pyongyang was committed to giving up its “nuclear weapons program and everything associated with it”. Commercial satellite image showing work on North Korea’s Sohae satellite launching station. Photograph: DigitalGlobe/Reuters “If they’re not willing to do it, then I think President Trump has been very clear ... they’re not going to get relief from the crushing economic sanctions that have been imposed on them and we’ll look at ramping those sanctions up in fact,” he said. The Hanoi summit was cut short last Thursday after Trump and Kim failed to agree on a deal trading nuclear disarmament for sanctions relief, but Trump administration officials were still claiming on Tuesday that progress had been made towards narrowing differences. However, the new evidence that some of the confidence-building steps taken by Pyongyang after the first summit in Singapore have now been reversed, coupled with the pointed threat from Bolton, suggest Trump’s proudest foreign policy achievement is now in danger of unravelling.
North Korea rebuilds part of missile site as Bolton warns of more sanctions (Reuters) - North Korea has restored part of a rocket test site it began to dismantle after pledging to do so in a first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump last year, while Trump’s national security advisor warned that new sanctions could be introduced if Pyongyang did not scrap its nuclear weapons program. South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency and two U.S. think tanks reported on Tuesday that work was underway at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station at Tongchang-ri, even as Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a second summit in Hanoi last week. That summit broke down over differences on how far North Korea was willing to limit its nuclear program and the degree of U.S. willingness to ease sanctions. Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, told Fox Business Network on Tuesday that following the Hanoi summit, Washington would see whether Pyongyang was committed to giving up its “nuclear weapons program and everything associated with it.” “If they’re not willing to do it, then I think President Trump has been very clear ... they’re not going to get relief from the crushing economic sanctions that have been imposed on them and we’ll look at ramping those sanctions up in fact,” said Bolton, a hardliner who has advocated a tough approach to North Korea in the past. Separately, two U.S. senators sought to dial up pressure on North Korea by reintroducing a bill on Tuesday to impose sanctions on any bank that does business with its government. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he was hopeful the United States would send a delegation to North Korea in the coming weeks, but Bolton’s remarks and the apparent developments at the Sohae test site may cause new challenges for diplomats hoping to restart negotiations after the failed summit.
Trump Says He'd Be Disappointed in Kim If Missile Site Rebuilt - President Donald Trump said he’d be very disappointed in Kim Jong Un if reports are accurate that North Korea has begun rebuilding a missile test site it dismantled last year.“I would be very disappointed if that were happening,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. “It is a very early report -- we are the ones who put it out -- but I would be very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim.”Trump abruptly ended a summit with Kim last week in Hanoi after the president said the North Korean leader asked for all U.S. sanctions to be lifted in exchange for the dismantling of the country’s main nuclear facility. Two days later, new images from Beyond Parallel, part of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, showed that North Korea was rebuilding a long-range rocket site at the Sohae Launch Facility.The site was dismantled after Trump’s June summit with Kim in an apparent show of goodwill by Pyongyang. U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton warned North Korea that it must be willing to completely give up its nuclear weapons program or it may face even tougher sanctions. “If they’re not willing to do it, President Trump has been very clear they’re not getting relief from the crushing economic sanctions that have been imposed on them,” Bolton told the Fox Business Network on Tuesday evening. “And we’ll look at ramping those sanctions up, in fact.” The threat of more sanctions risks increasing tensions following the collapse of the summit, which Trump said ended amicably. The U.S. wanted more action by Pyongyang on hidden nuclear facilities, as well as warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles that could deliver them to the American homeland. “I don’t want to talk about increasing sanctions. They’re strong,” Trump said at a news conference in Hanoi shortly after walking away from the summit. “They have a lot of great people in North Korea that have to live also. And that’s important to me.”
Trump Remains Hopeful for North Korea Despite Alleged Repairs at Rocket Site – Asked about reports that North Korea may have repaired a roof and door at a rocket test site, President Trump has said his relationship with North Korea remains “good,” but he’d be “very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim” if the reports prove true.Trump added that he doesn’t think he will be disappointed, and remains hopeful that a deal is still there to be made. Future talks are expected to be at lower levels, according to most officials, with no timeframe for a third summit yet.Trump further said that despite reports on the North Korean construction being made by thinktanks, the US government “had a hand” in those reports coming out, suggesting it was some sort of negotiating tactic. While they clearly wanted to make this report of new work at the site look bad, the reality is that neither a roof nor a re-hung door is definitive proof that North Korea is preparing for new missile tests.
North Korean Long-Range Missile Site Appears Operational, Analysts Say - North Korea-focused blog 38 North won't stop poking holes in President Trump's assurances that the US-North Korea relationship remains good and that Chairman Kim had promised to hold off on missile tests as negotiations continue. After reporting on the latest batch of satellite images suggesting that North Korea had started rebuilding one of its long-range missile sites (a site that the North insists is for use in its space program), the paper pushed the threat level up on a notch on Thursday when it reported that the site may be operational once again - raising the prospect that North Korea could soon resume its destabilizing missile tests.According to analysts who regularly work with the blog, a close look at the satellite images released earlier this week suggests that the site is currently operational. The analysts also determined that construction on the site likely began before the latest US-North Korea summit in Hanoi.Here's more from 38 North: Commercial satellite imagery from March 6 of North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station (Tongchang-ri) indicates construction to rebuild the launch pad and engine test stand that began before the Hanoi Summit has continued at a rapid pace. Given that construction plus activity at other areas of the site, Sohae appears to have returned to normal operational status.
North Korea’s Game Plan And Its Upcoming Satellite Launch --John Bolton won. After a short period of calm and talks between the U.S. and North Korea both sides are again walking towards a conflict. But one important thing changed.The recent talks between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un in Hanoi failed when the U.S. overplayed its hand. In his New Year speech Kim had already warned that he was ready to take a "new way" if such a problem would occur. As we wrote: History shows that North Korea has always gamed out such talks. It is always prepared to let them fail and it is ready to take the next step whenever that happens. The "new way" may well allude to some new weapon that North Korea is ready to test. Cruise missiles are a possible candidate. There are no cruise missiles (yet) but a satellite launch that is supposed to pressure Trump to come back to the table: Commercial satellite imagery from March 6 of North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station (Tongchang-ri) indicates construction to rebuild the launch pad and engine test stand that began before the Hanoi Summit has continued at a rapid pace. Given that construction plus activity at other areas of the site, Sohae appears to have returned to normal operational status. There are also signs of new activity at the Sanumdong missile factory which produces both, space launchers as well as ballistic missiles. The U.S. media turn the upcoming space launch into another scare stories about North Korea. Quoting the usual anti-Korean 'experts' NBCNews writes: North Korea is pursuing the "rapid rebuilding" of the long-range rocket site at Sohae Launch Facility, according to new commercial imagery and an analysis from the researchers at Beyond Parallel. Sohae Satellite Launching Station, North Korea 's only operational space launch facility, has been used in the past for satellite launches. These launches use similar technology to what is used for intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Pentagon Gives Erdogan An Ultimatum- Don't Expect Our F-35s If You Buy Russian S-400s - The Pentagon is getting close to slamming the door on Turkey regarding the contentious transfer of Lockheed F-35 stealth jets purchased previously by Ankara, an issue debated this week in Congressional hearings. The Department of Defense (DoD) has now offered a stern ultimatum and warning, telling Turkey: don't expect to receive F-35s if Russia's anti-air defense system is bought. Pentagon spokesman Charles Summers said Friday morning that there will be "grave consequences" if Turkey moves forward in purchasing Russia's S-400, according to Bloomberg — this after the top US commander in Europe, Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, recommended to Congress this week that delivery to Turkey of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter should ultimately be cancelled, nothing that the S-400 remains “a problem to all of our aircraft, but specifically the F-35.”Turkey's currency fell 1.5 percent this week amid fears relations with Washington could worsen over the standoff. President Erdogan has further missed a "soft deadline" previously set by the US over an offer to buy $3.5 billion Raytheon Co. Patriot missile shield system, as an alternative to the Russian S-400. The Pentagon said the Patriot offer would be impossible should Turkey seek the Russian system. Failure to receive the F-35s could further impact Turkey's economy given that a number of Turkish defense technology companies have contracts to build and develop systems and add-ons needed for Turkey to operate the aircraft, such as cockpit displays for the multi-national fighter jet.However, Erdogan has remained unmoved as the issue has come to a head, repeating during a Turkish TV broadcast interview this week, "this is over" in reference to continued debate. “There can never be a turning back. This would not be ethical, it would be immoral. Nobody should ask us to lick up what we spat,” he said. Thus far Erdogan has dismissed all Pentagon and US ultimatums. "We are an independent Turkey, we are not slaves," he said during the interview previously this week. The main argument for blocking the F-35 transfer is the fear that Russia would get access to the extremely advanced Joint Strike Fighter stealth aircraft, enabling Moscow to detect and exploit its vulnerabilities. Russia would ultimately learn how the S-400 could take out an F-35.
Sanders, Warren, Ocasio-Cortez, and Other Lawmakers Sign Pledge to End America’s “Forever Wars” - EIGHT MEMBERS OF Congress have taken a pledge to work to bring ongoing U.S. global military conflicts to a “responsible and expedient” end, the result of a first-of-its kind lobbying effort by military veterans on Capitol Hill.The pledge was written and organized by a group called Common Defense, made up of veterans and military families, which advocates for scaling back U.S. military commitments overseas. Common Defense boasts of more than 20,000 veteran members in all 50 states, and it threw its endorsement behind almost 30 candidates in the last midterm election cycle.The group’s involvement in electoral politics and Capitol Hill lobbying makes it an oddity in anti-war circles, as peace groups have historically concentrated on mobilizing opposition to war through street protests and marches. Jose Vasquez, the group’s executive director, joined the Army in 1992 and was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector in 2007, having joined the anti-war movement while he was still serving. He said that most anti-war groups believe that “all the politicians are corrupt and we’re not going to make change that way,” a mindset that goes back to the protests against the Vietnam War. “It’s kind of the same-old, same-old anti-war: standing up, doing vigils, standing outside and yelling at the buildings, coming on a Saturday to D.C. when nobody’s here. We’d much rather be here and talk to folks,” he said as he and other vets walked the halls of the Longworth House Office Building, on their way to a meeting with staff for Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. “Protest is important; you’ve got to show your strength in numbers, but having a seat at the table is important as well.”
Blood Money: Meet the Top 20 Companies Profiting From Endless War — Military spending is growing around the world and in 2017 it increased by 1.1 percent, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. U.S. arms expenditures rose by $9.6 billion, driving the global rise and further consolidating the status of the United States as the world’s top spender on the military–by far. The U.S. spending on war is rooted in post-World War II “new Pentagon capitalism” that eventually became known as the military-industrial complex. The model, revolutionized by then-Army Chief of Staff and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower, ensured that the United States’ scientific research, technological and industrial capacity would become “organic parts of our military structure” in conditions of national emergency, effectively giving the civilian economy a dual-use purpose. The model eventually gave birth to the sprawling military-civilian economic base, or “military-industrial complex,” that Eisenhower famously criticized in his 1961 farewell address to the nation. Civilian industry, science, and academia were used alongside an exorbitant and perpetually-expanding war budget to underwrite the Defense Department’s never-ending state of conflict with Cold War enemies, making the world safe for the unchallenged reign of the United States while “pump-priming” the U.S. economy whenever additional surges of “military Keynesian” spending by Washington was required. The main beneficiary of the model has been the U.S. defense industry. The U.S. is now home to five of the world’s top 10 large military contractors, with U.S.-based companies accounting for 57 percent of total arms sales by the top 100 large defense contractors worldwide, according to SIPRI data analyzed by USA Today. Companies such as Lockheed Martin, which made $44.9 billion in arms sales in 2017, enjoy revenue from the U.S. government alone that totals more than the combined annual budgets of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to a new analysis of SIPRI data by 24/7 Wall St, the following companies made the most money from governments’ addiction to war-spending and the demand for arms in conflict zones all over the world:
Space Force or Netflix Farce? -Needless to say, Steve Carell’s starring role in the upcoming space warfare comedy “Space Force” will do little to bolster the credibility of the real Space Force program, a proposed sixth branch of the military championed by the Trump Administration. In fact, it’s trailer-announcement pretty much spoofs the real proposal: Amid reports showing that the Pentagon reorganization would cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars over the next several years, officials, lawmakers and multiple experts are now questioning this far-fetched proposal. Building space warfare capabilities through a separate military branch would do little to bolster American strength, and simply get in the way of current efforts to defend American interests above the clouds. To go further, bilking taxpayers for a new, nonsensical branch of the military would make America less safe, and deepen the black hole of Pentagon waste. Of course, ambitious plans for space warfare are nothing new. President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, dubbed “Star Wars” by critics) dedicated funding for studying the feasibility of space-based laser missiles before the American Physical Society concluded in 1987 that such technologies were decades away from realization. President Trump has repeatedly called for a successor of sorts to the SDI, and has tasked the National Space Council (chaired by Vice President Pence) with creating recommendations for creating a Space Force. Even if the Space Force stayed within the Air Force for the foreseeable future, costs would likely mount quickly for taxpayers. In November, the Center for Strategic and International Studies unveiled a report estimating how much a sixth branch would cost under a variety of scenarios. Even in the permanently-under-Air Force scenario, the Space Force would cost $11.3 billion annually, with $11 billion ostensibly coming from existing accounts.
House-Cleaning - Donald Trump’s strategy for succeeding in the November mid-term elections consisted almost entirely of an effort to foment immigration panic. After it failed and he lost his Republican congressional majority he made a feint at appeasing the Democrats, with a deal to keep government running, then threatened to invoke emergency powers to build the wall his right-wing base demands, and at last offered a hint of moderate conciliation. In the meantime the actually existing Trump administration was falling apart in several directions. It was also adding new members who have committed it to policies that invert the whole tendency of Trump in 2016. The new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the national security adviser, John Bolton, are believers in US force projection whose appetite for wars can only frustrate Trump’s announced purpose to withdraw from the wars we are already in. The extent to which this president understands so basic a fact about a government he nominally leads is hard to gauge. But in the Trump presidency so far, the underlying condition is chaos – renewable by whim, chance or microscopic provocation. Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo partly because they share his passionate hostility towards Iran. It didn’t occur to him that they would be lukewarm supporters of his agreement with North Korea and do their best to thwart his pledge to detach US armed forces from Afghanistan and Syria. In one of the morning hours he could spare from the wall with Mexico, Iran returned to Trump’s mind, and on 30 January he tweeted a denunciation of his intelligence chiefs Dan Coats, Gina Haspel and Christopher Wray: they were ‘naive’ for telling the Senate that Iran wasn’t working on a nuclear weapon. Half of Trump’s argument for exiting the agreement Obama signed with Iran in 2015, along with the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, was that the nuclear danger was real. To be told by the CIA et al that Iran had no nuclear weapons was clearly as disappointing to Trump as the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate was to Bush and Cheney when it came to the same conclusion. They had planned a war – a war that Bolton and Pompeo still have on the drawing board – but to justify it now, Trump’s neoconservative add-ons will have to hire new intelligence chiefs.
The Coup Has Failed & Now the U.S. Is Looking to Wage War: Venezuelan Foreign Minister Speaks Out - Democracy Now! interview & transcript - Venezuela’s opposition is calling on the United States and allied nations to consider using military force to topple the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is heading to Bogotá, Colombia, today to meet with regional leaders and Venezuela’s self-proclaimed president, opposition leader Juan Guaidó. The meeting follows a dramatic weekend that saw the Venezuelan military blocking the delivery of so-called humanitarian aid from entering the country at the Colombian and Brazilian borders. At least four people died, and hundreds were injured, after clashes broke out between forces loyal to Maduro and supporters of the opposition. The United Nations, the Red Cross and other relief organizations have refused to work with the U.S. on delivering aid to Venezuela, which they say is politically motivated. Venezuela has allowed aid to be flown in from Russia and from some international organizations, but it has refused to allow in aid from the United States, describing it as a Trojan horse for an eventual U.S. invasion. On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Maduro’s days in office are numbered. We speak with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, who has recently held secret talks with Trump’s special envoy Elliott Abrams.
The US Tried to Isolate Venezuela. It Has Only Isolated Itself. — It is no secret that the United States has long been plotting regime change in Venezuela. For over 18 months President Trump has been publicly floating a military invasion of the country. At a speech in Florida President Trump recently announced “the days of socialism and communism are numbered in Venezuela” ominously stating “one day soon we are going to see what the people will do in Caracas.” Vice President Mike Pence declared President Nicolas Maduro a “dictator” and reiterated that self-declared president Juan Guaidó had the “unwavering support” of the American people. In an attempt to destroy the economy and force Maduro out of power, the US has leveled multiple rounds of punishing (and illegal) sanctions on the country, and encouraged and intimidated others to do the same in an effort to isolate Venezuela politically and economically.The US managed to convince a number of Western European and Latin American states to back their version of events. However, despite the best attempts from an extraordinarily compliant international media to present Venezuela as an isolated nation on the brink of collapse, the US plan is failing badly. In reality, the international community has rejected the US and its candidate Juan Guaidó, with around 75 percent of countries expressing support for Maduro. Completely unreported in the media was the decision by the UN Human Rights Council to unequivocally condemn the US sanctions, noting that they are targeted at the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans. The UN called on all member states to break them and even discussed the reparations the US should pay to Venezuela. The American Special UN Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas described the sanctions as akin to a medieval siege and accused the US of possible crimes against humanity. This startling news has been widely reported internationally but has been virtually completely ignored by the mainstream Western press. The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post nor any other national American publication has reported it.
Sorry Mr. Pence, The Venezuelan Military Aren't Rubes - Here’s a message to Vice-President Pence, Elliott Abrams and the rest of Washington: the Venezuelan military isn’t f*cking stupid. Last weekend we saw an attempted coup in Venezuela by the US along with local lunatic/self-proclaimed “President” Juan Guaidó. This time, rather than just burning people alive in Caracas, the opposition started their stunt at the Colombian border. The intent of this stunt was to highlight how the actual Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro refuses to let in “aid” from the United States. This is the same type of “aid” from the earlier stunt by the Trump regime that even the Red Cross and UN have called bullshit. The plan this weekend was to give Maduro and ultimatum: either let in the aid, or the US will do something; although it’s still not clear what with even the bloated tumor Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has said he’s not interested in any military operations launched from his country.We all know that this coup attempt by the US and Guaidó failed because we all saw the anti-Maduro thugs on the Colombia-Venezuela border throw a tantrum when they realized their error. Once these CIA stooges realized the trucks of aid weren’t crossing the border they just decided to burn them and blame it on Maduro (which has also failed). In the weeks leading up to the latest coup, multiple US officials spoke publicly (and privately) to members of the Venezuelan military urging them to turn on the Bolivarian Revolution. In his pre-coup address to the Venezuelan people, Pence practically begged the military to help the US overthrow – yet another – elected Latin American government. Pence and others such as Mike Pompeo even went so far as to promise any soldiers who defected a chance to ‘live in peace’ after Washington destroys their country if they would just let all the arms disguised as aid enter. So why didn’t the soldiers do it? Because, as I’ve already said, they’re not f*cking stupid. The Bolivarian Revolution was built from the ground up when the people of Venezuela (and Latin America as a whole), tired of the neoliberalism enforced by Washington since the 1970s and 80s rose up. In Venezuela, this came exactly 30 years ago with the riots know and the Caracazo. The problem for Pence, Pompeo, Trump, Bolton, Abrams and the lot is that this military leader brought the military up with him as a liberatory force. On top of this, not only did Chávez secure the military’s loyalty because he was a military man himself, but also because, they too, had had enough domination from Wall Street. This military, which is the same one helping Maduro protect Venezuela remembers this but they also remember other parts of history.
Venezuela – Guaidó Planned To Use Arms – Frustration Over Stalemate Sets In - When the U.S. set out for the failed 'humanitarian aid' stunt at the border between Colombia and Venezuela an important role was given to its puppet, the self-declared 'president' Juan Guaidó. It was his task to bring the aid across the border. The New York Times reported at that time: [One] option, pushed by those looking for a more direct confrontation with Mr. Maduro, would have activists encircle an aid truck in Colombia as it slowly makes its approach to Venezuela. Under this plan, protesters from Venezuela would overrun soldiers stationed on the Venezuelan side and allow the aid to move in, possibly using a forklift to push aside the containers blocking the bridge. But in recent days, plans appeared to be falling apart as politicians in Curacao objected to the use of the aid as a political weapon. Additionally the opposition planned to receive the 'aid' on the Venezuelan side: […]While Guaidó traveled to Colombia, the convoy from Caracas to the border never materialized. The attempt by a few stone throwing thugs to move two trucks with 'aid' across a bridge failed when the Venezuelan National Guard simply blocked them. Riots ensued and the thugs used Molotov cocktails to set the trucks on fire. The whole stunt comically failed. But until today it was unclear why the issue was managed so badly. Now Bloomberg reports that the real plan was quite different: Late last month, as U.S. officials joined Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido near a bridge in Colombia to send desperately needed aid to the masses and challenge the rule of Nicolas Maduro, some 200 exiled soldiers were checking their weapons and planning to clear the way for the convoy. Led by retired General Cliver Alcala, who has been living in Colombia, they were going to drive back the Venezuelan national guardsmen blocking the aid on the other side. The plan was stopped by the Colombian government, which learned of it late and feared violent clashes at a highly public event it promised would be peaceful.
BREAKING: FULL AUDIO – Elliot Abrams DUPED Into FULL CONFESSION Of U.S War & Theft Plans For Venezuela – In breaking news, Russian pranksters ‘Vovan and Lexus’ managed to get US Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams on the line, posing as President of Switzerland Ueli Maurer. The subject involves an invasion by the US in Venezuela and freezing of Maduro’s accounts. These pranksters operate highly effectively, and are known for similar ‘stunts’ which had profound geopolitical ramifications. As such, it is possible that ‘Vovan and Lexus’ indeed operate as Russian media-intelligence sphere agents. The details of the US plans are revealed in this ‘prank’, which reveals tremendous volumes on the US’ plans and how Abrams pitches and couches the theft of Venezuela’s oil and assets using the language of ‘protecting’ these assets from being stolen by Venezuela’s government.
How the U.S. Is Strangling Haiti as It Attempts Regime Change in Venezuela - Black Agenda Report --The people of Haiti demand to know who stole the oil money that was gifted to them in solidarity by the people of Venezuela. Last year, in October, Haitians followed two Twitter hashtags that went viral—#PetrocaribeChallenge and #KotKobPetwoKaribea. If you are not Haitian and do not follow Haitian politics carefully, you can be forgiven for not noticing this development. The complaint on Twitter—and soon on the streets—was simple: what has happened to the billions of U.S. dollars that was in the Venezuelan-financed Petrocaribe program? In 2005, when oil prices began to creep upwards and when the Bolivarian socialists led by Hugo Chávez were at their peak, 14 countries from the Caribbean met in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, to launch the Petrocaribe scheme. The idea was elegant. Venezuela, with one of the world’s largest oil reserves, would sell oil to the struggling Caribbean islands through a very lucrative deal. Part of the oil price was paid up front, and the rest was to be paid back over the years at a ridiculously low interest rate (1 percent). Island nations of the Caribbean, who had struggled with debt and high import prices for energy, now found relief. Haiti and Nicaragua, which were not part of the 14 original members, joined Petrocaribe in 2007. “The Caribbean shouldn’t have problem this century and beyond,” said a buoyant Chávez. An economics of solidarity defined the Bolivarian socialist approach to the Caribbean. If the Caribbean countries thrived, then Venezuela would prosper in turn. The test of this generosity came in 2010, when Venezuela decided not only to write off Haiti’s debt after the earthquake but provided funds in addition for reconstruction. “It was not Haiti that had a debt with Venezuela,” Chávez said then, “but Venezuela had a debt to Haiti.” Since 2007, Venezuela had provided $4 billion in oil through Petrocaribe.
Rubio Demands US Initiate Widespread Unrest In Venezuela - Predictably during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday, Republican chairman Marco Rubio condemned Venezuela's Maduro as a "clear danger" and a "threat to the national security of the US." To be expected the hearing was filled with plenty of threats and talk of fli - pping "military elites" and enforcing tougher sanctions. But perhaps unexpected was just how out in the open and brazen Rubio's own admissions of how far he's willing to go in promoting regime change in Caracas. In public testimony he called on the US to promote “widespread unrest” in order to eventually bring down the Maduro government. It appears Rubio is now urging the White House to initiate a full-on "Syria option" for Venezuela, which implies covert arming, funding, and militarization of the opposition to reach peak escalation and confrontation with the government, perhaps inviting broader external military intervention, similar to efforts to topple Syria's Assad over the past years. We've commented before about how popular anti-Maduro protests seemed to have lost significant momentum of late, pretty much fading out altogether over the past couple weeks, after tensions came to a head on Feb. 23 when US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido led a failed attempt to get an unauthorized humanitarian aid convoy across the Colombian-Venezuelan border. This as it appeared the opposition was itching for a provocation that might draw the US and regional allies into some of kind of more direct intervention, and as a significant uptick in US military flights went to and from Colombia near the border with Venezuela.
How (And How Not) To Beat A Smear Campaign - Caitlin Johnstone - Anyone who opposes western interventionism or thinks the poor are human beings is a Russian antisemite. If you disagree, it’s because you are a Russian antisemite, too. Narrative is a funny thing. You can do everything right, cross all your ‘T’s and dot all your ‘I’s and color within all the official lines, but if you offend the powerful they can still rearrange the dominant narrative underneath you to kill your public influence. In Venezuela right now some guy named Juan is being elevated to the leadership of the nation simply by the governments of other nations referring to him as “President Guaido” and denying the legitimacy of the actual guy who is running the Venezuelan government. The funny thing about that is if enough people believe it, it can theoretically work; the only thing keeping leaders in place is the agreed-upon narrative that they’re the leaders. If you can replace that narrative with a different one, as powerful people are currently attempting to do, in theory it is possible to effect a coup by pure narrative. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect illustration of the power of narrative control. Smear campaigns work in the same way. Anyone challenging authorized narratives and the status quo of oligarchic hegemony can have their reputations destroyed by the lackeys of the plutocratic class which exerts massive influence over the political/media class, thereby neutralizing their ability to influence the public. If the public distrusts someone, they aren’t going to believe the narratives that that person is putting forward, even if those narratives are as sane as protecting the poor, opposing senseless warmongering, or defending Palestinian rights. In today’s political climate where smearing someone as a socialist or communist is increasingly ignored, the most effective smear campaigns are currently those which paint the target as a servant of the Kremlin or a hater of Jews. British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s populist leftism and support for Palestinian rights has gotten him targeted by an amazingly virulent smear campaign which journalist Jonathan Cook describes as “a perfect, self-rationalising system of incrimination — denying the victim a voice, even in their own defence.” A narrative has been promulgated with extreme aggression by the UK media that a horrifying epidemic of antisemitism has somehow overtaken the Labour Party under Corbyn’s leadership, and that Corbyn himself is (despite a lifetime of opposition to all forms of racism and bigotry) a closet antisemite as well.
Trump Now Says He Agrees 100% With Keeping US Troops in Syria — Having stuck to his guns, at least for a couple of months, on the need to withdraw US ground troops from Syria, President Trump is now loudly endorsing the new plan, which is to leave some US forces in Syria for an open-ended amount of time.Trump responded to a joint letter from several members of Congress by saying he agrees 100% and that “all is being done.” The letter said it was essential to keep US ground troops in Syria “to ensure stability” in Syria.The letter also speculated that keeping US troops in Syria would mean that the US could probably talk other countries into committing forces as well, and would prevent Turkey’s invasion of western Syria to fight the Kurds.Over the past two weeks, US officials have backed off the promised pullout, promising to keep 200 troops in Syria, then later upping that figure to 400 US troops. There are estimated to be 2,000 US troops in Syria now, though it’s not clear that the administration is done backpedaling on the promise, so 400 may only be the beginning of this enduring presence. Extending those troop deployments was initially done relatively quietly, with President Trump not talking about it at all. Now he seems to be embracing a Congressional narrative which he’d previously disavowed. Having committed to abandoning his previous commitment, however, he seemingly just as enthusiastic and 100% behind the not-pullout as he was with the pullout.
Trump Cancels Report on Civilians Killed by US Drone Strikes — In his latest attack on transparency, President Donald Trump on Wednesday rescinded a rule requiring U.S. intelligence officials to publicly disclose the number of civilians killed by drone strikes. “Shameful, indefensible, dangerous,” tweeted Elizabeth Beavers, associate policy director with progressive advocacy group Indivisible. “Time for Congress to step in.”Trump used an executive order to scrap the three-year-old rule, which instructed the Director of National Intelligence to produce an annual report on all civilians killed by U.S. drone strikes outside of official war zones.As Common Dreams reported at the time, the White House ignored last May’s deadline for disclosing civilian deaths from drone strikes and suggested it could rescind the transparency requirement.Now that the rule has been canceled, critics feared that the Trump administration will be able to continue expanding the use of drone strikes overseas with even less oversight. “This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration’s actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims,” Daphne Eviatar, director of security with human rights at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement. “The public deserves to know how many civilians are killed by U.S. actions. This is an unconscionable decision and in complete disregard of fundamental human rights.”
More data show toll of US-China trade war - New studies have added to the evidence that the US-China trade war is inflicting pain on US consumers and businesses, even while President Donald Trump insists that the US is well positioned to weather the storm should he back away from a trade deal. Last week, the American Chamber of Commerce in South China released a survey showing that, unsurprisingly, the majority of US respondents with operations in China were losing market share to competitors from other countries. The survey also supported data showing that business investment has slowed significantly due to the uncertainty surrounding the trade policy. But the trade war is also hitting business operations at home in the US, as well as the American consumer. A paper published on Saturday by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Princeton University and Columbia University found that tariff revenue collected by the US is “insufficient to compensate the losses being born by the consumers of imports.” The economists estimated that, should the tariffs in place continue, around US$165 billion of annual trade would be redirected as a result of the most dramatic protectionist policy push undertaken in the US since the 1930s.In a separate report released recently, economists from the University of California at Los Angeles, Yale, UC Berkeley, Columbia and the World Bank estimated, “Annual losses from higher costs of imports are $68.8 billion (0.37% of GDP). After accounting for higher tariff revenue and gains to domestic producers from higher prices, the aggregate welfare loss is $6.4 billion (0.03% of GDP).”The insight into the net costs incurred by the tariffs conflicts with Trump’s claim that “billions of dollars are pouring into the coffers of the USA because of the tariffs being charged to China.” The research also sheds light on one reason Trump might be eager to strike a trade deal with China, even if it simply ratchets down the current trade tensions, while saving more difficult negotiations on Chinese industrial policy for later.
Here We Go Again- US, China In Final Stages Of Completing Trade Deal - It's deja vu all over again. One week after Trump "surprised" markets and algos tweeting at 5:50 pm on Sunday, Feb 24, just 10 minutes before futures opened for trading, that he would be "delaying the U.S. increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1".......productive talks, I will be delaying the U.S. increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1. Assuming both sides make additional progress, we will be planning a Summit for President Xi and myself, at Mar-a-Lago, to conclude an agreement. A very good weekend for U.S. & China!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2019... which predictably spiked S&P futures and set the "optimistic" tone for a US-China trade deal which in turn helped push the S&P above 2,800 before said optimism fizzled by the latter part of the week as the "quadruple top" once again proved too much of a resistance level for US equities, the WSJ reported on Sunday afternoon that - once again - the US and China are "are in the final stage of completing a trade deal, with Beijing offering to lower tariffs and other restrictions on American farm, chemical, auto and other products and Washington considering removing most, if not all, sanctions levied against Chinese products since last year."According to the detailed report, which suggests it was leaked by someone high up in the administration with the clear purpose of once again flushing shorts and pushing equities higher, the agreement is taking shape "following February’s talks in Washington" even as the WSJ's sources "cautioned that hurdles remain, and each side faces possible resistance at home that the terms are too favorable to the other side." Even so, and despite the remaining hurdles, with Trump now clearly eager to put the trade war behind him in hopes of pushing stocks to new all time highs despite USTR Lighthizer's ongoing reservations for a quick and easy deal (as he explained last Wednesday before Congress), the WSJ notes that "talks have progressed to the extent that a formal agreement could be reached at a summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, probably around March 27, after Mr. Xi finishes a trip to Italy and France."
United States and China inch towards limited trade deal: Kemp - (Reuters) - China and the United States appear to be inching towards a trade deal, with leaders in both countries anxious to avoid a further, politically unpopular slowdown in their economies. China has reportedly offered to boost its purchases of farm and energy products substantially while making more modest concessions on technology transfer, intellectual property, market access, industrial policy and subsidies (“U.S., China close in on trade deal”, Wall Street Journal, March 4). China is already the world’s largest net importer of oil and is set to become the largest importer of liquefied natural gas within the next few years, so the purchases allow the country to source supplies it will need anyway. By agreeing to buy LNG and crude from the United States, China is not making much of a concession; the only losers are rival suppliers such as Australia, Canada, Russia and around the Middle East Gulf. Similar logic applies to farm products, where China is a major net importer; any bilateral trade deal will come mostly at the expense of third-country exporters such as Russia, Argentina and Brazil. China’s import requirements could also be used to justify including major capital equipment purchases in any eventual deal, including aircraft and semiconductor manufacturing kit. Major purchases of farm and energy products would give a boost to the White House, shoring up support in farm and energy-producing states critical to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020. By focusing on farm and energy products, both countries can reach a politically and economically necessary accord, while making limited progress on more difficult issues.
Don't Believe The Hype - Expect A Worsening Of US-China Relations -If you receive your news via Donald Trump tweet, or courtesy of proclamations by Larry Kudlow, you’d be forgiven for eagerly anticipating a groundbreaking U.S.-China trade deal to be announced imminently, and thinking such a deal will save the global economy from rolling over into a serious downturn as well as pacify geopolitical tensions between the number one and number two economies in the world. However, if you expect these things, I don’t think you’re paying attention. Before we get a little into the weeds, let me be clear that I have no idea what Trump and Xi will, or will not, announce regarding trade. Trump seems fanatically obsessed with the stock market, and Xi’s been dealing with an economy in a tailspin. It’s certainly possible they come up with some sort of agreement they think will restore confidence in the global economy and convince people the last few months were nothing more than a “glitch.” It’s also important to understand this positive outcome appears to be assumed by the stock market and investors generally. Anything less might be seen as a colossal disappointment. The purpose of this post is not to predict the outcome of any particular trade negotiation. It could go in a lot of different ways and I have no edge in forecasting it. Rather, the purpose of this post is to express in no uncertain terms the view that U.S.-China relations will deteriorate substantially from here in the years ahead.For a little background to this perspective, I suggest reading December’s post, Is U.S. Geopolitical Strategy Experiencing a Monumental Shift?, in which I concluded: I’ve now seen enough to seriously consider that we may be entering an entirely new geopolitical environment dominated by vastly increased tensions between the U.S. and China. If so, it will likely last a lot longer than you think as leaders in both China in the U.S. will be looking for a scapegoat as their crony, financialized economies struggle under unpayable debt and unimaginable levels of corruption. Trump’s tweets and some dog and pony show trade deal won’t change any of what I outlined in that post. In fact, as we’ll see later, real tension under the surface of silly news headlines continues to build.
Easier for China to face tariffs than bend to U.S. pressure (Reuters) - China will acknowledge concessions made in any trade deal with the United States for the sake of stabilizing shaky relations, but is unlikely to yield to demands it alter its economic model even if faced with continued tariffs, many trade experts believe. U.S. President Donald Trump has warned he could walk away from a China deal if it were not good enough, even as his advisers touted “fantastic” progress toward an agreement to end a dispute that has put tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of each others’ goods. Such optimism has taken a different shape in Beijing, where the delay on a once “hard” March 1 deadline for a U.S. tariff hike reinforced views that Trump’s appetite for tough measures has weakened as the 2020 presidential election draws closer and a strong U.S. economy shows initial signs of flagging. Chinese concessions in any deal are likely to fall short of U.S. demands for deep change in the way the world’s second-largest economy works. Revamping decades of state planning will not happen overnight, Chinese experts argue. And President Xi Jinping faces political realities at home, where being seen as kowtowing to Trump would be less palatable than navigating the near-term impact continued trade tensions might have on China’s own slowing economy, they say. One Chinese official told Reuters that China’s domestic reform was a long-term process. “If the United States carries out overall restrictions or pressure based on its own interests, China will not accept it,” the official said.
Trump pushing for trade deal with China in hopes of boosting stock market ahead of 2020 bid - President Donald Trump is pushing hard to strike a trade deal with China in the hope of lifting the stock market ahead of his re-election bid, three sources briefed on talks told CNBC. The sources said Trump wants a rally as he gets set to run for a second term and has decided resolving the U.S.-China trade dispute can make that happen. The president is increasingly concerned that the lack of a trade agreement could knock down stocks, Bloomberg News reported earlier in the day. Trump has taken notice of the market's gains as both sides get closer to a deal, the report added. U.S. stocks started 2019 strong, with the S&P 500 rallying more than 11 percent through Tuesday's close. Part of the rally has been fueled by investors increasing bets that China and the U.S. will strike a trade deal soon. However, there are growing concerns that a deal is fully baked into the market, possibly limiting any more gains coming from positive trade news. CNBC learned through sources on Monday that China and the U.S. were in the "final stages" of trade talks that could end this month. Sources also said the two sides are working on a Mar-a-Lago summit to cap off the negotiations. Worries over the two countries' skirmish kept Wall Street on edge for most of last year as investors worried about the impasse's impact on corporate earnings. One of the president's goals in striking a new deal with China is to reign in the U.S.' trade deficit, a sticking point of his since he first ran in 2016. The trade deficit keeps growing, however. The Commerce Department said Wednesday the U.S. trade deficit reached a 10-year high in December, hitting $59.8 billion. That number easily surpassed a Refinitiv estimate of $57.3 billion. In November, the deficit was at $50.3 billion. The department's report showed the deficit expansion took place amid a 2.1 percent increase in imports to $264.9 billion while exports dropped 1.9 percent to $205.1 billion.
The Possible Chinese-US Trade Deal - The Financial Times reports that the final deal, in the absence of last-minute surprises, should touch upon the most important issues affecting the Sino-American relationship. First, the enormous bilateral Chinese trade surplus will be partially countervailed by Beijing commitment to importing a number of US products, in particular agricultural ones (such as soybeans, corn and wheat). Second, Chinese authorities would pledge greater protection of intellectual property rights, so far one of the most acute points of contention between the two countries, given the allegedly China-led theft of US trade secrets and the well-known transfer of technology necessary for American firms to operate in the Chinese market. Third, and relatedly, China is expected to loosen regulatory requirements for foreign companies and to ease authorisations to international investments. Michael Schuman on Bloomberg argues that the overall outcome is favorable to Chinese interests, while it undermines long-term US credibility. In fact, Chinese concessions are limited and in line with Beijing’s plans, such as reducing the deficit or improving the protection of intellectual property rights. In exchange, the United States counteracts its own interests in three related ways: first, by incentivising state-led solutions instead of pushing for greater space for market forces; second, by affecting the reputation of its judicial system, whose decisions should not be informed by political and economic considerations; third, by jeopardising its credibility in future negotiations, which will soon be needed given the fragility of the expected agreement. Many commentators focus on the relative importance of the part of the deal devoted to currency issues. Colby Smith, on FT Alphaville, highlights the importance of deciphering what a “stable” renminbi (as demanded in the deal) actually means. According to Brad Setser a commitment to a stronger renminbi is an essential part of any deal aimed at reducing US trade deficit with China. Further depreciation cannot be an option on the table of Chinese authorities for the agreement to be credible, as a weaker yuan would further reinforce the existing dynamic which makes US imports from China relatively cheaper and US exports to China relatively pricier.
China Won’t Make Big Concessions on Trade Deal, Ex-Minister Says - China won’t make big concessions to the U.S. in order to seal a trade deal, former finance minister Lou Jiwei said in Beijing on Wednesday, calling some U.S. demands for change "unreasonable." “China’s concessions probably won’t be very big because a lot of their demands are what we already plan to reform,” Lou, who was finance minister until 2016 and now runs the social security fund, said in an interview on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress. Some U.S. demands are “just nitpicking," he said. Annual Meetings Of The International Monetary Fund And World Bank Lou JiweiPhotographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg China and the U.S. are nearing the finish line on a trade deal that could be signed by Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping as early as this month, though there is still a risk either side could walk away. The U.S. wants China follow through on pledges ranging from better protecting intellectual-property rights to buying more American products before Trump removes additional tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods. The two sides are still negotiating and it will take more effort to reach an agreement, Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said on Tuesday. While substantial progress has been made, work remains to be done, Ning Jizhe, a member of the Chinese trade delegation and head of the country’s statistics bureau said Wednesday. Lawmakers will vote on a foreign investment law next Friday which includes measures to protect the IP of foreign companies and ease pressure on them to transfer technology to local partners, an effort to address U.S. concerns. Beijing has also already reportedly agreed to several conditions, including boosting its imports of agriculture goods and keeping the yuan stable, a commitment that could prove controversial. China must reject U.S. demands to keep the yuan stable against the greenback as part of a trade deal, though it can commit to not maintain it at an artificially low level, former People’s Bank of China adviser Yu Yongding wrote in an opinion piece last week. A prospective deal can’t put all the burden of proof that agreements are being carried out on Beijing, former Chinese officials with experience of dealing with the U.S. have said, warning that the “strong enforcement language” Trump has pledged will be seen as unfair unless it also binds the U.S. to address China’s own grievances.
China’s Shopping List in America Has These Farm Goods at the Top - President Donald Trump says he’s asked China to immediately remove all tariffs on U.S. agricultural products in what could be a huge blessing for American farmers. But how will global trade flows change in the event of a deal? The most obvious impact will be on Brazil and Argentina, which were among the biggest winners of the trade war, as their soybeans in China displaced the U.S. Should the Asian nation dump its 25 percent retaliatory tariffs on soy -- America’s biggest agricultural export to China before the trade war -- their big advantage will fade. But should China follow through on an offer to buy an extra $30 billion a year in American farm products, a raft of other countries could see sales to the world’s biggest commodity buyer decline. Canada may see shipments of rapeseed and wheat shrink, while Australia could find China is less keen to buy its beef and cotton. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Chief Economist Robert Johansson identified livestock products as a key area for potential exports to China. Meanwhile, Australia’s agriculture minister has warned that any deal that’s unfair to other nations could end up at the World Trade Organization. “Farm products are among the few options China has to help balance trade with the U.S.,” . “We have to import more U.S. farm products while sacrificing other markets.” While a deal is yet to be made, the two nations are close, two people familiar with the discussions said. The new target could see annual U.S. agriculture exports to China rise to about $55 billion to $60 billion, achievable in about three years, according to Rabobank International. That’s up from $24 billion in 2017. The biggest impact by far is likely to be on soybean suppliers. China imported 88 million metric tons of soy last year, valued at $38 billion, with Brazil overtaking the U.S. as the dominant supplier.If a deal is made, the share for U.S. soybeans could “easily” increase to over 50 percent from 34 percent in 2017, representing about $20 billion to $25 billion worth of purchases, Rabobank said.
The Secret Reason Trump Is Ready To Fold And Cut A China Trade Deal -- Robert Lighthizer and his band of "China hawks" have made no secret of their unhappiness with President Trump's insistence that they deliver a trade deal with China, even if it means compromising on demands for structural economic reforms, intellectual property protections, market access and enforcement. As one Twitter wit pointed out, "they're not even pretending anymore" (the timing of Trump's tariff deadline delay, which came just 20 minutes before futures opened, left little room for doubt): Of course, the president's "motivation" had become all too clear, both to his subordinates and the investing public: Trump believes a deal with China is the only thing standing between the S&P 500 and 3,000. But just in case you missed the first report (or the first four reports) about the motive behind why US and Chinese negotiators are reportedly scrambling to hash out a deal that Trump and Xi can endorse during a meeting later this month, Bloomberg is out with an anonymously sourced warning that Trump might be willing to squander all of his carefully accrued leverage over Beijing in exchange for another leg higher in equities. Coming just hours after Trump wrapped up a Monday meeting with his trade team (leaving little doubt about the source of the leak), two Trump administration insiders told BBG that they're worried that the president is pressuring negotiators to make a deal because he's worried that stocks could tank if the US moves ahead with the next batch of punitive tariff increases. They're also worried that the president sees a deal as a crucial PR victory ahead of the 2020 election, as well as something that could help redeem his inability to secure a deal with North Korea in Hanoi. At risk is the possibility that Trump could approve a deal without forcing any material concessions from Beijing (aside from promises to buy billions of dollars in agricultural products and Jack Daniels whiskey). Trump, who met with his trade team Monday, has expressed interest in hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping for a signing ceremony on a deal as soon as this month. His enthusiasm for a pact could shape crucial decisions such as balancing Chinese pressure to lift tariffs immediately against trade hawks’ arguments to initially maintain duties as leverage to assure good behavior by Beijing. Trump’s fixation on stock-market performance has shaped his assessments of his economic policies. Top White House staff know to be aware of how markets are performing when summoned to the Oval Office to speak with Trump because the president often asks: "What’s happening with the markets?" Advocates of concluding a deal within the administration have seized on that fixation to bolster their case, one person said.
China Growing Uneasy About Trade Talks- NYT - When Beijing wants to send a message to its people, it has a number of state-controlled media outlets to choose from. If it wants that message to penetrate in the West, it can always leak it to a semi-connected English-language outlet like the South China Morning Post, which could add a dash of credibility. But when it's hoping to send a shot across President Trump's bow, there's no better venue than an anonymous leak to a "credible" US news organization like, say, the New York Times. On Thursday, the Chinese appeared to choose option No. 3. After days of vague-yet-sunny trade headlines sourced to Chinese and US officials, the New York Times on Thursday published a story that the market had apparently already anticipated: After more than three months of talks, Chinese officials are beginning to get cold feet. While the broad-strokes agreement sketched out last month largely spares China from uncomfortable structural changes to its economy, Chinese officials are reportedly worried that President Trump's propensity for last-minute changes, as well as US demands that China is unwilling to meet - like demands on enforcement and a schedule for US tariff removal - might make a final deal untenable. The two sides in recent weeks agreed to the broad outlines of an agreement that would roll back tariffs in both countries, with China buying more American goods and opening up some markets to foreign goods. The trade deal looks like a good one for Beijing, since it largely spares the government from making substantive changes to its economy.But some of the biggest details — like the enforcement mechanism to ensure China complies and the timing for the removal of tariffs — still haven’t been hammered out. Beijing officials are wary that the final terms may be less favorable, especially given Mr. Trump’s propensity for last-minute changes, according to two people familiar with China’s position. "The work team is still continuing to negotiate because we still have a lot to do," said Commerce Minister Zhong Shan, speaking on the sidelines of the 11-day annual session of the National People’s Congress, which began on Tuesday. At the legislative meeting, senior Chinese officials have been taking turns warning that challenges remain.
Mar-A-Lago Summit Delayed As Beijing Gets Cold Feet On Trade Deal - As the NYT reported last night, wariness about the possibility that President Trump might reject a carefully worked out deal at the last minute - as he did late last summer when he scrapped a round of talks planned by Steve Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow - has reportedly made them hesitant to keep negotiating, as most of the major concessions have come from the US side. But that's exactly what they got. This time, it was the FT confirming the narrative: The UK's financial paper of record reported that the date of a possible Mar-a-Lago summit has been pushed back, from late this month to some unknown later date, as the Chinese push for guarantees that the deal will effectively be finished before the two leaders meet. A summit between US president Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping has been pushed back from the end of March, as both sides try to pin down details and avoid an embarrassing failure. While the dates were not yet finalised, the two sides had been discussing a meeting at Mar-a-Lago on March 27 or March 28, immediately following Mr Xi’s planned trip to Europe. Those dates are now off. In an interview with American media on Friday, US ambassador to China Terry Branstad said that there are no dates for the summit, but the two sides are still negotiating. Interestingly enough, sources familiar with Beijing's thinking said the Chinese had been "spooked" by President Trump's decision to walk out of the Hanoi summit with Kim Jong Un. Mr Trump’s decision to walk out on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without an agreement at last month’s summit in Vietnam "just totally spooked" the Chinese side, said Jake Parker, of the US-China Business Council in Beijing. "They want a signing ceremony, they don’t want a negotiation." "Both sides would like it to happen," he added. Given this, we can't help but wonder: Was the president set up to fail by the North Koreans as a ploy to give Beijing more leverage over the trade talks? In any case, pressure is mounting on Beijing, as another batch of disappointing economic data (last night's exports collapse) followed a massive credit injection.
Huawei Sues US Government In Texas Court Over Equipment Ban --According to the latest batch of market-positive trade-deal headlines, US negotiators are scrambling to hash out a deal with their counterparts in Beijing that would enable Trump and President Xi to save face, while averting the next round of US tariffs (and possibly removing existing tariffs) - even if this means squandering the leverage Trump has accrued by backing the Chinese economy into a corner. But amid the rush to finish a deal by the end of the month, the battle of wills between Chinese telecoms giant Huawei and the US government rages on. And in what appears to be its latest salvo, Huawei is reportedly suing the US government over its ban on federal agencies purchasing Huawei products, which it argues is illegal under US law. According to the NYT, which was tipped off about the suit by two sources close to Huawei, the Chinese firm is planning to file in the Eastern District of Texas, where its American headquarters is based: The Chinese electronics giant Huawei is preparing to sue the United States government for banning federal agencies from using the company’s products, according to two people familiar with the matter.The lawsuit is due to be filed in the Eastern District of Texas, where Huawei has its American headquarters, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential plans. The company plans to announce the suit later this week. While the legal precedents are stacked against Huawei, reversing the ban probably isn't the lawsuit's ultimate goal; rather, according to the Times, the company is hoping to force the White House to "more publicly make its case against the Chinese equipment maker." The suit is part of a multi-pronged approach by the company to defend its reputation from aspersions cast by the US.
FBI boss: Never mind Russia and social media, China ransacks US biz for blueprints, secrets at ‘surprisingly’ huge scale - While Russian hackers, Kremlin-backed or otherwise, grab the headlines, China remains the biggest cyber-security threat to America, FBI director Christopher Wray warned today. Speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this morning, Wray said the scale of Beijing's government-orchestrated online espionage is greater than that of any other nation state. The Middle Kingdom's spies are attacking US corporate computer networks, and plundering systems for blueprints and other top-secret intellectual property, at an unprecedented rate, the FBI boss claimed. "Of all the things that surprised me since taking on the directorship, it was the breadth and depth and scale of the Chinese counterintelligence threat," Wray said. "We're investigating espionage and criminal investigations in nearly all 56 FBI field offices, almost all of which lead back to China. For too long, the US has been focused on the threat China poses. There's nothing like it." When asked if there was a political element to such claims, in light of the ongoing trade row between the White House and Beijing, Wray was dismissive. The FBI is an independent agency, he said, adding, "If we find someone doing crimes, we will go after them, and I don't really care what a foreign government has to say about it," to warm applause from the conference crowd. Russia's online meddling is still an issue, Wray said, but it mainly targeted social media and other internet forums to "sow divisiveness and discord, and undermine faith in democracy." These efforts were curtailed somewhat by Uncle Sam's cyber-warriors during the midterm elections, and the FBI is bracing for more Kremlin-masterminded inference and mischief when the 2020 elections roll around. The Feds have had a lot more help from tech giants in countering Russia's social-media shenanigans than they have had in the past, Wray noted, and overall the public-private partnership was working well. He recalled the time a list of British and US military personnel was stolen and passed onto Daesh-bags in Syria as a kill list – a case Wray said would not have been cracked without the help of private industry.
US Tech Firms Fear China Could Be Spying On Them Using Power Cords, Report Says - Fearing that China could be spying on them using power cords and plugs, several U.S. technology companies have asked their Taiwanese suppliers to shift production of some components out of the mainland, Nikkei Asian Review reported on Friday. The report cited unnamed executives from two Taiwanese companies: Lite-On Technology, a manufacturer of electronic parts, and Quanta Computer, a supplier of servers and data centers. Lite-On's clients include Dell EMC, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, while Quanta counts Google and Facebook among its customers, according to Nikkei. The executives told Nikkei that some of their American clients — without specifying which companies — asked them to move out of China partly because of cyberespionage and cybersecurity risks. The U.S. tech firms were worried that even mundane components such as power plugs could be tapped by Beijing to access sensitive data, according to the report. . Lite-On is investing about 10 billion new Taiwan dollars ($323.52 million) to build a new facility in southern Taiwan, Nikkei reported. Quanta has shifted production out of mainland China to Taiwan and other overseas locations not only due to cybersecurity risks, but also to circumvent additional tariffs imposed by Washington as a result of the U.S.-China trade war, according to the report. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported last year that the Chinese government hacked into the manufacturing process of data centers and implanted tiny microchips into the equipment. The data centers were reportedly used by Amazon Web Services and Apple.
Trump Looks To Nationalize 5G --Trump apparently wants to control 5G in a ‘state-run’ socialist twist to American capitalism—and now there are indications that it could become part of the 2020 election campaign. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign team renewed its controversial pitch on nationalizing the country’s 5G network. In other words, the government would have control of 5G airwaves and lease access to private wireless providers. Kayleigh McEnany, a Trump 2020 campaign spokeswoman, told Politico that a wholesale 5G market would drive down costs and provide access to millions of Americans who are currently underserved. “This is in line with President Trump’s agenda to benefit all Americans, regardless of geography,” McEnany said. Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, has been also pushing for a plan that would involve a nationwide 5G network. Last month, President Trump himself wrote on social media about 5G, saying that “American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind.” “I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard,” he tweeted. (We’ll let the fact that there is no such thing as 6G technology slide for the sake of election campaigning). Not everyone’s on board the nationalization train, though. There are some in the White House who would prefer the industry lead this game. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, for one, believes wireless companies should manage the build-out of 5G. Feeling the heat over this talk of nationalization, even McEnany and Parscale later walked back their calls for government control of 5G, saying they were expressing their own personal opinions—not Trump’s. The idea of a wholesale network is being pushed by little known wireless company Rivada Networks. However, it should be noted that Peter Thiel and Karl Rove, who both have close ties to the Republican party and are strong President Trump supporters, have invested in Rivada.
Donald Trump Plans to End India’s Preferential Trade Treatment - US President Donald Trump said on Monday he intends to end India‘s preferential trade treatment under a programme that allows $5.6 billion worth of Indian exports to enter the United States duty free. Trump, who has vowed to reduce US trade deficits, has repeatedly called out India for its high tariffs. “I am taking this step because, after intensive engagement between the United States and the Government of India, I have determined that India has not assured the United States that it will provide equitable and reasonable access to the markets of India,” Trump said in a letter to congressional leaders. The US Trade Representative’s Office said removing India from the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme would not take effect for at least 60 days after notifications to Congress and the Indian government, and it will be enacted by a presidential proclamation. The US goods and services trade deficit with India was $27.3 billion in 2017, according to the US Trade Representative’s Office. India is the world’s largest beneficiary of the GSP programme and ending its participation would be the strongest punitive action against India since Trump took office in 2017. US-India trade ties were hurt after India unveiled new rules on e-commerce that restrict the way Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc-backed Flipkart do business. The e-commerce rules followed a drive by New Delhi to force global card payments companies such as Mastercard Inc and Visa Inc to move their data to India and the imposition of higher tariffs on electronic products and smartphones.
The Slippage Continues - India Resists Trump On Everything - With the U.S.’s attempt at regime change in Venezuela going nowhere fast it’s becoming increasingly obvious that major vassals allies aren’t scared of the consequences of defying us. India, in particular, has been quite clear in its opposition to Trump’s edicts on who they can and cannot trade with. And with Prime Minister Narendra Modi reeling from a corruption scandal it’s clear he isn’t going to give Trump an inch on important trade issues, especially with Modi in full re-election mode. Not only has India defied the U.S. over buying Iranian oil and Russian S-400 missile defense systems but now they continue to flaunt U.S. sanctions on Venezuela upping its purchases from 400,000 barrels per day to more than 600,000.The quantity of exports to India has jumped 66 per cent to 620,000 barrels a day and the boost is being driven by refiners like Reliance Industries Ltd and Nayara Energy Ltd, backed by Rosneft, Russia.Overall though, Venezuela’s crude exports have taken a dip as the US has intensified the sanctions against the Latin American nation’s oil company.The response from the U.S. was the nearly inconsequential removing India from the Generalized System of Preferences which created tariff-free trade on a number of products between the U.S. and India. It amounts to $190 million in net benefit to India a year. The preferential treatment brought India an annual “actual benefit” of just $190 million, he told reporters. Of the 3,700 products covered, India used the concession for just 1,784, Wadhawan added. “GSP is more symbolic of the strategic relationship, not in value terms.” It’s a 2% tariff reduction folks. It sounds big because it will hit $5.6 billion in trade but in the end it is less than 1% of the trade deficit between the U.S. and India. Trump is also hitting wayward Turkey with the same stick. I’m sure Erdogan didn’t even bother to notice.
U.S. launches national security probe into titanium sponge imports (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday launched a national security probe into titanium sponge imports, a key input in military aircraft and other equipment like space vehicles, satellites, naval vessels, missiles and munitions. The probe under Section “232” follows an investigation by the Commerce Department in 2017 to review if titanium sponge imports from Japan and Kazakhstan were injuring U.S. producers and was prompted by a petition from U.S.-based Titanium Metals Corp, part of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s Precision Castparts Corp. In 2017, the U.S. International Trade Commission voted to end its probe into the imports, saying it found no harm. The Commerce Department said the Pentagon supported the national security probe. “Titanium sponge has uses in a wide range of defense applications, from helicopter blades and tank armor to fighter jet airframes and engines,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Titanium sponge is a porous form of titanium resulting from the first stage of processing the metal for use in the aerospace, electronic, architectural and sports equipment industries. Titanium is also used in infrastructure and commercial products including civilian aircraft, chemical plants, oil and gas plants, electric power and desalination plants, building structures, automobile products and biomedical devices, the Commerce Department said. Boeing Co and Airbus SE are major users of titanium sponge. Imports account for more than 60 percent of U.S. titanium sponge consumption. Only one facility in the United States currently has the capacity to process titanium ore into the sponge used in manufacturing, the department said, adding that it was difficult to stockpile the material because it degrades. In July, the department a launched national security investigation into uranium imports. The new probe is the fifth launched by the Trump administration under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, previously a seldom-invoked Cold War-era law. Probes on steel and aluminum imports have led to tariffs and quotas on the metals, prompting retaliation from trading partners including Canada, Mexico and the European Union.
Evidence Grows That Trump’s Trade Wars Are Hitting U.S. Economy - President Donald Trump regularly declares that he’s winning his trade wars. Yet evidence is growing that the U.S. economy is a net loser so far. In two separate papers published over the weekend, some of the world’s leading trade economists declared Trump’s tariffs to be the most consequential trade experiment seen since the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs blamed for worsening the Great Depression. They also found the initial cost of Trump’s duties to the U.S. economy was in the billions and being borne largely by American consumers. In a study published on Saturday, economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Princeton University and Columbia University found that tariffs imposed last year by Trump on products ranging from washing machines and steel to some $250 billion in Chinese imports were costing U.S. companies and consumers $3 billion a month in additional tax costs and companies a further $1.4 billion in deadweight losses. They also were causing the diversion of $165 billion a year in trade leading to significant costs for companies having to reorganize supply chains. Significantly, the analysis of import price data by Mary Amiti, Stephen Redding and David Weinstein also found that almost all of the cost of the tariffs was being paid by U.S. consumers and companies. That contradicts Trump’s claim that China is paying the tariffs. “This is kind of the worst-case scenario in terms of consumers,’’ Weinstein said in an interview. “It’s pretty unclear that this trade war is a net win for the economy at this point.’’ The trade war was only one factor affecting the U.S. economy, Weinstein said, and with the U.S. less exposed to trade than other major western economies such as Germany, it was not having as much of an impact as it might.
Record U.S. trade deficit in 2018 reflects failure of Trump’s trade policies -- The U.S. Census Bureau reported that the U.S. goods trade deficit reached a record of $891.3 billion in 2018, an increase of $83.8 billion (10.4 percent). The broader goods and services deficit reached $621.0 billion in 2018, an increase of $68.8 billion (12.5 percent). The rapid growth of U.S. trade deficits reflect the failure of Trump administration trade policies, as well as the negative impacts of tax cuts and spending increases, which have sharply increased the federal budget deficit, and tightening of U.S. monetary policy, resulting in upward pressure on interest rates and the real value of the dollar. The IMF predicts that the U.S. current account deficit—the broadest measure of U.S. trade in goods, services, and income—will nearly double between 2016 and 2022. Unless these trends are offset by a rapid decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, rapidly rising trade deficits could be devastating for U.S. manufacturing, likely giving rise to massive job loss on the scale experienced in the 2000–2007 period, when 3.5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost. The U.S. goods trade deficit with China reached a new record of $419.2 billion in 2018, up from $375.6 billion in 2017, an increase of $43.6 billion (11.6 percent). United States trade with China is dominated by the deficitin manufactured products. Although the United States has imposed tariffs of 10 to 25 percent on $250 billion in imports from China (about half of total U.S. imports from that country), China has played its ‘ace-in-the-hole’ by allowing it’s currency to fall by roughly 10 percent against the dollar. As a result, the U.S. trade deficit with China increased faster (11.6 percent) than the U.S. deficit with the world as a whole (10.4 percent). While the United States and China are poised to negotiate a deal to end their trade dispute, the proposed deal amounts “much ado about nothing much,” as Paul Krugman puts it. It will do little to reduce the massive imbalance in U.S.–China trade flows. The vast bulk of the U.S. goods trade deficit in 2018 was explained by trade in non-petroleum products, which are dominated by manufactured goods. The trade deficit in non-petroleum products reached $825.4 billion in 2018, an increase of $91 billion (12.4 percent). The United States had a small trade surplus of 26.5 billion in agricultural products in 2018 (this sector is part of trade in non-petroleum products). The agricultural trade surplus declined by $2.4 billion in 2018 (8.3 percent), as a consequence of trade restraints in China and elsewhere, and the rising dollar. The United States had a trade surplus in services which increased from $255.2 billion in 2017 to $270.2 billion in 2018, an increase of $15.0 billion (5.9 percent). However, the growth in the services surplus was more than offset by the $83.8 billion increase in the goods trade deficit; thus the overall goods and services deficit increased by $68.8 billion (12.5 percent) in 2018.
Gallup Survey: Global Image of U.S. Plunges During Trump Administration - Pam Martens -In what has to be the most diplomatic understatement of the year, Jon Clifton, the Global Managing Partner of the polling organization, Gallup, had this to say with the release of the company’s 2019 “Rating World Leaders” report: “The image of U.S. leadership abroad is not good right now.”In reality, the U.S. had a 48 percent global approval rating in President Obama’s last year in office and that rating plunged to 30 percent in Trump’s first year in office. It now sits at 31 percent median approval across the 133 countries surveyed by Gallup.One of the most dangerous takeaways from the new Gallup report is that our closest allies think so little of the U.S. right now. The report notes that “Regionally, the image of U.S. leadership fared worst in Europe, where approval remained low and stable, dropping one percentage point from the previous year to 24%.” The current 24 percent approval rating compares to a 44 percent approval rating in Europe in Obama’s last year in office.The 24 percent overall approval rating in Europe disguises the deep distrust of the U.S. by some European countries where approval of the U.S. is far lower: Norway 12 percent; Sweden 13 percent; Austria and Portugal 14 percent; Belgium and Switzerland 16 percent; and Germany 17 percent. Equally disturbing, the disapproval of the U.S. by Europeans, at 59 percent, puts the U.S. in the same league as Russia, which also received a 59 percent disapproval from Europeans in the current Gallup report. The Gallup report concludes that “the main challengers to U.S. influence, values and wealth — China and Russia” have gained ground in approval ratings while the U.S. has declined. The report notes further that “…it may prove even more difficult for the U.S. to counter this influence and remain relevant in the second half of Trump’s presidency, unless the administration can erase some of the doubts that U.S. partners and allies have about its commitment.”
Safety hazards remain at private military housing as Trump looks to pull construction funds for wall - Military leaders acknowledged Thursday that they did not have a final say in preventing the Trump administration from pulling money for military housing to build a southern border wall, even as the Defense Department reels from widespread reports of mold- and vermin-infested family housing. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on poor conditions with military housing — questioned the Army, Navy and Air Force secretaries about the Trump administration’s plan to pull $6.1 billion from Pentagon accounts to help fund the president’s promised southern border wall. That amount includes $2.5 billion from counter-drug programs and $3.6 billion in military construction funds, which covers base housing projects. “Can you assure me that none of that money will come from funds that were slated to be used to deal with base housing either here in the United States or overseas?” Kaine asked. All three service secretaries said they would recommend to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan that the administration not tap military housing funds for the wall, but conceded that it’s not their final decision. “Senator, I can assure you that that is certainly my position as well and I’ve articulated that to Secretary Shanahan. I think there’s general agreement within the department that we should not tap into either military housing or barracks ... but I don’t have final say over that, so I can’t give 100 percent assurance,” Army Secretary Mark Esper replied. The bipartisan anger was palpable at the hearing, where service secretaries acknowledged widespread problems with military housing conditions. The hearing was called after a 2018 Reuters investigation found private military housing was rife with issues including black mold, vermin infestations and lead paint.
Pentagon to Tap Leftover Military Pay Funding -- “The Pentagon is planning to tap $1 billion in leftover funds from military pay and pension accounts to help President Donald Trump pay for his long-sought border wall, a top Senate Democrat said Thursday.Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL ‘It’s coming out of military pay and pensions. $1 billion. That’s the plan.The funds are available because Army recruitment is down and a voluntary early military retirement program is being underutilized.’The development comes as Pentagon officials are seeking to minimize the amount of wall money that would come from military construction projects that are so cherished by lawmakers.‘Imagine the Democrats making that proposal — that for whatever our project is, we’re going to cut military pay and pensions.'” Gee, did anyone ever think of tossing this into the VHA funding since the VA now has to pay for the Choice program which Trump said he will not fund.
Forget $8 Billion- Company Will Build 234 Miles Of Trump's Border Wall For $1.4B -- A North Dakota company is offering to build 234 miles of President Trump's border wall for a fraction of the $8 billion President Trump wants for the same stretch. Telling the Washington Examiner that President Trump is overpaying, Fisher Sand and Gravel Company CEO Tommy Fisher says his company can do the job for just $1.4 billion, or $4.31 billion if the US government wants to incorporate paved roads and border technology - plus a warranty! "Our whole point is to break through the government bureaucracy," Fisher told the Examiner. "If they do the small procurements as they are now … that’s not going to cut it."Of the $8 billion Trump is hoping to spend, he already has $1.375 billion of that amount from Congress, which can only be used to build fencing in the Rio Grande Valley. Trump is seeking to repurpose another $3.1 billion in defense funding for more border wall and $3.6 billion more through his emergency declaration that Congress and the courts will challenge. -Washington Examiner According to Fisher, the $1.4 billion would cover 20 miles of levee wall in the Rio Grande Valley, along with an additional 214 miles in the surrounding area. According to the bill Congress passed to approve said funds, the construction is restricted to the Rio Grande region, and was originally slated to cover around 55 miles of steel slat fencing. According to a representative of the Army Corps of Engineers, the Trump administration has yet to decide how the $8 billion Trump wants to spend will be allocated.
Trump Admin Renews 'Temporary' Amnesty For Over 300,000 Foreign Nationals -The Trump administration will be extending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 300,000 foreign nationals, in a sharp immigration policy reversal from last year's decision by President Trump decision to eliminate TPS amnesty. The Thursday announcement by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kirstjen Nielsen not only puts the Trump administration in compliance with a preliminary injunction on the initial decision to cancel the TPS program, but goes further by covering hundreds of thousands of nationals from Sudan, Haiti, Nicaragua and El Salvador through January 2020. Sundanese and Nicaraguan nationals have been living in the country on extended TPS since 1997 and 1998 respectively, while El Salvadorians have been covered by TPS since approximately 2001. Haitians have had TPS since 2010 or so. In February, Pew Research noted that nearly 2/3 of the 300,000 or so immigrants - roughly 195,000 people, are from El Salvador. 50,000 are from Haiti, and the rest are from Sudan and Nicaragua. TPS was created under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 (INA) introduced by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. It has acted as a sort of quasi-amnesty used by foreign nationals who would otherwise be in the country illegally, and shields individuals from deportation back to countries which have suffered through war, famine or natural disasters. The program, which was originally set to expire in July 1992, has been renewed by every administration since. DHS will announce whether they will also renew the status of other foreign nationals covered under TPS set to expire in 2020, including people from Honduras, Yemen and Somalia.
29 parents deported after being separated from their children reenter US asking to be reunited - Nearly 30 parents crossed the southern border into the U.S. Saturday asking to be reunited with the children they were separated from after being deported over the course of last year.The 29 parents came from countries across Central America and crossed into the U.S. Saturday evening demanding for asylum hearing in hopes of reunited with their children, according to the Washington Post.The parents were aided in their journey to the U.S.-Mexico border by a team of immigration lawyers who are attempting to fight back against the Trump administrations family separation policy that impacted thousands last year.More than 2,600 children were separated from their parents under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy. The policy allowed for the criminal prosecution of all adult migrants who were detained after trying to cross the country’s southern border.The Post reports the families were escorted into the U.S. by immigration agents who will assess each of their asylum claims.NBC News reports the parents entered the country at a point of entry near Mexicali, Mexico.The families collectively currently have 27 kids in U.S. custody, the youngest of which being 5 years old. Parents told NBC News they waited for hours before immigration officials agreed to process the asylum claims. Some of the families have reportedly been separated for nearly a year, with some children still detained in DHS facilities and others placed in foster homes in the U.S.
US detains 77,000 immigrants at border in February, a 10 year high --The Trump administration announced Tuesday that 77,000 people were detained crossing the border in February, more than any month since 2009.While the bourgeois press has treated the announcement as though it supports Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border, in reality the figures testify to the extent of the devastation wreaked by US imperialism on the Central American countries from which these masses of workers and peasants are trying to escape.The fact that so many people journeyed across the border in one of the coldest months even as Trump was announcing his border crackdown shows the risks these impoverished people are willing to confront in their desperate escape from countries like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.The Trump administration’s fascistic crackdown on immigrants expanded Friday along the southern border in New Mexico, where Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended 180 immigrants early Tuesday.The group was comprised primarily of Central American families and unaccompanied children near Sunland Park, New Mexico. One pregnant woman in the group had to be rushed to the hospital upon detention after experiencing intense abdominal pain. Last week, a young pregnant woman miscarried in detention.Compounding the total number of apprehensions at the border are the large scale sweeps and workplace raids which continue to escalate throughout the country. The number of businesses targeted for worksite investigations has increased by over 300 percent in the last year alone. In 2018, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) opened 6,848 worksite investigations compared to 1,691 in 2017, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) news release. Newsweek reported that since 2016, there has been a 650 percent surge in workplace arrests by ICE.
Arrests Of Migrant Families At The Border Hits All-Time High - According to federal data, more immigrant families - mostly from Central America - have been apprehended at the border since the beginning of the fiscal year than during any full-year period in recent memory.Here's more from the Wall Street Journal:From the start of the federal fiscal year in October through February, the Border Patrol arrested 136,150 people traveling as families for crossing the border illegally, according to data released Tuesday. The prior record for a 12-month period was 107,212, during the fiscal year that ended last September.As WSJ explains, the acceleration in apprehensions is "the latest illustration of how many parents and children are seeking asylum in the U.S., primarily to escape violence, poverty and hunger in Central America." In other words, the rise in apprehensions isn't so much a factor of increased enforcement as it is a rise in the number of migrants heading toward the border. The surge didn't happen all at once - rather, the number of migrants has been climbing since 2015, when fewer than 40,000 migrants were apprehended at the border. Since US Customs and Border Protection began counting family units in 2013, there have been 2.6 million apprehensions along the US's southern border.
Smugglers Extort Thousands of Child Migrants Into Prostitution—Hundreds of thousands of people head to the United States every year in search of a better life, many by paying a smuggler thousands of dollars to get them in the back door—across the southwest border illegally. Others, as in the recent bust of a sex-trafficking ring in Florida, are lured by temporary work visas and then forced into servitude. A smuggler often promises a better life in the United States, a job, or maybe even a love interest, said Greg Nevano, assistant director of ICE Homeland Security Investigations’ investigative programs. “Many times, you’ll see parents [who] want their children to have a better life … send their child along with a friend, a cousin,” he said. “And along the route—which is a long journey to the United States—the smugglers will then exploit the children. They’ll say, if you don’t pay us additional money, or if you do not perform these types of activities—some of which are sexual activity, some of them could be forced labor—we will kill your family back home.” The scope of the problem is mind-boggling, going by a recent estimate by expert Timothy Ballard. Ballard, founder of the anti-trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad, said that as many as 10,000 children are trafficked into the United States every year to be used as sex slaves. Nevano concurs with Ballard’s estimate. Previously, Ballard spent more than 12 years working as a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations in its child trafficking unit. He recounted a story of a 13-year-old girl from Central America who was kidnapped from her village, then trafficked into the United States across an unpatrolled part of the southwest border. She was taken to New York City. “This little girl—and this is very typical—was raped for money every day, 30 to 40 times a day,” Ballard said during a White House roundtable on Feb. 1.
They Raped Us So Many Times - DHS Secretary Reveals Every Migrant Girl Over Age 10 Gets Pregnancy Test - There is so much rape going on at the southern US border that every migrant girl over the age of 10 is given a pregnancy test after arriving in the United States, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. "Very unfortunately, because of the increase in violence, at ICE, when we have families with children, we have to give every girl a pregnancy test over 10. This is not a safe journey," Nielsen said during Wednesday testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee. As the Daily Mail's David Martosko notes, nearly 1/3 of women surveyed in 2017 by Doctors Without Borders reported being sexually abused during their journey. Doctors Without Borders reported in 2017 that '68.3 percent of the migrant and refugee populations entering Mexico' from Central America 'reported being victims of violence during their transit toward the United States.' And '[n]early one-third of the women surveyed had been sexually abused during their journey,' the group concluded. -Daily Mail On Wednesday, the New York Times reported on the sexual assault crisis migrant women are facing - starting with the harrowing tale of a 36-year-old mother of three who was held as a sex-slave in a Texas house while she was drugged and raped for several weeks. the men she had paid to get her safely to the United States drugged her with pills and cocaine, refusing to let her out even to bathe. “I think that since they put me in that room, they killed me,” she said. “They raped us so many times they didn’t see us as human beings anymore.” The Times reported on more than 100 documented cases they found through interviews with law enforcement officials, federal judges, immigrant advocates and prosecutors. In January, President Trump cited the Doctors Without Borders report during his State of the Union speech, noting that "One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico." Meanwhile, Trump said during a Saturday speech to conservative activists that when migrant girls head north, Central American mothers often "'give them massive amounts of birth control pills because they know their daughters are going to be raped on the way up to our southern border." "Think of how evil that is," Trump said.
Trump Homeland Security chief defends family separation and caging children -- The appearance by Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen before the House Homeland Security Committee was intended to serve the political purposes of both the Trump administration and the Democrats, who now command a majority in the House. Nielsen took the occasion, her first appearance of the year before Congress, to publicly defend Trump’s declaration of a national emergency. For their part, Democrats pretended to be outraged about the systematic brutality of the US border regime, although they supported similar methods without protest when Barack Obama was in the White House. Not one of the immigration enforcement actions taken by Trump—with the exception of the emergency declaration itself—goes further than measures taken under the Obama administration, which deported more immigrants in its eight years than all previous US governments. Despite the posturing on both sides, Wednesday’s hearing for Nielsen, and three other congressional hearings the same day on immigration-related issues, gave a glimpse of the horrific conditions facing immigrants, for which both corporate-controlled parties are responsible.Far from being a country “with liberty and justice for all,” as every school child is told in the daily brainwashing known as the “Pledge of Allegiance,” America is the land that puts innocent children into cages fit for dogs, breaks up families, separating parents and children, and is preparing—at least according to Nielsen—to detain and imprison nearly one million immigrants this coming year.Nielsen’s hearing was mainly notable for her efforts to defend the caging of children and their separation from their parents. In response to a question from one committee Democrat, Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, Nielsen defined a chain-link enclosure for immigrant children—i.e., a cage—as a “detention space.” Asked, “Does it differ from the cages you put your dogs in when you let them stay outside?”, Nielsen replied that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “detention space” is “larger, it has facilities, it provides room to sit, to stand, to lay [sic] down.” Coleman replied that her dog’s cage had similar room.
Dem Rep. Explodes at Nielsen: ‘You Don’t Have Any Answers!’ - A tense hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee exploded Wednesday afternoon when Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-CA) tore into Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen over asylum law and zero tolerance. The drama began when Nielsen claimed that any migrant seeking asylum would not be turned away at a port of entry. That sparked fury from Barragan, who claimed she saw a Honduran asylum seeker turned away just last weekend. “Let me tell you, Madam Secretary, you’re either lying to this committee or you don’t know what’s happening at the border,” Barragan said. When Nielsen attempted to respond to Barragan’s verbal attacks, Barragan repeatedly cut her off and demanded a yes or no answer. After she was cut off at least five times, Nielsen pushed back: “Would you like me to respond to any of your questions?” she asked. “Well you don’t have any answers!” Barragan shot back.Barragan ended her time by taking aim at Nielsen’s claim that she delayed giving direction on implementing the zero-tolerance policy because she wanted to do it with compassion. “Do you have any idea how outrageous that sounds?” she said, nearly yelling. “You wanted to separate children and families, and you wanted to do it with compassion?”
Kirstjen Nielsen’s Testimony About the Border Was an Utter Embarrassment - Department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified in front of Congress on Wednesday, answering for her execution of the Trump administration’s widely criticized immigration policies. The committee questioned Nielsen on Trump’s family separation policies, reports of abuse in immigration detention facilities, and reports that children were possibly being permanently separated from parents who were being deported.Nielsen’s responses seemed to indicate that the secretary was either not aware of the severity of the treatment of migrants in the United States — particularly children — or she was intentionally giving misleading answers to obfuscate the endless reports of abuse against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol.When asked by Homeland Security Chair Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) if she was “aware of family members who have been separated from their children and deported back to a country without their children,” Nielsen responded that she was aware. But, she added a caveat, implying that it was entirely the choice of the family members being deported to leave their children in the United States. “There was no parent who has been deported to my knowledge without multiple opportunities to take their children with them,” Nielsen said.Nielsen’s statement directly contradicts multiple news reports detailing traumatic deportations of parents who were separated from their children at the border and may never be reunited. Later, when being questioned by Representative Lauren Underwood, about the research showing that family separation can be traumatizing for children, Nielsen again claimed to be unaware of the specific effects of Trump’s zero-tolerance policies. Nielsen’s response led Representative Underwood to declare that she was unsure “if DHS was so negligent they didn’t know how traumatic family separation was for children, or if they knew and did it anyway.”
Court rules asylum seekers have right to appeal rejection in US - A California federal appeals court ruled Thursday that asylum seekers have the right to appeal rejections in U.S. courts.Under current law, if an asylum officer and an immigration judge determine that a migrant does not have a "credible fear" of persecution in their homeland, then they can be deported.Thursday's ruling broadens constitutional protections for undocumented immigrants, allowing some of them to appeal for permission to stay in the country.“The historical and practical importance of this ruling cannot be overstated,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement to USA Today."This decision reaffirms the Constitution’s foundational principle that individuals deprived of their liberty must have access to a federal court."Gelernt argued the appeal on behalf of Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, a Sri Lankan migrant turned away at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2017. A member of the Tamil minority, he claimed to have been kidnapped, beaten, and tortured for supporting a Tamil political candidate.After requesting asylum following being arrested crossing the border in 2017, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agent determined Thuraissigiam had not established a "credible fear" of returning to Sri Lanka.The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the "credible fear" rule for turning away asylum seekers violates precedent of judicial rulings granting constitutional protection to non-citizens."We think it obvious that the constitutional minimum … is not satisfied by such a scheme," the judges wrote. The ruling applies to asylum seekers in the five states included in the court’s jurisdiction: California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. Gelernt told USA Today that immigrants rejected asylum seekers in those states will now be able to request an appeal from a federal judge.
ICE is detaining 50,000 people, an all-time high - For the first time in its history, the U.S. government is detaining more than 50,000 people it says are undocumented immigrants in jails and prisons around the country. According to a figure provided to Capitol Hill and made available to The Daily Beast, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has set an all-time record–the latest in its string of broken records concerning immigrants detained–is 50,049 people as of Wednesday, March 6. The figure includes both single adults and whole families behind bars. After initial publication of this piece, ICE confirmed the detentions figure. It’s an increase of approximately 2,000 people in the month-plus since Jan. 30, when ICE, it previously told The Daily Beast, was detaining 48,088 people. And it’s just another 2,000 people shy of the 52,000-person daily detentions ICE is asking Congress to fund in its next budget. Asked what accounts for the increase, ICE spokeswoman Danielle Bennett said in a statement: “ICE makes custody determinations on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with U.S. law and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy, considering the merits and factors of each case while adhering to current agency priorities, guidelines and legal mandates. Ensuring there are sufficient beds available to meet the current demand for detention space is crucial to the success of ICE’s overall mission.” It isn’t clear where ICE would have found the money for the increase. A year ago, when passing ICE’s most recent budget, legislators explicitly instructed the interior-immigration agency to cap detentions at 40,520. Instead, by the summer ICE had surpassed that total, leading its Department of Homeland Security parent to raid its other accounts, including FEMA, to float ICE. A Senate appropriator–the last sort of person an executive agency wishes to anger come budget season–called ICE out for continuing a policy of “maximum cruelty.”
Source: Leaked Documents Show the U.S. Government Tracking Journalists and Immigration Advocates Through a Secret Database -Documents obtained by NBC 7 Investigates show the U.S. government created a secret database of activists, journalists, and social media influencers tied to the migrant caravan and in some cases, placed alerts on their passports. At the end of 2018, roughly 5,000 immigrants from Central America made their way north through Mexico to the United States southern border. The story made international headlines. As the migrant caravan reached the San Ysidro Port of Entry in south San Diego County, so did journalists, attorneys, and advocates who were there to work and witness the events unfolding. But in the months that followed, journalists who covered the caravan, as well as those who offered assistance to caravan members, said they felt they had become targets of intense inspections and scrutiny by border officials. One photojournalist said she was pulled into secondary inspections three times and asked questions about who she saw and photographed in Tijuana shelters. Another photojournalist said she spent 13 hours detained by Mexican authorities when she tried to cross the border into Mexico City. Eventually, she was denied entry into Mexico and sent back to the U.S. These American photojournalists and attorneys said they suspected the U.S. government was monitoring them closely but until now, they couldn’t prove it. Now, documents leaked to NBC 7 Investigates show their fears weren’t baseless. In fact, their own government had listed their names in a secret database of targets, where agents collected information on them. Some had alerts placed on their passports, keeping at least two photojournalists and an attorney from entering Mexico to work. The documents were provided to NBC 7 by a Homeland Security source on the condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of what they were divulging. The source said the documents or screenshots show a SharePoint application that was used by agents from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Border Patrol, Homeland Security Investigations and some agents from the San Diego sector of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
Ilhan Omar Blasts Obama For "Caging Of Kids" Along Border, 'Getting Away With Murder' Overseas -- Buried near the end of a Friday Politico article on Rep. Ilhan Omar and her polarizing impact on the Democratic party is a stunning comment by the Minnesota Democrat; former president Obama's "hope and change" was nothing more than a mirage. As she saw it, the party ostensibly committed to progressive values had become complicit in perpetuating the status quo. Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor. –Politico "We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was," said Omar. "And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile." Based on replies to a tweet by Politico Editor in Chief Blake Hounshell noting Omar's comments on Obama, people agree: Completely true. Thank god we’ve elected some Dems who actually have balls to say things. Funny enough they’re all women. Maybe we need to elect less men. — Ed Oswald (@edoswald) March 8, 2019
A First Look at Pramila Jayapal’s “Medicare for All Act of 2019”, HR 1384 - Lambert Strether - I confess that I was prepared to disike HR1384, simply because liberal Democrats have played Lucy and the Football so many times. But much as I hate to admit it, this looks like a good bill. It’s definitely not timid incrementalism, and it does not exhibit the typical liberal Democrat misfeature of pre-negotiating a proposal down to a state of pissant-ness, simply because Republicans might say mean things. The full text of HR1384 is not yet officially available (!), but ACA Signups had a PDF, which I embed below as an Appendix; presumably they will not differ. HR 1384 has significant union support: National Nurses United (NNU), as well as “the influential Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the International Association of Machinists (IAM).” (To me, SEIU’s support is especially noteworthy, since SEIU strongly opposed single payer in 2009, even going to far as to refuse to cover it in the health care policy column it sponsored.) HR 1384 also has significant support from progressive NGOs.Other facts about the HR1384: It has 106 co-sponsors, shamefully not including Pelosi, Hoyer, or Clyburn — Speaker, Majority Leader, and Majority Whip, respectively — and of the eleven whips, only three (John Lewis, Jan Schakowsky, and Sheila Jackson Lee), and not Cedric Richmond, Pete Aguilar, G. K. Butterfield, Henry Cuellar, Dan Kildee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Terri Sewell, or Peter Welch). In other words, the Houseleadership, so-called, strongly opposes Medicare for All. This will not be news of NC readers, and was predictable from the nature of the “Blue Wave” that Pelosi et al. organized (as we showed in our series of worksheets on the primaries). It’s also wonderfully clarifying to have battle lines drawn. This will not be a comprehensive analysis of the bill[1], even though it weighs in at an impressively trim 120 pages. (The two bills that comprise the ACA are 906 and 55 pages respectively. I know that, as with lines of code, page counts for bills don’t provide a reliable measure of complexity, but an order of magnitude difference would seem to be an indicator.) Instead, I’m going to aggregate some fun tweets from Jayapal, ding Nancy Pelosi for either lying or being ignorant, and finally look at how the the word “profit” is used in the bill. (There are lots and lots of other interesting topics, including long-term care, reproductive care including abortion, pharma, and capital budgeting — and of course that hardy perennial “How you gonna pay for it? MR SUBLIMINAL Print money, like we do for wars and bank bailouts — but I will save those for another day. No doubt many of these topics will become salient as the rollout continues.
Medicare for All Will Drastically Lower Prescription Drug Prices by Taking on Pharma’s Greed - Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-WA) recently introduced Medicare for All Act of 2019 is a powerful and comprehensive plan to make health care a right for every American. Drastically lowering the prices of prescription drugs, while ensuring that patients are always able to get the medications they need, is an essential part of that plan.The Medicare for All Act includes a key provision, modeled after the Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act, which would lower drug prices for all Americans by allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices with corporations."Lowering the cost of prescription drugs is essential to creating a strong Medicare for All system."And if a corporation refused to lower the price and threatened patients’ access to the medication, generic competition would be allowed using a competitive license.Yale law professor Amy Kapczynski and Harvard professor Aaron Kesslheim demonstrated that this authority exists and is used across the government. It is simply a matter of applying the same authority to generic pharmaceutical competition. The Department of Defense has used the same authority to purchase “generic” versions of night vision lenses and lead-free bullets, and the Department of the Treasury has used the authority to purchase “generic” software.In the United Kingdom, even though their National Health Service is a single payer, drug companies still massively overcharge for prescription drugs. For instance, the cystic fibrosis medicine Orkambi has been priced in the United Kingdom at £$104,000 per patient, per year. (In U.S. dollars, that’s currently somewhere around $130,000 to $140,000 per year.) The drug is currently not available through the NHS, and patients are forced to pay thousands of dollars each month out-of-pocket. The UK experience provides a valuable lesson for the United States, one that Rep. Jayapal’s new bill has taken to heart: For a Medicare for All system to meaningfully lower prescription drug prices, it must give the government the power to put the patent at risk, not the patient. Otherwise, the government and patients will be forced to continue absorbing higher prescription drug costs or risk not having access to needed drugs.
DCCC Chair Accused of Echoing Right-Wing Talking Points After Calling Medicare for All Costs 'Scary' - A member of the House Democratic leadership was accused of echoing insurance industry talking points after she raised concerns about the price tag of Medicare for All—without mentioning the significantly higher cost of the current for-profit healthcare system. "I think the $33 trillion price tag for Medicare for All is a little scary," Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), the chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), said in an interview with The Hill on Tuesday. Bustos was apparently referring to a study published last year by the Koch-funded Mercatus Center, which found that Medicare for All could cost $32.6 trillion over a ten-year period. But the study also found that Medicare for All could save the U.S. $2 trillion compared to the status quo—while insuring every American.In a column earlier this year, the Washington Post's Paul Waldman argued that any concerns about the potential costs of a single-payer system must be weighed against current U.S. healthcare spending, which is the highest in the industrialized world."You have to compare what a universal system would cost to what we're paying now," Waldman wrote.While acknowledging that $32.6 trillion is "a lot of money," Waldman continued: [Y]ou can't understand what it means until you realize that last year we spent about $3.5 trillion on healthcare, and under current projections, if we keep the system as it is now, we'll spend $50 trillion over the next decade.
Trump Labor Department proposal, released today, would prevent millions of workers from getting paid overtime - EPI -The Labor Department has just announced a proposal to set the salary threshold under which workers are entitled to overtime pay to $35,308 a year. The adoption of this new rule would leave behind millions of workers who would have gotten overtime protections under the 2016 guidelines.The 2016 rule, which was held up in court following a challenge by business trade associations and Republican-led states, would have increased the threshold to $913 per week—$47,476 for a full-year worker—and then indexed it to wage growth going forward. That rule was the result of an exhaustive rulemaking process spanning more than two years. During this period, DOL met with more than 200 organizations on all sides of the issue and reviewed and incorporated input from over a quarter million public comments.Further, the 2016 rule was by no means overly expansive. In fact, it covered far fewer workers than the threshold had covered historically. In 1975, more than 60 percent of full-time salaried workers earned below the threshold. By 2016, the share of workers covered had dropped to less than 7 percent. The 2016 rule would have only partially restored this coverage, to roughly 33 percent. If the rule had simply been adjusted for inflation since 1975, today it would be over $55,000.Despite the painstaking determination of the threshold in the 2016 rule and the fact that that threshold is well within historical norms, the Trump administration is about to publish a rule with a dramatically lower threshold. A preliminary calculation suggests that well over half of the workers who would have gotten new or strengthened overtime protections under the 2016 rule would be left behind by this rule. That means this administration is effectively turning its back on millions of workers. Trump and his cabinet are again siding with corporate interests over those of working people. Westrongly oppose this and any efforts to weaken the criteria set forth in the 2016 final rule for defining who qualifies for exemption from overtime protections. DOL does not need to undertake a new rulemaking—they just need to defend the 2016 rule, and support middle-class workers who badly need a raise.
Arizona Sen. Martha McSally Says She Was Raped in Air Force by Superior Officer -- Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona said during a Wednesday Senate hearing on sexual assault prevention in the armed services that she had been raped by a superior officer while serving in the Air Force. McSally, who served in the military for 26 years and was the first female pilot to fly in combat, said that she did not report the rape at the time because she did not trust the system for addressing such abuses. “I blamed myself. I was ashamed and confused. I thought I was strong but felt powerless. The perpetrators abused their position of power in profound ways,” McSally said. “I stayed silent for many years, but later in my career, as the military grappled with scandals and their wholly inadequate responses, I felt the need to let some people know I too was a survivor. I was horrified at how my attempt to share generally my experiences were handled. I almost separated from the Air Force at 18 years of service over my despair. Like many victims, I felt like the system was raping me all over again.” During the hearing, McSally pressed for commanders to remain in the decision-making process for preventing sexual assaults and holding perpetrators responsible. An aide told CNN that the senator has been working on her testimony over the past few days. McSally did not identify the person who assaulted her, nor the time or place of the incident. She began serving in the Air Force in 1998 and retired as a colonel in 2010. The senator also told the Wall Street Journal last year that her high school track coach sexually abused her when she was 17, an allegation that the coach denied.
Brett Kavanaugh: State laws blocking taxpayer-funded church repairs are 'pure discrimination' - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review cases concerning whether it is lawful for the government to block historic preservation funds from going to religious buildings such as churches. The cases concerned a decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court last year that said a grant program in the state unlawfully used state funds to repair churches. Because the nation's top court will not review the matter, that decision will remain. But the Supreme Court's decision, announced in an order, is unlikely to be the justices' last word on the matter. Justice Brett Kavanaugh made that clear in a statement in which his fellow conservatives Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Neil Gorsuch joined. Gorsuch, like Kavanaugh, was appointed to the court by President Donald Trump. "At some point, this Court will need to decide whether governments that distribute historic preservation funds may deny funds to religious organizations simply because the organizations are religious," Kavanaugh wrote. Kavanaugh, who voted to deny the cases on technical grounds, wrote that preventing preservation funds from going to religious organizations "simply because the organizations are religious" raised "serious questions." "Barring religious organizations because they are religious from a general historic preservation grants program is pure discrimination against religion," he wrote. The nation's top court last addressed the matter in 2017, when itfound that it was discriminatory for states to block taxpayer funds to religious schools, but limited their opinion in a footnote to the very specific case of playground resurfacing. Justices Clarence Thomas and Gorsuch at the time took issue with that limitation.
Trump’s Judicial Nominees Aren’t Just Ideologues. They’re Really Young ― Senate Republicans voted Monday night to advance the nomination of Allison Jones Rushing, yet another of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees who is troubling for a number of reasons. Rushing worked for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian organization that has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. She has argued that there were “moral and practical” reasons for banning same-sex marriage. But it’s her age that may be most notable: She is 37. If she gets confirmed this week, as expected, she will be the youngest federal judge in the country. She has practiced law for only nine years, and her career has focused on defending corporations. She has tried just four cases to verdict or judgment. Long after this week’s Senate vote, after Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are gone, after the 2020 presidential election that the media is so focused on right now, Rushing will be on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit interpreting statutes and making consequential decisions that affect millions of Americans. With little fanfare, Republicans advanced her nomination Monday on a party-line vote of 52-43. Her final confirmation vote is expected Tuesday. Rushing is not the only exceptionally young judicial nominee getting a Senate vote this week. McConnell has teed up votes for U.S. circuit court nominees Eric Murphy and Chad Readler, who are 40 and 46, respectively. All three have the ideological bent that Trump is looking for in his court picks. Murphy, the solicitor general of Ohio, has fought to make it easier to disenfranchise voters, argued against marriage equality in the landmark 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case before the Supreme Court and argued against reproductive rights. Readler, who is Trump’s acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, filed a brief in favor of striking down the Affordable Care Act, defended efforts to weaken voting rights and defended Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military. All three are members of the conservative Federalist Society, which has been driving Trump’s judicial selection process and funneling anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ nominees to the White House.
Mitch 'Nuclear Option' McConnell Poised to Turn Steady Stream of Trump's Right-Wing Judges Into a Flood -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is reportedly pursuing a "nuclear option" rule change to make it easier to push through a flood of President Donald Trump's right-wing judges. Under the new rules, nominees for lifetime appointments on lower courts would only require a simple majority of votes rather than the current 67. Critics condemned the move as "hijacking" the federal judiciary and pointed out that even if Democrats regain control of the Senate and White House in the next election, they may not have any more spots to fill post-2020.As noted by Politico, which first reported on McConnell's plan Wednesday, the "stream of [Trump] judges is about to become a torrent." Trump currently has 128 District Court vacancies to fill, and each one can take multiple days under current rules if any senator demands a delay; if Republicans change the rules, Trump could conceivably fill most of those over the next 20 months."What you could witness under Senator McConnell's leadership is a situation where an incoming president has very, very few open seats to fill," added Leonard Leo, a conservative legal advocate who frequently advises Republicans on judicial nominations. Shifting federal courts to the right has been a long-term priority of the GOP embraced by the Trump presidency, and as the Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced appointees to the floor at alarming rates, critics have warned that Trump's nominees "are not normal."A Data for Progress study published in January concluded that Trump "is delivering for conservative activists through his judicial appointments, installing reliably Republican judges where he can." The study, which was commissioned by Fallon's Demand Justice, also noted that "Trump's appointments stand out as being conservative, white, and male relative to his predecessors.'" After the study came out, Fallon charged that "Democrats in the Senate have been too slow to recognize the crisis that is underway." Urging party leaders to fight back against Republican efforts to remake the federal courts, he said, "Democrats can't continue to treat this situation as business as usual."
Trump threatens to block networks from hosting debates after Dems reject Fox -- President Trump on Wednesday responded to the Democratic National Committee refusing to let Fox News host a Democratic primary debate by threatening to “do the same thing” with other networks during the general election. “Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate. Good, then I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!” Trump tweeted Wednesday. Trump has maintained a bitter relationship with the press since the campaign trail, often painting mainstream media outlets as “fake news” following critical coverage of himself or his administration.The president would alone would not have the power to prevent outlets from hosting a general election debate.The Democratic and Republican National Committees work with media outlets on arrangements for hosting their respective primary debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which the DNC and RNC jointly sponsor, sets up the general election debates. The DNC announced that it would not allow Fox News to host a primary debate after The New Yorker reported on deep ties between the network and Trump.
House Dems will take floor action to confront Omar’s latest Israel comments - Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats will take floor action Wednesday in response to controversial remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar about Israel, the second such rebuke of the freshman Democrat from party leaders in recent weeks. Pelosi and other senior Democrats are drafting a resolution to address the controversy, which ballooned over the weekend following a public clash between Omar and senior Jewish lawmakers. The resolution, which is still being finalized, comes after a backlash from top Democrats who accused Omar of anti-Semitism for referring to pro-Israel advocates’ “allegiance to a foreign country.” Omar’s remarks are just the latest in a series of comments she's made that many of her Democratic colleagues say are blatantly anti-Semitic and must be retracted. Democratic leaders are still debating whether to mention Omar by name in the resolution, according to multiple sources. Staffers for Pelosi and top Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), began drafting the text of the resolution over the weekend as the confrontation between Omar and her colleagues unfolded on Twitter. Two of the House’s most senior Democrats — Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel and Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey — called Omar out in public statements, demanding she apologize. Lowey condemned Omar’s use of “offensive, painful stereotypes,” leading to a fight on Twitter as Omar dug in on her comments and was cheered by some on the left. A resolution on the floor, regardless of whether it specifically mentions Omar, would be a rare public reprimand from House leaders, particularly against a member of their own party, and speaks to the seriousness with which Democratic leaders view the ongoing controversy.
11 Pro-Israel Groups Call on Pelosi to Yank Rep. Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee - Eleven pro-Israel organizations on Monday delivered a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel calling for the immediate removal of Rep. Ilhan Omar from the Committee in light of her recent keynote address seeking to raise funds for Islamic Relief USA, an organization that has documented ties to terrorist organizations, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) reported. EMET is one of the signatories. The 11 groups wrote: “Speaker Pelosi, you demonstrated wisdom and leadership in rebuking Rep. Omar on February 11 following her use of anti-Semitic stereotypes, and Chairman Engel, your reaction to the classic anti-Semitic trope of the charge of “dual loyalty” about American Jews, that Rep. Omar uttered this weekend at a Washington establishment, was highly appropriate, and we applaud you both for that. “We hope you will continue to demonstrate your commitment to the high moral standards of your office by removing Rep. Omar, a woman who has repeatedly exhibited strong biases against the State of Israel and the Jewish people, from this critically important and sensitive committee. The pro-Israel groups told Speaker Pelosi that Omar’s appearance before Islamic Relief USA had shocked US Jews because both the UAE and Israel designated the group as a terrorist organization many years ago. “Rep. Omar’s presence as a keynote speaker to raise funds for Islamic Relief USA, whose parent organization and chapters have documented ties to terrorist organizations, demonstrates that she has learned next to nothing over the last few weeks when she was reprimanded by your office and by other Democrats for posting ugly, anti-Semitic attacks on Jews and their organizations,” they wrote, adding: “Islamic Relief’s ties to terrorist organizations are well established. The United Arab Emirates in 2014 designated Islamic Relief as a terrorist organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ilhan Omar is the Steve King of the left -WaPo - Rep. Ilhan Omar has, yet again, angered many House Democrats and Jewish groups by making anti-Semitic comments over the weekend. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the rest of the leadership need to realize that Omar (D-Minn.) has become their party’s version of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). They must do what Republicans recently did to King: remove Omar from her seat on all House committees.The first-term congresswoman has only been in office for two months, yet she has already created significant controversy for her anti-Semitic tropes. First came her accusations that Republicans support Israel only because they have been paid by Jewish groups, especially the American Israel Political Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. That statement immediately caused consternation among Democrats, who said it played on “old anti-Semitic trope about Jews and money,” as Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said. That produced an “apology” from Omar that fell short of actually apologizing to AIPAC. Omar is now in trouble for alleging that many people support Israel because they express “allegiance to another country.” The “dual loyalty” trope — that Jews are either equally or more loyal to Israel than to the country they are citizens of — is one of the most long-standing anti-Semitic canards. Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, of which Omar is a member, immediately condemned her statement as “a vile anti-Semitic slur.” But Omar doubled down on that slur when, in response to criticism from Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), she tweeted: “I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress.” Omar is right that it is entirely legitimate to criticize U.S. policy towards Israel, but that’s not the issue here. The issue is her repeated suggestion that support for the current policy toward Israel is the product of Jewish money buying support and/or Jews who are more loyal to Israel’s interests than they are to those of the United States.
The Zionist Caucus’s Political Lynching of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar - Ghion Journal - We are no longer in the age of in-your-face persecution; racism morphed from explicit acts of oppression to more implicit deeds of exclusion. Once in a while, Americans are shocked by a blatant act of bigotry; but mostly the vicious undercurrents of racism that craters the lives of millions have become surreptitious to the point of near invisibility. The lashes have morphed into taxes and inflation, debt the new slave ship that indentures the masses into permanent financial uncertainties. The shackle transformed into government assistance programs where politicians implement policies that transfer wealth upward and then give us back pennies on the dollar. Though too many Americans are blinded to the pernicious ways both parties collude to enact these onerous policies that effect not only “black” folk but the vast majority of Americans, the truth is that the troika of DC, Manhattan and Hollywood are wholly owned subsidiary of moneyed interests. Lost among the merry-go-round of personalities that enter and exit politics is the fact that Democrats and Republicans, along with the media-politico complex as a whole, are under the direct control of Wall Street, powerful lobbying groups and the oligarchy who control them—many of whom are foreign nationals.In politics, telling lies is rewarded with reelections and the embrace of the establishment but daring to utter the truth is returned with an avalanche of bad press and howls of feigned outrage. This is how politicians are kept in check; toe the company line and officials are kissed by fame and showered with riches. Make the mistake of deviating from scripts and politicians are drummed out of DC as innuendos and malicious aspersions come flying at them like arrows in the opening scene of the movie Gladiator. Cynthia McKinney is a prime example of what happens when a politician dares to speak truth in the halls of power. However, what is happening to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is an egregious act of political intimidation compared to the standard act of coercion that is par for the course in our nation’s capital. For the second time in less than a month, Omar is being targeted by Zionists in our government and their loyal servants because she had the temerity to speak her mind. This should be a wake-up call to every African-American who reflexively votes for the party that Malcolm X rightly described as foxes who smile at you only to eat you.
Israel Lobby Proves Ilhan Omar’s Claims Right by Exerting Its Immense Influence - Caitlin Johnstone - — In response to criticisms made by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar that US political leaders have too much allegiance to Israel and its lobbying groups, House Democrats have put forward an entire House resolution in accordance with demands made by AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League. “The backlash [over Omar’s comments] continued on Monday, as the Anti-Defamation League wrote a letter to Pelosi calling for a House resolution to specifically reject what the organization calls Omar’s ‘latest slur,’” Politicoreports. “‘We urge you and your colleagues to send the unambiguous message that the United States Congress is no place for hate,’ the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote in a letter.” “The charge of dual loyalty not only raises the ominous specter of classic anti-Semitism, but it is also deeply insulting to the millions upon millions of patriotic Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, who stand by our democratic ally, Israel,” tweeted the Israel lobbying group AIPAC on Friday in response to Omar’s comments. “I hope @AIPAC isn’t too angry that it took Democratic House leaders almost 48 whole hours to do what they’re told to condemn their own member and will instead be understanding that it was a weekend and that’s what caused the delay,” snarked journalist Glenn Greenwald in response to the news of the House resolution. US politicians of all faiths and in both parties have indeed been falling all over themselves in a mad scramble to tell the freshman congresswoman that she is wrong and evil for suggesting that there is undue loyalty to Israel among US politicians. “But serious question: How is it anti-Semitic to question Christian Republican allegiance to Israel?” asked journalist Rania Khalek in response to the controversy. “Because it’s people like Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Marco Rubio who Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were initially called anti-Semitic for challenging on loyalty to Israel.” It is indeed interesting that the label “antisemitism” is being pinned on an argument directed at mostly non-Jewish lawmakers and not at Jews at all. It is also interesting that the House resolution’s current text twists that reality on its head by falsely implying that the comments were directed at Jewish politicians. Omar’s comments have nothing to do with Jews, Judaism or Jewishness, but with the geopolitical entanglements between the US and a nation which currently serves as an outpost for US military agendas in the Middle East. It’s a basic, unassailable fact that the agenda to maintain this relationship holds immense sway in America’s capitol, which is why the only arguments you see against it are fallacious, dishonest, irrelevant, or even prove it to be true.
Israel's Influence in Washington - 2019 Edition --Thanks to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics and its Open Secrets website, those of us on the outside, get a glimpse of how the "wheels" of Washington are "greased". Open Secrets provides an up-to-date database of the role that money plays in politics through lobbying and campaign donations. In this posting, I want to take a look at one of Washington's more influential parties, the nation of Israel. We will open this posting with an examination of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. Here is a summary of the pro-Israel lobby from Open Secrets:"One of, if not the most, powerful international issue lobby is that of the pro-Israel crowd. Well-financed and politically powerful, the pro-Israel lobby is a major force on American foreign affairs that looks to continue America's military and fiscal support of the Jewish nation-state."Here is a graphic showing how much the pro-Israel lobby has spent on convincing Washington to see things its way going back to 1998: The pro-Israel lobby spent a record $5.02 million in 2018, up slightly from $4.96 million in 2017 but up substantially from $1.71 million a decade earlier in 2007. Here are the biggest pro-Israel lobbying organizations in order of the amount spent on lobbying: American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC is, by a wide margin, the biggest spender on lobbying, accounting for 70.1 percent of the total spent by all pro-Israel lobbyists.Of the 26 reported lobbyists working for 9 clients, there are 6 "revolvers" as shown here:
In Open Letter, Jewish Americans Come Out in Support of Ilhan Omar - — American Jews, including prominent figures like Naomi Klein, have signed an open letter in support of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. The letter states that she has been “falsely accused of antisemitism” and that there was nothing anti-Semitic about calling out the “noxious” role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in American politics.It went on to say that “The pro-Israel lobby has played an outsized role in producing nearly unanimous congressional support for Israel”, and slammed AIPAC and other lobby groups including the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the fossil fuel lobby for its “anti-democratic” legislative influence on US politics. he letter finished by saying “We thank Ilhan Omar for having the bravery to shake up the congressional taboo against criticizing Israel. As Jews with a long tradition of social justice and anti-racism, AIPAC does not represent us,” and called on other Jews to sign the letter. mar has faced huge backlash after calling out AIPAC, including facing accusations of anti-Semitism from both Democrats and Republicans, floor action against her by Nancy Pelosi, and disturbing posters at a Republican event, linking her to the 9/11 attacks.The charge of anti-Semitism comes after Omar said that the Republican Party’s threats against her and Palestinian-American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for criticising Israel was “all about the Benjamins, baby!” in reference to money allegedly paid to the party and its members to support Tel Aviv.When she was asked to clarify who is paying members, she cited AIPAC, which has previously boasted about its financial influence in US politics.
Democrat Motion To Condemn Anti-Semitism Delayed As Progressives Defend Omar -A House vote on a resolution introduced by speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other leading Democrats to formally condemn anti-Semitism in response to recent statements by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been delayed, after several progressive groups and lawmakers came to Omar's defense - while others have pushed for the motion to be rewritten to include all forms of prejudice. The resolution follows the second comment by Omar in two months, the first of which accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of contributing to pro-Israel politicians, and the second - made last Wednesday during a Washington event with Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, in which Omar said "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country." Omar's comments sparked condemnation - including a formal letter of rebuke issued on February 11 by House Democratic Leadership over the AIPAC comments. Others brought up Omar's past comments criticizing Jews for 'hypnotizing' the world. After her AIPAC comments, Omar issued a statement in which she "unequivocally apologized" for unintentionally invoking "anti-Semitic tropes," though she stood behind her criticism of "the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics." Meanwhile, some Democrats are asking Pelosi to pump the brakes. Both the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus - influential factions among House Democrats - wanted more time to review the situation, according to Politico. Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other prominent liberal allies have joined with outside progressive groups to rally behind Omar. Ocasio-Cortez fired off a series of tweets throughout Tuesday, criticizing what she sees as hypocrisy in Democrats' planned reprimand of Omar. She argued that Democratic leaders should have addressed the issue privately before Omar was "called out" publicly. –Politico
Bernie Sanders defends Ilhan Omar, says we must not ‘equate anti-Semitism’ with ‘legitimate criticism’ of Israel’s ‘right-wing’ government - Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday came to the defense of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota as she faces accusations of anti-Semitism from congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle over comments she's made regarding US policy toward Israel. In a statement, the independent senator from Vermont said, "Anti-Semitism is a hateful and dangerous ideology which must be vigorously opposed in the United States and around the world. We must not, however, equate anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of the right-wing, Netanyahu government in Israel." "Rather, we must develop an even-handed Middle East policy which brings Israelis and Palestinians together for a lasting peace," Sanders added. "What I fear is going on in the House now is an effort to target Congresswoman Omar as a way of stifling that debate. That's wrong." Sanders is Jewish and his father was an immigrant from Poland whose lost many family members during the Holocaust. The senator, who's running for president in 2020, has been critical of the Israeli government in the past. When he ran for president in 2016, Sanders gained significant attention after a debate against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in which he condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what the senator characterized as "disproportionate" force in Gaza during a 2014 conflict with Hamas.In early February, Omar faced allegations of anti-Semitism after suggesting Republicans in Congress support Israel is due to money from pro-Israel lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Subsequently, she faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans who said Omar was feeding into anti-Semitic tropes about Jews and money. Following the condemnation from members of both parties, Omar apologized for the remarks.
House passes anti-hate measure amid Dem tensions - The House passed a measure broadly condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred on Thursday after remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) unleashed a torrent of debate in the Democratic caucus, underlining tensions in the party. The measure condemning "anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry" easily passed the lower chamber in a vote of 407-23. Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the third-ranking House GOP leader, joined nearly two dozen other Republicans in voting against the measure. Reps. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.) and Louie Gohmert (Texas), who also voted against it, had delivered floor speeches lamenting that the language in the bill had been watered down to the point of taking away attention from Omar's remarks. The vote had been delayed earlier in the week as Democrats fought over what should be included in the measure, with additional tweaks to the text being made as late as Thursday afternoon. Lawmakers passed the resolution amid flaring tensions over comments by Omar widely panned as anti-Semitic because they appeared to question whether people advocating for Israel were more loyal to that country than the United States. The House-passed measure did not specifically mention the freshman congresswoman by name. While critics argued Omar should have been directly named in the resolution, a number of progressives and members of key minority caucuses stood by her this week, balking at the suggestion she be singled out and calling for the language to be broadened to include the condemnation of other forms of bigotry. The final version of the resolution “encourages all public officials to confront the reality of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry, as well as historical struggles against them, to ensure that the United States will live up to the transcendent principles of tolerance, religious freedom, and equal protection as embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the first and 14th amendments to the Constitution.”
Democrats are now officially split on Israel, and we can thank Ilhan Omar and BDS -- In the last election cycle, it was demoralizing to watch Hillary Clinton promise Benjamin Netanyahu she’d take the Israel relationship to the “next level” if she became president and her party platform committee shoot down one resolution after another about Jerusalem and the occupation and settlements, sponsored by Bernie Sanders’ forces.Those days are now over. Thanks in large part to the bravery of Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis and the organizing of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, progressive Democrats who hate the occupation and even imagine equal rights for Palestinians at last have a place inside the Democratic Party, and the party leadership feels the need to reckon with that force. This week it had to alter a resolution initially aimed at smacking down Omar for her remarks critical of Israel and the lobby so as to broaden its concerns.Palestine Legal calls it a victory: Thanks to thousands of activists mobilizing in support of Rep. Ilhan Omar, House Democrats were forced to rewrite a resolution meant to condemn her for statements she made challenging the Israel Lobby, falsely represented as antisemitic.
“Watch the film the Israeli lobby didn’t want you to see” -- Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has caught intense flak over her comments questioning the influence of the Israeli lobby in US foreign policy and the split allegiances of some Jewish-Americans. The vociferous attacks on the Congresswoman coalesce around one theme, criticism of Israel equals antisemitism. This is a consistent theme. Walt and Mearsheimer endured the same accusations when they wrote their essay, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” in 2006. The attacks did not let up with the publication of their book of the same name in 2007. At that time, Mearsheimer and Walt described the Israel lobby as a loose coalition. Perhaps at that time it largely was a loose coalition brought together as a counter against the ugliness of antisemitism. I think it was more than that back then and it is certainly more than that now. It is a far reaching and powerful phenomena largely consisting of a coordinated information operation run out of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs to further Israeli government policies. Al Jazeera has put together an excellent series on this phenomena. The first piece of in depth investigative reporting examined the activities of the Israel lobby in Britain entitled “The Lobby.” They followed this series up with “The Lobby - USA” covering the lobby’s actions in the US in 2016. So far I watched the first part of this four part series focusing on the campaign to derail the BDS movement on the UC Davis campus and in Washington DC. This is how modern information operations are conducted. The series was released by the Electronic Intifada rather than Al Jazeera because Qatar censored the series after being pressured by Washington, Tel Aviv and probably Riyadh.
Payments to corporation owned by Ocasio-Cortez aide come under scrutiny - Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)’s chief of staff helped establish two political action committees that paid a corporation he ran more than $1 million in 2016 and 2017, federal campaign finance records show.Brand New Congress LLC, the corporation owned by Saikat Chakrabarti, was also paid $18,880 for strategic consulting by Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional campaign in 2017, records show. The following year, he worked as a volunteer to manage her campaign, according to his LinkedIn profile.The arrangement, first reported by conservative outlets, left hidden who ultimately profited from the payments — a sharp juxtaposition with Ocasio-Cortez’s calls for transparency in politics. She has called dark money “the enemy to democracy.”The money that flowed to her chief of staff’s corporation have subjected the first-term congresswoman to critics’ charges of hypocrisy.On Monday, a conservative group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that the PACs failed to properly disclose their spending.David Mitrani, attorney for the PACs, the LLC and Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, said in a statement Tuesday that all four entities “fully complied with the law and the highest ethical standards.” He said that Chakrabarti never received any salary or profit from the corporation, the PACs or the campaign.
Ocasio-Cortez fundraises off claim that AIPAC is 'coming after' her, Omar, Tlaib -- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) issued a call for donations from her supporters on Thursday following a pro-Israel activist's apparent threat to organize against her and two fellow Democrats. In an email to supporters who funded her successful congressional bid with a wave of small-dollar donations, Ocasio-Cortez conveyed a line from an interview that American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) activist Stephen Fiske gave to The New York Times in which Fiske predicted that Ocasio-Cortez, as well as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), would be leaving Congress sooner rather than later.“They are three people who, in my opinion, will not be around in several years," Fiske told the Times.The line was seen by Ocasio-Cortez and others as a direct threat aimed at her and the first two Muslim women elected to Congress over their criticism of the Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinians."Rashida, Ilhan, and Alexandria have at times dared to question our foreign policy, and the influence of money in our political system. And now, lobbying groups across the board are working to punish them for it," her team wrote in an email.The letter goes on to reference a tweet from fellow Democratic Rep. Juan Vargas (Calif.), who tweeted this week that it was "unacceptable" for Democrats to question the U.S. relationship with Israel.
"It's Time": Push Intensifies for Democrats to Use Cohen Testimony to Subpoena Trump Tax Returns - Tax justice groups on Friday called on Democrats to make use of the most illuminating parts of Michael Cohen's testimony at a House Oversight Committee hearing earlier this week—arguing that his detailing of President Donald Trump's long history of alleged tax fraud gives lawmakers ample reason to subpoena the president's tax returns. Thanks largely to pointed questioning by first- and second-term legislators including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Cohen described how he witnessed Trump devaluing assets to avoid paying taxes on them and shared the names of specific Trump associates who also knew about this activity. Cohen also alleged that Trump's son, Donald Jr., and former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg repaid Cohen $130,000 in hush money he had given adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Ocasio-Cortez's line of questioning was particularly credited by observers with building a case for subpoenaing the president's tax returns, enabling members of Congress to compare the returns with his financial statements to confirm the fraud. The national advovacy group Tax March argued on social media that the Cohen hearing may open to door to a number of potential investigations into the president's financial history. "The Cohen hearing demonstrated that there is a lot that Donald Trump could be hiding," the group wrote on Twitter. "Democrats must move forward with obtaining and releasing Trump's tax returns so the American people know the truth." An in-depth New York Times report published last October laid out allegations that Trump's empire was built on decades of financial deception, with the supposedly self-made billionaire actually reaping wealth from his father starting almost from birth, and saving millions in taxes by passing his inheritance through a fraudulent corporation.
Twilight Zone America - As I watched Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress last week, the thought forcibly struck me over and over again that we are truly blessed to live in a country with such a magnificent government. How remarkable, that this large assemblage of astonishingly gifted public servants should peacefully gather together despite their passionately held, often conflicting convictions. And how additionally remarkable that they were all so unfailingly civil to one another, again despite the fact that their aims and goals in this proceeding were often directly opposed. Why, there has never been such a government, and it is difficult if not impossible to imagine that another such might ever exist upon Earth. And these people! Such people! People so lofty, they sound as if they shit marble! Okay. Let's be serious. I would expect anyone over the age of six or seven (and I may thereby be insulting intelligent five-year-olds) to have been devastatingly appalled by the spectacle of the Cohen hearing. The fiction was that Cohen's testimony and questioning were for the purpose of determining certain matters of controversy concerning the President of the United States. The proceedings themselves made painfully clear that no one cared about gaining a fuller understanding of the matters in question. The Democrats already knew the truth, and nothing Cohen said (or didn't say) would alter their view. Ditto for the Republicans. I don't mind a little political theater, but I prefer that such theater be somewhat more literate than what was on offer. It would probably be too much to hope for a twist or two, but that certainly would have offered momentary relief from the unrelenting tedium of what transpired. As for the questioners ... well. I will endeavor to be polite (I can do that when pressed): with perhaps one or two exceptions (although no names suggest themselves to me at the moment), the Representatives made it impossible to avoid the conclusion that they simply aren't, well, terribly bright.
House Judiciary chairman says he will launch probe of Trump’s ‘abuse of power’ The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday that he plans to request documents from scores of people and organizations connected to President Trump as part of an inquiry that could eventually lead to his impeachment.The demands from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), set to be delivered Monday, are the latest indication that Democrats have kicked their scrutiny of Trump into high gear. Speaking on ABC News’s “This Week,” Nadler said his panel will be sending requests for documents to more than 60 individuals and entities, including the president’s son Donald Trump Jr.; Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization; and the Justice Department.The materials, the congressman said, would be used “to begin investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power.”“Impeachment is a long way down the road. We don’t have the facts yet. But we’re going to initiate proper investigations,” he said. Trump, taking to Twitter after Nadler’s comments, lashed out anew at “more than two years of Presidential Harassment.”“I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start,” he wrote. “And only because I won the Election! Despite this, great success!” Meanwhile, several other House committees are digging aggressively into the president’s actions, his 2016 campaign, his businesses and his associates.
Judiciary Chairman Nadler To Hit Over 60 People With Document Requests; Says Trump Obstructed -- House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said on Sunday that his committee will be issuing document requests beginning on Monday to "begin the investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power," according to ABC News. "Tomorrow, we will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House to the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Jr., Allen Weisselberg, to begin the investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power," Nadler said on ABC's "This Week."NEW: House judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler says "tomorrow we will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House, to the Dept. of Justice, Donald Trump Jr. ... to begin investigations" https://t.co/T5uriFOXYo #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/OYnNw8ELjZ— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 3, 2019 "Do you think the president obstructed justice?" asked ABC's George Stephanopoulos."Yes, I do," replied Nadler. Stephanopoulos also asked Nadler: "How about if Robert Mueller comes back and says definitively we find no collusion by Pres. Trump? Is that conclusion you'll accept?""We'd want to see the evidence behind that," replied Nadler. "This investigation goes far beyond collusion." And if Mueller's report finds no collusion, will the seemingly endless investigations into all things Trump be considered election interference if they bleed into 2020?
House Democrats open sweeping corruption probe into Trump’s world - The House judiciary panel is requesting documents from more than 80 people or entities in Trump’s orbit, including his adult sons. A key House committee with the power to impeach President Donald Trump kicked off a sweeping new investigation on Monday with document demands from the White House, Trump’s namesake company, charity, transition, inauguration and 2016 campaign, as well as several longtime associates and the president’s two adult sons. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, opened his much-anticipated probe with letters to 81 individuals, companies and government entities seeking a wide range of materials that go to the heart of allegations against the president — including abuses of power, corruption, and obstruction of justice. “This is a critical time for our nation,” Nadler wrote to each recipient, all of which his staff noted have already been ensnared in investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller or other federal prosecutors. “President Trump and his administration face wide-ranging allegations of misconduct that strike at the heart of our constitutional order.” By initiating the wide-ranging demand for documents, the Judiciary Committee signaled it is creating its own insurance policy in the event that all of Mueller’s findings are not made public and it finds the kinds of evidence that would be grounds for trying to impeach Trump from office. Public hearings and closed-door interviews based off the materials will begin in a matter of weeks, a senior Democratic committee lawyer said. The list of letter recipients reads like a who’s who of people in and around the president’s orbit, notably all of Trump’s senior 2016 campaign leaders, including Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner and Brad Parscale, the current campaign manager for the 2020 re-election effort.
House Democrats issue wide-ranging subpoenas in Trump investigation - Four committees of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives issued subpoenas and document demands Monday directed at the Trump White House, the Trump Organization (Trump’s family business) and the 2016 Trump campaign, in a coordinated effort to investigate a wide range of allegations against the US president.The broadest and most politically significant document request came from the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over any effort to impeach Trump for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” under the US Constitution. The committee sent document demands to 81 individuals and organizations associated with Trump. Those targeted included his two sons, Don Jr. and Eric, who co-manage the Trump Organization, as well as the organization’s CFO Allen Weisselberg, and several other officials of the business. Weisselberg was named last week more than 30 times in the congressional testimony of former Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen, as the man responsible for implementing a series of questionable tax avoidance schemes, bank loan applications, and payoffs, at Trump’s direction. Three other House committees, on Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Government Oversight, sent letters to the White House and the State Department, demanding access to government translators who worked on Trump-Putin meetings and telephone conversations, as well as the transcripts and tape recordings of those conversations.
Trump Blasts Stone Cold Crazy Dem's Latest Fishing Expedition As Presidential Harassment - A day after the House Judiciary Committee fired off 81 document requests in their sweeping investigation of the President and his inner circle, Trump has responded with an angry tweet accusing the Committee chairman of attempting to “harass” his associates in a wide-ranging probe into Trump’s administration, campaign and businesses. Trump initialy said:"It's all a hoax," said President Trump on Monday when asked if he would cooperate with the investigation led by Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). "I cooperate all the time with everybody. You know, the beautiful thing, no collusion," said Trump - who has also referred to the ongoing investigations a "witch hunt." Overnight he retweeted some comments from Fox's Sean Hannity: “We the people will now be subjected to the biggest display of modern day McCathyism....which is the widest fishing net expedition....every aspect of the presidents life....all in order to get power back so they can institute Socialism.”And this morning, he has come out swinging: "Nadler, Schiff and the Dem heads of the Committees have gone stone cold CRAZY. 81 letter sent to innocent people to harass them. They won’t get ANYTHING done for our Country!"
Trump signals White House won’t comply with Democratic probes - President Trump on Tuesday signaled the White House will not comply with a barrage of congressional investigations, accusing Democrats in the House of launching the probes to hurt his chances of winning reelection in 2020. “It's a disgrace to our country. I'm not surprised that it's happening. Basically, they've started the campaign. So the campaign begins,” Trump told reporters at the White House after signing an executive order on veterans’ suicide prevention. “Instead of doing infrastructure, instead of doing health care, instead of doing so many things that they should be doing, they want to play games,” he continued. Trump suggested he was unwilling to comply with the House Judiciary Committee’s requests for documents related to 81 of his associates, citing what he said was former President Obama’s handling of congressional probes during his time in office. The president’s remarks suggest the White House could invoke executive privilege or take other measures to shield internal documents or discussions from Democratic-led panels investigating Trump’s administration, campaign and businesses.
Team Trump to Congressional Investigators: Get Bent - Democrats’ conquest of the House in January heralded a new era of congressional oversight, with lawmakers promising to launch new probes and re-invigorate existing ones—including into how Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, obtained his security clearance. But Democrats are now bumping up against the first hurdle of their nascent oversight efforts: an administration that’s flat-out refusing to cooperate.“The Committee has failed to point to any authority establishing a legitimate legislative purpose for the Committee’s unprecedented and extraordinarily intrusive demands,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote this week in a letter to House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings, denying the panel’s request for documents related to Kushner’s controversial security clearance. “We will not concede the Executive’s constitutional prerogatives or allow the Committee to jeopardize the individual privacy rights of current and former Executive Branch employees.” Cipollone’s blistering letter was just one example of the resistance Democrats face. As Politico noted Wednesday, the administration has already declined or delayed 30 document requests from 12 House panels; half a dozen Trump officials have refused to testify on Capitol Hill; and the White House is planning its own line of legal defense against the probes. Democrats have railed against the stonewalling, suggesting that the refusal to cooperate with investigators may, itself, become part of the probe. “The White House failed to provide any response to our inquiry,” Democrats wrote in a letter Monday to Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, referring to an apparently ignored records request relating to Trump’s talks with Vladimir Putin. “As a result, we are now expanding our investigation.”
Democrats Search For A Crime To Punish Trump And Americans Who Voted For Him -The House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler is a man in search of a crime. Nadler and his colleague House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff have moved the conversation from Russian collusion and are now promising to investigate virtually everything connected to President Donald Trump. Mind you, we the tax payers will be paying for these investigations and it will drag America and the administration into another two years of endless witch hunts. Can you imagine if someone despised you so much that all they did day in and day out was search for something, anything, that would get those around you to doubt your intentions. Imagine having to fight every single day of your life against never ending accusations. Even when those accusations are later proven false it won’t matter because the original lie has already been thoroughly disseminated far and wide among the population. Why are Nadler, D-NY, and Schiff, D-CA, promising these investigations? Because they want to impeach Trump. It’s just that simple. They also want to send a message to the American people: your vote really didn’t matter because in the end it’s Congress that holds the power. Think about that. There was never any evidence of crime that called for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to establish a special counsel. Yet, he did. In fact, he wrote the letter authorizing Trump to fire former FBI Director James Comey. Comey would’ve been fired the first day had Hillary Clinton been president. However, obstruction charges are at the top of the Nadler’s list of investigations. He also promises to investigate all of Trump’s financial dealings and past business associations.
Democrats Continue Campaign To Reelect Trump - A few weeks ago Moon of Alabama reported that Russiagate Is Finished:Nothing, zero, nada was found to support the conspiracy theory. The Trump campaign did not collude with Russia. A few flunkies were indicted for unrelated tax issues and for lying to the investigators about some minor details. But nothing at all supports the dramatic claims of collusion made since the beginning of the affair. ... In a just world the people who for more then two years hyped the conspiracy theory and caused so much damage would be pushed out of their public positions. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. They will jump onto the next conspiracy train and continue from there. It seems that this was too much to expect from those who believed in Russiagate. These people are unable to think up a new conspiracy theory by themselves. Instead they go for a fishing expedition to find something that they can use to continue the fake outrage:The House Judiciary Committee sent more than 80 letters demanding all communications from a host of controversies surrounding Trump, as the panel probes whether the president and his administration have engaged in obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power. But rather than a targeted approach, Monday’s request was broad, reaching current and former campaign staffers, top Trump Organization officials, even documents and communications of the National Rifle Association and the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. The inquiry touched on a wide array of matters, from the president’s business dealings with Russia to the firing of former FBI director James B. Comey to hush payments made to women. Many of those issues are already being examined by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York — not to mention other committees in the House.
Cohen 'Coached' By Schiff Staffers Prior To Anti-Trump Testimony- Report - Republicans are questioning whether meetings between disgraced former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen amounted to coaching a witness, according to a Fox News report.According to the report, which follows revelations this week that Cohen likely lied to the House Oversight Committee about his pursuit of a presidential pardon, Congressional Republicans were not convinced by Cohen's testimony claiming that his meetings with members of Adam Schiff's staff in the days before the hearing constituted routine prep, or preparations for "well-rehearsed theater." Ohio Rep. Mike Turner sent a letter to Cohen's team demanding more details about with whom their client met and the length of the meetings and their locations. Turner specifically asked for confirmation of Cohen’s contacts, if any, "with Democratic Members or Democratic staff of SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence], COR [House Committee on Oversight and Reform], or HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] prior to his appearances before House and Senate committees last week" - as well as the lengths of such contacts, their locations and who exactly was involved."These questions are important for the public to understand whether or not they were watching witness testimony, a public hearing, or well-rehearsed theater," he wrote. During last month’s seven-hour public hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Cohen hesitantly acknowledged, under questioning from Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, that he had spoken with Schiff "about topics that were going to be raised at the upcoming hearing." In a statement, Schiff's staff replied that it was "completely appropriate" to carry out "proffer sessions" and give witnesses an opportunity to review their testimony ahead of these meetings
Polls Show Trump Holding Base And Even Improving Among Voters - While there is a general view that the Trump Administration is in a free fall with ominous investigations and calls for impeachment, the polls show a different picture. Trump actually has not dropped with all of the bad press and is holding his base. Indeed, he is close to where President Barack Obama was at this time in his term. Moreover, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll,the polls shows people with a highly negative view of the socialist wing of the Democratic party and less than forty percent believe Michael Cohen. Those are all good signs for Trump even as the legal developments loom negatively on his future. Trump however is registering at a 46 percent popularity in the latest polling.The bad news for Trump is that, just as his base is hardened, so is his opposition. He is down to just 4 in 10 of voters. Some 58 percent do not think Trump is telling the truth on the Russian probe and 60 percent disapprove of his recent national emergency declaration to build a border wall. This week the Republican controlled Senate may vote to rescind the emergency.Yet, Trump remains steady at 46 percent of Americans approving of Trump’s job performance. That is actually a gain of three points since January. Forty-one percent already say that they will definitely or probably vote for him in 2020.He holds an almost 90 percent popularity with Republicans at 88 percent though he is disliked by the same percentage of African Americans. Forty-one percent of registered voters say they will “definitely” or “probably” vote for Trump in 2020. Obama by comparison showed 45 percent in favor of voting. Trump is actually doing better than Clinton at this point. Not surprising, the hardened opposition is higher with 48 percent saying that they will “definitely” or “probably” vote for the Democratic candidate. Obama had only 40 percent saying that they would vote for a Republican.
Dems feel growing pressure on impeachment - House Democratic leaders are facing new pressures over a radioactive debate they've fought to keep under wraps: the impeachment of President Trump. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has confronted the question since the earliest days of Trump's White House tenure, hoping to discourage any talk of ousting the president so long as the effort remains strictly partisan. But a group of liberals in her ranks have pressed on, introducing articles of impeachment while threatening additional floor votes on the legislation. And this week's explosive testimony by Trump's former personal attorney, who lodged a string of allegations that the president broke numerous laws before and since he took office, has only fueled the impeachment push — and complicated efforts by Democratic leaders to prevent debate over the volatile "I" word from cascading into an intraparty free-for-all. Appearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Michael Cohen told lawmakers that Trump had a direct hand in distributing hush money payments to a porn star during the 2016 campaign — payments that would violate campaign finance laws — and also steered an unsuccessful effort to expand his business empire in Russia even as he was seeking the White House. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who introduced articles of impeachment in the last Congress, told The New York Times after the hearing that impeachment "is almost going to be impossible not to deal with." Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), another impeachment supporter, told MSNBC that Congress has a constitutional responsibility to check Trump's business dealings because "this is not going to be our last CEO" in the White House. And impeachment advocates off of Capitol Hill are pointing to Michael Cohen's testimony as just the latest — and perhaps most damning — evidence that Trump is unfit for office. Pelosi, joined by other top Democrats, sought to put the brakes on the impeachment talk following the hearing, noting the "divisive" nature of the issue and arguing the need to see more evidence of presidential wrongdoing before taking a step as momentous as ousting the president. "Let us see what the facts are, what the law is, and what the behavior is of the president," she told reporters Thursday.
Tlaib to offer impeachment articles against Trump by end of month The Democratic drumbeat toward impeaching President Trump grew louder Wednesday morning when Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) announced she will soon introduce legislation to oust the president. Democratic leaders have sought to deter members of the caucus from pressing the impeachment issue, arguing the need for further investigations into Trump's actions in office. They're concerned that without more evidence of presidential wrongdoing — and more public support for impeachment — the issue could backfire on the Democrats at the polls next year. But Tlaib, a firebrand freshman who has long advocated for impeachment, said constituents and activists are clamoring for Democrats to launch the effort, creating "a sense of urgency" that will compel her to introduce articles before month's end. "We saw record turnout in an election year, where people wanted to elect a jury that would begin the impeachment proceedings to Donald Trump," Tlaib said during a packed press briefing in the foyer of her Capitol Hill office. "We want to work on these economic justice issues, racial justice issues and everything. But guess what? There is a wall there, and a constitutional crisis that is not going to [let us] do our jobs as American Congress members to push a lot of these agendas forward." Tlaib joins a small but growing group of House Democrats who are pressing forward with formal efforts to unseat the president against the wishes of party leaders. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) introduced articles of impeachment on the first day of the new Congress, in January. And Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who had championed his own articles in the last Congress, is vowing both to reintroduce a similar resolution in the coming months — and to force lawmakers to vote on it on the floor. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), another vocal impeachment supporter, has not reintroduced his articles in the new Congress. But after last week's House hearing featuring damning allegations from Trump's former personal attorney, Cohen told The New York Times that impeachment "is almost going to be impossible not to deal with."
"Grounds For Impeachment" If Trump Tried To Block AT&T-Time Warner Deal: Kellyanne Conway's Husband --President Trump reportedly told former economic adviser Gary Cohn to pressure the Justice Department to block the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger - a move which would be grounds for impeachment according to George Conway - the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. Based on intel from a "well-informed" (but once again anonymous) source, the New Yorker reports that in the summer of 2017 - several months before the DOJ filed its antitrust lawsuit, Trump allegedly had an Oval Office sit-down with Cohn and then-chief of staff John Kelly in which he wanted to "make sure" the DOJ lawsuit seeking to block the merger was filed. "I’ve been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened!" Trump reportedly told Kelly. "I’ve mentioned it 50 times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!"According to the New Yorker - Trump's opposition to the deal was thought to be motivated by his hatred for CNN, which is owned by Time Warner. If true, according to George Conway, "such an attempt to use presidential authority to seek retribution for the exercise of First Amendment rights would unquestionably be grounds for impeachment," he tweeted. The DOJ maintains that Trump's dislike for CNN was not a factor in its decision to bring a 2017 lawsuit to block the merger on antitrust grounds, however US District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled in 2018 that the merger could proceed - a decision which was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Cohn reportedly refused to follow Trump's order, knowing that it was "highly improper" for the president to intervene. "
Cohen Attorney Approached Trump About Possible Pardon -- Remember when Michael Cohen told the House Oversight Committee last week that he had "never asked for a pardon" from President Trump? Well, it's looking increasingly likely that - and this may come as a shock - he was not exactly truthful.According to the Wall Street Journal, lawmakers are i nvestigating whether an attorney for Cohen raised the possibility of a pardon with Trump's legal team before Cohen had even been charged. After the FBI raided Cohen's home, hotel room and office, his attorney, Stephen Ryan, reportedly met with members of Trump's legal team to review the legal ramifications of the raid for Trump. During that conversation, Ryan reportedly floated the notion of a pardon for Cohen should he eventually be convicted. But he likely didn't receive the answer he had been looking for: The consensus among the president's attorneys was that it wouldn't be prudent for Trump to pardon his former fixer, if it came to that.Not long after, Cohen told George Stephanopoulos that he would put the interests of the country and his family above his loyalty to Trump. A few months later, he struck a plea deal with prosecutors in New York - and then with the Mueller probe.The president’s lawyers, including Jay Sekulow, Rudy Giuliani and Joanna Hendon, dismissed the idea of a pardon at the time, these people said. But at least one of them, Mr. Giuliani, left open the possibility that the president could grant Mr. Cohen one in the future, they said.Mr. Ryan also brought up the subject of a pardon with Alan Futerfas, an outside lawyer for the Trump Organization, and the company’s general counsel, Alan Garten, some of the people familiar with the matter said.Mr. Ryan left the impression that if Mr. Cohen couldn’t rely on a pardon, he might cooperate with prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office investigating Mr. Cohen, the people said.While it's true that Cohen never personally asked the president for a pardon, if the WSJ report is accurate, it's clear that inquiries about a pardon were made, and Cohen's response during Wednesday's public hearing was facetious, at best.
Federal investigators follow Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's questioning of Michael Cohen with new probe - When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., questioned former lawyer Michael Cohen about his knowledge of President Donald Trump's financial history, she may have laid the groundwork for future prosecution of the president. State regulators from New York have subpoenaed documents from the Trump Organization's insurance broker, Aon PLC, with the company's spokeswoman saying that they intend to "cooperate with all regulatory bodies," according to The Washington Post. While it is unclear whether there is a direct correlation between the subpoenas and Ocasio-Cortez's line of questioning, her inquiries certainly built up a case toward looking into Trump's background. "I want to ask a little bit about your conversation with my colleague from Missouri about asset inflation. To your knowledge, did the president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company?" Ocasio-Cortez asked Cohen, according to a transcript by Esquire. When Cohen confirmed that this was the case, Ocasio-Cortez pressed further."Who else knows that the president did this?" the New York congresswoman asked. Cohen replied, "Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman and Matthew Calamari."Ocasio-Cortez followed up by asking, "And where would the committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them?""Yes, and you would find it at the Trump Org," Cohen responded. According to Professor Laurence H. Tribe at Harvard, "it appears that Donald Trump made a practice of wildly exaggerating his wealth and the supposed business acumen that enabled him to amass it."
Attorney General Barr will not recuse himself from Mueller investigation - Attorney General William Barr will not recuse himself from oversight of the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, following the advice he received from Justice Department senior career ethics officials, a DOJ spokeswoman said Monday. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Barr did not commit to recusing himself. “I will seek the advice of the career ethics personnel, but under the regulations, I make the decision as the head of the agency as to my own recusal,” he told the Judiciary Committee in January. Some Democrats have called for his recusal due to his past criticism of Mueller’s investigation.A source told Roll Call earlier Monday that based on the track record of Barr, who was attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, “he seems inclined to follow the Justice Department’s guidelines that a sitting president can’t be indicted.”That means if Mueller or investigators in New York’s federal Southern District find the president broker federal laws, Barr would not sign off on charging Trump. “That makes it a political decision,” the GOP source said. “And [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi hasn’t given us any reason to think she’s going to bring articles if impeachment if the votes for removal aren’t there in the Senate.”
Mueller notifies judge that Roger Stone posted Instagram image that could violate gag order - Special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday notified a federal judge about an Instagram post by President Donald Trump's friend Roger Stone that could be in violation of the judge's strict gag order on Stone.The filing by Mueller cited CNBC's story on Sunday detailing the post by Stone, which contained an image of him under the words "Who framed Roger Stone."Mueller did not ask Judge Amy Berman to find that Stone broke her gag order.Stone, 66, is barred from criticizing Mueller's team of prosecutors under the gag imposed Feb. 21 after the longtime Republican operative posted an Instagram image of Jackson's face next to a rifle scope's crosshair. Stone, a self-described "dirty trickster," told Jackson during a court hearing on that post that it was an "egregious, stupid mistake" and said "I am hurtfully sorry for my own stupidity." If Jackson finds that Stone, who is currently free on a $250,000 signature bond, violated that order, she could have him jailed without bail pending his trial on charges of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing justice.
Russiagate Grand Wizard Rachel Maddow Deceives Audience About Julian Assange --Caitlin Johnstone — When it was first revealed in November that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is under secret charges by the Trump administration, I spent the next few days being told by Russiagaters that this was proof that I have been wrong about their demented cold war cult all along, because #MuellerTime is fast approaching. At long last, they vehemently assured me, Assange was going to prison for working with Russia to deprive Queen Hillary of her rightful throne. None of those people have come back to apologize or admit that they were wrong when subsequent evidence disproved their claims. As it turns out, whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in a secret case investigating Assange for his 2010 role in the WikiLeaks publication of military war logs and diplomatic cables. Manning served seven years in prison for leaking those documents to the transparency advocacy outlet before her sentence was commuted by President Obama, meaning, obviously, that this sealed case has nothing to do with the 2016 leaks Russiagaters have been fiendishly obsessing over. Indeed, the Washington Post reported yesterday that “U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, say the case is based on [Assange’s] pre-2016 conduct, not the election hacks that drew the attention of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.” So there you have it. Democrats like Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden who have been cheering for Assange’s arrest have actually been cheering on the Trump administration’s prosecution of a journalist for publishing facts about Bush administration war crimes. They thought they were supporting the agenda to punish Assange for publishing leaks that hurt the Hillary campaign, but in reality they were defending two Republican administrations while helping to manufacture support for a prosecution that would set a devastating precedent for press freedoms throughout the entire world. If you are unfamiliar with the work of Russiagate Grand Wizard Rachel Maddow, you might think she would report the revelation that an unfounded belief held by many of her acolytes has been completely and thoroughly disproven once and for all. If you are a bit more familiar with her, you might assume that she would completely ignore this revelation like she normally does when her conspiratorial ramblings are disproven by facts and evidence. But if you know Rachel really, really well, you might guess what she actually did on her show last night. That’s right, she flat out lied about it.
Chelsea Manning jailed for refusal to testify against WikiLeaks - A federal judge ordered Chelsea Manning to prison Friday morning for an indefinite period of time, after the former Army private, jailed for seven years for providing information to WikiLeaks exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, refused on principle to answer any questions before a secret grand jury investigating the media organization and its founder Julian Assange.“The Socialist Equality Party unequivocally condemns the US government’s vindictive and criminal persecution of Chelsea Manning,” said Joseph Kishore, the national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in the US.“Chelsea suffered solitary confinement, abuse and torture, and over six years of imprisonment for letting the American and world population know the truth. Yesterday, she once again stood firm to fundamental democratic principle and refused to assist the Trump administration in its vendetta to falsely incriminate WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. She is a heroic figure and she must be defended. “Working people all over the world will never forget Chelsea’s courageous exposure, at vast personal cost, of the crimes of American imperialism. Amid a growing global strike wave, the Socialist Equality Party will do everything in its power to mobilize the working class to defend Chelsea, and free Julian Assange and all other class war prisoners.”
Federal judge throws out Stormy Daniels hush money suit against Trump - A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against President Trump from adult-film actress Stormy Daniels over a hush-money settlement on Thursday. Central District of California Judge S. James Otero ruled that the suit was irrelevant after Trump and his former lawyer Michael Cohen agreed to rescind a nondisclosure agreement Daniels signed in exchange for a $130,000 payment, The Associated Press reported Thursday. Daniels alleges that she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and was seeking to have the settlement declared illegal so that she could speak up about that affair without fear of financial penalties. Trump has denied any affair with Daniels. Cohen said he arranged the payment to silence Daniels to help Trump win the presidency in 2016. That hush money payment is one of the reasons Cohen was sentenced last year to three years in jail for bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Trump has repeatedly said he was not involved in the payment. The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment. Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti claimed victory in a statement to the Hill. "The Court found that Ms. Daniels received everything she asked for by way of the lawsuit - she won," he said.
T-Mobile spent $195,000 at Trump Hotel in D.C. since merger announcement- (Reuters) - T-Mobile Us Inc’s chief executive, John Legere, and other company leaders have spent $195,000 on hotel stays and other expenses at the Trump International Hotel in Washington since the company sought approval for a $26 billion merger with Sprint last April, documents released on Tuesday show. The company disclosed the expenses in a letter after Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Pramila Jayapal, both Democrats, sent letters to leaders of the Trump Organization and T-Mobile last month after reports that T-Mobile executives started regularly using the Trump hotel. Photos of Legere, who regularly stays at the hotel, began appearing on social media sites, with him wearing his customary pink T-Mobile-themed attire. After questions were raised about the Trump hotel stays, Legere posted a photo of himself from another prominent Washington hotel. The company said in a Feb. 21 letter the $195,000 included costs for “meeting space, catering, business center services, audio/visual equipment rental, lodging, meals, taxes and other incidental expenses.” The Democrats said the hotel stays “raise questions about whether T-Mobile is attempting to curry favor with the President, who has not fully divested from his financial interests, via their numerous and expensive stays in the Trump Hotel.” The Washington Post reported that T-Mobile executives had reserved at least 52 nights at the hotel since the merger announcement, dramatically boosting the company’s use of the hotel. )
Rep. Peter DeFazio and House Democrats are reintroducing a financial services tax with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a co-sponsor - House Democrats are reintroducing their proposal of a financial transaction tax on stock, bond and derivative deals, and this time they've signed on a key new supporter: left-wing firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., is leading the effort to bring back a bill, titled the "Wall Street Tax Act of 2019," which slaps a tax on securities transactions and could have a particular negative effect on high-frequency traders. Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is the lead co-sponsor. DeFazio is expected to file the bill on Tuesday. "What we were looking at is if there's a sweet spot when you do a financial transaction tax," DeFazio told CNBC in an interview. "This would pretty much be a sweet spot. You would be discouraging high-frequency trading, and this would definitely impede on their business model." A spokeswoman for Ocasio-Cortez confirmed she is co-sponsoring the bill. A spokeswoman for DeFazio noted that at least 12 others have signed on as co-sponsors, including Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna of California, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, and Pramila Jayapal of Washington. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates a financial transaction tax could help reduce the budget by adding revenues of $777 billion over the course of 10 years. "This option would increase revenues by $777 billion from 2019 through 2028, according to an estimate by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation," the Congressional Budget Office's website says. "The tax on financial transactions would reduce taxable business and individual income."The last time DeFazio, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, tried to get a similar piece of legislation to the floor was in 2017, with the goal of avoiding another "flash crash." In May 2010, U.S. stock indexes plunged and then suddenly recovered in a matter of about 30 minutes. During the brief crash, the Dow Jones Industrial Average took a dive of 9 percent. At the time of the bill's introduction two years ago,, Democrats were not the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and did not have as many outspoken critics of billionaires and the financial industry, such as Ocasio-Cortez, on their side. Then DeFazio's proposition was to levy a 0.03 percent tax on market purchases.
US Companies Stashing $2.1 Trillion Overseas to Avoid Taxes - Eight of the biggest U.S. technology companies added a combined $69 billion to their stockpiled offshore profits over the past year, even as some corporations in other industries felt pressure to bring cash back home. Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Google Inc. and five other tech firms now account for more than a fifth of the $2.10 trillion in profits that U.S. companies are holding overseas, according to a Bloomberg News review of the securities filings of 304 corporations. The total amount held outside the U.S. by the companies was up 8 percent from the previous year, though 58 companies reported smaller stockpiles.
After Irreparable Damage Warnings, Wall Street Finally Cracks Down On CDS Manipulation -Last January, after several perplexing instances when credit default swaps mysteriously traded in precisely the opposite direction of where they were supposed to, derivatives traders finally "cried foul" over the Blackstone-led refinancing deal for US housebuilder Hovnanian, saying what they had just observed threatened to further undermine the shrinking market for credit default swaps. So what happened? Well, heading into the end of 2017, the credit derivatives swaps of Hovnanian were soaring as if New Jersey’s largest homebuilder was about to default, even as its stocks and bonds show no signs of panic.As it subsequently turned out, the catalyst behind this divergence was a bizarre battle raging among hedge funds, with one group saying that the other has offered Hovnanian financing in return for taking steps that would trigger payouts on those derivatives. The claim came in a letter from law firm White & Case, which said it’s been made aware of a proposal in which Hovnanian would pursue a refinancing deal with the main intention of triggering a credit event that would lead to a payout on the credit-default swaps. At the time, Bloomberg identified the main actors as hedge fund Solus Alternative Asset Management, which owned both Hovnanian’s bonds and sold CDS guaranteeing the company won’t miss a debt payment, while its counterparty was Blackstone’s GSO Capital partners hedge fund, an investor with which Hovnanian has explored a restructuring that would trigger a CDS payout. What makes the deal unique, is that in order to secure the funds from GSO, Hovnanian had agreed to skip a payment on some of its existing bonds, triggering a technical default and a big payday for the hedge fund, which unlike Solus, was long Hovnanian CDS. As we then explained last May, this particular fiasco in the CDS market was hardly isolated, but it served to demonstrate how any human system - when enough money is at stake - will eventually be gamed beyond its breaking point.
A Look Back at How Reforming Wall Street Failed So Miserably Under Obama - Pam Martens - Progressives have every right to harbor a seething contempt toward the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress in the last two years of George W. Bush’s presidency as Wall Street blew itself up and Congress passed the massive taxpayer bailout of the Wall Street mega banks. (Democrats held fewer than 50 seats in the Senate but they held operational majority since two Independents caucused with them.) In Obama’s first two years in office (January 2009 to January 2011), Democrats had increased their majorities in both chambers of Congress. Democrats were in charge when it became crystal clear from Congressional hearings that Wall Street mega banks had created, through unbridled greed and corruption, the most catastrophic financial crash since the Great Depression. Democrats were in charge when it became profoundly evident that Wall Street needed a major regulatory overhaul and that simply tinkering around the edges of reform would put the U.S. economy in grave danger in the future. Notwithstanding the economic devastation being experienced at the time, the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation which was signed into law by Obama on July 21, 2010 was a vast document of fluff that failed miserably at reforming Wall Street. The legislation was supposed to rein in derivatives. It did not. It was supposed to eliminate the need for future taxpayer bailouts of the too-big-to-fail banks. It did not. It was supposed to prevent Wall Street investment banks from gambling with the Federally insured deposits they held under their roof. It did not. It was supposed to prevent rating agencies from taking payments from Wall Street banks and then handing out triple A ratings on toxic debt. It did not. It was supposed to put a tough cop on the beat to police the Wall Street banks. Instead, it gave increased power to the Federal Reserve, which, then and now, continues to outsource its policing function to the intentionally incompetent and disastrously conflicted New York Fed, whose share owners are the very banks it regulates.
Saudis Join With US to Kill EU Effort to Create Dirty Money Blacklist -- The United States and key ally Saudi Arabia saw their lobbying efforts pay off on Friday after the European Commission's proposed dirty money blacklist—which included the oil-rich kingdom and several American territories—fizzled. "The Americans fell on us like a tonne of bricks," an anonymous Brussels official told the Financial Times. The effort "to protect the integrity of the E.U. financial system," the commission said last month, included blacklisting 23 territories that had "strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks." They included American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico as well as Saudi Arabia.However, as the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, "European governments, under pressure from Washington and Riyadh, have refused to endorse" the list. "The rejection of the governments is a farce at the expense of security," declared Sven Giegold, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany, in a statement quoted by Bloomberg. "France and the U.K. want to remove Saudi Arabia and other countries from the list. Spain is protecting Panama. The United States is exerting massive pressure because four U.S. jurisdictions," he said. "Governments must ask themselves whether they are on the side of autocrats or their citizens!" he added in a tweet. As Politico reported, the list, which would need the backing of the European Parliament and Council of the E.U. to go into effect, "is politically sensitive because it has teeth. E.U. banks that handle payments connected to the blacklisted countries and territories would have to conduct 'enhanced due diligence' on any cash that moves to and from the E.U. and the blacklisted jurisdictions." Politico also noted the "intense backlash and behind-the-scenes lobbying from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia."
Fed eyes interest on excess reserves changes for certain banks — The Federal Reserve published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking Wednesday seeking comment on whether it should offer different interest rates to different types of member bank reserves and different kinds of member banks to combat “pass-through” entities. “These narrowly focused depository institutions … could attract a very large quantity of deposits from institutional investors, yet at the same time avoid the costs borne by other depository institutions,” the Fed said in a press statement. “The [notice] requests comment on the potential benefits and potential costs associated with the presence of such institutions in the U.S. financial system and their receipt of [interest] on their balances at a Reserve Bank.” Since 2008, the Fed has paid interest on banks’ member account balances at a rate set by the Federal Open Market Committee. That interest rate has effectively been the committee’s primary monetary policy tool since the financial crisis, and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed in January that it would remain so for the foreseeable future. But the practice has been controversial, with academics and politicians contending that the practice amounts to a giveaway to big banks at the expense of the rest of the economy. The notice said that the Federal Reserve Act gives the agency the authority to pay interest on both required reserves — that is, minimum balances that Fed member banks must maintain within the Fed system — and excess reserves, which are additional balances that the banks keep in their Fed accounts by choice. But the Fed has the power to distinguish between required and excess reserves, as well as between depository institutions, when it considers what interest rates to pay on reserves. The problem that the agency appears to be hoping to solve with a future rule is the emergence of so-called pass-through investment entities, or PTIEs. By effectively passing on the higher Fed member bank interest rate to nonbanks, the Fed said PTIEs could make it harder for the Fed to enact monetary policy by reducing the spread between IOER and overnight repurchase agreements.
Fed Plans Tighter Liquidity Rules For Foreign Banks To Limit Reliance On Discount Window During Crisis - Back in July 2017, when we observed that a shocking 40% of the Fed's interest on excess reserves had been paid, inexplicably, to foreign banks and implicitly represent a subsidy to foreign banks to the tune of tens of billions each year, we said that "we wonder if this is the main reason why the Fed is so desperate to trim its balance sheet as it hikes rates, as sooner or later, someone in Congress will figure this out." Almost two years later, while the Fed has yet to move on curbing foreign bank subsidies courtesy of IOER, the US central bank is finally considering stricter rules on foreign bank branches to tighten what critics say is a loophole that has allowed overseas lenders to shield assets from the toughest U.S. bank rules, while collecting billions in annual hand outs courtesy of reserves parked with the Fed.The proposed changes would be a blow for such banks as Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and UBS and which have for years held billions of dollars in assets, such as corporate loans, at their New York branches. Additionally, as Reuters notes the rule changes, which have yet to be passed, could also inflame tensions with European regulators who have long-complained that their lenders are held to higher standards in the United States than domestic rivals.The Fed proposal would seek to impose tougher liquidity requirements on foreign bank branches, which could involve holding higher-quality liquid assets to ensure the branch could meet its short-term obligations, almost as if the Fed is proactively concerned what would happen to foreign bank deposits in case there were a bank run in either the lender's host country, or the US. Indicatively, foreign branches held more than $1.6 trillion in assets as of June last year.The specific treatment of foreign branches, which typically focus on corporate business and are just one part of a foreign bank’s overall U.S. operations, has long been a dilemma for the Fed.The paradox is that legally foreign branches are part of the overseas parent which would be on the hook to shore-up the branch if it were to fail. But, because foreign bank branches do large amounts of dollar-denominated business, they can also access the Fed’s discount lending window which they used heavily during the 2008 financial crisis.
Fed votes against deploying big-bank capital buffer —The Federal Reserve voted Wednesday to keep the countercyclical capital buffer at its current level of zero, ending some speculation that the board could be looking at a possible increase. The countercyclical capital buffer — often called the CCyB — is a 2016 Basel III-related rule that allows the Fed to require banks with more than $250 billion in assets or $10 billion in nonbank liabilities to hold additional capital while economic conditions are robust to counteract the elevated potential for riskier lending and offset the potential losses that might come from those riskier activities Though it has never been deployed, Fed Gov. Lael Brainard has championed the idea of imposing the buffer given the current conditions of the market. Brainard was the lone dissenter in Wednesday’s vote to maintain the current buffer level at zero percent. “History suggests that we should not expect the market to provide incentives for banks to build the necessary buffers when times are good; the essence of the cycle is that market sentiment become overconfident precisely when risk is actually highest,” Brainard said in December. “One of the roles for independent regulatory bodies such as the Federal Reserve is to serve as a counterweight.” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in December that he was open to increasing the buffer if it was warranted, but did not vote Wednesday to raise it. “That’s a tool that I am absolutely willing to use and happy to use at such a time as that test is met,” Powell said. Other voting members, however, have expressed concern that imposing the CCyB would actually precipitate a downturn. In November, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles said that he doesn’t view the CCyB as a “macroeconomic damper” for cooling a hot economy, but rather is designed to be implemented “when we think financial stability risks are meaningfully above normal.”
Fed curbs stress test requirement for most large banks — The Federal Reserve is limiting use of its "qualitative objection" in this year’s stress tests, the agency announced Wednesday. The Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review exercise has historically included both quantitative and qualitative evaluations of a large bank's ability to withstand shocks to the financial system. But this year, just five out of 18 firms — U.S. subsidiaries of Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, TD Bank and UBS — will risk potentially failing the qualitative portion of the test. Banks that have already participated in four previous stress tests and that passed the qualitative evaluation in their fourth year will be exempt. The qualitative portion of the test has, in the past, given regulators greater discretion to fail certain banks due to risk management or operational failures. The five firms that are still subject to the qualitative objection this year will “generally” reach their fourth stress test in 2020, according to the Fed. And starting in 2021, the central bank will no longer issue a qualitative objection for any bank, unless the firm received one the previous year. “While the qualitative objection will no longer apply to certain firms, all firms will continue to be subject to a rigorous evaluation of their capital planning processes as part of CCAR,” the Fed said in a statement. “Firms with weak practices may be subject to a deficient supervisory rating, and potentially an enforcement action, for failing to meet supervisory expectations.” The change comes just one month after the Fed announced it would exempt banks with assets of $100 billion to $250 billion from the 2019 supervisory stress testing cycle. The agency also said that it would be “providing relief to less-complex firms” by effectively moving them off the 2019 cycle and requiring them to undertake supervisory stress testing in 2020.
Is Dodd-Frank oversight council still relevant? — The Financial Stability Oversight Council will hold its first open meeting of the year Wednesday against the backdrop of a continuing debate over whether the panel created by the Dodd-Frank Act really matters anymore. The council has come full circle on what many view as its primary function: designating specific nonbank financial firms seen as a danger to the global markets and in turn subjecting them to banklike oversight. After the Obama-era council designated four firms — three of them insurance giants — as "systemically important financial institutions," all of them have since been dedesignated. The last remaining SIFI, Prudential, successfully shed the label in October. There are a wide range of possible directions in which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who chairs the FSOC, could now take the council. Some observers suspect the council will focus more on risky activities across the industry rather than on specific firms. But others question the panel's relevance now that it has moved on from its most visible and controversial authority. “The bottom line is the FSOC is doing next to nothing under Treasury Secretary Mnuchin,” said Gregg Gelzinis, a research assistant for the economic policy team at the Center for American Progress. “The only thing they were doing was going through the process of releasing firms from enhanced oversight, and now that that is complete, I really do think they’re not doing anything.” Other observers applaud the council for changing course and say it is natural for the FSOC's role to evolve over time. The Dodd-Frank Act, which created the council to identify and head off approaching systemic risks, gave it a range of powers other than designating nonbanks, from publishing advisories on potential sources of systemic risk to making formal recommendations for new rules.
FDIC crackdown on brokered deposits goes too far: ABA report — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for decades has overreached in interpreting what deposits are deemed brokered, according to a legal memo conducted on behalf of the American Bankers Association. The 30-page memo, which was drafted by the Jones Day law firm and which the ABA plans to release Monday, says the FDIC has gone beyond the 1980s law meant to restrict problem banks from using brokered deposits to fund risky loans. Instead, the policy has placed undue limits on the deposit practices at healthy banks, according to the memo. As a result, well-capitalized banks have struggled to employ innovative deposit-gathering methods, the ABA said in a Feb. 28 letter sent to FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams along with the legal memo. “Over time a gulf has grown between that focused intent of Congress and the broad scope of the FDIC’s regulation of brokered deposits, particularly as applied to healthy banks. That gulf has been widening,” Rob Nichols, the ABA's president and chief executive, said in the letter. “Increasingly, these efforts and the FDIC’s treatment of brokered deposits —particularly as the FDIC has been applying its policy to healthy banks — have come into conflict, frustrating the ability of banks to innovate and to be competitive in serving financial customers.” McWilliams has appeared intent on making changes to the agency's brokered deposits policy, and is accepting public comments until May 7. (The ABA separately plans to submit a comment letter in addition to the legal memo.) Jones Day argues in its memo that the FDIC interpreted the statutory definition of “deposit broker” too broadly, and so included more deposit types than the law intended.
Dodd-Frank oversight council wants to make it harder to designate nonbanks — The Financial Stability Oversight Council published a proposal Wednesday to broadly revise its process for designating nonbanks as systemically important financial institutions, while formally emphasizing a preference for activities-based regulation of nonbanks. The council issued proposed interpretive guidance meant to replace its existing interpretive guidance regarding nonbank financial company designations. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who serves as chairman of the council, said the changes would help regulators identify and address real and potential risks to the financial system. “Today’s proposal would make significant improvements to how the Council identifies, assesses, and responds to potential risks to U.S. financial stability,” Mnuchin said in a statement. “The result of significant collaboration among Council members, these changes will help ensure that the Council accomplishes its mission efficiently and effectively.” Nonbanks designated as SIFIs would be subject to heightened regulatory standards and supervised by the Fed. Under the FSOC's current guidance, nonbanks that are under consideration for designation go through a three-stage evaluation process. In Stage 1, FSOC staff consider the potential risks of a firm internally, without notifying the firm that it is under evaluation; in Stage 2, firms are notified of their evaluation and are asked for documentation and invited to respond to council concerns; Stage 3 culminates in formal designation. The proposal would eliminate Stage 1, effectively beginning the designation process with firm notification and evaluation. The proposal would also require the FSOC to include a cost-benefit analysis as part of its designation and would permit the council to designate a firm “only if the expected benefits justify the expected costs of the designation,” according to an FSOC release. The new guidance would also require the council to conduct an analysis demonstrating a firm’s actual potential for insolvency and the effect of that insolvency on the broader financial system. Yet perhaps the most significant change in the new proposed guidance is a formal emphasis on activities-based regulation of nonbanks — that is, identifying and regulating activities that pose a risk to the financial system regardless of the institutions engaging in them. The proposal would allow the FSOC to designate an individual firm as a SIFI only after it has determined that it cannot address a systemic risk through an activities-based approach.
JP Morgan Is Quietly Moving Bank Branches Out Of Lower Income Areas - Some of the biggest banks in the United States are quietly closing branches in low income areas, and nobody more so than the people's JP Morgan.As one example, JP Morgan is shutting it outlet in Aberdeen, Washington, where it has just one branch. And now that the bank is going to be leaving the town, the closest Chase branch is going to be 40 miles away. This is part of a broader move that banks are making, as they shift their attention in the age of online banking to wealthier areas, according to a new Bloomberg article.As this branch closes, JP Morgan is planning on opening 70 branches in the vicinity of Washington DC. Places like McLean Virginia, the 25th richest town in the US, will be getting a branch. This comes amidst a larger move from banks to shrink their vast branch networks, cutting back in "relatively poor neighborhoods". As online banking spreads, major banks have still claimed that serving all of their customers at branch locations is important, regardless of income - a requirement of the Community Reinvestment Act.But consumer advocates warn that these closings leave many low income areas with less competition for services. A 2014 study by an MIT economist concluded that branch closures in low income neighborhoods make it harder for local businesses to get loans. Scott Astrada, a policy advocate at the Center for Responsible Lending, told Bloomberg: "Bank branches are a crucial part of financial access. The argument that we all live in this digital society so we don’t need bank branches is completely false."JP Morgan is a great example of this shift. The bank announced plans a year ago to to open 400 branches and boost lending across the nation. In the 13 months leading up to January, the bank opened 185 new branches, with 71% of them in affluent areas. At the same time, it has given notice of its intention to shut down 187 branches, with about half of those in neighborhoods where the household income is below the national median of $60,336. Anne Pace, spokeswoman for JP Morgan said: “In our footprint, Chase has significantly more branches and more deposits in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods than any other competitor. Even when we’ve consolidated branches, we continue to grow market share in those neighborhoods. In the vast majority of cases, the next closest branch is less than two miles away.’’JP Morgan is part of a larger trend of consumer banks shutting down branches. More than 1900 branches have closed in lower income neighborhoods in the four years prior to 2018.
Will $14.5 billion plug GE’s long-term care insurance hole? Some experts say ‘No’ (Reuters) - General Electric Co is setting aside one of the largest amounts ever to cover potential losses on policies that provide long-term care in nursing facilities and patients’ homes. But insurance experts are concerned that may not be enough. GE shocked investors last year when it took a $6.2 billion after-tax charge and said it planned to set aside $15 billion over seven years to cover claims on some 300,000 long-term care policies written more than a decade ago, when actuaries did not yet know how costly the claims would become. The costs, which far exceeded GE’s estimates, sent its shares tumbling, spurred an investor lawsuit and prompted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate. Last week, GE provided new details about its insurance and scheduled a “teach in” for Thursday to give more information. GE’s new reserves amount to about $55,000 per policy, in line with those of other long-term care insurers, according to an analysis for Reuters by Audit Analytics, an independent research company based in Massachusetts. For comparison, Humana Inc has set aside $77,282 per policy, while Unum Group has set aside $10,614, Audit Analytics said. Those amounts are less than the cost of one year’s stay in a private nursing-home room, which averages $92,376 in the United States, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. GE has since cut $500 million from the $15 billion in reserves it plans to make for the policies through 2024. Its latest loss recognition test required only a $65 million after-tax charge, a sign, it said, that its estimates are on track.
CFPB moves one step closer to regulating clean energy loans - The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to issue a proposal on green energy loans that finance home upgrades such as solar panels or cooling and heating systems, the agency said Monday. In an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, the CFPB solicited public feedback on Property Assessed Clean Energy — or PACE — loans, which have been deemed risky by the Federal Housing Administration and have created problems for some borrowers. Last year, Congress directed the CFPB to enact regulations that deal with “the unique nature” of PACE financing. “Today’s action is the next step in the Bureau’s efforts to implement the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act as expeditiously as possible,” CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger said in a press release. “I look forward to reviewing the comments in response to the questions we are asking to facilitate the required rulemaking.” Repayment of PACE loans is attached to the property, not the homeowner, through an assessment on a borrower’s property tax bill, with installments typically paid over 15 to 20 years. As a result, PACE loans have a senior lien position ahead of a mortgage. In 2017, the Federal Housing Administration stopped approving mortgages on properties associated with PACE loans because in the event of a default, the portion of these loans that is in arrears gets repaid before the FHA. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson called the loans “potentially dangerous” to the FHA insurance fund. In addition, financing of PACE loans typically is based on a borrower’s equity in the home. Some homeowners have alleged that they had trouble selling their homes because of the loans. Others claim contractors misrepresented how the loans work.
CFPB’s payday rule rollback sows confusion -- Small-dollar lenders won a huge victory last month when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed abandoning tough new underwriting requirements before they become effective. But the agency's reversal is stoking confusion in the industry. The agency's Trump administration-appointed leadership has long sought to roll back the payday lending rule drafted by former CFPB Director Richard Cordray. To do that, the agency's strategy is to focus on repealing the central provision: mandated steps for verifying a borrower's ability to repay a loan. Yet the bureau's Feb. 6 proposal left intact other components of the Cordray regulation that restrict how lenders debit a consumer's bank account to pay off debt. With so much attention on how the CFPB is unwinding the rule, it is catching some by surprise that those payment restrictions could still take effect as early as August. “The CFPB knows there are problems with the payment provision yet decided not to deal with it yet,” said Alan Kaplinsky, chair of Ballard Spahr‘s consumer financial services group. “In the meantime, there’s an Aug. 19 compliance date and it’s creating a lot of headaches.” Lenders have continued to urge the CFPB to repeal the payment provisions as well, but the agency may view a more focused approach — just rolling back the ability-to-repay provision — as easier to defend against legal challenges. CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger has signaled she is open to reconsidering the payment provisions as well in a future proposal. But with the possible August deadline looming, industry lawyers are clamoring for more guidance. Once the rule goes into effect, banks and other lenders that make repeated unsuccessful attempts to debit a borrower's account could be penalized for "unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices." Specifically, lenders want the CFPB to change how often a lender can debit a borrower's account. Cordray's final rule imposed a limit of two consecutive attempts, but the industry is pushing to extend that to three. Overly restrictive limits on those debits can result in lost revenue and profits for lenders, industry insiders say. Lenders also want the CFPB to rescind or scale back payment reauthorization requirements and cooling-off periods, remove curbs on debit card transactions because they do not give rise to insufficient-funds fees, and push back the August compliance date. But consumer advocates say that if the payment provision is weakened as well, it is unclear what would be left of the payday rule.
House Democrats target CFPB politicos, other Mulvaney changes in new bill -— A day before Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger is set to testify to the House Financial Services Committee, House Democrats introduced legislation to undo efforts to weaken the agency by her predecessor, former acting Director Mick Mulvaney. Nearly 30 Democrats on the panel are co-sponsoring the Consumers First Act, which would limit the number of political appointees the CFPB can hire, restore supervision and enforcement authority in the agency’s fair-lending office, and resume supervision for the Military Lending Act, among other things. In a Wednesday press conference, Democrats sharply criticized Mulvaney’s actions. “The bill reverses the harmful structural changes Mulvaney and his deputies made to damage the agency one by one,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif. Rep. Maxine Waters "I do not have any consideration for compromise on how that bureau is run," said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Maxine Waters. Bloomberg News The legislation comes after Mulvaney hired roughly a dozen political appointees to lead the CFPB’s offices, attempted to change the agency’s initials to BCFP and dropped several lawsuits against payday lenders, among other steps. “Under Trump’s CFPB director Mulvaney, the CFPB has reduced transparency and accountability, weakened enforcement … and became more interested in helping payday lenders who allegedly misled consumers and charged exorbitantly high interest rates, rather than protecting the American consumers they were sworn to serve,” said Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, who chairs the new diversity and inclusion subcommittee. “I bet the 30 million defrauded consumers and their families who received help from the CFPB sure didn’t think it was a partisan issue.”
American Farm Debt Reaches 1980s Crisis Levels- Agriculture Secretary -Debt among American farmers has increased to $409 billion, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue warned Wednesday. That is up from $385 billion last year and is currently at levels not seen since the agricultural recession (farm crisis) of the 1980s, reported Reuters.“Farm debt has been rising more rapidly over the last five years, increasing by 30% since 2013 – up from $315 billion to $409 billion, according to USDA data, and up from $385 billion in just the last year – to levels seen in the 1980s,” Perdue said in his testimony to the House Agriculture Committee.Purdue told lawmakers: “Relatively firm land values have kept farmer debt-to-asset levels low by historical standards at 13.5%, and continued low-interest rates have kept the cost of borrowing relatively affordable.”“But those average values mask areas of greater vulnerability,” he added.The agricultural sector has experienced tremendous headwinds in the last five years amid deflationary trends in commodity prices, storms damaging crops, and more recent - supply chain disruptions into China due to President Donald Trump’s trade war."As producers are not able to cover year to year expenses with operating loans, they are forced into transforming operating loans into term debt which erodes their creditworthiness," said Luis Ribera, an agricultural economist at Texas A&M University."On top of all that then we have the trade war which reduces the demand of US commodities given that tariffs make them more expensive and then depress the prices even more." US Department of Agriculture chief economist Robert Johansson said farm exports are expected to drop by as much as $1.9 billion this year, citing the deepening trade war.
Black Knight Mortgage Monitor for January - Black Knight released their Mortgage Monitor report for January today. According to Black Knight, 3.75% of mortgages were delinquent in January, down from 4.31% in January 2018. Black Knight also reported that 0.51% of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down from 0.66% a year ago.This gives a total of 4.26% delinquent or in foreclosure. Press Release: Black Knight: Affordability Outlook Improves as Interest Rates Fall; Annual Home Price Growth Continues to Slow, Prices See Fourth Consecutive Monthly Decline Today, the Data & Analytics division of Black Knight, Inc. released its latest Mortgage Monitor Report, based upon the company’s industry-leading mortgage performance, housing and public records datasets. This month’s report leveraged the latest data from the Black Knight Home Price Index (HPI) to look into the continued slowdown in annual home price appreciation (HPA) and its impact on home affordability. “At the end of December, home prices at the national level had fallen 0.3 percent from November for their fourth consecutive monthly decline,” said Graboske. “As a result, the average home has lost more than $2,400 in value since the summer of 2018. And while home prices are still up on an annual basis, the slowdown continues nationwide and, importantly, is not being driven by seasonal effects. December marked the 10th straight month of slowing annual home price appreciation, falling from a high of 6.8 percent annual growth in February to 4.6 percent at the end of the year. With more than 50 percent of areas reporting, early numbers for January suggest we’re likely to see more of the same. That said, it’s important to keep in mind that annual growth is still outpacing the 25-year average of 3.9 percent – although the gap is closing quickly. Also, it’s yet to be seen what impact the recent pullback in interest rates may have on the national home price growth rate. “There is good news in these numbers for prospective homebuyers, though. Combined with the average 30-year fixed rate declining by more than half a point over the last three months, housing is now the most affordable it’s been since early in the 2018 home buying season. It currently requires 22.2 percent of median income to purchase the average home with a 20 percent down payment on a 30-year fixed-rate loan. That’s down from a post-recession high of 23.4 percent just a few months ago, and well below the long-term average of 25 percent seen in the late 1990s through the early 2000s, before the housing bubble. Here is a graph from the Mortgage Monitor that shows the National delinquency rate over time.From Black Knight:
• At 3.75%, the national delinquency rate now stands nearly a full percentage point below the pre-recession January average of 4.74%The second graph shows the month-over-month and YoY change in the Black Knight House Price Index:
• February and March tend to be two of the strongest performing months, with delinquencies falling by more than 12% over those two months in an average year
• If we saw the average seasonal decline this year, the national delinquency rate would fall to 3.3% in March, nearly 20BPS below the previous record low of 3.48% recorded in March of 2005
• A more pessimistic scenario – which may be wise, as March 2019 ends on a Sunday – has delinquencies closer to 3.5% in March (slightly above the record low), but falling to record lows in April
CoreLogic: Homeowners with Negative Equity Increased by 35,000 in Q4 2018 - From CoreLogic: CoreLogic Reports Homeowners with Negative Equity Increased by 35,000 in the Fourth Quarter of 2018 CoreLogic … today released the Home Equity Report for the fourth quarter of 2018. The report shows that U.S. homeowners with mortgages (which account for roughly 63 percent of all properties) have seen their equity increase by 8.1 percent year over year, representing a gain of nearly $678.4 billion since the fourth quarter of 2017. Additionally, the average homeowner gained $9,700 in home equity between the fourth quarter of 2017 and the fourth quarter of 2018. While home equity grew in almost every state in the nation, western states experienced the most significant annual increases. Nevada homeowners gained an average of approximately $29,400 in home equity, while Hawaii homeowners gained an average of approximately $26,900 and Idaho homeowners gained an average of $24,700. California homeowners experienced the fourth-highest growth with an average increase of approximately $19,600 in home equity. From the third quarter of 2018 to the fourth quarter of 2018, the total number of mortgaged homes in negative equity increased 1.6 percent to 2.2 million homes or 4.2 percent of all mortgaged properties. This was the first quarterly increase since the fourth quarter of 2015. Despite that quarter-over-quarter increase, on a year-over-year basis, the number of mortgaged properties in negative equity fell 14 percent, or by 351,000, from 2.6 million homes – or 4.9 percent of all mortgaged properties – in the fourth quarter of 2018. This graph from CoreLogic shows Home Equity by LTV distribution comparison between Q3 2018 and Q4 2018. On a year-over-year basis, the number of homeowners with negative equity has declined by 351,000 (from 2.6 million to 2.2 million).
Signs that the Fannie Mae delinquency rate is bottoming out mount - Fannie Mae's serious delinquency rate stood firm for the third month running, adding to evidence that it has hit a floor after dropping for most of the past year. The government-sponsored enterprise's single-family serious delinquency rate stood firm at 0.76% in January, matching its serious delinquency rate in November and December of last year, despite expectations that there would be upward pressure on delinquencies from a temporary government shutdown. In January 2018, Fannie's serious delinquency rate was 1.23%. In comparison, Freddie Mac's single-family serious delinquency rate ticked slightly up in January. Freddie's delinquency rate was 0.7% during the month, up from 0.69% in December 2018, but down from 1.07% in January of last year. Freddie's delinquency rate dropped each month last year except between September and October. It was 0.73% both months. The market has been expecting an eventual uptick in single-family delinquencies after a long-run of relatively higher rates in the past year. Higher rates historically have put strain on underwriting as lenders make more allowances for exceptions to offset declines in rate-driven refinancing. Also factors in Fannie and Freddie's overall single-family delinquency rates are poorer-performing 2005-2008 vintage loans, which run off as they age, and a long run of particularly tight underwriting in more recent years. The multifamily delinquency rate at both GSEs remains very low, but it increased slightly at Fannie in January to 0.07% from 0.06% the previous month. A year ago, Fannie's multifamily delinquency rate was 0.11%. Freddie Mac's multifamily delinquency rate was 0.01% in January. It has been at this level since April of last year.
MBA: Mortgage Applications Decreased in Latest Weekly Survey --From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey Mortgage applications decreased 2.5 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 1, 2019. The results for the week ending February 22, 2019, included an adjustment for the Washington's Birthday (Presidents’ Day) holiday. The Refinance Index decreased 2 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 3 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 11 percent compared with the previous week and was 1 percent higher than the same week one year ago.... “Slightly higher mortgages rates last week led to a decrease in application volume. Furthermore, the average loan size for purchase applications increased to a record high, led by a rise in the average size of conventional loans. This suggests that move-up and higher-end buyers have so far become a greater share of the spring market,” “Overall, conventional purchase loans are up 2.1 percent relative to last year, indicating that homebuyers continue to be inspired by the stable rate environment and the modest increase in housing supply.” ..The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($484,350 or less) increased to 4.67 percent from 4.65 percent, with points increasing to 0.44 from 0.42 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans. The first graph shows the refinance index since 1990.Rates would have to fall further for a significant increase in refinance activity. The second graph shows the MBA mortgage purchase index According to the MBA, purchase activity is up 1% year-over-year.
Home-Flipping Profits Tumbled To 7 Year Low As Mortgage Rates Spiked - This certainly doesn't bode well for US home sales. According to a survey by Attom Data Solutions year-end home flipping report, the number of homes bought and sold for a quick profit declined last year as the number of homes flipped for profit declined by 4% from 2017 as profits from housing-market speculation fell to their lowest level in seven years. By Attom's calculations, flipped homes comprised 5.6% of all home sales, which was unchanged from 2017. Attom attributed to the decline to the rise in mortgage rates, which has prompted millions of Americans to stay in their homes longer.The 207,957 homes flipped in 2018 represented 5.6 percent of all single-family home and condo sales during the year, stagnant from 5.6 percent of all sales in 2017 but up from 5.1 percent of all sales back in 2008. A total of 146,020 entities (individuals and institutions) flipped homes in 2018, down .4 percent from the 146,623 entities that flipped in 2017 but up 63.1 percent from 89,539 entities that flipped 10-years ago. Meanwhile, in a sign that millennials' inability to afford homes could be weighing on the speculative market, the share of homes flipped to FHA-loan borrows has declined to an 11-year low. Of the homes flipped in 2018, 13.8 percent were sold to FHA borrowers - likely first-time homebuyers - down from 17 percent in 2017 to an 11-year low.Among 53 metro areas analyzed in the report with at least 1 million people, those with the smallest share of completed flips sold to FHA buyers in 2018 were San Jose, California (1.3 percent); Raleigh, North Carolina (4.3 percent); San Francisco, California (6.0 percent); Memphis, Tennessee (6.5 percent); and San Diego, California (7.2 percent).Among the 53 metro areas analyzed in the report with at least 1 million people, those with the highest share of completed flips sold to all-cash buyers - often other real estate investors - in 2018 were Detroit, Michigan (48.8 percent); Birmingham, Alabama (42.4 percent); Jacksonville, Florida (39.8 percent); Miami, Florida (38.3 percent); and Buffalo, New York (38.0 percent). In another factor that might dent the ardor of potential home flippers, profits from flipped-home sales declined to the lowest level in four years.
The ‘heartbreaking’ decrease in black homeownership WaPo --In 2004, the pinnacle of homeownership in the United States, nearly half of all African American families owned a home, according to census data.The record figure, fueled by the housing boom of the early 2000s, was still one-third less than housing rates for whites. But it was widely viewed as a milestone for a minority group that spent generations largely shut out of a fundamental pillar of the American Dream.Yet, over the past decade, the real estate fortunes for African Americans have reversed course. Despite a strengthening economy, including record low unemployment and higher wages for black workers, homeownership levels for that group have dropped incrementally almost every year since 2004.It fell to 43 percent in 2017, virtually erasing all of the gains made since the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, landmark legislation outlawing housing discrimination.The decline comes even as whites, Asian Americans and Latinos slowly see gains in home-buying, according to a report by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.Nationally, 63.9 percent of Americans owned a home in 2017, the Harvard report shows. The white homeownership rate reached 72.9 percent, up from 72.2 percent a year earlier. The Hispanic homeownership rate reached 46.2 percent, up from 45.5 percent in 2016.Researchers at the Urban Institute found large disparities between the homeownership rates of black families and white families in all 100 of the cities with the largest black populations, pushing the housing gap between the two groups to its highest in more than 50 years. Although the gap between white and black homeowners in the District seems wide, the city actually has one of the smallest imbalances among U.S. cities — 71.8 percent for whites and 48.8 percent for blacks.
New Home Sales Up in December, Better Than Forecast - This morning's release of the December New Home Sales from the Census Bureau came in at 621K, up 3.7% month-over-month from a revised 599K in November.Here is the opening from the report:Data collection and processing were delayed for this indicator release due to the lapse in federal funding from December 22, 2018 through January 25, 2019. Processing and data quality were monitored throughout and response rates were consistent with normal levels.Sales of new single‐family houses in December 2018 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 621,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 3.7 percent (±16.4 percent)* above the revised November rate of 599,000, but is 2.4 percent (±21.3 percent)* below the December 2017 estimate of 636,000. An estimated 622,000 new homes were sold in 2018. This is 1.5 percent (±6.5 percent)* above the 2017 figure of 613,000.The median sales price of new houses sold in December 2018 was $318,600. The average sales price was $377,000. [Full Report] For a longer-term perspective, here is a snapshot of the data series, which is produced in conjunction with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The data since January 1963 is available in the St. Louis Fed's FRED repository here. We've included a six-month moving average to highlight the trend in this highly volatile series.
New Home Sales increased to 621,000 Annual Rate in December -- Note: This release is for December (this was delayed due to the government shutdown). The January report is scheduled for March 14th. The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 621 thousand. The previous three months were revised down significantly. "Sales of new single‐family houses in December 2018 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 621,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 3.7 percent above the revised November rate of 599,000, but is 2.4 percent below the December 2017 estimate of 636,000. An estimated 622,000 new homes were sold in 2018. This is 1.5 percent above the 2017 figure of 613,000." The first graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions since 1963. The dashed line is the current sales rate. Even with the increase in sales over the last several years, new home sales are still somewhat low historically. The second graph shows New Home Months of Supply. New Home Sales, Months of SupplyThe months of supply decreased in December to 6.6 months from 6.7 months in November. The all time record was 12.1 months of supply in January 2009. This is above the normal range (less than 6 months supply is normal). "The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 344,000. This represents a supply of 6.6 months at the current sales rate." On inventory, according to the Census Bureau: "A house is considered for sale when a permit to build has been issued in permit-issuing places or work has begun on the footings or foundation in nonpermit areas and a sales contract has not been signed nor a deposit accepted." Starting in 1973 the Census Bureau broke inventory down into three categories: Not Started, Under Construction, and Completed. The third graph shows the three categories of inventory starting in 1973. The inventory of completed homes for sale is still somewhat low, and the combined total of completed and under construction is a little low.
A few Comments on December New Home Sales - Bill Mcbride - First, this report was for December; the January report will be released on March 14th. Earlier: New Home Sales increased to 621,000 Annual Rate in December. New home sales for December were reported at 621,000 on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR). This was above the consensus forecast, however the three previous months were revised down.Even with the weakness at the end of 2018, sales increased 1.5% in 2018 compared to 2017. I expect sales to be around the same level in 2019 as in 2018 (not fall off a cliff), and my guess is we haven't seen the peak of this cycle yet.Months of inventory is now above the top of the normal range, however the number of units completed and under construction is still somewhat low. Inventory will be something to watch very closely.This graph shows new home sales for 2017 and 2018 by month (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate). Sales in December were down 2.4% year-over-year compared to December 2017. The comparison for November and December were difficult (sales in November 2017 were especially strong). And here is another update to the "distressing gap" graph that I first started posting a number of years ago to show the emerging gap caused by distressed sales. Now I'm looking for the gap to close over the next several years. Following the housing bubble and bust, the "distressing gap" appeared mostly because of distressed sales. The gap has persisted even though distressed sales are down significantly, since new home builders focused on more expensive homes. I still expect this gap to slowly close. However, this assumes that the builders will offer some smaller, less expensive homes. If not, then the gap will persist. However, this assumes that the builders will offer some smaller, less expensive homes. If not, then the gap will persist. Another way to look at this is a ratio of existing to new home sales. This ratio was fairly stable from 1994 through 2006, and then the flood of distressed sales kept the number of existing home sales elevated and depressed new home sales. In general the ratio has been trending down since the housing bust, and this ratio will probably continue to trend down over the next few years. Note: Existing home sales are counted when transactions are closed, and new home sales are counted when contracts are signed. So the timing of sales is different.
Residential construction declines in December, but looks to be bottoming --Residential construction spending lags sales, permits, and starts. But it still leads the economy overall, and it is a much smoother data series, with little noise. It is almost all signal, and so it is an important confirmation of the more leading data.In December, residential construction spending did decline vs. November and also vs. one year ago, but it was higher than September’s and October’s numbers. Let’s go to the graphs. Here’s the absolute level of residential construction spending (blue) vs. single family permits (red), first a long term look, and then focusing on the last several years. As usual, I choose single family permits because they are the least noisy of all the more leading data: That permits lead construction is easy to see. In the second graph, the declining trend in 2018 with construction following permits with a brief lag is also apparent.Here is the same data as YoY% changes since the bottom in 2009:Both series are down YoY. That neither series has made new lows in several months is encouraging. Although I think there is a little further to go in the next few months, Unless the Fed surprises nearly everybody and raises rates again, I strongly suspect that the bottoming process in new home building is ongoing.
Housing Starts Increased to 1.230 Million Annual Rate in January --From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions - Privately‐owned housing starts in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,230,000. This is 18.6 percent above the revised December estimate of 1,037,000, but is 7.8 percent below the January 2018 rate of 1,334,000. Single‐family housing starts in January were at a rate of 926,000; this is 25.1 percent above the revised December figure of 740,000. The January rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 289,000. Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,345,000. This is 1.4 percent above the revised December rate of 1,326,000, but is 1.5 percent below the January 2018 rate of 1,366,000. Single‐family authorizations in January were at a rate of 812,000; this is 2.1 percent below the revised December figure of 829,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 482,000 in January. The first graph shows single and multi-family housing starts for the last several years.Multi-family starts (red, 2+ units) decreased in January compared to December. Multi-family starts were down 32% year-over-year in January.Multi-family is volatile month-to-month, and has been mostly moving sideways the last few years. Single-family starts (blue) increased in January, and were up 5% year-over-year. The second graph shows total and single unit starts since 1968. The second graph shows the huge collapse following the housing bubble, and then eventual recovery (but still historically low).Total housing starts in January were above expectations, however starts for November and December were revised down.
Comments on January Housing Starts - Bill Mcbride - Earlier: Housing Starts Increased to 1.230 Million Annual Rate in January --Total housing starts in January were well above expectations, however starts for November and December were revised down. The housing starts report released this morning showed starts were up 18.6% in January compared to December, and starts were down 7.8% year-over-year compared to January 2018.Single family starts were up 4.5% year-over-year, however multi-family starts were down 33.6%. This first graph shows the month to month comparison for total starts between 2018 (blue) and 2019 (red).Starts were down 7.8% in January compared to January 2018. The weakness in January was in the multi-family sector that is volatile month-to-month. All things considered, this is a decent start to 2019. Below is an update to the graph comparing multi-family starts and completions. Since it usually takes over a year on average to complete a multi-family project, there is a lag between multi-family starts and completions. Completions are important because that is new supply added to the market, and starts are important because that is future new supply (units under construction is also important for employment). The blue line is for multifamily starts and the red line is for multifamily completions. The rolling 12 month total for starts (blue line) increased steadily for several years following the great recession - but turned down, and has moved sideways recently. Completions (red line) had lagged behind - however completions and starts are at about the same level now (more deliveries). As I've been noting for a few years, the significant growth in multi-family starts is behind us - multi-family starts peaked in June 2015 (at 510 thousand SAAR). The second graph shows single family starts and completions. It usually only takes about 6 months between starting a single family home and completion - so the lines are much closer. The blue line is for single family starts and the red line is for single family completions. Note the relatively low level of single family starts and completions. The "wide bottom" was what I was forecasting following the recession, and now I expect some further increases in single family starts and completions.
Update: Framing Lumber Prices Down 25% Year-over-year --Here is another monthly update on framing lumber prices. Lumber prices declined from the record highs in early 2018, and are now down about 25% year-over-year.This graph shows two measures of lumber prices: 1) Framing Lumber from Random Lengths through February 22, 2019 (via NAHB), and 2) CME framing futures. Right now Random Lengths prices are down 26% from a year ago, and CME futures are down 25% year-over-year. There is a seasonal pattern for lumber prices, and usually prices will increase in the Spring, and peak around May, and then bottom around October or November - although there is quite a bit of seasonal variability.
Construction Spending decreased in December --From the Census Bureau reported that overall construction spending decreased in December:Construction spending during December 2018 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,292.7 billion, 0.6 percent below the revised November estimate of $1,300.6 billion. The December figure is 1.6 percent above the December 2017 estimate of $1,272.6 billion.The value of construction in 2018 was $1,297.7 billion, 4.1 percent above the $1,246.0 billion spent in 2017.Both private and public spending decreased: Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $991.2 billion, 0.6 percent below the revised November estimate of $997.1 billion. ...In December, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $301.5 billion, 0.6 percent below the revised November estimate of $303.5 billion.This graph shows private residential and nonresidential construction spending, and public spending, since 1993. Note: nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted.Private residential spending had been increasing - although has declined recently - and is still 21% below the bubble peak.Non-residential spending is 10% above the previous peak in January 2008 (nominal dollars).Public construction spending is now 7% below the peak in March 2009, and 15% above the austerity low in February 2014. The second graph shows the year-over-year change in construction spending.On a year-over-year basis, private residential construction spending is down 1%. Non-residential spending is up 3% year-over-year. Public spending is up 4% year-over-year.This was below consensus expectations, however spending for October and November were revised up.
US Construction Spending Growth Tumbles To 8 Year Lows – graphs - U.S. construction spending posted the smallest annual increase since 2011 as homebuilding slowed amid higher borrowing costs and a glut of apartments in some areas. For December, spending declined 0.6% from the prior month, missing forecasts for a 0.1% gain. Bloomberg notes that the full-year figure reflected a 3.3 percent increase in private residential construction that was the smallest advance since 2011. The category had posted gains of more than 10 percent for six straight years. Within the sector, single-family building was up 5.2 percent while multifamily housing rose 0.7 percent. Other areas of weakness in construction spending for 2018 included private manufacturing, which fell 1.7 percent. On the positive side, state and local outlays jumped 7.1 percent, the most since 2007
Q4 2018 GDP Details on Residential and Commercial Real Estate --The BEA has released the underlying details for the Q4 initial GDP report. The BEA reported that investment in non-residential structures decreased at a 4.2% annual pace in Q4. Investment in petroleum and natural gas exploration increased in Q4 compared to Q3, and has increased substantially recently (although this may change with the recent decline in oil prices). Without the increase in petroleum and natural gas exploration, non-residential investment would only be up about 5% year-over-year.The first graph shows investment in offices, malls and lodging as a percent of GDP. Investment in offices increased in Q4, and is up 12% year-over-year. Investment in multimerchandise shopping structures (malls) peaked in 2007 and was down about 15% year-over-year in Q4. The vacancy rate for malls is still very high, so investment will probably stay low for some time. Lodging investment increased in Q4, and lodging investment is up 16% year-over-year. The second graph is for Residential investment components as a percent of GDP. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, RI includes new single family structures, multifamily structures, home improvement, Brokers’ commissions and other ownership transfer costs, and a few minor categories (dormitories, manufactured homes). Home improvement was the top category for five consecutive years following the housing bust ... but now investment in single family structures has been back on top for the last six years - although single family investment has been down a little recently.However - even though investment in single family structures has increased from the bottom - single family investment is still very low, and still below the bottom for previous recessions as a percent of GDP. I expect some further increase.Investment in single family structures was $278 billion (SAAR) (about 1.3% of GDP), and was down in Q4 compared to Q3.Investment in multi-family structures increased in Q4. Investment in home improvement was at a $270 billion Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) in Q4 (about 1.3% of GDP). Home improvement spending has been solid.
Hotels: Occupancy Rate Decreased Year-over-year - From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 23 February - The U.S. hotel industry reported mixed year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 17-23 February 2019, according to data from STR. In comparison with the week of 18-24 February 2018, the industry recorded the following:
• Occupancy: -1.7% to 64.7%
• Average daily rate (ADR): +1.7% to US$129.05
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): flat at US$83.43
The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average.
The Next Big Short Trade Is Back- Malls Are On The Cusp Implosion ... Again - Over the last 48 hours, several big names in the American mall industry announced they would be slashing store counts to the tune of over 300 stores. Gap said during its earnings call that it is going to shutter 230 locations over the next two years, just hours after JCPenney said that it would close 18 of its department stores. This news came after L Brands said they were going to close 53 Victoria’s Secret stores in North America this year according to Bloomberg. The icing on the cake was when "disruptor" Tesla recently announced all of its sales would be moving online, which is a nice way to say that almost all of its retail locations - many of which are located in malls - were going to close, leaving its "visionary" retail employees at their local unemployment lines. These closures follow a number of high profile bankruptcies in the "bricks and mortar" space: Payless Inc. just went bankrupt for the second time in two years, bankrupt sears was minutes away from liquidation, while perennial mall tenant Brookstone filed for chapter last August, slashing the size of their operations – and once American mall staples like Gymboree, RadioShack, Bon-Ton Shoes and Wet Seal all filed for bankruptcy over the last half decade. Payless is going to be abandoning its 2500 stores, while Things Remembered will also be closing most of its 400 stores. Overall, since 2016, 35 major retail chains, and countless smaller ones, have filed for Chapter 11. As a result of this ongoing default tsunami, malls are becoming nothing more than vacant lots, a few scattered fashion retailers, Apple Stores and food courts, primarily just feeding Apple employees. Mall owners, landlords and industry executives, having difficulty facing reality, insist that American malls are simply "evolving", as opposed to imploding.
More than 300 store closures are announced in a single day as the retail apocalypse rips through JCPenney, Gap, and Victoria's Secret - Gap, JCPenney, and Victoria's Secret announced more than 300 store closures over the course of 24 hours this week, sending a clear signal that the fallout from the retail apocalypse is far from over.Tesla also announced it would close "many" of its 378 physical dealerships in favor of online-only sales.Gap said Thursday that it would close 230 namesake stores over the next two years as it reported that the brand's same-store sales fell 7% during the holiday quarter. The company also said it would spin off its Old Navy brand.Earlier in the day, JCPenney said it would close 27 stores in 2019, including 18 full-line department stores and 9 home and furniture stores. The department-store chain said same-store sales fell 4% during the fourth quarter.Victoria's Secret's same-store sales also fell during the holidays, dropping 3% during the quarter. The company said late Wednesday that it would close 53 stores this year, citing a "decline in performance."These announcements will bring the number of planned store closures this year to nearly 4,500, not counting the unknown number of Tesla closings. "Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average," Tesla said in a blog post.
Retail Apocalypse- 465 Store Closures In 48 Hours - Following government shutdown delays, data for Dec and Jan spending and income collapsed on Friday. This was one of the most significant drops in consumer spending since the financial crash. As if the situation wasn't already dire enough, US consumers dialed back their spending in the last several months has put a sizeable dent into sales growth and foot traffic at US malls. Last month, we noted that the "Retail Apocalypse" Isn't Over: It Is Only Just Getting Started".We were right.Fox 5 NY is reporting that major chains such as Gap, JCPenney, Victoria's Secret and Foot Locker have all announced massive closures, totaling more than 465 stores in the last 48 hours. All four companies reported its fourth-quarter results last week for the holiday period, with three of them (Gap, JCPenney and Victoria's Secret) reporting a sizeable decline in same-store sales, while Foot Locker had modest growth.With somewhat decent growth, because apparently, consumers still need to walk, Foot Locker shocked investors Friday with 165 store closures across the country.That comes less than 24 hours after Gap told investors it would close 230 over the next several years after the company's same-store sales plunged 7% during the holiday quarter.If the hemorrhaging wasn't enough, JCPenney was back on the chopping block with 18 more department store closures through the second half of this year, including three from January. Bob Phibbs, CEO of New York-based consultancy the Retail Doctor, believes JCPenney will announce another round of stores closures in the second half. That builds on recent store closure announcements by Gymboree, Payless ShoeSource, Charlotte Russe and Ann Taylor, to name a few. Even Tesla last week announced it would be closing most of its US showrooms. A whopping 4,500 store closures have been announced by retailers in the first several months of this year. The number is expected to increase in the coming months, as growth prospects for the US economy are expected to be at near zero for the first quarter.
Retail Apocalypse Continues- Dollar Tree Closing Up To 390 Stores - The retail apocalypse is now in full swing. As consumers drift toward the ease of online shopping, brick and mortar stores begin to close up. Dollar Tree is the latest in a wave of companies announcing that they will be closing several hundred stores in the following months. Dollar Tree reported a $2.3 billion loss, which has propelled the company to announce store closures and renovations. Dollar Tree plans to close 390 Family Dollar stores this year while renovating 1,000 other locations. “We are confident we are taking the appropriate steps to reposition our Family Dollar brand for increasing profitability as business initiatives gain traction in the back half of fiscal 2019,” CEO Gary Philbin said in announcing the results according to CNBC.On an unadjusted basis, the company had a loss of $2.31 billion, or a loss of $9.66 a share, compared with a profit of $1.04 billion, or $4.37 a share, during the same quarter last year, which included an extra week.This news comes as the clothing retailer Charlotte Russe announced they will close all of their stores and immediately begin to liquidate their inventory. “We are partnering with the buyer and remain in talks to sell the (intellectual property), are optimistic about the future of the brand, and remain in ongoing negotiations with a buyer who has expressed interest in a continued brick and mortar presence to continue to serve our loyal customers in the future,” the fashion retailer said in a statement to USA TODAY. In a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday, Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein approved the sale of Charlotte Russe’s assets to SB360 Capital Partners LLC, a liquidation company. According to court documents, store liquidation sales “shall commence no later than March 7” and end “no later than April 3”. The San Diego-based mall chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early February and outlined plans to close 94 stores. The chain also put itself up for sale and said if it didn’t find a buyer it would liquidate. –USA Today A furious wave of retail store closures is underway. Many companies have too much debt and can no longer remain competitive with companies such as Amazon. The bankruptcy marks the latest in a series of similar cases among mall retailers that have been unable to identify any realistic sustainable path amid declining foot traffic and intense digital competition.
US “retail apocalypse” expected to exceed annual high with more than 1,100 store closures announced in one day - Within the first quarter of this year, the number of retail stores set to be closed already surpasses the total number of closures in 2018. Based on information from Coresight Research, more than 6,300 stores are already set to close in 2019. Coresight counted 5,528 closings in 2018 which included the liquidation of hundreds of Toys“R”Us locations in the US, and Kmart and Sears stores. According to Coresight’s data the record year for retail closures was 2017 with 8,139 closures, but this could be easily exceeded if the current trend continues. On Wednesday, Charlotte Russe, Family Dollar, Abercrombie & Fitch and Chico’s all announced store closings within 24 hours of each other, accounting for than more than 1,100 locations. The series of announcements came one week after JCPenney, Gap, Victoria’s Secret and Tesla announced that they would close retail locations, totaling more than 300 stores. When taking the size of retail stores into consideration, 2018 was the highest year for store closings during the retail apocalypse, with 155 million square feet of affected retail space. According to Myers, approximately 75 percent of total square footage came from Sears, Kmart, Toys“R”Us and Bon Ton. The stores with the largest number of closings planned for this year are as follows:
- • Payless ShoeSource plans the closure of all 2,589 of its stores, including 248 Canadian locations and 114 smaller stores in Shopko Hometown locations.
- • Gymboree/Crazy 8 announced a total of 729 closings.
- • Charlotte Russe’s entire chain of more than 500 stores will close by April 30, but 94 stores from an earlier wave of announcements will be closing first.
- • The American mall retailer Things Remembered will shutter 422 locations.
- • Ascena Retail will close approximately 400 stores.
- • Dollar Tree announced it will close as many as 390 Family Dollar stores and convert about 200 Family Dollar stores into Dollar Tree locations.
- • Shopko has announced 251 closures.
- • GNC will shut down 233 locations.
- • Gap is set to shutter about 230 locations over the next two years.
This process, dubbed the “retail apocalypse,” has devastated North American brick-and-mortar retail stores since 2010. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the retail industry has seen a myriad of buyouts, mergers and acquisitions as large and small retailers are forced into bankruptcy or outright liquidation by financial parasites on Wall Street. Major department stores such as JCPenney, Macy’s, Sears and Kmart, long time mainstays of the American retail market, have closed hundreds of stores, and well-known clothing brands such as J.Crew are unprofitable.
Fed's Flow of Funds: Household Net Worth decreased in Q4 -The Federal Reserve released the Q4 2018 Flow of Funds report today: Flow of Funds. According to the Fed, household net worth decreased in Q4 2018 to $104.3 trillion, from $106.9 trillion in Q3 2018: The net worth of households and nonprofits fell to $104.3 trillion during the fourth quarter of 2018. The value of directly and indirectly held corporate equities decreased $4.6 trillion and the value of real estate increased $0.3 trillion. The Fed estimated that the value of household real estate increased to $25.9 trillion in Q4. The value of household real estate is now above the bubble peak in early 2006 - but not adjusted for inflation, and this also includes new construction. The first graph shows Households and Nonprofit net worth as a percent of GDP. Household net worth, as a percent of GDP, is higher than the peak in 2006 (housing bubble), and above the stock bubble peak. This includes real estate and financial assets (stocks, bonds, pension reserves, deposits, etc) net of liabilities (mostly mortgages). Note that this does NOT include public debt obligations. Household percent equity (as measured by the Fed) collapsed when house prices fell sharply in 2007 and 2008. In Q4 2018, household percent equity (of household real estate) was at 60.0% - up from Q3, and the highest since 2002. This was because of an increase in house prices in Q4 (the Fed uses CoreLogic). Note: about 30.3% of owner occupied households had no mortgage debt as of April 2010. So the approximately 50+ million households with mortgages have far less than 60.0% equity - and about 2.2 million homeowners still have negative equity. The third graph shows household real estate assets and mortgage debt as a percent of GDP. Mortgage debt increased by $56 billion in Q4. Mortgage debt has declined by $0.36 trillion from the peak, and, as a percent of GDP is at 49.5%, down from a peak of 73.5% of GDP during the housing bubble. The value of real estate, as a percent of GDP, was unchanged in Q4, and is above the average of the last 30 years (excluding bubble). However, mortgage debt as a percent of GDP, continues to decline.
Household Net Worth Tumbles By $3.7 Trillion, First Drop In 4 Years --In the Fed's latest Flow of Funds report released at noon today, the Fed published the latest snapshot of the US "household" sector as of Dec 31, 2018. What it revealed is that with $120.4 trillion in assets and a modest $16.1 trillion in liabilities, the net worth of US households dipped to $104.3 trillion, its first drop after 12 consecutive quarters of increases, and down $3.7 trillion as a result of the near-bear market in the fourth quarter, which wiped out estimated $4 trillion in various financial assets like corporate equities, mutual and pension funds, and deposits after the market tumbled in Q4, offset by a $345 billion increase in tangible assets, of which $280 billion was in real estate values.Total household assets in Q4 dropped 3.7 trillion to $120.4 trillion, the first drop since Q3 2015, while at the same time total liabilities, i.e., household borrowings, rose by $133 billion from $15.9 trillion to $16.1 trillion, the bulk of which was $10.3 trillion in home mortgages. Homeowners’ real estate holdings minus the change in mortgage debt rose by $223 billion (a positive number means that the value of real estate is growing at a faster pace than household mortgage debt).The breakdown of the total household balance sheet as of Q4 is shown below. And here is the historical change of the US household balance sheet: it shows the first drop in household net worth in nearly four years. And since the bulk of net worth is held by a tiny fraction of US households, just like on the way up it was roughly 1% of Americans who benefited from the near doubling in net worth from $58.9 trillion after the financial crisis to $108.1 trillion as of Q3 2018 when the S&P hit an all time high, so the drop in the last quarter only truly affected a sliver of the population, since most of America's assets are held in financial market derivatives.Which once again brings up the age old problem of the US wealth divide: as the following chart from Deutsche Bank shows, the wealth inequality in the US is now as bad as it just during the Great Depression, with the top 0.1% of the US population owning as many assets as the bottom 90%.
Consumer Credit Storms Above $4 Trillion, As Credit Card Debt Hits Record High - After a few months of wild swings, in January US consumer credit normalized rising by $17 billion, in line with expectations, following December's $15.4 billion increase. The continued increase in borrowings saw total credit storm above $4 trillion, and hitting a new all time high of $4.034 trillion on the back of a America's ongoing love affair with auto and student loans, and of course credit cards. Revolving credit increased by $2.6 billion, a rebound from December's downward revised $939 million, and rising to $1.058 trillion, a new all time high in total credit card debt outstanding. There was barely a change in the monthly increase in non-revolving credit, i.e. student and auto loans, which jumped by $14.5 billion, up from the $14.4 increase in December, and bringing the nonrevolving total also to a new all time high of $2.977 trillion. And while January's rebound in credit card use may assuage some concerns about the sharp slowdown in spending in the end of 2018 and start of 2019, and the subsequent plunge in retail sales, as the household savings rate surged by the most in years, one place where there were no surprises, was in the total amount of student and auto loans: here as expected, both numbers hit fresh all time highs, with a record $1.569 trillion in student loans outstanding, an impressive increase of $10.3 billion in the quarter, while auto debt also hit a new all time high of $1.155 trillion, an increase of $9.5 billion in the quarter. In short, whether they want to or not, Americans continue to drown even deeper in debt, and enjoying every minute of it.
Deadbeat Nation- 37 Million Credit Cards Were 90 Days Past Due In 4Q18 - As those who follow our monthly consumer credit updates already knew, aggregate household debt balances jumped in 4Q18 for the 18th consecutive quarter, and were $869 billion (6.9%) above the previous peak (3Q08) of $12.68 trillion. As of late December, total household indebtedness was at a staggering $13.54 trillion, $32 billion higher than 3Q18. Overall household debt is now 21.4% above the 2Q 2013 trough, according to quarterly data from the Fed. "The increase in credit card balances is consistent with seasonal patterns but marks the first time credit card balances re-touched the 2008 nominal peak," according to the report.There are approximately 480 million credit cards in US circulation, that is 1.47 credit cards per citizen, and up more than 100 million since the 2008 financial crisis. More troubling is that according to the Fed, 37 million Americans had a 90-day delinquent strike added to their credit report last quarter, an increase of two million from the fourth quarter of 2017. These 37 million delinquent accounts held roughly $68 billion in debt.
BEA: February Vehicles Sales at 16.6 Million SAAR - The BEA released their estimate of February vehicle sales. The BEA estimated sales of 16.53 million SAAR in February 2019 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), down 0.8% from the January sales rate, and down 2.3% from February 2018. 2019 is off to a slow start for vehicle sales; averaging 16.6 million through February (average of seasonally adjusted rate). This graph shows annual light vehicle sales since 1976. .Sales for 2018 were the fourth best ever, but 2019 is off to a slow start.The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967.Note: dashed line is current estimated sales rate of 16.53 million SAAR.A small decline in sales this year isn't a concern - I think sales will move mostly sideways at near record levels.This means the economic boost from increasing auto sales is over (from the bottom in 2009, auto sales boosted growth every year through 2016).
Morgan Stanley says automakers want to sell cars like Tesla does but can't: 'It's against the law' - Tesla's announcement last week that it is moving sales fully online "is a major event in U.S. auto retailing" because traditional automakers still need to go through physical dealerships, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a note to investors on Tuesday. "From our discussions with [traditional automakers] over many years, most auto companies would love to sell vehicles the way Tesla does. There's just one catch. They can't. It's against the law," Jonas said. Jonas is widely followed on Wall Street for his thoughts on Tesla and electric vehicles. Across the U.S., state laws require carmakers to sell new vehicles through dealers. "Tesla is the only [original equipment manufacturer] to our knowledge that is allowed to sell its wares through company owned stores," Jonas said. "Tesla is now trying to take this a major step further to be the only [automaker] to sell new cars directly to consumers on-line without the involvement of a physical dealer." Morgan Stanley believes that U.S. auto dealers, through regulatory representatives, "may resist this tactic," Jonas said. But, because Tesla does not technically have any dealer franchises, and already sells without dealerships, Tesla's move online will likely also be protected, Jonas expects. If this change works, and Tesla sees the cost savings the company expects, Jonas said Elon Musk's electric-car company may be a catalyst for automakers to re-evaluate existing regulations.
Trade Deficit increased to $59.8 Billion in December --From the Department of Commerce reported: The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that the goods and services deficit was $59.8 billion in December, up $9.5 billion from $50.3 billion in November, revised.December exports were $205.1 billion, $3.9 billion less than November exports. December imports were $264.9 billion, $5.5 billion more than November imports. Exports decreased and imports increased in December.
Exports are 24% above the pre-recession peak and unchanged compared to December 2017; imports are 14% above the pre-recession peak, and up 3% compared to December 2017. In general, trade has been picking up, although exports have declined slightly recently.The second graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum. The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products. Oil imports averaged $50.27 in December, down from $57.54 in November, and down from $52.08 in December 2017.The trade deficit with China increased to $36.8 billion in December, from $30.8 billion in December 2017.
US Trade Deficit Soars To $621BN, Highest Since 2008 As Goods Deficit Hits Record -- Confirming last week's advance goods data which saw the biggest trade deficit on record in December, moments ago the BEA reported that the U.S. trade deficit soared to a 10-year high of $621 billion in 2018, jumping by $68.8 billion, or 12.5 percent in the year, and crushing Trump’s pledges to reduce it, as tax cuts boosted domestic demand for imports while the strong dollar and retaliatory tariffs weighed on exports. The data release was originally delayed a month by the partial government shutdown. January figures are due March 27. Worse, for goods only, the deficit with the world surged to a record $891.3 billion in 2018 from $807.5 billion the prior year, as merchandise deficits with Mexico and the European Union also hit records. Offsetting the record good deficit was the surplus in services which kept rising, and also hit a a record - in the other direction - rising to a $270.2 billion surplus in 2018. The reason for the massive jump in the deficit is that while exports increased $148.9 billion or 6.3% as shipments of goods including crude oil, petroleum products and aircraft engines increased. However, imports increased even more, some 7.5%, or $217.7 billion, on purchases of items from pharmaceuticals to computers, along with services such as travel. On a monthly basis, the December deficit soared from $50.3 billion to $59.8 billion, also a 10-year high and far worse than the consensus estimate of $57.9 billion. How did the deficit soar so much in one month? Simple: less exports, more imports, as exports fell 1.9% from the prior month, the biggest decline since early 2016, to $205.1 billion, on lower shipments of civilian aircraft, petroleum products and corn.
- December exports were $205.1 billion, $3.9 billion less than November exports. December imports were $264.9 billion, $5.5 billion more than November imports.
- As a result, the December increase in the goods and services deficit reflected an increase in the goods deficit of $9.0 billion to $81.5 billion and a decrease in the services surplus of $0.5 billion to $21.8 billion.
Also worth noting: the December goods deficit hit an all time high. Ironically, the biggest culprit was China, as the deficit with Beijing - the target of Trump’s trade war - hit a record $419.2 billion in 2018, following the previously noted plunge in Chinese imports from the US. Ironically, as Bloomberg notes, while Trump has repeatedly cited the deficit as evidence of the failure of his predecessors’ trade policies, the gap has surged by $119 billion during his two years as president. Even if he completes an accord to end the tariff war with China, substantially shrinking the deficit may prove tough as cooling global growth weighs on exports while domestic demand keeps driving shipments from abroad. Some more records:
- The December goods deficit ($80.4 billion) was the highest on record.
- The December non-petroleum deficit ($79.1 billion) was the highest on record.
- December exports of foods, feeds, and beverages ($9.6 billion) were the lowest since 2010 ($9.3 billion).
- December imports of foods, feeds, and beverages ($12.6 billion) were the highest on record.
- December imports of automotive vehicles, parts, and engines ($32.1 billion) were the highest on record.
- December non-petroleum imports ($200.2 billion) were the highest on record.
2018: A Banner Year for China, Other US Trade Partners, and Corporate America -- Exports increase economic activity as measured by GDP; and imports do the opposite, they reduce GDP though they tend to increase corporate profits — or else why would Corporate America run its supply chains around the world? So a trade deficit is a net negative for the economy. And this is what we got today from theCommerce Department:
- US trade deficit in goods jumped by 10.4%, or by $84 billion to $891 billion, after having jumped 7.5% in 2017 (to $552 billion). Worst trade deficit in goods ever.
- US trade surplus in services improved by 5.9% or by $15 billion, to $270 billion, edging out the prior record of 2015.
- US trade deficit in goods and services jumped 12.4%, or by $69 billion, to $621.0 billion, after it had already jumped by 10% in 2017. The worst trade deficit in goods and services since 2008.
Exports of goods and services rose by $149 billion to $2.5 trillion, as imports surged by $218 billion to $3.12 trillion. The chart shows the annual trade deficit in goods and services (red columns) versus the deficit in goods only (black line):Exports of goods increased by $118 billion in 2018, to $1.67 trillion. One third of this increase was the $39-billion increase in exports of crude oil and petroleum products.Imports of goods rose by $202 billion to $2.56 trillion. A special word about “pharmaceutical preparations,” the legal kind: imports surged 21% to $134 billion. This is now the largest sub-category of Consumer Goods – because more and more of your prescription drugs are made in other countries. In 2016, pharma products blew past cellphones, currently the second largest category, stagnating at around $108 billion. Below are the 14 countries with which the US has the largest trade deficits in goods (services not included). I put China and Hong Kong together since a lot of merchandise is transshipped and/or invoiced via Hong Kong. I included the EU (purple bar) for memo purposes, though it is not a country and though some member states are also included in the chart:
Growing U.S. trade deficit points to suppressed inflation: Kemp - (Reuters) - The United States ran a trade deficit on goods and services of $621 billion in 2018, up more than 12 percent compared with the previous year, but still below the record $761 billion set back in 2006. Deteriorating performance on other merchandise is being partly offset by a shrinking deficit on petroleum and a growing surplus in services such as finance, insurance, intellectual property, research and travel. The country's surplus on services such rose to $270 billion, from $255 billion in 2017, and just $76 billion back in 2006, according to government data published on Wednesday. But the deficit on goods hit a record $891 billion, up from $807 in 2017, and easily exceeding the previous peak of $828 billion in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The steadily worsening merchandise deficit is a sign domestic demand is outstripping the economy's productive potential, with excess demand leaking abroad through a widening trade gap and a higher exchange rate. The deteriorating external position is being masked somewhat by the shale revolution and the associated surge in domestic oil and gas production, which has slashed the bill for petroleum imports. The petroleum deficit was just $53 billion last year, down from a peak of $386 billion in 2008 and $271 billion in 2006 ("U.S. international trade in goods and services", Census Bureau, March 6). But the deficit on other merchandise surged to a record $825 billion, up from $557 billion in 2006 (https://tmsnrt.rs/2UjeY5b).
AAR: February Rail Carloads down 2.7% YoY, Intermodal Down 0.9% YoY -From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Rail Time Indicators. On the surface, rail traffic in February 2019 wasn’t very good. Total carloads were down 2.7% over February 2018, just the second monthly decline in the past year; 12 of the 20 carload categories were down, the most since January 2018; and intermodal was down 0.9%, its first decline in two years. But, like last month, weather likely played a significant but impossible-to-measure-precisely role in February — e.g., higher than normal rain and snow in California, with mudslides and track washouts thrown in for good measure; high winds, extreme cold, and record snowfalls in the Upper Great Plains; and so on. Winter always brings problems for railroads, but it seems this year was worse than last year in many areas.This graph from the Rail Time Indicators report shows U.S. average weekly rail carloads (NSA). Red is 2019. Rail carloads have been weak over the last decade due to the decline in coal shipments.U.S. railroads originated 999,978 total carloads in February 2019, down 2.7%, or 28,238 carloads, from February 2018. Total carloads averaged 249,995 per week in February 2019. Since 1988, when our data begin, the only February with a lower weekly average was 2016. Total carloads were down in three of the four weeks in February. The second graph is for intermodal traffic (using intermodal or shipping containers):U.S. railroads also originated 1.09 million intermodal containers and trailers in February 2019, down 0.9%, or 9,513 units, from February 2018. (Intermodal is not included in carloads.) It was the first yearover- year monthly decline for intermodal since January 2017. Like carloads, intermodal was surely affected by the weather, but non-weather factors might have played a role as well — e.g., imports that came ashore earlier to beat potential higher tariffs. Also, it’s not like intermodal fell off a cliff in February 2019: weekly average intermodal volume was 273,625 units, the second most ever for February (behind February 2018).Traffic will pick up in March, and there might be some bounce back from the poor weather.
Trucking Boom U-Turns - Orders for Class-8 trucks – made by Daimler, Paccar, Navistar International, and Volvo Group – plunged 58% in February compared to February last year, to 16,700 orders, according to FTR Transportation Intelligence after they’d already plunged 58% year-over-year in January and 43% in December.The orders in January and February were back in the range of the “transportation recession” that had hit the industry in 2015 and 2016. At the time, truck and engine manufacturers reacted with layoffs. But for now, they’re sitting on a massive backlog from the boom in orders last year (data via FTR): The business is infamously cyclical, with regular booms that lead to over-ordering and then overcapacity, followed by busts that then sort it all out again. The industry is also seasonal, so we can use year-over-year comparisons to eliminate most of the effects of seasonality.The chart below shows the percent change of Class-8 truck orders for each month compared to the same month a year earlier. The year-over-year plunges over the past three months are of the same magnitude as the plunges during the last transportation recession (data via FTR):“The weaker orders mean that backlogs will tumble for the second straight month, but they remain at historically high levels,” FTR says. These backlogs will keep plants running at capacity until mid-2019, and some truck makers “are booked solid for 2019 with limited sales slots open for the remainder of the year,” according to FTR.So truck makers are going to stay busy for a while, and fleets are getting their trucks, and trucking capacity is expanding and will continue to expand, even as orders get slashed. This rising capacity finally provides some relief to shippers, such as retailers or industrial companies that need to ship their products to their customers. The transportation recession – as tough as it was on truckers, railroads, and truck and component makers – was nirvana for shippers: lower freight rates and no bottlenecks. But in 2018, they’d been complaining about soaring freight rates and shipping delays, and any loosening of those shipping conditions is a godsend to them. Now, shippers are getting a break as the trucking sector is cooling off, according to FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index. The index, which gauges the temperature of the freight market — including trucking, rail, and intermodal — from the shippers’ point of view, combines freight demand, freight rates, fleet capacity, and fuel price into an index value.
ISM Non-Manufacturing Index increased to 59.7% in February -- The February ISM Non-manufacturing index was at 59.7%, up from 56.7% in January. The employment index decreased in February to 55.2%, from 57.8%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 contraction. From the Institute for Supply Management: February 2019 Non-Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® “The NMI® registered 59.7 percent, which is 3 percentage points higher than the January reading of 56.7 percent. This represents continued growth in the non-manufacturing sector, at a faster rate. The Non-Manufacturing Business Activity Index increased to 64.7 percent, 5 percentage points higher than the January reading of 59.7 percent, reflecting growth for the 115th consecutive month, at a faster rate in February. The New Orders Index registered 65.2 percent, 7.5 percentage points higher than the reading of 57.7 percent in January. The Employment Index decreased 2.6 percentage points in February to 55.2 percent from the January reading of 57.8 percent. The Prices Index decreased 5 percentage points from the January reading of 59.4 percent to 54.4 percent, indicating that prices increased in February for the 21st consecutive month. According to the NMI®, all 18 non-manufacturing industries reported growth. The non-manufacturing sector’s growth rate rebounded in February after cooling off in January. Respondents are concerned about the uncertainty of tariffs, capacity constraints and employment resources; however, they remain mostly optimistic about overall business conditions and the economy.” This graph shows the ISM non-manufacturing index (started in January 2008) and the ISM non-manufacturing employment diffusion index. This suggests faster expansion in February than in January.
February Markit Manufacturing Accelerates - The February US Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 56.0, up 1.8 from the 54.2 final January figure. Markit's Manufacturing PMI is a diffusion index: A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector; below 50 indicates contraction. Here is an excerpt from Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit in their latest press release:“The US PMI surveys tell a tale of two economies in February, with any slowdown story confined to the goods-producing sector. While manufacturing struggled, with the surveys consistent with a nearstalling of factory output and order books, the service sector remained encouragingly resilient, enjoying its strongest burst of activity for seven months." [Press Release] Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012.
February services index strong; new home sales in line with bottoming scenario --Just a quick note on this morning’s economic data.First, new home sales improved in December from October and November’s relatively dismal pace (blue in the graph below). We are back to the levels of last summer, but still down from one year ago (including as the more stable, less noisy 3-month rolling average)(red shows prices, which have been moving in tandem with sales during this expansion): This is of a piece with yesterday’s December permits and starts data. Both metrics are down, but look likely to bottom within a few months in response to lower long term interest rates.Second, the ISM services, or non-manufacturing, index came in at a very good 59.7. Here is that metric for this expansion (via Briefing.com): As you can see, this metric is doing very well. ISM doesn’t let FRED publish their data any more, but fortunately there are long-term graphs since the beginning of the series 20 years ago that are still around. Here’s one from 5 years ago, comparing services with manufacturing: The important thing here is that, unlike the manufacturing index, which is a leading indicator, services are a coincident, and possibly even lagging indicator (look at 2008). If and when ISM services slips to 50, that will probably mean that a recession is imminent or has already started. But no worries for the moment!
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decreased to 223,000 The DOL reported: In the week ending March 2, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 223,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 225,000 to 226,000. The 4-week moving average was 226,250, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 229,000 to 229,250. The previous week was revised up. The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.
ADP: Private Employment increased 183,000 in February - From ADP:Private sector employment increased by 183,000 jobs from January to February according to the February ADP National Employment Report®. ... The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis....“We saw a modest slowdown in job growth this month,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Midsized companies have been the strongest performer for the past year. There was a sharp decline in small business growth as these firms continue to struggle with offering competitive wages and benefits.” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “The economy has throttled back and so too has job growth. The job slowdown is clearest in the retail and travel industries, and at smaller companies. Job gains are still strong, but they have likely seen their high watermark for this expansion.”This was close to the consensus forecast for 180,000 private sector jobs added in the ADP report. The BLS report for January will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 178,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in February.
First Look at February: ADP Says 183K New Nonfarm Private Jobs --The economic mover and shaker this week is Friday's employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This monthly report contains a wealth of data for economists, the most publicized being the month-over-month change in Total Nonfarm Employment (the PAYEMS series in the FRED repository). TToday we have the ADP February estimate of 183K new nonfarm private employment jobs, a decrease over the ADP revised January figure of 300K. he 183K estimate came in below the Investing.com consensus of 189K for the ADP number. he Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 170K new nonfarm private jobs and the unemployment rate to drop to 3.9%. Their forecast for the February full nonfarm new jobs is (the PAYEMS number) 180K.Here is an excerpt from today's ADP report press release:“We saw a modest slowdown in job growth this month,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Midsized companies have been the strongest performer for the past year. There was a sharp decline in small business growth as these firms continue to struggle with offering competitive wages and benefits.”Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “The economy has throttled back and so too has job growth. The job slowdown is clearest in the retail and travel industries, and at smaller companies. Job gains are still strong, but they have likely seen their high watermark for this expansion.” ere is a visualization of the two series over the previous twelve months.
A Closer Look at Today's ADP Employment Report --In this morning's ADP employment report we got the February estimate of 183K new nonfarm private employment jobs from ADP, a decrease over January's revised 300K. The popular spin on this indicator is as a preview to the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the ADP report includes a wealth of information that's worth exploring in more detail.Here is a snapshot of the monthly change in the ADP headline number since the company's earliest published data in April 2002. This is quite a volatile series, so we've plotted the monthly data points as dots along with a six-month moving average, which gives us a clearer sense of the trend. As we see in the chart above, the trend peaked 20 months before the last recession and went negative around the time that the NBER subsequently declared as the recession start. At present, the six-month moving average has been hovering in a relatively narrow range around 200K new jobs since around the middle of 2011. ADP also gives us a breakdown of Total Nonfarm Private Employment into two categories: Goods Producing and Services. Here is the same chart style illustrating the two. The US is predominantly a services economy, so it comes as no surprise that Services employment has shown stronger jobs growth. The trend in Goods Producing jobs went negative over a year before the last recession. Interestingly, the Goods Producing jobs saw an uptick in late 2016 that has continued.For a sense of the relative size of Services over Goods Producing employment, the next chart shows the percentage of Services Jobs across the entire series. The latest data point is below the record high. There are a number of factors behind this trend. In addition to our increasing dependence of Services, Goods Production employment continues to be impacted by automation and offshoring. For a better sense of the components of the two Goods Producing and Service Providing cohorts, here is a snapshot of the five select industries tracked by ADP. The two things to note here are the relative sizes of the industries and the relative trends. Note that Construction and Manufacturing are Production industries whereas the other three are Service Providing.
February Employment Report: 20,000 Jobs Added, 3.8% Unemployment Rate - From the BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in February (+20,000), and the unemployment rate declined to 3.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment in professional and business services, health care, and wholesale trade continued to trend up, while construction employment decreased...The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised up from +222,000 to +227,000, and the change for January was revised up from +304,000 to +311,000. With these revisions, employment gains in December and January combined were 12,000 more than previously reported....In February, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 11 cents to $27.66, following a 2-cent gain in January. Over the year, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.4 percent. The first graph shows the monthly change in payroll jobs, ex-Census (meaning the impact of the decennial Census temporary hires and layoffs is removed - mostly in 2010 - to show the underlying payroll changes). Total payrolls increased by 20 thousand in February (private payrolls increased 25 thousand). Payrolls for December and January were revised up 12 thousand combined. Year-over-year change employmentThis graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968. In February the year-over-year change was 2.509 million jobs. The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate. The Labor Force Participation Rate was unchanged in February to 63.2%. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force. A large portion of the recent decline in the participation rate is due to demographics and long term trends. The Employment-Population ratio was increased to 60.7% (black line). The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate decreased in February to 3.8%. (Unwinding the bump up from the government shutdown). This was well below the consensus expectations of 178,000 jobs added, however December and January were up by 12,000 combined. A weak report.
February jobs report: the first sign of the economic slowdown spreading to jobs? HEADLINES:
- +20,000 jobs added
- U3 unemployment rate -0.2% from 4.0% to 3.8%
- U6 underemployment rate -0.8% from 8.1% to 7.3% (NEW 20 YEAR LOW)
- Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: down -32,000 from 5.254 million to 5.222 million
- Part time for economic reasons: down -837,000 from 5.147 million to 4.510 million
- Employment/population ratio ages 25-54: unchanged at 79.9%
- Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose $.08 from $23.10 to $23.18, up +3.5% YoY. (Note: you may be reading different information about wages elsewhere. They are citing average wages for all private workers. I use wages for nonsupervisory personnel, to come closer to the situation for ordinary workers.)
- the average manufacturing workweek fell -0.1 hours from 40.8 to 40.7 hours. This is one of the 10 components of the LEI.
- Manufacturing jobs rose +4,000. YoY manufacturing is up 242,000.
- construction jobs declined -31,000. YoY construction jobs are up 373,000.
- temporary jobs rose +5800. YoY these are up +67,000.
- the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less fell by -131,000 from 2,325,000 to 2,194,000. The post-recession low was set nine months ago at 2,034,000.
- Manufacturing jobs rose an average of +12,000/month in the past year vs. the last seven years of Obama’s presidency in which an average of +10,300 manufacturing jobs were added each month.
- Coal mining jobs increased by 100 for an average of +160/month vs. the last seven years of Obama’s presidency in which an average of -300 jobs were lost each mont
- December was revised upward by +5,000. January was also revised upward by +7,000, for a net change of +12,000.
- Overtime was unchanged at 3.5 hours.
- Professional and business employment (generally higher-paying jobs) rose by +42,000 and is up +537,000 YoY.
- the index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers fell by -0.6%
- the index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers fell by -0.3%
SUMMARY: There are two themes to this report. The first is that it reversed both last month’s establishment and household reports. Last month the first was excellent and the second was poor. This month the establishment survey laid an egg, as featured in the headline number, while the household survey rose smartly, as featured in involuntary part time work, discouraged workers, and both the unemployment and underemployment rates. Positive news also included another good increase in non-supervisory wages. But this month’s report actually went beyond taking back January’s report. The YoY change in construction, manufacturing, and total jobs for the last two months combined are all lower than they were in December. So we both aggregate hours worked and aggregate payrolls. The manufacturing workweek declined for the second month in a row. It’s also worth noting that the YoY increase in the household report is significantly lagging the establishment report. In summation, I suspect this month marked the first month in which the economic slowdown showed up in the jobs report.
February Payrolls Shocker- Hiring Plunges To 20K As Wage Growth Soars - Just as we warned moments ago when we cautioned that the whisper number is for a sharply lower print than the expected 180K print, moments ago the BLS confirmed that in February the US labor market hit a brick wall, or perhaps a blizzard, when it added just 20K jobs in February... ... the lowest monthly gain in more than a year and far below all estimates, although revisions to the prior two month actually added another 12K jobs, with the January 304K print revised higher to 311K and Dec also revised higher from 222K to 227K. As we noted earlier, at least one bank (Goldman) was expecting a drag of at least 40k from above-average snowfall during the February survey week. So the question is how much of the February print is accurate, and how much is weather/government shutdown related. Indeed, as the BLS notes, a whopping 390K people were not employed in February due to bad weather, roughly 80K more than the February average. What is surprising is that while the Establishment Survey was a big miss, the Household Survey actually saw a big drop in the number of unemployed workers, which tumbled by 300K to 6.235MM. Additionally, non-employment among the key worker demographic, those Americans aged 35 to 44, plunged in February to the lowest level in 12 years. Another major surprise: while the jobless rate fell modestly to 3.8% from 4.0, the broader U-6 measure of unemployment plunged to 7.3% from 8.1%, the biggest monthly drop on record, after jumping last month.The labor force participation rate remained flat at 63.2, while that for the key 25-54 age group continues to hover near post-recession highs, as the number of people not in the labor force increased from 95.01 million to 95.21 million even as the total civilian labor force declined from 163.229MM to 163.184MM. Going through the report showed that Manufacturing payroll growth slumped to 4,000 (est. 12,000), though the prior month was revised up to 21,000 from 13,000; but the big surprise was construction jobs, which plunged by 31,000. At the same time, Leisure and hospitality showed no growth while education and health services barely grew. Meanwhile, employees on temporary layoff fell to 820,000, a level in line with prior months, from 937,000 as effects of the government shutdown waned. Countering the plunge in payrolls was continued strength in average hourly earnings topped both monthly and annual estimates with a 0.4% rise from January and 3.4% from a year earlier, the fastest pace of the economic expansion. The not so good news: most of the growth was due to a sharp drop in weekly hours worked, which declined from 34.5 to 34.4. As a result, average weekly earnings actually dropped in February.
Jobs report, Feb 2019: Outliers happen, and faster real wage growth! - Jared Bernstein - Payrolls rose a mere 20K last month, a huge downside outlier given the recent trends as shown below in our monthly smoother. The average over the past 3-months of 186K is a much more reliable take on the current underlying pace of job growth. Consider, for example, that payroll jobs were up 311K last month, a value well above trend. So, at least for now, consider this downside miss payback for last month’s huge upside. Of course, the 20K could be harbinger of a downshifting in the pace of payroll job growth. Such a downshift–though not of that magnitude–is not unexpected given a number of facts: job growth slows as we close in on full capacity in the labor market; US GDP is slowing as fiscal stimulus fades (the tax cuts were a sugar high; not a trickle-down miracle); global growth has slowed; the trade deficit–a drag on growth–has increased in recent quarters. But one month does not a new trend make and it is too soon to tell whether a new trend is underway. The survey of households, from which the jobless rate is derived, is telling a different story, one more consistent with the trend conditions in the job market (some of these results are bounceback from January’s gov’t shutdown). The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.8 percent and not because people left the labor market (the participation rate was unchanged) but because the unemployed got jobs (employment rose 255,000 in this survey). There was a large, shutdown-related reversal in involuntary part-time work; unemployment for high-school dropouts hit a near-all-time low of 5.3 percent (it was 5 percent last July), suggesting robust labor demand in the low-wage labor market (a key theme of my work in this area is the extent to which persistently tight labor markets help the least advantaged); and the broader underemployment measure (U-6) also fell to a cyclical low of 7.3 percent. The figures show annual changes in nominal hourly wages for all private-sector workers and for the 80 percent who are production, non-supervisors (think “middle-wage workers”), with 6-month moving averages. The story here is that after being stuck at 2.5 percent for a patch around 2017, the tighter job market began to deliver more bargaining power to wage earners, and firms have had to bid wages up, such that hourly pay is now rising about a point faster than it was back then. Because topline inflation has been held back by low energy prices, the next figure shows a beneficent collision between faster nominal pay and slower price growth, the difference being real earnings growth. I estimate that the CPI for February rose 1.6 percent. If I’m right, real hourly pay for middle-wage workers is up almost 2 percent, a solid pace for real wages that will boost the buying power of working households.
Where The Jobs Were In February- Who's Hiring And Who Isn't - After January's blockbuster jobs report, which was revised further upward from 304K to 311K, February was the payback month with US payrolls rising by a tiny 20,000, one of the slowest months in the past decade, badly missing consensus expectations of 180K, with the miss largely blamed on wintry weather and the government shutdown.Winter weather aside, the February report was a bloodbath, with roughly half of occupations posting either flat job growth or shrinking, with the biggest shocker coming from the construction sector, where 31K jobs were lost, the biggest monthly drop since 2011. Other key sectors also disappointed:
- Manufacturing payroll growth slumped to 4,000 (est. 12,000), though the prior month was revised up to 21,000 from 13,000;
- Leisure and hospitality showed no growth while education and health services barely grew.
- Professional and business services, the silver lining in today's report, continued to trend up (+42,000), while temp-help jobs rose by 5,888.
- Health care added 21,000 jobs in February while employment in ambulatory health care services edged up over the month (+16,000).
- Wholesale trade added +11,000 jobs.
- As noted above, construction jobs declined by 31,000 in February, partially offsetting an increase of 53,000 in January. Employment declined in heavy and civil engineering construction (-13,000).
- Manufacturing employment changed little in February (+4,000),
- Employment in leisure and hospitality was unchanged, after posting job gains of 89,000 and 65,000 in January and December, respectively.
Comments on February Employment Report --The headline jobs number at 20 thousand for February was well below consensus expectations of 20 thousand, however the previous two months were revised up 12 thousand, combined. The unemployment rate decreased to 3.8%, due to government employees on furlough being counted as employed in the February household survey. Overall this was a weak report, but it followed a strong January report, so there was probably some payback (the weather was good in January, and bad in February). Earlier: February Employment Report: 20,000 Jobs Added, 3.8% Unemployment Rate In February, the year-over-year employment change was 2.509 million jobs. That is solid year-over-year growth. Wage growth was at expectations in January. From the BLS: "In February, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 11 cents to $27.66, following a 2-cent gain in January. Over the year, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.4 percent." This graph is based on “Average Hourly Earnings” from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) (aka "Establishment") monthly employment report. Note: There are also two quarterly sources for earnings data: 1) “Hourly Compensation,” from the BLS’s Productivity and Costs; and 2) the Employment Cost Index which includes wage/salary and benefit compensation. The graph shows the nominal year-over-year change in "Average Hourly Earnings" for all private employees. Nominal wage growth was at 3.4% YoY in January. Wage growth has generally been trending up. Since the overall participation rate has declined due to cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old. In the earlier period the participation rate for this group was trending up as women joined the labor force. Since the early '90s, the participation rate moved more sideways, with a downward drift starting around '00 - and with ups and downs related to the business cycle. The 25 to 54 participation rate decreased in February to 82.5%, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio was unchanged at 79.9%. From the BLS report: "The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) decreased by 837,000 to 4.3 million in February. This decline follows a sharp increase in January that may have resulted from the partial federal government shutdown." The number of persons working part time for economic reasons has been generally trending down. The number increased sharply in January, probably as a result of the government shutdown, and decreased sharply in February - to the lowest level since 2007. These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that decreased sharply to 7.3% in February. This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more. According to the BLS, there are 1.271 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This was up slightly from 1.252 million in January. Summary: The headline jobs number was well below expectations, however the previous two months were revised up slightly. The headline unemployment rate decreased to 3.8% due to unwinding from the government shutdown. This was a weak jobs report - but it is probably mostly payback from the strong January report (and could be weather related). Some positives include the decline in the employment rate (expected following end of government shutdown), increase in wages, and decline in people working part time for economic reasons.
Why I’m Not in Panic Yet About the Lousy “20,000 Jobs Created” - Wolf Richter - The Labor Department reported this morning, as part of its nonfarm payroll data trove, that only 20,000 jobs had been created in February. This was a shitty number. About 100,000 new jobs are required on average per month to absorb the growth in the labor force. But here is the problem I have with this number: Unless there is a sudden catastrophic event, hiring trends don’t go from awesome to shitty in just one month. January was “awesome” with 311,000 jobs created on a seasonally adjusted basis, while February was “shitty” with only 20,000 created. This happens occasionally, these large month-to-month variations in an overall unchanged trend. It could be factors such as hurricanes, or government shutdowns, or just statistical quirks. What you get is a shitty month sandwiched between two good months. The last two times this happened:
- Sept 2017: +18,000 jobs, between Aug +187,000 and Oct + 260,000
- May 2015: +15,000 jobs, between Apr + 211,000 and Jun + 282,000.
The chart shows just how noisy even the seasonally adjusted data for month-to-month job creation is, but with longer term trends clearly visible, such as when things went to heck from 2007 through the Great Recession.The job market is heavily impacted by seasonality. This includes the plunge in jobs every January as retailers shed seasonal employees. Every January, around 3 million jobs are lost from December. This is visible in the “not-seasonally-adjusted” data. Here are the past four Januaries, not seasonally adjusted:After the big and expected job losses every January on a not-seasonally adjusted basis, there is a big bounce every February, with around 1 million jobs created. This February was at the low end of this range, as was February 2016:Since these seasonal changes are known and largely predictable, seasonal adjustments attempt to iron them out. The chart below shows the same data depicted in the above chart of month-to-month changes in jobs, but on a “not-seasonally-adjusted” basis. In this chart, there is so much seasonal variation (noise) that it is hard to see even huge trends, such as the millions of jobs lost during the Great Recession. For example, in January 2009, 3.69 million jobs were shed, instead of the normal range of just under 3 million. That made a difference of 690,000 more jobs lost than normally in January (the Labor Department reported that on a seasonally adjusted basis, 783,000 jobs were lost that month). The data trove of the jobs report is obtained from two types of surveys: one survey that goes to households (“Household Data”), and the other that goes to businesses (“Establishment Data”).I have been compelled to participate in both types, as representative of our household and as representative of my WOLF STREET media mogul global empire. These are huge surveys. If I remember right, the household survey said that it went to over 100,000 households. And when you as company representative or as household get the notice that you have been randomly selected to participate in this survey, it comes with clear language telling you that you’re compelled to participate. This keeps the statistically important random selection intact.
Production to cease at Ohio GM plant operating for more than 50 years -- Car production will cease Wednesday at General Motor's Lordstown, Ohio, plant after more than 50 years of operation.GM announced in November that four U.S. plants, including the one in Lordstown, would be closed at some point in 2019.The Cruze, a compact car made in Lordstown since 2011, will no longer be a built, but the plant will continue producing fenders and other replacement parts through most of March.GM spokesman Dan Flores told The Associated Press that the plant will remain in a “state of readiness,” as the company is expected to make a final decision on the closure after contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW) this summer.UAW sued GM last month to keep the four plants open, arguing that their contract forbids the auto-manufacturer from shuttering the plants. A spokesperson for GM told The Hill that the plant closures “do not violate the provisions of the UAW-GM National Agreement.”GM's initial announcement to end production at the four American plants drew bipartisan backlash.“We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies, including… for electric cars,” President Trump tweeted at the time, adding that he was “very disappointed.” He also said that the company "is not going to be treated well" after the layoffs.“This decision is corporate greed at its worst,” Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) added in a statement.About 400 of the 1,400 people no longer working at the Lordstown plant will transfer to other GM locations.GM told CNN Business that an additional 350 Lordstown workers are eligible for retirement.
Beige Book Shocker- Semiconductor Orders From China Plunged The Most Since The Collapse Of Lehman - While the latest Beige Book released earlier today carried the usual boring mix of self-serving observations by Fed officials ("slight to moderate" growth in a quarter in which the Atlanta Fed sees GDP plunging to 0.5%) and a handful of enlightening anecdotes, all of which confirmed that the US economy was rapidly slowing as expected with the word "strong" appearing 37 times, compared to 58x in the January and 83x in October while the word "weak-" rose to 34x, up from 13x seven weeks ago and 19x in October, there was one stunner contained in today's release which may spell serious pain for stocks. According to analysis by DRAMeXchange, PC DRAM contract prices will be down a whopping 30% in the first quarter, and since inventory levels are still high, there is little hope of a reversal anytime soon. The Q1 price drop would be the worst since 2011, while a shortage of low-end CPUs is exacerbating the problem, eliminating an avenue for demand growth. "The overall market has thus entered freefall, meaning that large reductions in prices aren't going to be effective in driving sales," Which brings us back to today's beige book, and one specific disclosure which suggests that the broader semiconductor space - by many seen as a leading indicator for China's economy - is about to implode. This is what the Beige Book said about the labor market in the context of the semi sector: A semiconductor manufacturer facing big declines in demand from China put a hiring freeze in place, but they were reluctant to institute layoffs since it takes three to six months to train new workers.
Southwest Airlines sues airline mechanics over alleged slowdown -- Southwest Airlines announced a lawsuit last Thursday against its airline mechanics’ union over what management claimed was an illegal work slowdown last month which grounded dozens of aircraft. The 2,700 Southwest Airline mechanics legally represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) have been working without a new contract for over six years. Last month, the low-cost carrier declared an “operational emergency” after being forced to ground as many as 62 planes in a single day, almost 10 percent of its fleet and almost double what the airline says it can absorb without while operating a normal schedule. The groundings led to hundreds of delayed or canceled flights nationwide. Southwest immediately blamed the outages on an “unlawful, concerted action” by mechanics, and sent a letter to the AMFA demanding that it restrain its members. The alleged “work slowdown” was in fact a significant increase in the number of mechanical and safety issues reported by mechanics during maintenance, causing a larger than usual number of planes to be grounded. Southwest claims, without offering evidence, that most of these issues were trivial or cosmetic, such as missing seat numbers in the main cabin. The airline later claimed to have identified 100 mechanics in several locations who were responsible for the alleged slowdown. The mechanics could be subject to termination or even legal action because of reactionary, pro-corporate laws which prohibit strikes in the airline industry in most circumstances.
Whole Foods cuts workers' hours after Amazon introduces minimum wage - Whole Foods employees saw their wages increase when parent company Amazon enacted a $15 minimum wage, but hours have slipped. Photograph: Rogelio V. Solis/AP In response to public pressure and increasing scrutiny over the pay of its warehouse workers, Amazon enacted a $15 minimum wage for all its employees on 1 November, including workers at grocery chain Whole Foods, which it purchased in 2017. All Whole Foods employees paid less than $15 an hour saw their wages increase to at least that, while all other team members received a $1 an hour wage increase and team leaders received a $2 an hour increase. But since the wage increase, Whole Food employees have told the Guardian that they have experienced widespread cuts that have reduced schedule shifts across many stores, often negating wage gains for employees. “My hours went from 30 to 20 a week,” said one Whole Foods employee in Illinois. Workers interviewed for this story were reluctant to speak on the record for fear of retaliation. The Illinois-based worker explained that once the $15 minimum wage was enacted, part-time employee hours at their store were cut from an average of 30 to 21 hours a week, and full-time employees saw average hours reduced from 37.5 hours to 34.5 hours. The worker provided schedules from 1 November to the end of January 2019, showing hours for workers in their department significantly decreased as the department’s percentage of the entire store labor budget stayed relatively the same. “We just have to work faster to meet the same goals in less time,” the worker said.
L.A. settles pivotal homeless rights case, limiting the city’s ability to clear streets of property and camps - The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday agreed to settle a pivotal and contentious case on the property rights of homeless people — a decision that is likely to limit the seizure and destruction of encampments on skid row.The 10-2 vote authorizes City Attorney Mike Feuer to settle a 2016 lawsuit, Carl Mitchell v. Los Angeles, brought by civil rights lawyers on behalf of homeless people and two skid row anti-poverty groups. Downtown business groups had opposed such a deal, arguing that settling the case would deter redevelopment, and leave skid row and the people who live on its sidewalks mired in squalor. The city has wrestled with the property rights issue for years, losing or settling a string of civil rights lawsuits related to cleaning up tent encampments downtownIn 2016, L.A. adopted an ordinance limiting homeless people’s belongings to what would fit in a 60-gallon bag, and requiring the city to give 24-hour notice of cleanups and store confiscated items where they can be readily reclaimed.But after civil rights lawyers filed the lawsuit that same year, alleging that the city used street cleanups and arrests for minor “quality of life” offenses as pretexts to dismantle their camps and destroy their property, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero in Los Angeles issued an injunction. It barred the city from seizing and destroying homeless people’s property on skid row unless officials could show it had been abandoned, threatened public health or safety, or consisted of contraband or evidence of a crime. Developers and business representatives had lobbied the City Council to take the judge’s injunction to trial instead of preserving many of its requirements in a settlement. They argue the injunction has hampered police enforcement on skid row and fostered disorder and disease, including a typhus outbreak.
NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Slammed for 'Groveling at the Feet' of Billionaire Bezos in Effort to Revive Amazon HQ2 - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was accused of "groveling at the feet" of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday following reports that Cuomo has been pleading directly with the billionaire to revive plans for the HQ2 site in Long Island City. "The governor has had multiple phone conversations with Amazon executives, including Mr. Bezos, over the past two weeks," the New York Times reported, citing two people with knowledge of the discussions. "In those calls, Mr. Cuomo said he would navigate the company through the byzantine governmental process."News of Cuomo's behind-the-scenes talks with Amazon comes just over two weeks after the company decided to cancel plans to build a second headquarters in New York—a project for which it would have received more than $3 billion in taxpayer subsidies.The Amazon deal was strongly opposed by local progressive advocacy groups, major unions, and a number of New York politicians, who argued that the proposed HQ2 would contribute to already soaring housing prices and staggering income inequality in the state.Despite widespread grassroots opposition to the deal, Cuomo plans to "take over the process and can comfortably assure Amazon the approval will get done," Dani Lever, the governor's communications director, told the Times. In a statement responding to Cuomo's efforts to lure Amazon back to Long Island City, Deborah Axt—co-executive director of the community advocacy group Make the Road New York—said the governor needs to stop trying to flatter the world's richest man and "start listening to our communities, who overwhelmingly reject this deal."
Amazon Working Moms Confront Bezos To Demand Free Childcare - A group of more than 1,800 working mothers at Amazon are waging a campaign to convince CEO Jeff Bezos to provide backup daycare for parents dealing with flu outbreaks, school closures and other emergencies, according to Bloomberg. The self-styled "Momazonians" have been collecting anecdotal evidence to make their case that a lack of daycare options force women to choose between their child and their career - derailing the professional momentum of talented women who might otherwise be promoted to more senior jobs, according to an email reviewed by Bloomberg. Among the accounts: an Amazon.com Inc. manager tired of seeing colleagues quit because they can’t find childcare in one of the country’s fastest-growing cities and a recruiter frustrated when top talent leaves for companies that offer working parents more support. -BloombergThe "Momazonians" are slated to meet with Amazon senior management in the coming weeks to ask that the company provide backup daycare for instances where regular childcare arrangements fall through. They will also ask that Amazon's Human Resources department start collecting data about employees' daycare challenges via interviews with both incoming and departing employees in order to "eliminate the management blind spot and prevent such problems from festering any longer." "Everyone wants to act really tough and pretend they don’t have human needs," says former Amazon employee of 12 years, Kristi Coulter. "You don’t want to be the one to step forward and say ‘I’m a mom with kids and I may not be as single-mindedly devoted to my career as everyone else.’ They're all trying to assimilate to this male-dominated culture."
There’s nothing radical about Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for universal childcare -The right-wing punditry machine has gone into full spin cycle as Democratic presidential candidates throw their hats into the ring, ready to brand any initiative that might ameliorate the lot of working families as radical or, worse in American political parlance, “socialist.”That has certainly been the case with Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for universal child care. But there’s nothing radical or socialist about her plan, which represents a sensible, evidence-based, practical, and much-needed strategy that tackles several critical national crises in one neat package. And it doesn’t even take money away from the GOP’s sacred cows of military spending and border security.What crises do Warren’s proposal address? Let’s review:First, and perhaps foremost, the majority of American families currently struggle to get their young children into child care that is decent, let alone of high quality. And for a substantial subgroup in the bottom quintile of the wage distribution, “struggle” is an understatement. For example, a 2015 EPI study showed that a single parent with one child who worked full-time for the minimum wage would not be able to sustain a modest but adequate lifestyle due to the high cost of child care. Warren’s plan, which would make high-quality care free for families living at up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line and institute a sliding scale above that, with no family paying more than seven percent of their income, would do away entirely with that problem. Families that currently must choose among rent, food, and keeping their toddlers safe can now have all three, and middle-class families can invest in other child development activities and resources. Sounds a lot better than a wall already.
Utah teacher facing discipline for making Catholic student remove Ash Wednesday mark - An elementary school teacher in Utah is facing disciplinary action after forcing a student to remove the cross mark on his forehead commemorating Ash Wednesday. William McLeod, a fourth-grader at Valley View Elementary in Bountiful, Utah, said he was confronted by a teacher on Wednesday, Fox 13 News reported. McLeod said he tried to explain to his teacher the significance of the cross made of ashes on his forehead, marking the first day of Lent for his fellow Catholics. “She took me aside and she said, ‘You have to take it off,’” William described. “She gave me a disinfection wipe — whatever they are called — and she made me wipe it off." The Davis School District apologized for the incident and said it is conducting an investigation. The teacher, who remind unnamed, could face disciplinary action, according to the news outlet. “Why that even came up, I have no idea,” said Chris Williams a spokesperson for the district. “When a student comes in to school with ashes on their forehead, it’s not something we say 'Please take off.'" McLeod’s grandmother, Karen Fisher, told Fox 13 that she spoke with the teacher over the phone. “I asked her if she read the Constitution with the First Amendment, and she said, no,” Fisher said.
New Jersey High School Bans Limos, Party Buses, & Luxury Cars From Prom To Promote "Equity" - What better way to put the fun back into prom night than banning limos, party buses or luxury vehicles? At least, this was the thought process of one New Jersey high school, which has implemented a new policy to ban such vehicles on prom night as way to deal with social inequality. How, exactly, does that work? We have no idea.According to a report on NJ 101.5, Lakeland Regional High School superintendent Hugh E. Beattie claimed that the new policy is about safety and "equity". He doesn't want students who can't afford a "snazzy ride" to feel left out. Calling it a "group decision made by the Administrative Team", he says the only way to now arrive at the school's prom - being held at the Rockleigh Country Club - is to take a chaperoned school bus at a cost of $15 per person. That should really ramp up the enjoyment factor of the 45 minute ride students will have to endure on prom night, when it comes around on June 4.
Teen who vaccinated himself says anti-vaxx Mom gets misinformation from Facebook - A teenager who made headlines after defying his anti-vaxx mother testified in front of Congress on Tuesday, saying his mother's misinformation stemmed from social media. Ethan Lindenberger, a teenager from Norwalk, Ohio, traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak at a health, education, labor and pension committee hearing Tuesday on a panel alongside health experts including John Wiesman, Washington state's secretary of health. He said as he approached high school and questioned why he wasn't vaccinated, his mother often met him with misinformation she found online and in social media groups – never trusting health officials. He recalled showing his mother articles from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and her replying with skepticism. "That’s what they want you to think," she would tell him, Lindenberger said Tuesday. In a question-and-answer portion of the hearing, Lindenberger named Facebook as one of the sites his mother used often to wrongly suggest vaccines could cause harm. He also said she has posted videos with fake news on the site. He said it's with "respect and love" he disagrees with his mother. Learning to research and debate in high school, Lindenberger, 18, said he learned “there always seems to be two sides to a discussion. … This is not true for the vaccine debate.”
Charter School Cap Efforts Gain Momentum - From California to Wisconsin, efforts to stop charter school growth are gaining momentum. In the April 2019 mayoral election in Chicago, both candidates say they want to halt charter school expansion. Financial issues lie at the core of these efforts. Schools were hit particularly hard by the 2008 recession. Many states cut education funding. As a scholar of school finance, I would argue that charter school expansion is making this bad situation worse. In my home state of Pennsylvania, schools watched US$1 billion disappear when former Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, both cut state funding and refused to replace federal stimulus funding. A similar pattern unfolded across the country. In 2015, 29 states were still providing less money per pupil than before the recession began. In most states, state aid is designed to assist districts with high needs and low wealth. As a result, high-poverty districts were hurt the most by state cuts. School finance scholars often consider school funding systems fair when they give additional funds to districts with the greatest needs. In a majority of states funding fairness declined in the five years after the Great Recession. A number of politicians, such as Education Secretary Betsy Devos, reformers, and pundits claim that education spending does not impact student learning. They are wrong. Over and over, rigorous research has shown that money matters and that increases in funding for low-income students have a positive impact on outcomes. No matter how we define those outcomes – from scores on standardized tests to the probability a student will experience poverty as an adult – the results are consistent. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed. A number of studies have shown that charter school growth hurts the finances of nearby public school districts. Recent studies from New York and North Carolina have found that charter expansion negatively impacts local districts’ finances above and beyond simply losing per pupil revenue because of declining enrollments.
Teachers in Oakland approve contract ending strike (AP) — Oakland teachers will be back in their classrooms Monday after union members voted to approve a contract deal with district officials. The Oakland Education Association voted in favor of the deal on Sunday after postponing the vote for a day. The agreement must also be ratified by the Oakland Unified School District. “We look forward to being in our classrooms again after having to strike to bring our Oakland students some of the resources and supports they should have had in the first place,” union president Keith Brown said in a statement. The agreement was reached after 3,000 teachers went on strike Feb. 21, prompting seven days of marathon negotiations for higher pay, smaller classes and more school resources. The strike effectively cleared out the city’s 86 schools. Oakland teachers were the latest educators in the U.S. to strike over pay and classroom conditions. The union announced Friday that the teachers won everything they demanded. “This victory, accomplished through our collective strength on the picket lines with Oakland parents and students, sends the message that educators will no longer let this school district starve our neighborhood schools of resources,” Brown said. The deal includes an 11 percent salary increase and a one-time 3 percent bonus.
Amid widespread opposition, union declares end to Oakland teachers strike - On Sunday night, the Oakland Education Association (OEA) declared an end to the seven-day strike by 3,000 teachers after claiming that its sellout deal with the school board had been ratified. The announcement came after a mass membership meeting in the afternoon where the union bargaining committee was repeatedly booed and hundreds of teachers denounced the deal, which includes a de facto cut in real wages, does nothing about overcrowded classes or chronic understaffing, particularly of nurses. Most damningly, the deal gives the district and the powerful school privatization forces behind it a green light to impose deep budget cuts, close up to a third of the district’s schools and expand for-profit charter schools. The OEA claimed that teachers had ratified the deal by a 58–42 percent margin with 70 percent of the membership voting. The result was met with deep suspicion from teachers because of the underhanded and undemocratic fashion in which the OEA counted the ballots. During the meeting, the election committee suddenly announced that the union had not reserved the theater for a sufficient amount of time to count the ballots in front of the membership. Instead, they said they were taking ballots to the OEA headquarters where they would be counted in a room that rank-and-file teachers would be barred from.
Oakland students oppose sellout of teachers strike, plan to continue fight to defend public education --The International Youth and Students for Social Equality calls on students throughout Oakland and beyond to hold meetings to discuss the way forward to defend public education. Contact the IYSSE to invite a representative to talk at your school or join at iysse.com.There is growing anger among students and teachers in Oakland, California over the shutdown of the seven-day Oakland teachers strike by the Oakland Education Association (OEA). The union pushed through an agreement over widespread opposition that meets none of the teachers’ demands and paves the way for an escalation of the assault on public education in the city.The deal secures a measly 11 percent pay raise over four years, which does not even keep up with Bay Area inflation. It contains no changes to nurse-student ratios and a negligible reduction in class sizes. Furthermore, the deal was premised on $22 million in cuts by the school board in a rotten quid pro quo that attempts to pit teachers against the students they serve. Students are continuing to organize and prepare a fight back against this attack on public education. The World Socialist Web Site Teacher Newsletter and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, the youth and student wing of the Socialist Equality Party, spoke to students in the aftermath of the sellout about the political lessons from the experience and the way forward.
Kentucky teachers’ sickout closes state’s largest district --Louisville, Kentucky area teachers carried out a “sickout” action Wednesday, March 6, affecting more than 100,000 students and forcing a closure of the state’s largest school district. The mass action, organized by a new group calling itself “JCPS Leads,” forced Jefferson County Public Schools to cancel school for the second time in the space of a week. Overflow crowds, dressed in red, have continued to jam hearings at the state legislature in Frankfort to oppose a raft of anti-public education bills. On February 28, schools were also closed in Jefferson, Fayette, Carter, Madison, and Berea Counties after teachers called out sick en masse to protest HB 525, which would change oversight of the teacher retirement system. Yesterday’s powerful “sickout” was predictably attacked by Republican Governor Matt Bevin who maligned it as “a handful of activists” interested in money and power. But, increasingly worried that the growing anger of teachers is moving outside their control, the local affiliate of the Kentucky Education Association echoed such slanders, calling the sickouts “disruptive” and “undermining” community support. The Jefferson County Teachers Association’s (JCTA) statements prompted a firestorm of outrage among teachers. Commenting on Facebook, one teacher said, “Wow JCTA. Way to immediately throw the teachers you represent under the bus. Every parent response I was reading last night was in FULL support of teachers. We finally get them on our side and you throw us to the wolves. Shame on you.” On Tuesday, HB 205, characterized as a back-door “school choice” vouchers bill, was discussed in committee. The bill would provide scholarship tax credits for private schools and siphon off per-pupil funding for districts. It is in line with a February 28 initiative announced by US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to establish a $5 billion federal tax credit system in order to dramatically increase “school choice” at the expense of public education.
Jefferson County, Kentucky teachers continue sickouts in defiance of unions -- A week after Kentucky teachers conducted a job action to protest legislation attacking pensions and public schools, teachers in the state’s largest school district in the Louisville area have staged two days of sickouts in defiance of the unions. On Thursday, Jefferson County Public School teachers were joined by school workers in Meade, Oldham, and Bullitt counties, resulting in the closure of hundreds of schools. The Louisville-area teacher actions are organized by a new group calling itself “JCPS Leads.” The organization is independent of the Kentucky Education Association (KEA), the Jefferson County Teacher Association (JCTA) and the union-affiliated KY 120 United group that was behind the February 28 rally at the capitol in Frankfort. Teachers have returned to the capitol one year after the wave of strikes and actions that swept across the country in 2018 and have continued to expand in the US and internationally. Kentucky teachers did not conduct an official strike last year to oppose attacks on cost-of-living increases and retirement benefits, but the same issues have now resurfaced at a higher level. Teachers carried signs demanding, “Fund our schools” and chanted slogans like, “We won’t stop.” Currently the state’s Republican-controlled General Assembly is attempting to push through multiple anti-public school initiatives endorsed by US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council lobbying organization. These forces aim to privatize public education through vouchers, charter schools, and the funneling of tax money into homeschooling, private and religious operations.The sickouts this week are most directly in response to Kentucky House Bill 205, which provides a tax break for individuals or businesses who “donate” money towards state “scholarships,” which would be paid to parents to send their children to private schools. The aim is to divert tax revenue from public schools into tax credits to subsidize private schools. In addition to draining more money from the private schools this would also hive off more students from the public schools, resulting in a further loss of per-pupil funding. HB 205 passed the House Education Committee but may stall in the general House. If so, the tax credits contained in the bill may be reintroduced through the back door in another bill, HB 354, after the General Assembly’s regular session ends March 28.
Denver schools ax jobs in wake of contract pushed through by union - Dozens of educators and other critical support staff are being laid off by the Denver Public Schools (DPS), in the wake of the approval of a sell-out contract agreed to by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA). The layoffs target educational technology teams, literacy support staff, and math specialists who work with high-need students, among others. The DPS reports it will save upwards of $17 million in labor costs with these cuts.In their first strike in over 25 years, Denver teachers walked out February 11-13 over low pay, underfunding of the schools, and the “incentive-based” compensation system known as ProComp. Seventy-five percent of the district’s educators—20 percentage points more than initially reported by DPS—walked out, with the widespread support of parents and students.After just three days on the picket line, the DCTA sent teachers back to work with about two hours’ notice, claiming that it had won a major victory. This follows the pattern throughout the past year, as the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, to which the DCTA is affiliated, have isolated and smothered every teachers’ strike precisely when new struggles threatened to break out. West Virginia teachers walked out February 19, followed by Oakland teachers February 21. Far from being, as claimed by the DCTA, a “win, plain and simple,” the new agreement secures minimal pay increases for teachers while sacrificing the wages and promotion opportunities of school psychologists, nurses, speech pathologists, and others classified as School Service Providers (SSPs). The entire deal is predicated upon the extension of ProComp. It was worked out in a secret bargaining session organized with the specific purpose of doing an end-run around a law requiring such negotiations to be public.
Atlanta School Board prepares a fresh assault on public education - Last Monday, in a much-anticipated meeting, the Atlanta School Board gave its approval to a deceptively named plan entitled “Vision of Excellent Schools.” Couched behind the sanguine name is a plan to close or merge “non-performing” schools and funnel public funds to charter schools under private management. Even before the new measure, the city has the most charter schools of any Georgia school district. The threat to once again seize on low test scores, the inevitable result of increasing poverty and budget cuts, as pretexts to take the hatchet to the city’s public school system is serious. For at least a decade, education in the state of Georgia has been systematically starved of resources. Statistics reported yesterday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities show per-student funding in the state down by a catastrophic 15 percent since 2008, while teacher pay has fallen by 8.2 percent.The Atlanta school board split 5 to 3 on the plan, an indication of its nervousness given the widespread opposition of parents and students who are already reeling from school closings and mergers over the past decade. Atlanta Public Schools has been subjected to a long destabilization campaign, which has escalated since 2014 under the autocratic and pro-privatization agenda of school superintendent Meria Carstarphen who motivated the plan for “excellence.” During her tenure, Carstarphen has ignored strident opposition from students, teachers, and parents, and aggressively closed schools and created overcrowded schools. A major advocate of charter schools, she has handed over public schools to the national charter chain KIPP [Knowledge Is Power Program] and local charter chains Kindezi Schools and Purpose Built Schools. She has even closed schools rated as “successful” and forced highly experienced teachers to reapply for their jobs. Indicative of the scorched-earth policy being directed against educators, last year Carstarphen announced that Atlanta’s Perkerson Elementary would be “reconstituted” because of low test scores, meaning that staff would be forced to reapply for their jobs. She warned would-be applicants that “they will have to make the case and show that they can make a difference with those students under the programming that we’re offering.”
Why are New York’s bookstores disappearing? - Like payphones, typewriter repair shops and middle-class housing, bookstores are a vanishing presence in New York City. In 1950, Manhattan had 386 bookstores, according to Gothamist; by 2015, the number was down to 106. Now, according to a count by the city’s best-known bookstore, the Strand, there are fewer than 80. Book Row, a stretch of Fourth Avenue between Union Square and Astor Place that once housed almost 50 used and antiquarian bookstores, now claims just one: Alabaster Bookshop at Fourth Avenue and 12th Street. (Plus the Strand, which relocated a block away in 1957.) In literary New York, the closing of another bookstore elicits a sense of crisis – and sometimes emergency measures. In January, after the Drama Book Shop, a pillar of the city’s theatre community, announced it could no longer afford its rent, Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the play Hamilton, stepped in to purchase the shop along with three of his Hamilton collaborators. This was Miranda’s second intervention; in 2016 he led a crowdfunding campaign to support the store after a pipe burst and destroyed part of its inventory. The shop is currently closed while Miranda and his business partners seek a new, less expensive location. Westsider Books, another stalwart of New York’s independent bookstores, also announced in January that it would likely close when its lease expired. In response, loyal customers flooded the shop with orders, and someone organised a crowdfunding campaign that has raised more than $50,000 (£38,600). The Strand, the city’s largest independent bookstore, owns its building, which insulates it from some of the economic pressures faced by its peers. But when a city commission recently proposed landmarking the 11-storey Renaissance Revival building, it was cause for panic, not celebration. Owner Nancy Bass Wyden is lobbying against the proposal because she says it will make maintenance costs prohibitively expensive.
A book about the bizarre QAnon theory — which claims Democrats eat babies — is now an Amazon best-seller and being boosted by the site's algorithms - A new book promoting a bizarre pro-Trump conspiracy theory alleging that Democrats murder children and the government engineers diseases has soared up the Amazon's sales charts, NBC News reported Monday."QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" is listed as the number one bestseller on the site under the Censorship and Politics category, beating back classics including Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," William Golding's "Lord of the Flies," and Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," which lie in second, third, and fourth place respectively.As of early Tuesday, the book is also listed at number 44 in Amazon's overall bestseller chart, and at number 20 in the Politics and Social Sciences list. Sales of the book have also propelled it to number 12 in the list of hot new releases, which is generated algorithmically and pushed to shoppers browsing the site.
"I Called For Diversity Of Thought... My Peers Compared Me To A Neo-Nazi" - Diana Soriano -As I took part in a recent student leadership board meeting for the Department of Political Science at Boston University, a group that works to advise faculty on ways to improve, I offered some advice: the department could use more intellectual diversity.I suggested more debates in the classroom, as opposed to what I had witnessed in my three years at the school, that being an assumption during class that everyone agrees.I broached my idea after I had sat and respectfully listened to the ideas of others for an hour, but my peers, and a professor and an administrator in the room, were not about to return the favor. One student chided me that “debate” was too aggressive of a word, that I should use “discussion” instead. Another student, a College Democrat in the room, then compared me to a well-known peer from Boston University who is often regarded as a neo-Nazi and who went to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, noting “he has sat here in these seats asking for intellectual diversity as well.”I felt shocked and insulted. I waited to see if either the professor or administrator or any of the other students in the room would defend me. None did. One student suggested conservatives shouldn’t major in political science at Boston University, as they’d have a hard time. The room erupted in laughter.I wish I could say I was surprised. But after years of experiencing liberal bias, both at Boston University as well as Lehigh University, where I attended before I transferred, it felt like just another day on campus. To that end, there are plenty of anecdotes I could supply. Here are just a few:
Trump To Require Colleges To Support Free Speech If They Want Federal Funds - President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that he will sign an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech in order to receive federal funding. "Today I'm proud to announce that I will be personally signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research dollars," Trump said while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, D.C. The president made the announcement moments after inviting Leadership Institute Field Representative Hayden Williams on stage. Williams, an employee of Campus Reform's parent organization, was punched in the face on February 19 at the University of California-Berkeley while helping a conservative campus group recruit new members. "If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they've got to allow people like Hayden and many other young people and old people to speak. And if they don't it will be very costly."
How Automated Tools Discriminate Against Black Language - The rudeness filter is what stood out to me the most — not necessarily because it performed worse than the other filters, but because of whose posts were being filtered out. When I set my feed to show me posts that Gobo deemed “less rude,” I noticed that many of the posts from women of color disappeared. Posts that were filtered out and marked as “very rude” included ones like these: This post contains an expletive, and though it wasn’t used in an actively disparaging way, it’s possible to see how it might be considered “rude.” However, even actively affirming posts were being filtered out, like this one:Yes, it also contains an expletive, but the content here is overwhelmingly positive. But what if we took expletives out of the picture? Here’s another post that was marked as “very rude”: Even affirming posts that don’t contain expletives were also being filtered out.Ruby Pineda and Tee Terei’s tweets contain examples of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also referred to as African American English, Black Vernacular English, or Black English. Jae Nichelle from the Black Youth Project describes AAVE as “a dialect of English or its own language resulting from a combination of English words and Niger-Congo rooted grammar. AAVE has its own words, syntax, and rules. More importantly, it is part of a rich Black culture.” In Pineda’s post, “queen” is word in AAVE that is commonly used to celebrate women. In Terei’s post, AAVE is used to refer to achieving financial success (“in yo bag”) and encouraging a female friend to keep it up (“betta do it sis”). Both posts were labeled as “very rude.”
The Harvard MBA Is Bad for You - They should put a Surgeon General's warning on this thing. We need to abolish the Harvard M.B.A degree for the good of the people who pursue that path, as well as the world at large. I’m saying this based on my reading of Charles Duhigg’s recounting of the 15-year reunion of his Harvard Business School graduating class, published in the New York Times. What he found was a group of people who are “miserable.” “I heard about one fellow alum who had run a large hedge fund until being sued by investors (who also happened to be the fund manager’s relatives). Another person had risen to a senior role inside one of the nation’s most prestigious companies before being savagely pushed out by corporate politics. Another had learned in the maternity ward that her firm was being stolen by a conniving partner.” Divorce, disconnections from their children, a sense that no matter how much they made it wasn’t enough, the despair was pervasive. Duhigg believes the main problem is that these people simply believe their work doesn’t matter. In his book, “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory,” David Graeber shares a survey in which 37% of working adults in Great Britain said their job makes no meaningful contribution to the world. Needless to say, these people are unhappy in their work.
Thousands Of Medical Professionals Are Losing Their Licenses For Not Paying Their Student Debt - Some 1,000 healthcare workers have lost their licenses to practice in Florida due to their inability to pay off their student debt, a new report claims. The "crackdown", as described, could potentially put hundreds of people out of work, and comes as a result of student loan companies lobbying states to enact laws that punish those who default on their loans by taking away their professional licenses. However, so far Florida is the only state actually enforcing the law. Adam Walser, an investigative reporter for ABC, found that the state Board of Health had suspended more than 900 healthcare licenses, including those belonging to registered nurses, nurses assistants and pharmacists, over the last two years. There are additionally 12 other states that still have the power to take away healthcare licenses for unpaid student loans. However, officials in those states said that they haven’t suspended any licenses over the last two years. States like Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota and New Jersey have already repealed laws that have allowed for license suspensions over unpaid student loans. Attorney Christie Arkovich, based out of Tampa, says that the laws go too far. “We’re not saying that people shouldn’t repay their loan. We’re just saying that getting them fired probably isn’t the best way to go about that,” she commented, although she did not provide a suitable enforcement alternative. Following suit, Dr. Gabriel Picone, an economics professor at University of South Florida, said that suspending licenses for nonpayment of student loans puts a strain on both employers and patients: "it’s trying to take too much away. This person may end up on Medicaid, receive food stamps. All this is more money that we will have to pay.”The state has the ability to garnish up to 100% of wages before a license can be reinstated, according to the report. And for those that have had their license suspended? The only way to reinstate it is by paying the state's investigative costs and an additional 10% penalty on the balance owed. Of course, the poetic irony is that this is the government "solution" that was created by the government, or rather the Fed, in the first place.
US police aim gun at black student as he picks up litter from his front garden - Police in Colorado, Boulder, have launched an internal investigation after a video emerged of a group of white officers confronting a black man who was picking up litter on his own property. In the video, the man is surrounded by white police officers – some of whom have their weapons drawn. The 16-minute-clip was uploaded to YouTube and quickly found its way to social networking websites, as people shared the clip as an example of what they say is insitutionalised police racism. “You’re on my property with a gun in your hand,” he is heard saying to one of the Boulder police officers, who has his gun unclipped from its holster and drawn. “Threatening to shoot me because I’m picking up trash.” Boulder police told ABC that the confrontation occurred at 8:30am. According to a statement by police officials: A Boulder police officer observed a man sitting in a partially enclosed patio area directly behind a 'Private Property' sign and initiated contact with the man to determine if he was allowed to be on the property. The man, whose identity is unknown, had shown his school identification to police to determine if he lived there and, when he was detained for further investigation, he became angry. It was at this point his neighbour began recording. He had been holding a bucket and a metal tool used to pick up trash. In the video the police officer with his gun drawn referred to it as a weapon, and when the man refused to put it down, called for back-up. Seven police officers reportedly showed up after he told them the man was: ...being uncooperative and unwilling to put down a blunt object.
New Senate Bill Would Legalize Marijuana Nationwide and Erase Possession Charges — A group of Democrats are hoping that they can roll back the war on drugs with a new federal marijuana legalization bill. Dubbed the Marijuana Justice Act of 2019, the bill would see marijuana finally removed from the federal list of controlled substances, legalizing the plant on a nationwide level and removing a range of obstacles from vendors and purveyors across the United States. The bill would also expunge the criminal records of anyone who had been charged with possession while also calling for anyone currently incarcerated for the offense to petition for an immediate re-sentencing. Those convicted under prohibition laws would also be provided job training and resources under the act. The bill was introduced by New Jersey Democratic senator and presidential hopeful Cory Booker and Democratic California Representatives Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna. Booker’s presidential competitors Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Elizabeth Warren have also co-sponsored the bill.
Trump Administration Weighs Publicizing Rates Hospitals Negotiate With Insurers The Trump administration is sounding out the medical industry on requiring hospitals, doctors and other health-care providers to publicly disclose the secretly negotiated prices they charge insurance companies for services, a move that would expose for the first time the actual cost of care. Mandating public disclosure of the rates would upend a longstanding industry practice and put more decision-making power in the hands of patients.
Hundreds of hospitals punished for lax safety. Here’s how to see if yours is one - Medicare is cutting payments to 800 hospitals around the country for having relatively high rates of infections and injuries among their patients, according to an analysis by Kaiser Health News. That’s the highest number of penalties in the five years that the federal government has handed them out. Penalized hospitals will see a one-percent cut to payments for Medicare patients discharged between October 2018 and September 2019. The penalties are the result of an annual assessment set up by the 2014 Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program, which was created under the Affordable Care Act. The program ranks all hospitals based on their rates of specific infections and in-hospital injuries. From there, Medicare penalizes the bottom quarter or subsection—the threshold varies from year to year based on the data. So far, 800 is the highest number penalized, seconded by 769 two years ago. The infection rates that the program looks at are those linked to urinary tract catheters, colon surgeries, hysterectomies, plus blood infections from central lines. The program also tallies infections from the dreaded Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile, which causes intractable and sometimes life-threatening diarrhea. The injuries assessed include bedsores, in-hospital falls that cause hip fractures, wounds that burst open after surgery, blood clots, and kidney injuries after surgery. The hospital industry has balked at the penalties, arguing that the cut-off for being in the penalized subsection is arbitrary and the rates are calculated unfairly, favoring smaller hospitals that are less rigorous in testing for infections. Proponents are dismissive of the concerns, arguing that pitting hospitals against each other can boost overall quality of care. Additionally, there are clear strategies for hospitals to avoid injuries and infections.
Martin Shkreli Is Running His Company From Prison Using A Contraband Cellphone --Don't call it a comeback, because even though he's 16 months in to a seven-year federal prison sentence, Martin Shkreli has never stopped running Phoenixus - the re-branded iteration of Shkreli's Turing Pharmaceuticals - at least not according to the Wall Street Journal. Wielding a contraband cellphone, Shkreli has been calling the shots at the company, quashing boardroom rebellions and even almost firing a CEO.Though he might be forced to sell some of his stake in Turing to pay court mandated restitution, as of now, Shkreli remains Phoenixus's largest shareholder. And he's made the company the focus of his long-term plan to emerge from incarceration even wealthier than he started.In a long-winded profile of Shkreli sourced from interviews with Phoenixus investors, employees and friends and acquaintances of Shkreli (Dix refused to grant WSJ's interview request), the paper explored how Shkreli has managed to maintain an online presence, run his company, and continue the research that informs his investment decisions. As with all things related to Shkreli since he first surfaced in the public's awareness in late 2015, the federal government is investigating. The FBI has reportedly interviewed several Shkreli associates about his role at the company. Though investors and analysts would beg to differ, Shkreli reportedly believes that his company will be worth some $4.3 billion by the time he gets out of prison in 2023.
Whooping Cough Outbreak at Exclusive Harvard-Westlake School: 30 Out of 30 Students Were Vaccinated - An exclusive private school has been hit with dozens cases of whooping cough, which has sickened a large number of teenagers across Los Angeles County.Health officials say they are monitoring three large clusters of highly contagious whooping cough among 11- to 18-year-olds. The county Department of Health issued a health alert to pediatricians and other health care providers about the uptick in whooping cough last week.Harvard-Westlake, which has campuses in Studio City and Beverly Crest, was hit particularly hard, with 30 students coming down with whooping cough since November, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Of about 1,600 students attend Harvard-Westlake, where tuition is close to $40,000 a year, only 18 opted out of vaccinations for medical reasons. None of the 30 students who contracted whooping cough were not vaccinated.
Why measles is so deadly and vaccination so important -- The first telltale sign someone has measles is a widespread itchy red rash. The spots are initially visible behind the ears, or on the neck or head. Three days before visible signs appear, the virus has peaked in the body. The infected person is contagious, usually without even knowing it. For a reliable diagnosis, patients suspected of having the virus need to have the antibodies in their blood tested. The measles virus is transmitted directly through the air in the form of very fine droplets of saliva or mucus — usually from coughing or sneezing. But they can also be passed on simply when speaking to someone in close proximity. Measles is highly contagious. Each contagious person infects around 15 healthy people. Humans are the only natural hosts of the measles virus. About 14 days after the initial infection, patients get a fever and start coughing. At that point, the red rash starts to itch. To alleviate these symptoms, doctors usually administer medication. Patients may also get a middle ear infection, pneumonia or have severe diarrhea. In the worst case, diarrhea can lead to dehydration and ultimately death. There is no specialized treatment for measles. The body has to fight the infection itself. Measles can cause meningitis, which can lead to severe brain damage and mental disability. According to Germany's main public health body, the Robert Koch Institute, measles encephalitis occurs in one in every 1,000 infections. One in five of these cases is fatal. Such complications do not necessarily occur during the original bout of the disease; they can occur years later. Many parents refuse to vaccinate their children because they fear serious side effects. Some assume it is better for their children to be infected with the virus so their bodies can build up anti-bodies. For a while, measles parties were popular. Parents would send healthy children to play with other children who had the virus in the hope they too might become infected. Parents who did this were often convinced that exposure to the virus strengthened their child's defenses if and when they got measles. False claims and beliefs contribute to vaccination fatigue. The myth that there is a connection between the measles vaccination and autism is just that — a myth — and one doctors have debunked many times over.
Mapping Where Measles Is Spreading The Fastest - Figures released by UNICEF today have drawn attention to the current "alarming global surge of measles cases". Statista's Martin Armstrong notes that, according to the report, 98 countries recorded an increase in cases from 2017 to 2018, with 74 percent of the total rise accounted for by just ten countries. As our infographic shows, the largest share of the surge happened in Ukraine, where an additional 30,338 cases were reported compared to 2017 which had 4,782 cases of the easily preventable but potentially deadly disease. Commenting on the latest figures, Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s Executive Director said: "This is a wake up call. We have a safe, effective and inexpensive vaccine against a highly contagious disease – a vaccine that has saved almost a million lives every year over the last two decades". According to the Ukrainian government, there have been 24,042 new cases in the country in 2019 so far already. In what UNICEF says is the worst-hit region of the country, Lviv in western Ukraine, negative attitudes toward immunization and previous shortages in vaccine supply, have resulted in low vaccination rates. The Ministry of Health, supported by UNICEF, launched an immunization drive at schools and clinics in the region.
Why Measles Is a Quintessential Political Issue of Our Time - Between January 1st and February 21st, a hundred and fifty-nine cases of measles were diagnosed in ten states—more cases than there were in all of 2017. Measles is highly contagious and potentially deadly. It’s also entirely preventable through vaccination. Testifying at the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing were Anthony S. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One after another, subcommittee members asked Messonnier and Fauci if measles was dangerous and vaccines were safe. The doctors, neither of whom is a stranger to public speaking, exchanged befuddled glances. How does one handle a question to which the answer is obvious? Time after time, Fauci and Messonnier handled the questions with grace and patience. Grace, though, is a double-edged sword: a polite, respectful response to an ignorant question inevitably affirms the impression that the question itself is valid. Sitting behind Fauci was a woman who kept silently raising a book titled “How to End the Autism Epidemic.” The phrase refers to a bogus, long-ago debunked theory that preservatives that were once used in the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (M.M.R.) caused autism. The British gastroenterologist who once hypothesized this link lost his medical license years ago, but books, brochures, and articles promoting his theory continue to circulate and inspire people to reject vaccination and even to protest during congressional hearings.
US deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide at all-time high - More than 150,000 Americans died from alcohol and drug-induced fatalities and suicide in 2017. This is more than twice as many as in 1999 and the highest number since recordkeeping began in that year. This skyrocketing rate of so-called deaths of despair was confirmed in a new analysis released this week by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and Well Being Trust (WBT). TFAH and WBT analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between 2016 and 2017 and found that the national rate for deaths due to alcohol, drugs and suicide increased 6 percent over that year, from 43.9 deaths per 100,000 to 46.6 deaths per 100,000. While the rate of increase is lower than in the previous two years, it is still higher than the 4 percent average annual increase since 1999. The new analysis provides insight into the CDC’s findings last years that showed a drop in life expectancy from 78.7 years to 78.6 years, the third consecutive year-on-year decline. In the years since the 2008 financial crisis many workers and their families have confronted an unprecedented crisis of social misery, which is literally cutting life out from under them. Certain groups of Americans have been hardest hit by the “deaths of despair” examined in the new analysis:
- • Ages 35–54: The rate of death from alcohol, drugs and suicide was 72.4 per 100,000. This was a 35 percent increase over 2007 figures.
- • Males of all ages: A death rate of 68.2 deaths per 100,000 was found among men.
- • Regional disparities: West Virginia, with 81 deaths per 100,000, and New Mexico, with 77, had the highest rates of “deaths of despair” among the 50 US states.
The suicide rate in 2017 was 4 percent higher than in 2016, rising from 13.9 deaths per 100,000 to 14.5 deaths per 100,000. In 2017, 47,200 Americans died as a result of suicide. Deaths by suicide were particularly high among males (22.9 per 100,000), whites (16.6 per 100,000) and people living in rural areas (19.4 per 100,000) Over the past decade suicide rates increased by 22 percent. Suffocation and hanging suicides have risen by 42 percent since 2008, while firearm suicides saw a 22 percent increase. These methods are often chosen by suicide victims over less violent means because they are more likely to result in death. One of the most disturbing trends over the last decade has been the rise in deaths by children ages 1–17. Although suicide deaths in 2017 were still lower than for other age groups, at 2.4 per 100,000, they have risen by 16 percent since 2016. Over the last decade, 12,660 youth under the age of 17 took their own lives, according to the CDC. Suicide rates over the past decade have also increased proportionally more among blacks (30 percent rise) and Latinos (36 percent) than among other racial and ethnic groups.
Indian factory at the center of latest blood pressure medicine recall reportedly shredded documents and got warnings before carcinogens appeared in their products - The Food and Drug Administration has expanded an already widespread recall of common blood pressure and heart failure medications. The agency's latest alert includes drugs that all contain losartan, in which an "impurity" was found that's been identified as a potential human carcinogen. N-Nitroso-N-methyl-4-aminobutyric acid or NMBA was identified by the FDA in a news release announcing a voluntary recall by Camber Pharmaceuticals Inc. after it had detected trace amounts of the impurity in the drugs, though the company was not aware of any adverse effects from the recalled batch. This is the latest of more than 30 blood pressure medicine recalls in the last few years. As the recalls have continued, the spotlight has shifted to overseas factories in China and India that now produce many drugs that end up in the US. The lab that produced the most recent batch recalled is Hetero Labs of India. According to several FDA reports, Hetero employees shredded documents ahead of the scheduled arrival of FDA inspectors in 2016, and did not record what was shredded. In 2017, the FDA issued a warning to Hetero, claiming that the factory did not inspect batch discrepancies, and failed to wash and sanitize their equipment. According to USA Today, since 2015 the FDA has inspected more foreign factories than domestic ones, but a 2017 Government Accountability Office report found that in mid-2016, nearly 1,000 foreign factories that produce US drugs had gone uninspected. In July 2018, 15% of factory inspector jobs were unfilled.
Cities And Counties Unlikely To Heed FDA Warning On Importing Foreign Drugs - Cities and local governments in several states said they will continue to use a Canadian company to offer employees prescription drugs at a highly reduced price, even though federal officials raised safety concerns about the practice last week.The municipalities use CanaRx, which connects their employees with brick-and-mortar pharmacies in Canada, Great Britain and Australia to fill prescriptions.In a letter Thursday to CanaRx, the Food and Drug Administration said the company has sent “unapproved” and “misbranded” drugs to U.S. consumers, jeopardizing their safety.The FDA urged consumers not to use any medicines from CanaRx, which works with about 500 cities, counties, school districts and private employers to arrange drug purchases. Some of these employers have used the service as far back as 2004.Prices of drugs from overseas pharmacies can be as much as 70 percent lower than what people pay in the U.S. because the costs are regulated by the foreign governments.FDA officials would not explain why they waited more than a decade to act. They acknowledged the agency had no reports of anyone harmed by drugs received through CanaRx. The FDA made its warning as Congress and the Trump administration look into ways to lower drug prices. Last month, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he has President Donald Trump’s backing to start a programto begin importing drugs from Canada for state residents. After DeSantis’ comments, White House officials stressed that any such plan must get state and federal approvals.
Q&A: Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP (interview) Over the past few years, Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, from the New York University School of Medicine, has not been a stranger to the readers of Endocrine News. And now he’s written a book. Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future … and What We Can Do About It was recently published by Harcourt Miflin Harcourt and reaches out to a lay audience to reveal to them the alarming truth about how EDCs are affecting our daily lives and what to do to protect ourselves as well as fight back. In Sicker, Fatter, Poorer, Trasande exposes the chemicals that disrupt hormonal systems and damages human health in irreparable ways. He discusses where these chemicals hide as well as the workings of policy that protects the continued use of these chemicals in everyone’s lives. Drawing on extensive research and expertise, Trasande outlines dramatic studies and emerging evidence about the rapid increases in neurodevelopmental, metabolic, reproductive, and immunological diseases directly related to the thousands of chemicals the average person is exposed to every day. Unfortunately, we are all currently exposed to EDCs to some degree. Through a blend of narrative, scientific detective work, and concrete information about the connections between chemicals and disease, Trasande shows readers what they can do to protect themselves and their families in the short-term, and how to help bring much needed change. Endocrine News caught up to Trasande prior to the book’s publication to find out what is needed to eliminate EDCs from daily life and why the economic impact of doing so will not be as detrimental as some people think.
Will 5G Cell Phone Technology Lead To Dramatic Population Reduction As Large Numbers Of Men Become Sterile? -- Our current cell phone technology produces electromagnetic radiation that damages male fertility, and the radiation produced by the new 5G technology will be much more powerful and therefore much more dangerous. But most people don’t know about this. Instead, most people are greatly looking forward to the rollout of 5G technology because it will be up to 100 times faster than our current 4G technology, and who wouldn’t want that? The big cell phone companies will be spending hundreds of billions of dollars to install hundreds of thousands of new 5G antennas, and every single one of those antennas will be constantly emitting very powerful electromagnetic radiation. Since we can’t see the radiation, to many people the threat does not seem real, but the truth is that if you live in a major urban area you are constantly being bombarded by it. And once the new 5G network is completely rolled out, you would literally have to live in the middle of nowhere to get away from it completely. 5G is a quantum leap from 4G, but because the smaller 5G waves do not travel as well, a lot more antennas will be required… In order to achieve faster speeds, 5G relies on millimeter waves, which are even smaller than microwaves and operate at a higher frequency. These smaller waves are more easily absorbed by buildings, trees and other things (like people), so more towers will be needed in order to maintain connectivity. The industry has created specialized “small cell” stations and new, larger base stations to accommodate the demands of 5G tech. Even so, it’s expected that a small cell will need to be installed every 250 meters in cities for 5G to work properly. There will be one on every street corner. In addition, 5G technology is “ultra high frequency and ultra high intensity”… 5G cell towers are more dangerous than other cell towers for two main reasons. First, compared to earlier versions, 5G is ultra high frequency and ultra high intensity. 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G use between 1 to 5 gigahertz frequency. 5G uses between 24 to 90 gigahertz frequency. Within the RF Radiation portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, the higher the frequency the more dangerous it is to living organisms.So basically the radiation that we will constantly be absorbing will be much, much, much more powerful than before, and the sources emitting the radiation will be much closer to us.
FDA Bans Cancer-Causing Food Additives, but Won’t Enforce Until 2020 - Following pressure from several environmental and consumer safety groups, the FDA in October 2018 opted to ban seven synthetic food additives known to cause harm—synthetically derived benzophenone, ethyl acrylate, methyl eugenol, myrcene, pulegone, pyridine and styrene—ingredients you typically don't see on food labels since they're grouped together under the term "artificial flavors." Food companies have 16 months to remove the additives from their products. While that's welcome news for food safety advocates, it means that the newly banned ingredients, which have been proven to cause cancer in lab animals, will still be ingestible in the United States for all of 2019. . "Additives can come from natural sources, can be mimics of natural products or they can be synthetic," said Emma Beckett, a molecular nutritionist at the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at Newcastle University in Australia. She points out that plenty of poisons are, in fact, 100 percent natural, such as mushrooms. A banned additive could be lurking in your favorite processed snack, but before purging your kitchen, Beckett recommends reframing the way you think of the FDA-approved food labels. "'Banned' makes it sound scary, but rather, the [additives] were 'delisted,'" she said. Styrene is an example. Classified as a "reasonably anticipated" human carcinogen in 2011 by the U.S. National Toxicology Program, it was delisted in this recent batch as the additive is no longer used in the food industry. The other six additives the FDA removed from the approved list are often used in trace amounts, likepulegone, used to flavor mint gums, and methyl eugenol, found in commercially-baked goods, vinaigrettes and more. The amount of methyl eugenol found to cause liver cancer in lab rats would likely never be present in similar proportions in human food, but additives as a buzzword get special attention due to the 1958 Food Additives Amendment, which requires any food additive known to be carcinogenic to subsequently be banned. Sugar, processed meats and alcoholic beverages are all food products linked to cancer risks, but they still remain rampantly available in U.S. supermarkets.
A hidden scandal- America's school students exposed to water tainted by toxic lead - There “is no known level of lead exposure that is considered safe”, the World Health Organization has warned. The heavy metal, used widely in the past manufacture of water pipes, can cause serious health problems in adults including high blood pressure and kidney damage as it accumulates in the body at high levels of exposure. But children are particularly vulnerable to its toxic effects, which can affect the development of the brain and nervous system. Even low levels can impair a child’s IQ, academic achievement and ability to pay attention. US studies have shown lead-exposed children are more likely to be aggressive, leading to bullying, truancy and even jail. “Unfortunately, it’s a problem that was swept under the rug for many years, even though many experts were well aware there was excess of lead in their tap water,” said Erik Olson, a senior director of advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, about lead in schools in particular. “Lead is a neurotoxin, it drops IQ scores, it’s linked to aberrant behavior and violence,” . “The concern is that while we are not taking much action, children are being damaged on a generational level. We are supposed to provide them with a safe environment, not poison them,” he said. Elevated levels of lead have been found in schools across the US in the wake of the toxic water scandal that has roiled Flint, Michigan, since 2014. In Newark, officials had first found lead in school water fountains and taps nearly two years before Thomas was warned of its possible presence in her drinking water at home. More than half of public schools in Atlanta were found to have high levels of lead, in some cases 15 times above the federal limit for water systems. Schools in Baltimore, Portland and Chicago were all found to have significant amounts of lead in drinking water.The most startling problems arose in Detroit, where the school district shut off water in all 106 school buildings last year. A total of 57 Detroit schools tested positive for lead, copper or both. Students were told to switch to bottled water.
Inconsistent Water Testing Exposes U.S. Schoolchildren to High Levels of Lead - Millions of children across the U.S. have been exposed to high concentrations of lead through their schooldrinking water due to inconsistent testing standards, a recent study found.Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health reviewed 25 state programs for testing for lead in schools' drinking water supply and found that there is no uniformity in states' approaches to develop initiatives to test for lead in school drinking water, action levels or maintaining water quality data — public schools in some states are not even required to perform testing on all drinking water taps.Moreover, the study revealed that 44 percent of nearly 11,000 schools had at least one sample test positive for lead levels at or above state action levels.The World Health Organization warns that "there is no known level of lead exposure that is considered safe" and research in the U.S. has linked even low levels of lead exposure with health and learning problems in children because of how it affects brain and nervous system development. "Lead is a neurotoxin, it drops IQ scores, it's linked to aberrant behavior and violence," Howard Kessler, a retired doctor and part of Physicians for Social Responsibility, told The Guardian. "The concern is that while we are not taking much action, children are being damaged on a generational level. We are supposed to provide them with a safe environment, not poison them." High levels of lead have been found in school tap water since the toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan became a national story in 2014, yet there is currently no federal requirement for schools to test water for lead, The Guardian reported, leaving the issue to the states. Without federal oversight, there's a wide range of lead contamination action levels at the state level, from 5 parts per billion — the Food and Drug Administration action level for bottled water — to 20 parts per billion, the study found. In Atlanta, for instance, more than half of its public schools had high levels of lead, with some exceeding 15 times the federal limit for drinking systems.
Poisoning The Public- Toxic Agrochemicals And Regulators' Collusion With Industry --In January 2019, campaigner Dr Rosemary Mason lodged a complaint with the European Ombudsman accusing European regulatory agencies of collusion with the agrochemicals industry. This was in the wake of an important paper by Charles Benbrook on the genotoxicity of glyphosate-based herbicides that appeared in the journal ‘Environmental Sciences Europe’. In an unusual step, the editor-in-chief of that journal, Prof Henner Hollert, and his co-author, Prof Thomas Backhaus, issued a strong statement in support of the acceptance of Dr Benbrook’s article for publication. The IARC’s (International Agency for Research on Cancer) evaluation relied heavily on studies capable of shedding light on the distribution of real-world exposures and genotoxicity risk in exposed human populations, while the EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency) evaluation placed little or no weight on such evidence. Up to that point, Dr Mason had been writing to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the EU Commission for an 18-month period, challenging them about ECHA’s positive assessment of glyphosate. Many people around the world had struggled to understand how and why the US EPA and the EFSA concluded that glyphosate is not genotoxic (damaging to DNA) or carcinogenic, whereas the World Health Organisation’s cancer agency, the IARC, came to the opposite conclusion. The IARC stated that the evidence for glyphosate’s genotoxic potential is “strong” and that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. While IARC referenced only peer-reviewed studies and reports available in the public literature, the EPA relied heavily on unpublished regulatory studies commissioned by pesticide manufacturers. In fact, 95 of the 151 genotoxicity assays cited in the EPA’s evaluation were from industry studies (63%), while IARC cited 100% public literature sources. Another important difference is that the EPA focused its analysis on glyphosate in its pure chemical form, or ‘glyphosate technical’. The problem with that is that almost no one is exposed to glyphosate alone. Applicators and the public are exposed to complete herbicide formulations consisting of glyphosate plus added ingredients (adjuvants). The formulations have repeatedly been shown to be more toxic than glyphosate in isolation.
More Than 11,000 People Suing Bayer Over Weed Killer Cancer Risk - Bayer is now facing lawsuits from around 11,200 plaintiffs over the health implications of Roundup and Ranger Pro, its glyphosate-based weedkillers.The German life science giant revealed the figure Wednesday as it announced its results for fiscal 2018. Full-year sales were up 13% and EBITDA before special items up 2.8%, but full-year net earnings were down more than three-quarters due to a $3.8 billion impairment charge and a $2.3 billion charge in connection with Bayer’s acquisition of Roundup maker Monsanto.“Over recent years we have systematically developed into a focused life science company, clearly aligned to the megatrends in health and agriculture and united under the strong umbrella brand Bayer,” said Bayer chairman Werner Baumann. “The acquisition in agriculture has lifted us to the number one position in this market. The integration of the two companies has gotten off to an excellent start.”Bayer’s shares, which took a battering last year from court judgements relating to glyphosate, rose 4.7% on the results announcement. The company is currently appealing against a ruling that said its Monsanto products were responsible for groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson’s cancer. Seven more cases are set to go to court this year—indeed, one began this week. At the end of 2018 Bayer said it knew of 9,300 plaintiffs. That means a 20% rise in complaints over just three months.
Customers flag bottled water smelling of ‘old socks’ and ‘urine,’ but CFIA says it poses no health risk - Some of Canada's big brands have sold bottled water that smells like "urine," tastes like "old socks" or reeks of "diarrhea," according to four years' worth of government inspection reports obtained by CBC News. Dasani, owned by Coca-Cola; Real Canadian natural spring water, owned by Loblaws, one of Canada's largest grocery-store chains; and Refreshe spring water, from the Safeway grocery chain, are just some of the brands whose water has been hit with complaints over foul smells, tastes or unusually high levels of sulphur, the reports said. Other firms were found to be bottling water in "filthy conditions." Toronto-area operator Canadian Shield Natural Spring Water was pumping water behind an amusement park with no safety testing facilities, bathroom or hand washing station for employees, one of the inspection reports found. The firm couldn't be reached for comment as the address listed for the company in inspection reports no longer houses a bottled water company.The problems were documented in nearly 800 pages of Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) reports from 2014 until 2018, obtained under the Access to Information Act.
Wastewater Treatment Plants Could Contribute to a ‘Post-Antibiotic World,’ Study Warns -- Antibiotic-resistance is a growing concern, and now a new study from the University of Southern California (USC) has pinpointed another way it can spread: through wastewater treatment plants.The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology last week, found that if bacteria in wastewater treatment plants are exposed to just one type of antibiotic, they can actually develop resistance to several drugs."We're quickly getting to a scary place that's called a 'post-antibiotic world,' where we can no longer fight infections with antibiotics anymore because microbes have adapted to be resilient against those antibiotics," lead researcher and USC assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Adam Smith said in aUSC press release published by Phys.org Wednesday. "Unfortunately, engineered water treatment systems end up being sort of a hot-bed for antibiotic resistance." USC explained how antibiotic-resistant bacteria can spread through the wastewater treatment process:
- Trace amounts of antibiotic end up in wastewater treatment plants via human waste.
- Wastewater is treated with a membrane bioreactor, a process by which water is both filtered and treated by microscopic bacteria that consume waste.
- The bacteria build up resistance to the antibiotics in the waste.
- The resistant bacteria enter the wider world in one of two ways. As biomass, the buildup of bacteria that is disposed of in landfills or used as fertilizer or livestock feed, or as effluent, the water that leaves the treatment plant.
The research team wanted to develop a process that would reduce the amount of resistant bacteria produced by wastewater treatment. They tested a system that used oxygen-free treatment processes and a membrane filter and then compared the drug-resistance of the bacteria in both the effluent and biomass produced by their system. The most startling finding was that the antibiotics they introduced to the system were not the only drugs the bacteria would emerge able to resist. Instead, they developed the ability to resist multiple drugs.
Toxic Forever Chemicals in Water Leave Military Families Reeling — When Army Staff Sgt. Samuel Fortune returned from Iraq, his body battered by war, he assumed he’d be safe. Then the people around him began to get sick. His neighbors, all living near five military bases, complained of tumors, thyroid problems and debilitating fatigue. Soon, the Colorado health department announced an unusually high number of kidney cancers in the region. Then Mr. Fortune’s wife fell ill. The military, it turned out, had been leaching toxic chemicals into the water for decades. That was 2016. Since then, the Defense Department has admitted that it allowed a firefighting foam to slip into at least 55 drinking water systems at military bases around the globe, sometimes for generations. This exposed tens of thousands of Americans, possibly many more, to per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of man-made chemicals known as PFAS that have been linked to cancers, immune suppression and other serious health problems. Though the presence of the chemicals has been known for years, an announcement last week from the Environmental Protection Agency for the first time promised regulatory action, a significant acknowledgment of the startling scope of the problem that drew outrage from veterans and others living in contaminated communities. Acting administrator Andrew Wheeler said that the agency would begin the process of potentially limiting the presence of two of the compounds in drinking water, calling this a “pivotal moment in the history of the agency,” but many said that it was not enough and that millions of people would keep ingesting the substances while a regulatory process plods along. “It should have been called an inaction plan,” said Judith Enck, a former E.P.A. regional administrator appointed by President Barack Obama.
FPL Wins Battle to Store Radioactive Waste Under Miami's Drinking Water Aquifer -South Florida sits atop two gigantic underground stores of water: the Biscayne and Floridan Aquifers. Miamians get most of their drinking water from the upper Biscayne Aquifer, while the government has used the lower portion of the Floridan to dump waste and untreated sewage — despite the fact that multiple studies have warned that waste could one day seep into the drinking water.So environmentalists are concerned that Florida Power & Light now wants to dump radioactive waste into that lower water table, called the Boulder Zone. A small group of activists called Citizens Allied for Safe Energy (CASE) tried to stop FPL's plan, but their legal petition was shot down this past Friday. According to NRC documents, CASE's petition was dismissed for being filed "inexcusably late" in FPL's application process. "This was thrown out on procedural grounds," CASE's president, Barry J. White, says. "The science is still there."CASE had filed a petition with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the NRC on Friday threw out CASE's complaint, saying the environmental group had filed too late in FPL's approval process.The fight stems from the energy company's plan to build two nuclear reactors at the controversial Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station south of Miami by roughly 2030. The towers might not be operational for a decade or two, but that doesn't mean the public should stop paying attention to them. FPL is submitting numerous proposals about the project to the government. As part of that package, FPL told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission it plans to store contaminated water used to clean the reactors, as well as radioactive waste ("radwaste"), in the Boulder Zone. In October, the NRC issued a report stating FPL's plan would pose "no environmental impacts" to the South Florida environment.
W.Va. Legislature Adopts Stripped Down Water Pollution Rule - The West Virginia Legislature has passed a bill containing a set of environmental regulations, including a controversial water pollution rule that was pared down during the legislative process. The House passed Senate Bill 163 on a 78-22 vote. The measure, which passed in the Senate last month, is now in effect. Among other rule updates, the bill contained the state Department of Environmental Protection’s proposed update to the state’s water quality standards. The rules govern pollution discharge into the state’s streams and rivers. Environmental and water quality advocates said the Legislature’s decision to not pass the updated rule means the state is relying on outdated health standards for carcinogens and other pollutants set in the 1980s and 1990s. “It’s distressing to see lawmakers continue to push aside years of scientific study simply because a few industrial polluters want them to,” said Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. “Regrettably, this vote sends the message that our residents don’t deserve those protections, no matter what the science says.” After more than a year of public comment and deliberation, the WVDEP proposed updating human health standards for 60 of the 94 human health criteria updates the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggested in 2015. Two-thirds of the updates made it so less of certain chemicals could be discharged into rivers and streams and one-third loosened pollution levels. The rule, federally mandated under the Clean Water Act, was then presented to the Senate Rulemaking Review Committee. At a Nov. 27 meeting, the committee agreed to remove 60 updates to human health standards the agency had proposed at the behest of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association.
A month of recyclables sit at a Charleston County landfill with an uncertain fate - Charleston County is still picking up cans, bottles, paper and other recyclables, but some of it is ending up at the Bee’s Ferry landfill. That’s a temporary holding spot, county spokesman Shawn Smetana said, because an agreement that previously sent the material to Horry County for processing lapsed on Feb. 1. Charleston was paying more than $100,000 each month to truck paper, glass, metal and plastics to the Conway facility. “Cost was a factor in not looking for a contract extension,” Smetana said. The county had paid about $2.7 million total from June 2016 through July 2018. About a month’s worth of material — up to 3,000 tons — currently sits under a tarp at Bee’s Ferry. If some of the material is damaged by getting wet, it will be buried in the landfill permanently. Smetana said the county also has constructed an additional building at its Romney Street solid waste facility to hold recycling. Workers there are sending cardboard to the open market and baling other material, waiting to accumulate a big enough volume to sell. Meanwhile, county residents still pay a user fee that goes toward recycling and solid waste programs. That fee is $99 a year per home and is added to annual property tax bills. Across the world, governments and other entities collecting recyclable materials have faced headwinds since China stopped accepting many commonly recycled goods in late 2017. In the past year, average prices for materials have continued to drop, Bessant said. Prices per pound for aluminum beverage cans, an item that often provides one of the healthiest margins in recycling markets because the cans are only made of a single material, have fallen 22 percent during the past 12 months, according to Bessant.
Recycling Is Broken - In Philadelphia, people like to recycle. Together, all 1.6 million of us generate about 400 tons of recyclable material each day. But since last fall, roughly half of the bottles and cans my neighbors and I have placed dutifully curbside in our blue bins every week haven’t made their way to a sorting facility. They’ve gone to one of two waste-to-energy incinerators, where they’re being burned alongside garbage. The situation, which everyone from local residents to the company operating the trash-burning power plants seems unhappy about, is a microcosm of a crisis that’s been rippling across the country ever since China, once the single-largest buyer for U.S. recyclables, banned the import of two dozen types of “foreign waste” and imposed strict quality standards on the recyclables it’ll accept. Nationwide, municipalities are facing higher costs and being forced to find stopgap solutions, from incinerators to landfills, for recyclables that have nowhere else to go. Meanwhile, the recycling industry—which operates with next to no federal guidance despite processing a quarter of America’s waste—is in an existential struggle to chart a new path forward for itself. “We’re approaching a point of reckoning that we have had not to debate in the US for a long time, in terms of how we deal with our municipal solid waste and consumer recyclables,” “If as a public policy goal we want to continue encouraging recycling, the time is basically now to have a really serious conversation about what policy changes... need to be put in place.”
India stops waste plastic imports as China’s ‘recycled commodities’ ban triggers trash crisis in US - India has completely banned the import of solid plastic waste into the country, leaving the United States with one less major recycling outlet after China, amid the ongoing trade war, stopped importing all foreign trash last year. “The country has now completely prohibited the import of solid plastic waste by amending the Hazardous Waste (Management & Trans-boundary Movement) Rules on March 1,” an environment ministry official said this week. Before the ban came into effect, the South Asian country had allowed local regional governments in special economic zones (SEZs) to make a buck from foreign waste. However, overwhelmed with its own unrecycled garbage, India has now switched gears, focusing its effort on closing the gap between domestic waste and its recycling capacity. The country’s ultimate goal is to phase out single-use plastic by 2022. Western countries, and the US in particular, have very limited domestic capability to process and recycle waste, having become used to shipping it overseas for decades. After China banned 24 types of solid waste last year and placed tougher restrictions on waste imports, the US tried to diversify its recycling outlets by sending the scraps to India and Vietnam.
Microplastic pollution revealed ‘absolutely everywhere’ by new research - Microplastic pollution spans the world, according to new studies showing contamination in the UK’s lake and rivers, in groundwater in the US and along the Yangtze river in China and the coast of Spain. Humans are known to consume the tiny plastic particles via food and water, but the possible health effects on people and ecosystems have yet to be determined. One study, in Singapore, has found that microplastics can harbour harmful microbes. The new analysis in the UK found microplastic pollution in all 10 lakes, rivers and reservoirs sampled. More than 1,000 small pieces of plastic per litre were found in the River Tame, near Manchester, which was revealed last year as the most contaminated place yet tested worldwide. Even in relatively remote places such as the Falls of Dochart and Loch Lomond in Scotland, two or three pieces per litre were found. “It is quite depressing they were there in some of our country’s most iconic locations. I’m sure Wordsworth would not be happy to discover his beloved Ullswater in the Lake District was polluted with plastic. “Microplastics are being found absolutely everywhere [but] we do not know the dangers they could be posing. It’s no use looking back in 20 years time and saying: ‘If only we’d realised just how bad it was.’ We need to be monitoring our waters now and we need to think, as a country and a world, how we can be reducing our reliance on plastic.” The River Thames in London was found to have about 80 microplastic particles per litre, as was the River Cegin in North Wales. The Blackwater River in Essex had 15. Ullswater has 30 and the Llyn Cefni reservoir on Anglesey 40. Microplastics have been shown to harm marine life when mistaken for food and were found inside every marine mammal studied in a recent UK survey. They were revealed in 2017 to be in tap water around the world and in October to be consumed by people in Europe, Japan and Russia. “Microplastic has been found in our rivers, our highest mountains and our deepest oceans,”
South Korea’s plastic problem is a literal trash fire - Among the rice paddies and beside the Nakdong River in the country's east, a horseshoe-shaped, 170,000-ton heap of trash is spontaneously combusting, spewing out plumes of smoke and the nose-scorching, chemical stench of burning plastic. On a cold February morning, six workers wearing grimy overalls and gas masks clamber over the 50 feet-tall (15 meters) man-made hill, dousing the smoke with fire hoses. But as soon as one smoldering spot is extinguished, another flares up. They have been doing this for three months -- and no end is in sight.Park Hyun-soon, an eggplant farmer who lives next to the heap, says the fires spew ash over her greenhouses, blocking light from the plants and ruining her produce."The eggplants are growing gnarled," she says. "We almost never open our windows. When we leave the house, we don't smell the nature but the burning (garbage)."The local government now issues dust masks to residents."My eyes hurt, my head hurts," Park says. "All the residents are suffering." The Uiseong garbage pile is the largest in South Korea, according to local officials, and has a storied history. In 2008, Kim Seok-dong, a recycling business owner, was granted a license to keep 2,000 tons of waste on the site. But in 2016, his permit was canceled after locals began complaining that the rural spot was overrun with trash. Kim tried to fight the ban, but in 2018 a court ordered him to remove the waste. While that struggle was raging, waste-to-energy power plant business owner Lee Won-jeong in 2017 bought the site from Kim, but kept him on as manager. Lee says that after the sale, Kim deposited more than 80 times the amount of garbage permitted at the site, including household waste, construction materials, and discarded polymer. As the trash mountain decomposed, gas built up under the surface. In December last year, fires began to appear.
Pesticide Exposure Changes Bees’ Genes - A new study has found that exposure to certain pesticides can alter bees' genes, leading researchers to call for tougher regulations on the widely-used chemicals. The study, published Wednesday in Molecular Ecology, looked at the impact of two neonicotinoid pesticides on bumblebee populations and found that they impacted genes involved in a variety of important biological processes. "Governments had approved what they thought were 'safe' levels but pesticides intoxicate many pollinators, reducing their dexterity and cognition and ultimately survival," lead study author Dr. Yannick Wurm said in a press release. "This is a major risk because pollinators are declining worldwide yet are essential for maintaining the stability of the ecosystem and for pollinating crops." Pesticides found to affect genes in bees youtube.com Previous studies had looked at the impact of neonicotinoids on the behaviors of bees, showing that exposure impaired their ability to forage and develop colonies. But this study focused on how those impacts occur on the molecular level. "The researchers studied the impact of realistic concentrations of two neonicotinoids on bumblebees: clothianidin and imidacloprid. They found that clothianidin had a stronger effect and that queens and workers were impacted differently. Clothianidin exposure altered the activity levels of 55 worker genes, making 31 more active and the rest less active. For queens, 17 genes saw their activity levels altered, with 16 becoming more active. While neonicotinoids were banned in the EU in 2018, they are still widely used elsewhere.
Building Habitat for Pollinators Means Bigger, Better Fruit - Strawberry plants grown near to hedgerows abundant with pollinators produce larger, better quality fruit, that’s more than twice the commercial value of fruit grown in other locations, a new study finds. The research, published in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment shows that integrating farmland with more hedgerows could therefore produce a double win: protecting pollinators, while also boosting agricultural yields. One of the many contradictions of agriculture is that by eating into wild habitat and imposing monoculture on the landscape, it displaces the pollinators that could be so beneficial to its yields. The new study, led by the University of Göttingen in Germany, showed that hedgerows–bands of dense, woody vegetation–seem to remedy some of these concerns by providing habitat for insect pollinators. The researchers tested their idea by growing strawberry plants in three farmland locations in Germany: firstly, at sites surrounded by nothing but grassland; secondly, beside isolated hedgerows surrounded by arable land; and finally, beside hedgerows that were connected to wild forested land. Strawberry bushes grown with only grassland as company were at a stark disadvantage: the fruits on these plants were 20% smaller, and 37% lower in weight than the strawberries grown beside forest-connected hedgerows. On the other hand, the latter had a noticeable advantage–not only in terms of size and weight, but in their commercial value for farmers, too. Ninety percent of strawberries grown beside forest-connected hedgerows met commercial standards, compared to just 48% of the berries grown in purely grassy habitats with no hedgerows. When the researchers analysed the produce according to European market standards, they found that almost a third of the fruits grown beside the forest-linked hedgerows would also be considered as exceptional produce that would fetch a higher market price.
UN finds herpes killed millions of Iraqi carp – The sudden death last year of millions of Iraqi carp, used in the country’s signature dish, was caused by a strain of herpes harmless to humans, the United Nations said Wednesday. Iraqi fish farmers south of Baghdad were left reeling in late 2018 after piles of dead carp were found washed up on the banks of the Euphrates River or floating in their cages. Rumours swirled over whether the fish were sick or the river had been poisoned, and Iraqi politicians put the issue at the top of their agenda. On Wednesday, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said a months-long international investigation had pinned down the slippery source: the Koi Herpes Virus. “KHV is a very serious and lethal disease that is known to cause almost 100 percent mortality rates in carps,” said Dr. Thomas Wahli, who heads the Swiss Reference Laboratory for Notifiable Diseases. The mass deaths in the fish farms of Saddat al-Hindiyah in Babylon province, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Baghdad, had panicked carp farmers, who said they had lost thousands of dollars overnight. Samples of the dead fish, water, sediment and feed were sent to Wahli’s lab as well as facilities in Jordan and Italy. They confirmed the carp were killed by the viral outbreak, which does not pose a threat to humans, the UN said. Temperatures in the Euphrates dropped to around 24 degrees in November, a prime environment for KHV. The overstocking of fish farms and low-quality river water may have also spread the disease further, it said.
Invasive Species Have Led to a Third of Animal Extinctions Since 1500 -- The introduction of invasive species has been the primary cause of plant and animal extinctions over the past 500 years, a new study from University College London's (UCL) Center for Biodiversity and Environment Research found. The study, published Monday in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, looked at 953 extinctions since 1500 and found that 126 of them, or 13 percent, had been caused entirely by alien species, while 300 were caused partly by the arrival of new species, according to a UCL press release published by EurekAlert! "Some people have suggested that aliens are no more likely than native species to cause species to disappear in the current global extinction crisis, but our analysis shows that aliens are much more of a problem in this regard," head researcher and UCL Biosciences professor Tim Blackburn said in the press release. "Our study provides a new line of evidence showing that the biogeographical origin of a species matters for its impacts. The invasion of an alien species is often enough to cause native species to go extinct, whereas we found no evidence for native species being the sole driver of extinction of other natives in any case."The study also listed key examples of invasive species that had proved especially destructive, as iNews reported:
- 1. The rosy wolfsnail or 'cannibal snail': Introduced from the Southeast U.S. to islands around the Pacific, including Hawaii, to wipe out the African land snail in the 1950s, the snail has gone on to wipe out eight native Hawaiian snails and contribute to driving out dozens of snail species in the wider Pacific.
- 2. The black rat: The black rat has been spread around the world by boat and has led to the extinction of birds, mammals, reptiles and plants, especially on islands.
- 3. The red fox: When the British brought the red fox to Australia, it drove out several mammal species, including the lesser bilby.
- 4. Feral cats: The introduction of cats to New Zealand led to the extinction of the flightless Stephens Island wren as early as 1900.
- 5. The brown tree snake: When the snake was accidentally brought to Guam after the Second World War, it resulted in the loss of more than half of Guam's bird and lizard species and two of three native bat species.
'Falling out of trees': dozens of dead possums blamed on extreme heat stress -More than 100 dead and injured ringtail possums have been found by wildlife rescuers along a single stretch of beach in Victoria in what ecologists say is becoming an annual occurrence due to extreme heat. Rescuers and wildlife carers discovered 127 ringtail possums along the shoreline and in the water at Somers Beach on the Mornington Peninsula on Saturday during a four-day period that saw consistent temperatures in the high 30s, warm nights and bushfires in parts of the state. [30C = 86F, 39C = 102F] Melanie Attard, a wildlife rescuer and foster carer with Aware Wildlife in Frankston, said rescuers suspected the animals had become so dehydrated and desperate they had left an area of scrub and come down to the beach and attempted to drink salt water. “We assume they’ve come out due to the heat stress heading for the water in desperation,” she said. Decline in bogong moth numbers leaves mountain pygmy possums starving Read more “It’s not nice seeing a possum throwing itself into the beach and drinking seawater. It’s really desperate.” He said the situation was similar to heat stress deaths that have affected other species this summer, including the spectacled flying fox in Queensland. Scientists have also been monitoring large drops in moth species due to climate change and recent drought.
Trump Admin Announces Plan to Strip Gray Wolves of Endangered Species Act Protections -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will attempt to strip Endangered Species Act protections from graywolves in the lower 48 states, Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced Wednesday.Bernhardt, who took over from former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in January, has been a key force behind efforts by the Trump administration's Department of Interior(DOI) to weaken the landmark conservation act."For over a hundred years, wolves have been needlessly persecuted. This is just one more example of the Trump Administration's attacks on the Endangered Species Act and the vulnerable wildlife it protects," Bonnie Rice of Sierra Club's Our Wild America campaign said in a statement. "Wolves have barely started to recover in some areas, and still occupy only five percent of their historic range. Now is not the time to remove vital protections." Bernhardt made the announcement at a meeting of the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Denver, but an official proposal will be published in the Federal Register in the next few days, after which a public comment period will follow.This is not the first time that the FWS has attempted to delist gray wolves in recent years. An earlier attempt was made during the Obama administration in 2013, but was struck down by federal courts, The New York Times reported.The debate over gray wolf protections reveals a tension between farmers, ranchers and environmentalists when it comes to managing wolf populations.Gray wolves were hunted nearly to extinction in the contiguous U.S. and there were only around 1,000 left in Minnesota when they were first granted protection in 1975. Now there are more than 5,000 living mostly in the Western Great Lakes and Northern Rockies regions, as well as Washington, Oregon and California, according to the Associated Press. The population has recovered enough that ranchers and hunters say they are a threat to livestock and game.
Philippine police find 1500 turtles and tortoises in taped up luggage - Philippine police have seized more than 1,500 live turtles and tortoises found wrapped in duct tape at Manila airport. The reptiles, found in four unclaimed pieces of luggage, could have sold for more than 4.5 million pesos (£60,000; $86,631). Police believe the bags were abandoned after the carrier found out about the harsh penalties for illegal wildlife trafficking. If caught, they could face two years in jail and a fine of up to 200,000 pesos. A total of 1,529 turtles and tortoises of different species were found in four pieces of unclaimed luggage in the arrivals area of Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Sunday. Some of the animals were of the Sulcata Tortoise species - which are recognised as vulnerable on the IUCN's Red list of Threatened species. The Red-eared Slider turtle was also among the reptiles found. The Bureau of Customs said the reptiles were left behind by a Filipino passenger who was onboard a Philippine Airlines flight from Hong Kong. It said the passenger could have abandoned the luggage after they were "informed of the vigilance... against illegal wildlife trade and its penalties". The animals have now been handed over to the Wildlife Traffic Monitoring Unit. Turtles and tortoises are often kept as exotic pets, but are sometimes also used as a form of traditional medicine or served as a delicacy across parts of Asia. Their meat is considered by some to be an aphrodisiac, while the bones are powdered for use in medicine. Last week, 3,300 pig-nosed turtles were smuggled into Malaysia by boat - though this attempt was intercepted by Malaysia's maritime agency.
WWF Funds Guards Who Have Tortured And Killed People --Down the road from the crocodile ponds inside Nepal’s renowned Chitwan National Park sits a jail. Hira Chaudhary went there for her husband, Shikharam, a farmer who had been locked up for two days. Shikharam was in too much pain to swallow. He crawled toward Hira, his thin body covered in bruises, and told her through sobs that forest rangers were torturing him. “They beat him mercilessly and put saltwater in his nose and mouth,” Hira later told police.The rangers believed that Shikharam helped his son bury a rhinoceros horn in his backyard. They couldn’t find the horn, but they threw Shikharam in their jail anyway, court documents filed by the prosecution show. Nine days later, he was dead. An autopsy showed seven broken ribs and “blue marks and bruises” all over his body. Seven eyewitnesses corroborated his wife’s account of nonstop beatings. Three park officials, including the chief warden, were arrested and charged with murder. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) had long helped fund and equip Chitwan’s forest rangers, who patrolt he area in jeeps, boats, and on elephant backs alongside soldiers from the park’s in-house army battalion. Now WWF’s partners in the war against poaching stood accused of torturing a man to death. WWF’s staff on the ground in Nepal leaped into action — not to demand justice, but to lobby for the charges to disappear. When the Nepalese government dropped the case months later, the charity declared it a victory in the fight against poaching. Then WWF Nepal continued to work closely with the rangers and fund the park as if nothing had happened.As for the rangers who were charged in connection with Shikharam’s death, WWF Nepal later hired one of them to work for the charity. It handed a second a special anti-poaching award. By then he had written a tell-all memoir that described one of his favorite interrogation techniques: waterboarding.
Alabama tornadoes kill at least 23 and cause 'catastrophic' damage - Authorities in one Alabama county hit hardest by tornadoes at the weekend said on Monday morning the death toll was likely to rise from the confirmed 23, as search-and-rescue efforts continued in the south-eastern part of the state. The Lee county sheriff, Jay Jones, said “several people” were still unaccounted for in Beauregard, a community south of the city of Opelika that took the brunt of the assault from a pair of powerful tornadoes that touched down with winds estimated at between 136mph and 165mph.The tornado that ripped apart Beauregard was later reclassified as EF-4, meaning winds of 166–200mph, a higher classification that experts said was consistent with the devastation they saw: trailers overturned, homes torn from their foundations and trees uprooted. After a later morning search-and-rescue sweep of the neighborhood, Jones said no more fatalities had been discovered, though he warned that “dozens” of people were still unaccounted for. In an earlier statement, Jones described the damage as “catastrophic”. The confirmed death toll included a six-year-old child. As many as 20 people remained unaccounted for in the deadliest tornado strike in Alabama since the Tuscaloosa-Birmingham tornado killed more than 200 in 2011.Early on Monday, recovery teams from neighbouring states joined crews searching a trail of destruction 24 miles long and between a quarter- and a half-mile wide. Some survivors said they had less than five minutes from hearing tornado warning sirens to the twister striking.“The challenge is the sheer volume of the debris where all the homes were located,” Jones told CNN. “It’s the most I’ve seen that I can recall.” He told WRBL-TV families in the area had “lost everything they ever had”. At least two tornadoes touched down in Lee county, with the first warning going out at 2.38pm local time on Sunday.
Families struggle in aftermath of deadly Alabama tornado --A tragic and confused situation follows last Sunday’s deadly tornados in Lee County, Alabama. The storm system—which stretched from Louisiana, across Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida panhandle, Georgia and into South Carolina—spawned several tornados. Lee County and neighboring counties in Georgia sustained the most damage.It now appears that a single EF-4 tornado—and not a series of tornadoes—struck Lee County, with winds as high as 170 miles per hour, cutting a path of destruction half a mile wide and 24 miles long. As of this writing 23 people have died and at least seven remain missing.The county Sheriff’s office reports that the search and rescue effort is “transitioning” into a recovery effort, which is a search for human remains instead of survivors. On Monday night temperatures in the area dropped into the 20s Fahrenheit, making survival a remote possibility for those still missing. Local and federal officials released the names and ages of the 23 people who have died so far. They include six-year-old A.J. Hernandez, ten-year old Taylor Thornton, and eight-year-old Mykhayla Waldon. “My children and I was in a bad storm. One of my sons, Jonathan Bowen was killed by a Tornado that struck Lee County Sunday,” Shamel Hart wrote on a GoFundMe page she set up to raise funds for her suddenly homeless family. “The house we were in went up and the floors disappeared underneath us. One minute felt like hours. “The Tornado ripped our kids from under us without remorse. When I found my son I was trying to do everything to keep him with me. “A mother’s worst nightmare is to have to bury their child. I never thought I would be burying my child I always thought they would have been burying me.”
At least 7 people are still missing after the deadly Alabama tornadoes, officials say - Crews are narrowing down the search areas for people still missing after a string of tornadoes swept through southeastern Alabama over the weekend.At this time, officials said Tuesday, the number of missing is seven or eight."Hopefully that number will continue to decrease as the day goes on," Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones told reporters on Tuesday.He said heavy equipment is being used to clear debris and that the search and rescue mission will soon move to a recovery status. President Trump said he plans to visit Alabama on Friday.Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said that of the 23 people who died in the storms, four were children and seven were members of the same family by marriage. Dozens of people were injured, with 77 patients from areas affected by the tornadoes hospitalized on Sunday.Six adult patients remain hospitalized at the University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital, spokeswoman Holly Gainer confirmed to CNN.Four other patients remain hospitalized at East Alabama Medical Center, according to hospital spokesman John Atkinson.
Historically cold March temperatures are freezing a large part of the Lower 48 - After much anticipation, some of the most frigid air this late in winter descended on the Lower 48 United States this weekend. Cold even by January standards, it is here to stay for several more days.Widespread temperatures in the minus-20s to minus-30s or colder invaded the northern tier Sunday morning, sending wind chills below minus-50 in spots. Including Monday, below-zero readings have been recorded as far south as the southern portion of the Central Plains and into the lower Midwest and Great Lakes region.Sunday also featured a coldest low of minus-44 in Montana and a warmest high of 88 in Florida. That made for a remarkable 132-degree temperature difference across the Lower 48.When this freakish cold spell is done, several hundred new record-low maximum and record-low temperatures will have fallen. In the past seven days alone, cold records are outpacing warm by about 4 to 1 across the nation.. Widespread temperatures in the minus-30s to minus-40s blanketed Montana by Sunday morning.The National Weather Service office in Great Falls reported that Lewistown, in central Montana, set an record for March and this late in the winter with a low of minus-34 degrees, toppling the previous record of minus-28 on multiple dates. Great Falls had a low of minus-32 degrees, which was a tie for the coldest temperature in March there, last done on the 10th in 1932. If those absurdly frigid temperatures were not enough, wind chills were pushed even lower. A truly bonkers wind chill of minus-57 was recorded in north-central parts of the state at Havre! Other record lows occurred across the Northern and Central Plains into the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Wind chills between minus-40 and minus-50 were common across the northern tier, as well. Dangerous weather — no hyperbole needed.
Drought-Stricken Pakistan Receives Heaviest Snowfall in 48 Years -- Pakistan is seeing an unusually wet winter this year after a very long drought. The country's northern areas received up to 1.8 and 2.1 m (6 and 7 feet) in January and the first week of February 2019, the heaviest in 48 years. Other parts of the country have seen torrential rains and flooding that required launching of relief efforts by Pakistani military and national and provincial disaster management agencies. Abdul Wali Yousafzai, a senior officer in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa irrigation department told Anadolu Agency that the "snowfall and rain will not only help to raise our water table but also be beneficial for our forests that had been affected by drought". Prime Minister Imran Khan also welcomed it as "a blessing from God". "The rainfall will raise the water table while the snow will melt into our river. It's a blessing from God," he said. Unusually wet weather in arid Balochistan has caused deaths, injuries, property losses and displacement of people. At least 13 people are dead and dozens have been injured in the province. In addition, 1,970 houses having collapsed, 565 buildings partially damaged and 227 shops destroyed, according to Balochistan Disaster Management Agency. Lack of rain and snow has caused recurring droughts in Pakistan since 2000 hitting hard the local population in many parts of Pakistan, Islamic Relief NGO reported February 11. The situation since 2013 has been particularly alarming due to 74% decrease in rainfall impacting hard on water management, agriculture, livestock, health, food security and livelihoods. It is in this context that the heavy snow and rains are being welcomed in the country. This offers at least temporary relief in a drought-stricken land. The big picture is that Pakistan remains beset by a severe water crisis that could pose an existential threat if nothing is done to deal with it. The total per capita water availability is about 900 cubic meters per person, putting the country in the water-stressed category. Agriculture sector uses about 95% of the available water.
Thousands Flee as 19 Wildfires Burn in Southeast Australia --As many as 19 wildfires were burning in the Southeastern Australian state of Victoria on Monday, forcing thousands to flee their homes, CNN reported. Lightning strikes last week were the immediate cause of the fires, Victoria emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp said, according to CNN. Two of the fires, at Bunyip and Yinnar South in West Gippsland, destroyed nine buildings, including homes, on Sunday, The Guardian reported. As of Monday, more than 2,000 firefighters were working to control the blazes. "This is a challenging time and it's going to be a very busy time for firefighters and emergency services across the state," Crisp said, according to CNN.The Bunyip State Forest fire, which has burned through more than 12,000 hectares (approximately 29,653 acres), is the priority for firefighters because it threatens the largest number of homes, The Guardian reported. The township of Tonimbuk inside Bunyip State Park was "all but wiped off the map" by the blaze, Network 10 journalist Candice Wyatt tweeted.
Great Barrier Reef Authority Gives Green Light to Dump Dredging Sludge - The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has approved the dumping of more than 1m tonnes of dredge spoil near the reef, using a loophole in federal laws that were supposed to protect the marine park. The Greens senator Larissa Waters has called for the permit – which allows maintenance dredging to be carried out over 10 years at Mackay’s Hay Point port and the sludge to be dumped within the marine park’s boundaries – to be revoked. “The last thing the reef needs is more sludge dumped on it, after being slammed by the floods recently,” Waters said. “One million tonnes of dumping dredged sludge into world heritage waters treats our reef like a rubbish tip.” Acting on concerns from environmentalists, the federal government banned the disposal of dredge spoil near the reef in 2015. But the ban applied only to capital dredging. Maintenance work at ports – designed to remove sediment from shipping lanes as it accumulates – is not subject to it. On 29 January the marine park authority granted conditional approval for North Queensland Bulk Ports to continue to dump maintenance dredge spoil within the park’s boundaries. The permit was issued just days before extensive flooding hit north and central Queensland, spilling large amounts of sediment into the marine environment. . “The backflip by state and federal Labor and Liberal governments several years ago, after sustained pressure from the Greens and the community, to ban offshore dumping from capital dredging shows they understand the damage this sludge can do to the marine environment – all the more so now that 50% of the corals have died from successive bleaching,” Waters said.
Warming oceans are hurting seafood supply—and things are getting worse - Marine fish around the world are already feeling the effects of climate change—and some are reeling, according to the first large analysis of recent trends. Rising sea temperatures have reduced the productivity of some fisheries by 15% to 35% over 8 decades, although in other places fish are thriving because warming waters are becoming more suitable. The net effect is that the world’s oceans can’t yield as much sustainable seafood as before, a situation that is likely to worsen as global warming accelerates in the oceans. A silver lining is that the research suggests well-managed fisheries are more resilient in the face of rising temperature, says Rainer Froese, a marine ecologist with the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, who was not involved in the work. “We have to stop overfishing to let the gene pool survive, so that [the fish] can adapt to climate change,” he says. “We have to give them a break.” As cold-blooded animals, fish mirror the temperature of the water they swim in. When the water gets too warm, the enzymes they use for digestion and other functions are less efficient, impairing growth and reproduction. In addition, warm water contains less oxygen, a further stressor.
Fish stocks continuing to fall as oceans warm, study finds -- Fish catches have declined markedly and are likely to fall further, a study has found, with warming oceans to blame. Around the world, fish populations have fallen over the past 80 years, although some species have shown greater resilience than others. Overall, catches of commercially important fish have fallen by just over 4%, but in some regions catches have plunged by about a third since early in the last century. The findings come from a study that has used “hindcasting” methods to reconstruct the effects of global warming, overfishing and other impacts on fisheries over the 80-year period from 1930 to 2010. The researchers, whose work is published in the journal Science, examined fish populations in 38 regions, studying 235 fish populations made up of 124 species, which represented about a third of the global fishing catch over the period studied. Changes in temperature were found to have an important effect, along with other problems such as overfishing and ocean acidification. They used data on catch sizes, fish populations and temperatures to build a picture of how fishing, sea temperature increases and other factors had an effect on fish populations over the period studied. The greatest losses found in the study were of fish in the North Sea near the UK, the sea of Japan, around the Iberian coast and the Celtic-Biscay shelf. There were gains among fish populations in the Labrador-Newfoundland region, the Baltic Sea, the Indian Ocean and the north-east US shelf. Historical data on many tropical regions is limited, leaving the researchers unable to form a clear picture in such areas.
Scientists warn global warming could decimate fish supplies and fuel migration - Millions of people could lose their livelihoods, food source, and be forced from their homes if the world does not meet the Paris goal to curb global warming which is endangering fish numbers, Canadian researchers said on Wednesday. A study by the University of British Columbia compared the economic and environmental impact of holding the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as agreed in Paris in 2015, versus the current 3.5 degrees warming scenario. Lead researcher Rashid Sumaila, director of the university's Fisheries Economics Research Unit, said they found meeting the Paris goal would benefit 75 percent of maritime countries, with the largest gains in poorer nations, by boosting fish supplies. Fisheries provide about 260 million full-time and part-time jobs globally with seafood products a critical export for developing nations, according to the study published in the journal Science Advances. But Sumaila warned that failing to curb global warming could threaten the livelihoods and food source of millions of people. "This can turn into a massive crisis as it could cause forced migration not only locally but globally," Sumaila told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview. "A steady supply of fish is essential to support these jobs, food sovereignty, and human well-being." Ocean heat - recorded by thousands of floating robots - has been setting records repeatedly over the last decade, with 2018 expected to be the hottest year yet, according to an analysis by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The study found the Paris deal would push up the total mass of the top revenue generating fish species globally by 6.5 percent, with an average increase of 8.4 percent in the waters of developing countries. Sumaila said achieving the Paris targets could increase global fishing revenue by $4.6 billion a year. "The largest gains will occur in developing country waters, such as Kiribati, the Maldives and Indonesia, which are at greatest risks due to warming temperatures and rely the most on fish for food security, incomes and employment," Sumaila said.
Mexico: at most only 22 vaquita porpoises remain — Experts said Wednesday that at most only 22 vaquitas remain in the Gulf of California, where a grim, increasingly violent battle is playing out between emboldened fishermen and the last line of defense for the smallest and most endangered porpoise in the world. Jorge Urban, a biology professor at the Baja California Sur University, said the 22 vaquitas were heard over a network of acoustic monitors at the end of summer. That was in fact higher than many had expected; some had estimated as little as 15 would remain in the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, the only place in the world where the vaquita marina is found. It may be a sign the vaquita is holding on, and what is keeping it alive is a thin line of defenders: Every night 22 volunteer crew members from ships operated by the environmentalist group Sea Shepherd go out to search the upper Gulf for hidden gill nets that catch prized - but protected - totoaba fish and drown vaquitas. It is increasingly dangerous work. Over the last month, the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat has suffered two attacks in which dozens of fast fishing boats pounded the ship with rocks and firebombs. “If we stop operations, the vaquita will go extinct,” said Sea Shepherd first mate Jack Hutton. “It’s just out here removing nets, if we stop removing them then there’s no hope for the vaquita.” The prime season to catch totoaba, which peaks in May, is causing a frenzy. The big fish’s swim bladders are considered a delicacy in China and can bring thousands of dollars apiece at retail. With so few vaquitas left, a mass totoaba fishing effort this spring could wipe out the species.
Climate change forces Arctic animals to shift feeding habits: study (AFP) - Seals and whales in the Arctic are shifting their feeding patterns as climate change alters their habitats, and the way they do so may determine whether they survive, a new study has found. Researchers harnessed datasets spanning two decades to examine how two species of Arctic wildlife -- beluga whales, also known as white whales, and ringed seals -- are adapting to their changing habitat. The research focused on the area around Svalbard -- northwest of Norway -- which is experiencing rapid impacts from climate change and particularly a "large collapse in sea-ice conditions in 2006 that has continued to the present day," said lead researcher Charmain Hamilton. "Both white whales and ringed seals were tagged in Svalbard before this collapse occurred to study their basic ecology. Repeat sampling after the sea-ice collapse occurred thus offered the opportunity for a natural experiment," added Hamilton, who works with the Norwegian Polar Institute. Both species traditionally hunt for food in areas with sea ice and particularly at so-called tidal glacier fronts, where glaciers meet the ocean. But ringed seals now spend "significantly higher proportions of time near tidal glacier fronts" while the white whales had the opposite response and had moved elsewhere to look for food. "Tidal glacier fronts appear to be serving as Arctic 'refugia' for RS (ringed seals), explaining why this species has increased the amount of time spent near glaciers," the study said. White whales meanwhile now "have larger home ranges and spent less time near glacier fronts and more time in the centre of fjords".
Coastal Flooding Is Erasing Billions in Property Value as Sea Level Rises. That's Bad News for Cities. - Rising seas have already eroded coastal property values from Maine to Mississippi by billions of dollars over the past decade as buyers pay less for homes in neighborhoods where high-tide flooding is creeping in, a new report shows. The loss in property values points to a compound problem for coastal communities: Just as accelerating sea level rise forces governments to build flood walls and repair infrastructure more often, it may also eat away at the property tax base that provides many cities' primary revenue stream for funding that very work. "This is a real negative feedback loop," said Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "If they don't start to recognize these issues and reports like this and open their eyes to what is definitely happening, they're going to find themselves in pretty dire straits." The analysis, published Wednesday by First Street Foundation, estimates that property value losses from coastal flooding in 17 states were nearly $16 billion from 2005 to 2017. Florida, New Jersey, New York and South Carolina each saw more than $1 billion in losses. "This isn't a forward-facing issue," said Jeremy Porter, a lecturer at Columbia University, consultant at First Street and an author of the report. "It's something that's been occurring. It's something that's affecting people's homes now."
The Bering Strait should be covered in ice, but it’s nearly all gone - During winter, the Bering Strait has historically been blanketed in ice. But this year, the ice has nearly vanished. "The usually ice-covered Bering Strait is almost completely open water," Zack Labe, a climate scientist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Irvine, said over email. At its narrowest point, the Arctic strait between the U.S. and Russia is 55 miles across, and there's a prominent theory that people once crossed from Asia into North America across an exposed Bering land bridge (back when sea levels were lower). In modern times, however, this frigid waterway usually builds ice through the winter, reaching its greatest extent in late March. After that, the ice usually lingers for months. "There should be ice here until May," Lars Kaleschke, a climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, said over email.But now, in early March, the ice extent is the lowest in the 40-year satellite record, said Labe. On March 2 specifically, the ice extent was lowest on record for that day of the year, added Kaleschke.Overall, the last two years have now seen exceptionally low ice cover in the Bering Sea, and there are a few reasons why. In the longer-term, the Arctic is warming over twice as fast as the rest of the globe, leading to significant melting across much of the Arctic, even where the ice is the thickest, oldest, and most resilient. "The 12 lowest extents in the satellite record have occurred in the last 12 years," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2018 Arctic reportconcluded. This Arctic warming is especially notable near the Bering Strait. "In the long-term, temperatures in northern Alaska have been rising faster than anywhere else in the United States," said Labe.
Our planet just set a scary new carbon dioxide record -Our planet’s level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a new, jarring record last month. Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced on Tuesday that February’s average carbon dioxide measurement was 411.66 parts per million as measured in Mauna Loa, Hawaii.Since humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions were at an all-time high last year, a new record was expected. What was shocking was that it occurred so early in the year: Earth’s carbon dioxide levels typically peak in May, when the vast northern forests of North America and Asia are just beginning to green up. Setting a new record in February is “rare,” according to Scripps.“In most years, the previous maximum is surpassed in March or April. The February record breaking is a measure of just how fast CO2 has been rising in the past months,” said Scripps CO2 Group Director Ralph Keeling, in a statement. The suddenness of this year’s record is the result of “the combination of weak El Nino conditions and unprecedented emissions from fossil-fuel burning,” according to Keeling.This year’s carbon dioxide level is expected to peak around 415 parts per million in May.There hasn’t been this much carbon dioxide in our planet’s atmosphere since before cars started clogging the roads a century ago, before agriculture was developed 10,000 years ago, and before modern humans evolved more than a million years ago. We have reached not only a new phase of civilizational history, but a new phase of our species’ history. In recent years, the rise in the planet’s carbon dioxide levels has picked up speed. That’s in line with scientists’ predictions of a planet creeping toward dangerous and irreversible tipping points, and highlights the dangers of collective foot-dragging on shifting to a carbon-free economy.
Methane in the atmosphere is surging, and that’s got scientists worried - Twenty years ago the level of methane in the atmosphere stopped increasing, giving humanity a bit of a break when it came to slowing climate change. But the concentration started rising again in 2007 — and it’s been picking up the pace over the last four years, according to new research. Scientists haven’t figured out the cause, but they say one thing is clear: This surge could imperil the Paris climate accord. That’s because many scenarios for meeting its goal of keeping global warming “well below 2 degrees Celsius” assumed that methane would be falling by now, buying time to tackle the long-term challenge of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Methane is produced when dead stuff breaks down without much oxygen around. In nature, it seeps out of waterlogged wetlands, peat bogs and sediments. Forest fires produce some too. These days, however, human activities churn out about half of all methane emissions. Leaks from fossil fuel operations are a big source, as is agriculture — particularly raising cattle, which produce methane in their guts. Even the heaps of waste that rot in landfills produce the gas. Agriculture, including growing rice in flooded fields, is one of the biggest sources of human-caused methane emissions. The atmosphere contains far less methane than carbon dioxide, which is the primary driver of climate change. But methane is so good at trapping heat that one ton of the gas causes 32 times as much warming as one ton of CO2 over the course of a century. For 10,000 years, the concentration of methane in Earth’s atmosphere hovered below 750 parts per billion, or ppb. It began rising in the 19th century and continued to climb until the mid-1990s. Along the way, it caused up to one-third of the warming the planet has experienced since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Scientists thought that methane levels might have reached a new equilibrium when they plateaued around 1,775 ppb, and that efforts to cut emissions could soon reverse the historical trend. “The hope was that methane would be starting on its trajectory downwards now,” said Matt Rigby, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Bristol in England. “But we’ve seen quite the opposite: It’s been growing steadily for over a decade.”
Earth could warm by 14°C as growing emissions destroy crucial clouds - If we keep burning fossil fuels with reckless abandon, we could trigger a cloud feedback effect that will add 8°C on top of all the warming up to that point. That means the world could warm by more than 14°C above the pre-industrial level.Needless to say, this would be cataclysmic. For instance, large parts of the tropics would become too hot for warm-blooded animals, including us, to survive.The good news is that if countries step up their efforts to cut emissions we should avoid finding out if this idea is correct. “I don’t think we will get anywhere close to it,” says Tapio Schneider at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, who led the research., Schneider’s team modelled stratocumulus clouds over subtropical oceans, which cover around 7 per cent of Earth’s surface and cool the planet by reflecting the sun’s heat back into space. They found there was a sudden transition when CO2 levels reached around 1200 parts per million (ppm) — the stratocumulus clouds broke up and disappeared.The reason why this finding applies only to subtropical stratocumulus is that these clouds are unusual. The cloud layer is maintained by the cloudtops cooling as they emit infrared radiation — and very high CO2 levels block this process. The loss of these bright white clouds would have a dramatic warming effect, adding 8°C to the global temperature, Schneider calculates. Since the world would warm around 6°C or more if CO2 levels passed 1200 ppm, this means the average global temperature could exceed 14°C or more. CO2 levels will pass 410 ppm this year, up from 280 ppm in preindustrial times. If we burned all available fossil fuels, atmospheric CO2 levels could rise as high as 4000 ppm. However, even in the standard worst case scenario used by climate scientists, which assumes nothing is done to curb emissions, CO2 levels would only pass 1200 ppm decades after 2100.
The Weirdly Quiet Sun May Get Even Quieter (and BTW, Earth Is Still Warming) - After the most tepid solar cycle in at least a century, several top forecasters are now predicting an even more lackluster cycle in the 2020s. The sun’s prolonged calmness is fascinating as well as mysterious, but here’s something to keep in mind: even if the sun goes into a multi-decade “grand minimum”, any climate effects are likely to be swamped by human-produced climate change. Starting in March, a panel of experts being convened by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) and NASA will work on a consensus forecast to be issued later this year for Solar Cycle 25, the one that will unfold in the 2020s. A formal call for predictions to feed into the consensus reportwas issued in December. Each solar cycle lasts about 10 to 12 years. Sunspot activity and other solar disturbances are greatly enhanced during the several years around each cycle’s peak, and global temperatures tend to beabout 0.4°F (0.2°C) warmer around solar maximum versus solar minimum. Cycle 24, which had a double peak in 2011 and 2014, is now close to the end of its lifespan. In fact, February 2019 was the first month since August 2008 without a single sunspot observed, as reportedby spaceweather.com. The peak monthly average sunspot number during the cycle now ending was the lowest in 210 years, according to data at spaceweatherlive.com. When the sunspot numbers are averaged more broadly, across rolling 13-month periods, Cycle 24’s peak still ranks as the weakest since Cycle 14, which peaked in 1906. (These assessments are based on a recently revised version of the sunspot-number dataset.)
Youth climate strikers: ‘We are going to change the fate of humanity’ - The students striking from schools around the world to demand action on climate change have issued an uncompromising open letter stating: “We are going to change the fate of humanity, whether you like it or not.”The letter, published by the Guardian, says: “United we will rise on 15 March and many times after until we see climate justice. We demand the world’s decision makers take responsibility and solve this crisis. You have failed us in the past. [But] the youth of this world has started to move and we will not rest again.”The Youth Strikes for Climate movement is not centrally organised, so keeping track of the fast growing number of strikes is difficult, but many are registering on FridaysForFuture.org. So far, there are almost 500 events listed to take place on 15 March across 51 countries, making it the biggest strike day so far. Students plan to skip school across Western Europe, from the US to Brazil and Chile, and from Australia to Iran, India and Japan. “For people under 18 in most countries, the only democratic right we have is to demonstrate. We don’t have representation,” said Jonas Kampus, a 17 year old student activist, from near Zurich, Switzerland. “To study for a future that will not exist, that does not make sense.”
Climate Change Mobilization: To Fear, or Not to Fear? - In just the past year, the public conversation on climate change has turned dire. Wildfires scorched parts of the American West, wiping an entire town off the map. Blazes also torched parts of Greece, which — along with many regions above the equator — was suffering through one of its hottest summers on record. In the fall, Typhoon Yutu tore through parts of the Philippines and China and leveled several western Pacific islands. Amid all the carnage, the leading global authority on warming, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, detailed the horrors in store if average temperatures pass 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. (We’re already over 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, andworldwide carbon emissions hit a new high in 2018.) Scientists are now sounding the alarm. Young activists are skipping school and taking to the streets. And in the U.S., a bold proposal to remake the American economy is sending shockwaves through climate legislation discussions that had been stalled for a decade. Into that now-bubbling climate cauldron comes the book The Uninhabitable Earth, a distressing review of climate science designed to jolt us out of complacency. David Wallace-Wells, who characterizes himself as a concerned liberal who “wasn’t really focused on this issue until a few years ago,” channels the panic he felt at reading reams of scientific reports into a vision of a dystopian future that we’re not doing enough to avoid. The question is whether fear is the right emotion to play on to get people to sit up, listen, and take action. According to Grist’s own Eric Holthaus, who’s been writing about climate change for more than a decade, it’s not. To him, it’s best to accept the scientific consensus and inspire our fellow humans to roll up their sleeves and ensure we do whatever it takes to decarbonize the global economy rapidly.
This is an emergency, damn it - David Roberts - Earlier this month, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)introduced a Green New Deal resolution laying out an ambitious set of goals and principles aimed at transforming and decarbonizing the US economy.The release prompted a great deal of smart, insightful writing, but also a lot of knee-jerk and predictable cant. Conservatives called it socialist. Moderates called it extreme. Pundits called it unrealistic. Wonks scolded it over this or that omission. Political gossip columnists obsessed over missteps in the rollout.What ties the latter reactions together, from my perspective, is that they seem oblivious to the historical moment, like thespians acting out an old, familiar play even as the theater goes up in flames around them.To put it bluntly: This is not normal. We are not in an era of normal politics. There is no precedent for the climate crisis, its dangers or its opportunities. Above all, it calls for courage and fresh thinking. Rather than jumping into individual responses, I want to take a step back and try to situate the Green New Deal in our current historical context, at least as I see it. Then it will be clearer why I think so many critics have missed the mark.
Commentary: The Green New Deal from Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez isn't so crazy after all - The Green New Deal promoted by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fast-rising star in the US Congress, and others among her fellow Democrats, may trigger a welcome reset of the discussion on climate-change mitigation in the United States and beyond. Though not really new – European Greens have been pushing for such a “new deal” for a decade – her plan is ambitious and wide-ranging. It may be too ambitious and wide-ranging. But, unlike economists’ favorite approach to climate change – set the right price for carbon and leave the rest to private decisions – the Green New Deal rightly encompasses the many dimensions of what must be a fundamental transformation of our economies and our societies if the climate challenge is to be met successfully. The transition to a carbon-neutral economy is bound to be as revolutionary as the transition to the industrial age. Given the comprehensive nature of this transition, it cannot be summarised in one price. It must be a collective endeavour in which governments invest and every citizen finds his or her role. The optimistic, participatory ethos of the Green New Deal should be commended. But let’s be clear: The green transition will not be a free lunch. There is no doubt that life and work will be far better if we succeed in containing climate change than if we fail, which is the rationale for undertaking the corresponding efforts. Yet that is not the question many citizens are asking. Their baseline expectation – unrealistic, but understandable – is a business-as-usual scenario in which they continue to consume and travel according to their current habits.They may accept eating a little less meat and using more efficient cars, provided their purchasing power does not change. And they may wish to change jobs, if the new one is better paid and less stressful. But there is little evidence that most citizens are ready for more. The truth is unfortunately quite different. The transition to a carbon-neutral economy is bound to make us worse off before it makes us better off, and the most vulnerable segments of society will be hit especially hard. Unless we acknowledge and address this reality, support for greening the economy will remain shallow and it may eventually wane.
Exxon Mobil CEO says support for Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal may soon waver. Here's why --Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal is garnering significant support, but the head of Exxon Mobil says people's views may change as the plan becomes more detailed and Americans begin to comprehend how it could affect their daily lives.Ocasio-Cortez updated her blueprint for the Green New Deal last month, but has yet to suggest policies to achieve the plan's ambitious goals. Among other things, the freshman congresswoman calls for generating 100 percent of U.S. power from renewable sources, swapping gas-powered cars for electric vehicles and slashing carbon emissions — all in just 10 years.Several Democratic presidential candidates have backed the plan, and the broad idea drew support across the political spectrum in a poll conducted last fall by public opinion researchers at Yale and George Mason University.But eventually those big ideas will require action, says Exxon Chairman and CEO Darren Woods, and that's when the tide of public opinion could begin to turn against the Green New Deal."Energy is such an important part of people's daily lives and their standards of living that as you think about these big ideas and translate them down to smaller practical steps you take, people become very cognizant of what the impacts are for individuals," Woods said in an interview Wednesday with CNBC's Becky Quick. The interview aired Thursday on "Squawk Box." "And as that starts to happen, I think people's view change as to how far they can go and how quickly they can go."
Senate Showdown Over Green New Deal --Senate Democrats sparred with Republicans on the floor Wednesday over the Green New Deal, interrogating GOP lawmakers bashing the proposal over their plans to combat climate change. "Maybe a lot of members think they can get away without having to answer the question [about what to do about climate change]," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told collected lawmakers. "They won't." Majority Leader McConnell said earlier this week that he plans to bring a vote on the Green New Deal over the next few weeks, and some leading Democrats told Politico that they plan to vote "present" on the politically tricky legislation while taking Republicans to task on their climate denial. "This is the first time Democrats have decided to go on offense on climate change," Schumer told the New York Times in an interview earlier this week, but added that "it's going to take us a little while to come up with a consensus that works."
Republicans Just Can’t Stop Talking About the ‘Green New Deal’ - Republicans are embracing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ambitious plan to avert climate change -- but not because they favor the Green New Deal. The party hopes they can use it to take back seats in Congress and possibly keep the White House in 2020. They are featuring the proposal in tweets, billboards and media appearances as they seek to paint Democrats as environmental extremists and socialists. A cadre of Republican senators plan to take to the Senate floor Wednesday to bash the plan. “We are preparing to have a nice informative colloquy on that issue,” Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, said in an interview. “We’ll be making some points about the lack of realism and the enormous, unbelievable price tag.” Talking points distributed at the Republican’s weekly caucus meeting Tuesday refer to the plan as “nonsense on stilts” and a “vehicle for socialists policies that have nothing to do with climate change.” Democrats are using the debate to point out Republicans have yet to craft a plan of their own to fight climate change. They’re asking Republicans to sign onto a recently introduced resolution that affirms climate change is real, caused by humans, and that Congress needs to take action. “Climate change is the most significant crisis facing humanity and Democrats are prepared to take bold action to address it but Republicans are standing in the way,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Mike Bloomberg says Green New Deal 'stands no chance,' offers alternative plan --Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday said he'll launch an effort to move the United States to 100-percent clean energy, claiming the Green New Deal proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn't stand a chance on Capitol Hill.Bloomberg made the pledge in an op-ed announcing he will not run for president in 2020. Instead, the businessman and philanthropist said he'd redouble his efforts to phase out coal power plants and mitigate the impacts of climate change. "The idea of a Green New Deal — first suggested by the columnist Tom Friedman more than a decade ago — stands no chance of passage in the Senate over the next two years," Bloomberg said. "But Mother Nature does not wait on our political calendar, and neither can we."The Green New Deal has dominated the conversation on climate change policy since Democrats took control of the House in the fall election. Among its ambitious goals, Ocasio-Cortez's plan calls for generating 100 percent of U.S. electric power from renewable sources and overhauling the economy to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years. Republicans have dismissed it as a job-killing pipe dream. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he'll schedule a vote on the plan, a move that would force Democrats to publicly support or reject the initiative.Free from the demands of running a presidential campaign, Bloomberg says he will expand his support for the Beyond Coal campaign, a push to retire all U.S. coal-fired power plants within 11 years. Bloomberg says he'll also launch the Beyond Carbon campaign, which will seek to reduce the role of oil and natural gas in the U.S. energy mix and set a course for a "100 percent clean energy economy."Some energy researchers and policymakers warn that racing to achieve the Green New Deal's goals in just 10 years would potentially create unintended consequences, spark public backlash and undermine the transition to clean energy. Its backers say the risks posed by climate change and years of inaction mean the U.S. cannot afford to pursue a more conservative approach.
Why Is Dianne Feinstein So Opposed to the Green New Deal? Look at Her Family Finances. - On February 22, footage of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lecturing pleading children about her opposition to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey's Green New Deal resolution went viral. Several media commentators on both sides of the debate cast the video of the 85-year-old senator dressing down the children as a case of generational conflict. But the episode was also a reminder of the peril of wealth inequality in politics, with Feinstein, one of the very wealthiest members of Congress, having a personal financial stake in industries whose bottom lines would be threatened by the measures in the Green New Deal resolution. Feinstein, whose net worth stands at $58.5 million, has been married for nearly 40 years to Richard C. Blum, a wealthy investor who still runs the private equity firm he founded in 1975, Richard C. Blum & Associates, Inc. According to Feinstein's most recent financial annual report, filed in May 2018 and covering the 2017 calendar year, Blum owns 100 percent of Yosemite Investments LLC, through which he has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in several fossil fuel companies, some of which he has sold off since the Green New Deal began gaining increasing national attention. According to an amendment filed in January, Blum in August 2017 invested more than $1 million in the Osterweis Strategic Income Fund, a mutual fund run by investment firm Osterweis Capital Management. Among Osterweis’s top ten holdings are logistics firm XPO, a subsidiary of methanol producer Consolidated Energy Limited, a subsidiary of commercial aircraft leaser Avation PLC, and mining company Teck Resources, which holds interests in a number of different oil sands projects across the border in Canada, including the controversial Frontier project. In the annual report covering 2017, Blum reported having over $50,000 invested in Antero Midstream Partners, which owns and operates infrastructure for natural gas and natural gas liquids production. Transaction reports filed in 2018 and this year show Blum has also made major investments in Antero Midstream GP. The two companies are expected to finalize a merger, forming Antero Midstream Corporation, on March 12. All of these companies could potentially be impacted by measures proposed in the Green New Deal, such as creating a nationwide high-speed rail network, transitioning to a fully renewable energy grid and shifting to electric vehicles. The same goes for some of the Osterweis fund's other holdings such as Calumet Specialty Products, NGL Energy Partners and Icahn Enterprises. The latter is the business vehicle for fossil fuel investor Carl Icahn, a Trump ally who helped shape the president’s policy on the Environmental Protection Agency, and subsequently profited from it.
Pro-Trump billionaires continue to bankroll climate denial - The GOP megadonor family that gave more than $15 million to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign maintained its position as a key funder of climate change denial in 2017, dishing out nearly $5 million to nonprofits and think tanks that peddle misinformation about the global crisis, according to their latest tax records.The continued largesse by the deep-pocketed but secretive Mercer family included a $170,000 donation to the CO2 Coalition, a right-wing think tank that argues Earth benefits from humans pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. William Happer, a retired Princeton physics professor whom Trump recently tapped to lead an ad hoc panel to conduct “adversarial scientific peer review” of near-universally accepted climate science, co-founded the group in 2015.Hedge fund tycoon Robert Mercer funds the Mercer Family Foundation, and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer, directs it. The foundation’s six-figure gift to the CO2 Coalition accounts for a quarter of the $662,203 the coalition raised in 2017. The think tank received its first donation of $150,000 from the Mercers in 2016.The CO2 Coalition was established out of the defunct George C. Marshall Institute, another conservative think tank that cast doubt on climate science before folding in 2015. Happer, a seasoned climate change denier, left the CO2 Coalition last September to serve as Trump’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies on the National Security Council. Happer has called climate science a “cult,” claimed Earth is in the midst of a ”CO2 famine,” and said the “demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”The Mercers divvied out a total $15,222,302 to 37 nonprofits in 2017, according to the foundation’s most recently available 990 tax form, which researchers at the Climate Investigations Center shared with HuffPost. That’s down from the approximately $19 million they gave to 44 nonprofits one year earlier. Roughly one-third of all the foundation’s 2017 contributions ― just shy of $5 million ― went to nonprofits that oppose federal regulations targeting greenhouse gas emissions, challenge the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is an immediate crisis, or promote or funnel cash to denial proponents.
Republicans who couldn't beat climate debate now seek to join it - Rep. John Shimkus once issued a forceful rejection of climate science at a congressional hearing, invoking the Bible and declaring that "Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over."Last month, in a turnabout, the Illinois Republican signed onto a letter with the top Republican of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that said "prudent steps should be taken to address current and future climate risks.""It's just not worth the fight anymore," Shimkus said in an interview when asked about his changing stance on climate change. "Let's just see what we can do to address it and not hurt the economy."Shimkus is among a number of Republicans who - after years of sowing doubt about climate change or ignoring it altogether - are scrambling to confront the science they once rejected. They are planning hearings on the issue, pledging to invest in technologies to mitigate its impact and openly talking about the need for taking action. The shift in posture follows the public's growing anxiety after catastrophic hurricanes, flooding and wildfires linked to global warming. Fully 74 percent of registered voters think global warming is happening and 67 percent said they are worried it, according to polling conducted by Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Among conservative Republicans, just 42 percent think global warming is happening but that is up five percentage points since a poll taken in 2017. "Members are openly using the term climate change," Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, from oil-rich Alaska, said of her GOP colleagues. "You are not seeing this kind of dismissive attitude but more open conversations about some of the challenges, some of the technologies we can look to, some of the solutions."
The case for green realism -- The transition to a carbon-neutral economy is bound to be as revolutionary as the transition to the industrial age. Given the comprehensive nature of this transition, it cannot be summarized in one price. It must be a collective endeavour in which governments invest and every citizen finds his or her role. The optimistic, participatory ethos of the Green New Deal should be commended. But let’s be clear: the green transition will not be a free lunch. There is no doubt that life and work will be far better if we succeed in containing climate change than if we fail, which is the rationale for undertaking the corresponding efforts. Yet that is not the question many citizens are asking. Their baseline expectation – unrealistic, but understandable – is a business-as-usual scenario in which they continue to consume and travel according to their current habits. They may accept eating a little less meat and using more efficient cars, provided their purchasing power does not change. And they may wish to change jobs, if the new one is better paid and less stressful. But there is little evidence that most citizens are ready for more. Understandably, Green New Deal supporters tend to pander to these feelings. The Ocasio-Cortez proposal is vague enough to evade precise criticisms, but what is evident is that it does not put a finger on anything that may hurt. The same applies to many plans that promise a nicer life together with more and better jobs.The truth is unfortunately quite different. The transition to a carbon-neutral economy is bound to make us worse off before it makes us better off, and the most vulnerable segments of society will be hit especially hard. Unless we acknowledge and address this reality, support for greening the economy will remain shallow and it may eventually wane.
Ocasio-Cortez Mocks Critics Of Her Massive Carbon Footprint -- Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is pushing back against critics of her unnecessarily giant carbon footprint. The self-proclaimed "boss" of the progressive movement has been branded a hypocrite after the New York Post revealed on Saturday that despite championing the "Green New Deal" which calls for the elimination of fossil fuels - AOC and her staff have relied heavily on combustion-engine cars, racking up $29,365 in car services such as Uber and Lyft "even though her Queens HQ was a one-minute walk to the 7 train." AOC's office also spent $25,174 forr 66 taxpayer-funded airline transactions, while she and her staff only took Amtrack 18 times "despite high-speed rail being the cornerstone of her save-the-world strategy."Most of the flights came after her primary win gave her superstar status and Ocasio-Cortez spent weeks jetting around the country, burning fuel to support her fellow Dems.That despite her ultimate goal of building “high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary” — part of her Green New Deal mentioned in an FAQ she posted to her official website. She later called the air travel reference a mistake. The resolution now before Congress doesn’t mention air travel. -New York PostHer explanation for not even making an effort to reduce her carbon footprint? She has to use "present technology" in order to fight for the Green New Deal. On Saturday, AOC responded to the Post article, tweeting: "I also fly & use A/C," adding "Living in the world as it is isn’t an argument against working towards a better future."
How the Weather Gets Weaponized in Climate Change Messaging -- In the summer, when heat waves scorch cities or heavy rains flood the coasts, some climate scientists and environmentalists will point out any plausible connections to global warming, hoping today’s weather will help people understand tomorrow’s danger from climate change. Then winter comes. And, like clockwork, those who want to deny the established science that humans are warming the planet will try to flip the script. In January, when large swaths of the country were gripped by bitter cold, President Trump took to Twitter to mock climate fears: “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!”Welcome to the weather wars. As battle lines harden between climate advocates and deniers, both are increasingly using bouts of extreme weather as a weapon to try to win people to their side. Weather, after all, is one of the easiest things for people to bond over or gripe about, a staple of small talk and shared experience that can make it a simple but powerful opportunity to discuss global warming. But, as Mr. Trump’s words show, it’s also a framing device that can be easily abused. That raises the stakes for how scientists, who have long tried to distinguish between short-term weather fluctuations and long-term climate shifts, draw out and discuss the links between the two.
Record-Breaking Cold Blast in U.S. Will Roil Power Markets Next Week - A strong, late-winter cold blast is roiling power and natural gas markets across the U.S. and is set to wreak more havoc on Monday as temperatures may plunge to record lows for this time of year. The forecasts have already prompted the operator of the electricity grid stretching from the Dakotas to Louisiana to issue a warning about potential power-plant fuel restrictions Monday through Wednesday. In Wyoming, gas supplies were expected to be so tight that a pipeline operator warned of constraints. Power for delivery Monday in the Pacific Northwest jumped to the highest in more than a decade, and heating demand may surge to March records. The cold set to rush across much of the U.S. over the weekend is expected to linger through the middle of next week, offering a potential boost to power and gas markets at a time when demand for the fuels is usually tapering off. Lows could plunge below zero degrees Fahrenheit (minus-18 Celsius) in the upper Midwest. Single-digit highs will numb Minneapolis, and Chicago is forecast to be in the teens. Power for delivery Monday in the Pacific Northwest jumped to more than $890 per megawatt-hour, according to Intercontinental Exchange Inc. data. Gas for delivery this weekend in Sumas, Washington, near the Canadian border, surged to $200, the highest spot price recorded in the U.S. On Friday, spot gas at Northern Natural Gas’s Ventura hub in Iowa more than quadrupled to $13.50 per million British thermal units in trading on the Intercontinental Exchange, according to David Hoy, an energy trader with Dynasty Power Inc. in Calgary. “This is unprecedented,” he said. Suppliers will have to pull natural gas out of storage to meet heating needs at an unusually high rate for this late in the season, said Rick Margolin, senior natural gas analyst at Genscape Inc. “Even though latest weather forecasts have revised ever so slightly warmer, they’re still showing enough cold to generate demand levels that could set new highs for the month of March,” Margolin said. Withdrawals could reach 120 billion cubic feet per day Monday. Demand may dip by the end of the week, but “we still see notably higher-than-normal levels running well into the middle of the month,” he said. The Midwest grid operator will probably need to import supplies from neighbors to the East and West -- and possibly from Canada -- to meet demand, said Wade Schauer, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie. Over the weekend, there won’t be much wind power in the region, but that should pick up by Monday.
Trump Gives Carmakers An Ultimatum- It's My Way Or The I-5 Freeway --The White House has sent a message to automakers on emissions: side with us, or face Donald Trump's wrath by siding with California, i.e. "it's my way or Interstate 5". That was the message delivered during a "tense" conference call between the Trump administration and executives in the auto industry, according to Bloomberg, which also included senior officials from the EPA and the NHTSA. The call, which took place in late February, came after Trump's administration had repeatedly terminated talks between federal regulators and California officials in an attempt to maintain a common emission standard across the industry. Executives in the industry have been urging the two sides to reach an agreement to avoid a legal battle with California, which is in the unique position of being able to establish its own standards. The call to automakers came after the White House admitted that months of talks with the California Air Resources Board had failed. The White House said in late February: “Despite the administration’s best efforts to reach a common-sense solution, it is time to acknowledge that CARB has failed to put forward a productive alternative.CARB spokesman Stanley Young disputed this, saying the administration had broken off talks "and never responded to our suggested areas of compromise - or offered any compromise proposal at all." In August, the Trump administration had recommended capping tailpipe carbon emissions standards and fuel economy requirements at 37 mpg after 2020, instead of the 47 mpg mandated under rules put in place by the Obama administration. The proposal also called for revoking California's authority to set its own greenhouse standards for vehicles. Meanwhile US automakers, caught in the middle, have been urging compromise, and a solution that will avoid a messy legal battle and negative effects on operations across the industry.
EPA Report: Vehicle C02 Emissions Are at a Record Low -- For new cars and trucks released in 2017, carbon dioxide emissions reached a record low, and mileage per gallon reached an all time high, according an U.S. Environmental Protect Agency (EPA) report released Wednesday.The findings are leading many environmental advocates to ask, if Obama-era fuel economy standards seem to be working, why roll them back, as Trump's EPA has proposed?"The EPA's report demonstrates that standards are working to bring us cleaner, more efficient cars," Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Clean Vehicles and Fuels Group Director Luke Tonachel wrote. "There's no reason to turn back. The Trump administration's plan to rollback the standards will cost Americans more at the pump and make us all suffer from increased vehicle pollution. We should keep the current strong standards and look forward to more positive progress reports in the future."The EPA data shows that the average real world carbon dioxide emissions rate for new vehicles released in model year 2017 fell by 3 grams per mile (g/mi) to a record low of 357 g/mi. Fuel efficiency climbed 0.2 miles per gallon (mpg) to 24.9. Since 2004, both fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions have improved in 11 out of 13 years. Manufacturers expect to do even better in 2018, lowering emissions to 348 g/mi and raising fuel economy to 25.4 mpg.
Researchers: Biofuels mandate may cause more harm than good with plowed-up land -- Hundreds of thousands of acres of grasslands and wild habitat in the Upper Midwest have been plowed up to plant corn and soybeans in the past decade because of demand created by the government’s ethanol mandate, according to a trio of academic researchers who argue that federal biofuels policy is causing more environmental harm than good. Their study, released Thursday, found that the shift has destroyed crucial habitat for monarch butterflies and increased the use of chemical fertilizers, while causing the release of millions of tons of carbon dioxide — equal to putting about 5 million more cars on the road each year. The study was completed in response to a 2018 report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and designed to quantify exactly how much new cropland was brought into production nationally as a direct result of the ethanol mandate. The standard, which requires refiners to blend a certain amount of gasoline with biofuels, was created in 2007 and meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions. But the production of biofuels from environmentally friendly “advanced” sources such as grasses or plant and animal waste has lagged behind what lawmakers expected more than a decade ago. Instead, biofuels have been almost entirely produced from corn and soybeans. The study estimates that 1.6 million acres of grass and wetlands nationally were converted to grow crops because the demand for ethanol inflated the prices of corn and soybeans. Another 1.2 million acres of existing farmland, especially in the Midwest, would have been retired to pasture or conservation lands were it not for the mandate. Add that to the millions of acres of farmland that were switched to corn from other crops and the mandate is responsible for adding about 300,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer a year that has been draining into waterways and causing algae blooms and dead zones, the study found. “There is no dispute that U.S. biofuels policy is driving environmental harm,” said Aaron Smith, agricultural and resource economics professor at University of California-Davis, one of the authors.
Coal Ash Contaminates Groundwater at 91% of U.S. Coal Plants, Tests Show - At a power plant in Memphis, Tennessee, coal ash waste that built up over decades has been leaching arsenic and other toxic substances into the groundwater. The contamination, ranked as a top problem in a new national assessment of water testing at coal ash sites, is in a shallow aquifer for now. But below that lies a second aquifer that provides drinking water to more than 650,000 people, and there are concerns that the contamination could make its way into the deeper water supply the city relies on. The scale of the Memphis problem emerged from industry reports on groundwater testing near ponds and landfills that store coal-burning wastes from power plants. These reports, required by recent regulations, show that polluted groundwater is a widespread problem, with unsafe levels of toxic contaminants linked to more than nine out of every 10 coal-fired power plants with monitoring data, about 91 percent. The Environmental Integrity Project and other advocacy groups compiled and analyzed the data in a report released Monday. The worst contamination, according to the analysis, was at the San Miguel Power Plant south of San Antonio, Texas, with 12 pollutants above safe levels in groundwater. In Memphis, the Tennessee Valley Authority's Allen Fossil Plant, which was shut down last year, is in the Top 10. The report covers water testing at 265 existing and retired coal plants, comprising more than 550 individual coal ash ponds and dumps that have groundwater monitoring wells. That represents about three-fourths of the coal power plants in the country, according to the authors. Some plant owners were not required to make groundwater testing results public because they closed their ash dumps before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's first national rules on coal burning waste took effect in 2015, or because they were eligible for an exemption or extension of reporting deadlines.
Coal ash contaminates groundwater near most U.S. coal plants: study (Reuters) - More than 90 percent of U.S. coal-fired power plants that are required to monitor groundwater near their coal ash dumps show unsafe levels of toxic metals, according to a study released on Monday by environmental groups. The groups, led by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, said their findings show the potential harm to drinking water from coal ash and indicate that stronger regulations are needed. Data made public by power companies showed 241 of the 265 plants, or 91 percent, that were subject to the monitoring requirement showed unsafe levels of one or more coal ash components in nearby groundwater compared to EPA standards, according to the analysis by the groups. The report also found that 52 percent of those plants had unsafe levels of cancer-causing arsenic in nearby groundwater, while 60 percent showed unsafe levels of lithium, which can cause neurological damage. “Using industry’s own data, our report proves that coal plants are poisoning groundwater nearly everywhere they operate,” said Lisa Evans, senior counsel with Earthjustice. The environmental groups reviewed data reported from 4,600 groundwater monitoring wells near coal ash dumps of two-thirds of the coal-fired power plants in the United States. Coal ash, which is the residue produced from burning coal in coal-fired plants, is stored at hundreds of power plants throughout the country. Spills in Tennessee and North Carolina leached sludge containing toxic materials into rivers in those states over the last decade. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website, coal ash contains contaminants like mercury, cadmium and arsenic, which “without proper management” can pollute “waterways, groundwater, drinking water and the air.”
Alarming levels of toxins leaking into US groundwater from coal ash ponds --A report released Monday by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Earth Justice revealed that 91 per cent of the 250 coal-powered power plants in the US have leaked toxic chemicals into local groundwater. The chemicals are leaked by way of ponds and landfills holding coal waste from the power plants.The report found elevated levels of arsenic, lithium, and chromium in nearby groundwater and were “far higher” than the acceptable limits, or Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs), set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In some cases, toxin levels were hundreds of times above the EPA’s thresholds.The report is based on publicly available data on the toxicity levels of coal ash dumps. In 2015, the EPA finalized the first federal regulation for the disposal of coal ash, known as the Coal Ash Disposal Regulations. The regulation established groundwater monitoring requirements for coal ash dumps and required power companies to make the data available to the public beginning in March 2018. Coal ash contains dangerous toxins which are known to cause serious health problems, including cancer and kidney and liver damage. When coal ash seeps into groundwater, it can contaminate the drinking water of all those who live nearby.The regulation was implemented in the final years of the Obama Administration with language for corrective action which is deliberately vague: “if a constituent of concern is detected above a statistically significant level, that the groundwater protection standard must be set at either the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) or at the background concentration.” No timelines or procedures are outlined for the cleanup of these highly-contaminated sites, nor is there any indication that fines will be levied against perpetrators. The regulation is written in the interests of the multibillion-dollar coal and coal-power industries.
Agency: Coal dust may be blackening West Virginia stream (AP) — The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection says coal dust from an abandoned mine might be what’s blackening a stream that runs through Helen. The Register-Herald reports the agency says the discolored water staining the Berry Branch stream is coming from a discharge pipe from a Raleigh County mine that has no responsible party. While the discharge pipe has been found, agency workers on Monday were still looking for the underground cause of the discoloration. The agency says biologists are testing the water to determine the discoloration’s possible impact on wildlife. The agency says all nearby active mines are in compliance and not the cause of the dark water first reported Saturday. It says geologic changes can cause underground pools of stagnant water to be flushed out of abandoned mines.
Killer coal -- Since 1884, Art Hayes’ family has ranched several hundred acres in Montana, raising cattle and growing alfalfa. It’s never been particularly easy farming this area, where the annual rainfall is 12 to 16 inches. But the farming business has gotten much more difficult in the past 40 years, thanks to coal mining. Mining boomed here after passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act, because the region’s subbituminous coal — with a low sulfur content — is cleaner to burn than other types of coal. But this boom has caused numerous problems for farmers and ranchers, says Mike Scott, who works for the Montana chapter of the Sierra Club, because of how it has disrupted and poisoned water supplies. “Groundwater is what people rely on most for livestock operations,” Scott says. “Aquifers are in the coal seams. When you cut a giant hole in the ground, you disrupt how that groundwater system works. That makes springs go dry, that makes wells go dry, and it makes it very difficult to run a large-scale livestock operation. Those impacts can be felt way outside the mining area. “We have creeks in Montana that have sulfate levels that would kill a cow,” he adds. “And that’s directly related to coal mining.” Hayes’ ranch is about 40 miles downstream from Montana’s largest coal mine. He began noticing the effects of mining in the early ’70s, as the water he relies on became more and more salty. “We’ve faced droughts and tough winters,” Hayes says. “But this is kind of a slow cancerous growth on us. Are we going to be able to continue to irrigate safely? That’s the reason I’m so concerned. It happens fairly slowly. Pretty soon, you get so much salt in your soil that you can’t deal with it.” The troubles facing Hayes and other ranchers in Montana and Wyoming can be traced, at least in part, to Wisconsin residents. Much of the coal that the state’s power plants burn comes from Wyoming and Montana. As Hayes tells Isthmus: “You’re the market.”
The Millstone nuclear plant faces a tight deadline to survive - When Dominion won a bid for zero-carbon energy in December, it seemed like the perfect Christmas gift, a long-awaited lifeline that would keep its Millstone nuclear plant in Connecticut afloat. Maybe not. New England’s biggest power plant might be forced to close after all. The company is racing to negotiate contracts with two major utilities by March 15. If a deal can’t be reached, Dominion executives say they will retire Millstone for good a few years from now. The Virginia energy firm had previously threatened to pull the plug on the plant, saying it no longer made economic sense to run the two Millstone reactors. Those threats, in fact, were a big reason why Millstone was allowed to participate in Connecticut’s auction for carbon-free energy contracts. The consequences of a closure would be felt well beyond Millstone’s hometown of Waterford, Conn., and its 1,500 or so employees. Dominion says it plays an important role in helping the state curb carbon emissions, without requiring an expensive new project to be built. Millstone is also a key component in New England’s electricity grid, and its uncertain outlook was a hot topic of discussion among the region’s governors when they met in Washington, D.C., last month. Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection had chosen a 10-year bid for zero-carbon power from Dominion, equaling roughly half of Millstone’s output, on Dec. 28. The problem with this lifeline? The actual electricity prices still needed to be negotiated with utilities Eversource and Avangrid.
Regulators Renew Relicensing Promise For Seabrook Nuclear Plant - Nuclear regulators say they plan to approve a new license for Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant next week.It comes after an extra public hearing on concerns they were moving too quickly to approve the license extension through 2050.Area residents at that packed hearing expressed lots of support for the plant – as well as deep concerns about its safety.Seabrook is the only nuclear facility in the country known to have a chemical reaction causing cracks in its concrete foundations.Some want the license extension delayed until after a hearing, slated for this summer, on how those cracks have been evaluated. But regulators say that hearing is separate from the licensing process - though it could lead to changes later on. And they believe the plant is safe to continue operating.Despite an emergency petition for delay by the activist group C-10, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says they'll approve its new license, and management plan for the cracks, next week."They choose to ignore the major issues C-10 has raised in our opposition to LAR—which conveniently for them, are not on the docket until at least this summer," says C-10's Chris Nord in a statement. Seabrook will be one of two nuclear facilities left in New England after Pilgrim Station in Massachusetts closes this year.
As Coal Declines, Rural Town Fights Against Proposed Strip Mine - “I water my horses out of this creek down here,” Jeff Ivers says, resting his hand on his horse’s nose. He looks out over his land: 43 acres, surrounded on three sides by Perry State Forest, with a small creek running through it. “It’s safe as far as human consumption, as long as you filter it," Ivers says. "But I have well water and if they mine, there’s a chance of ruining my well, definitely ruin the creeks. If they ruin all that, how am I going to live?” Residents of rural Perry County, about an hour southeast of Columbus, say life there is peaceful in large part because of their neighbor: the 4,500-acre Perry State Forest. But they worry the forest and their livelihoods may soon be disturbed.Ivers and many of his neighbors are concerned about a planned 545-acre strip mine that, if approved, would take 12 percent of the entire forest. Research shows that strip mining can pollute waterways, increase risk of contamination of ground water, and lead to air and noise pollution. “We’ve got a 5-year-old daughter we’d like to raise and keep her in the country, keep her a nice clean free spirit,” Ivers says. “You can’t do that if they’re mining around you. It’ll be, ‘Daddy, what is that noise? What are they doing?’ You want to hear back up beepers while you sleep? I don’t.” Perry State Forest is one of the most popular places in the state for ATV and horseback riding, thanks to a rugged and barren terrain left behind by a previous strip mine that was never restored to its natural state. Surrounding Perry County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state–6 percent–and Ivers fears the jobs a mine might bring to the area wouldn’t outweigh the damage done to the local economy. Oxford Mining Company submitted the permit application to mine the Perry State Forest at the end of 2017.Oxford was owned by Westmoreland, which is one of the largest coal companies in North America. But in October 2018, Westmoreland made national news by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After Westmoreland declared bankruptcy, Oxford was purchased by its former owner, Charles Ungarean, who formed a new company called CCU Coal and Construction. By buying Oxford, CCU inherits more than a dozen environmental violations, as well as any liability for the thousands of acres of mine land Oxford owns in Ohio.
Ohio bill would create nonprofit to promote advanced nuclear research - A group of Ohio lawmakers wants to help make the state a leader in advanced nuclear technology, but some critics are questioning the benefits and potential risks to taxpayers under a new bill to promote research and development. Ohio House Rep. Dick Stein, R-Norwalk, introduced the Advanced Nuclear Technology Helping Energize Mankind (ANTHEM) Act last week. The bill would set up a nonprofit Ohio nuclear development authority to promote advanced nuclear reactor technology, nuclear waste reduction, isotope extraction and related activities. It has 17 co-sponsors, all Republicans. “The intent is to move the ball forward and make Ohio a leader in advanced reactor technology,” Stein said. Nuclear watchdogs, though, said the bill would mostly benefit investors while shifting risk to the state. And it promotes pie-in-the-sky goals that distract and divert attention from more promising climate solutions, they said. “HB 104 comingles military and civilian nuclear research and technology, would reprocess high-level radioactive waste in Ohio, and would allow for the commercial disposal of radioactive waste in our state, all in one poorly written package,” said Patricia Marida, chair of the Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear Free Committee.
State bailout of FirstEnergy Solutions would raise electric prices, stymie future gas plants -- New talk of a statewide customer-paid subsidy for FirstEnergy’s old nuclear reactors, now owned by bankrupt FirstEnergy Solutions, could kill the development of new gas turbine plants burning Ohio shale gas, says a prominent power plant developer. William Siderewicz, whose companies built gas turbine power plants in Lordstown and Oregon, near Toledo, says he has all of the permits and a portion of the funding needed to build two more turbine plants next door to the plants he completed last year. But potential investors are concerned about a bailout, said Siderewicz in an interview this week. And talk among lobbyists that an FES package might also include subsidies to save Ohio’s remaining coal-fired power plants and maybe something for renewable power has only added to the concerns of gas plant investors. “Investors keep seeing this stuff about FirstEnergy wanting to turn the free market system upside down,” he said. “We are right now trying to raise $1.85 billion for the two projects.” So, are the new plants a “go” or not? “I wish I had the answer. We have the permits. But it’s really the financial community that makes that decision for us,” he explained. “If they look at the landscape in Ohio ... and see that Ohio is changing the rules ... they are going to think twice about writing the checks.”
Report: Cabot pulls the plug on drilling exploratory wells in Richland and Ashland counties - - Cabot Oil and Gas is pulling the plug on drilling exploratory wells in Ashland and Richland counties, according to a recent company conference call and media reports. On Feb. 22, Cabot President and CEO Dan Dinges said during a fourth-quarter earnings call that the company incurred dry-hole costs resulting from unsuccessful drilling results in a second exploratory area. "As a result, we do not expect to allocate any incremental capital to exploration at this time," he said. Cabot spokesman George Stark did not return multiple requests for comment.Stark confirmed to the Ashland Times-Gazette on Monday that drilling operations in Ashland and Richland counties would cease. The announcement was first reported by Natural Gas Intelligence."After further evaluation of our remaining exploration prospect, we have determined that this area is unlikely to yield results that generate long-term value creation for our shareholders," said Dinges, according to Jamison Cocklin of Natural Gas Intelligence. Cabot first came to north-central Ohio in 2017 and sent letters to about 4,000 landowners atop Columbia Gas storage facilities in Richland, Ashland and Knox counties, as previously reported by the News Journal.
Pence to headline oil-and-gas industry event in Ohio (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence is headed to Ohio to headline a fundraiser for the oil-and-gas industry. The Republican vice president is to appear Friday at the annual meeting of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, a trade association for companies that explore, produce and develop crude oil and natural gas resources within the state. The event is being held at a hotel in north Columbus. The appearance comes as President Donald Trump’s administration works to promote rollbacks of environmental and safety rules for the energy sector, which government projections show would deliver billions of dollars in savings to regulated companies. An AP analysis found relaxing those regulations also would increase premature deaths and illnesses from air pollution and increase climate-warming emissions, among other impacts.
Pence promotes oil and gas interests during Ohio visit - Akron Beacon Journal — Fossil fuels are the key to Ohio and the nation's economic future, Vice President Mike Pence said during a visit Friday to Columbus. And he added that the nation must address the "crisis" at the Mexican border if it truly wants to secure that future. The former Indiana governor spoke to the convention of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association at the Hilton Columbus at Easton. He delivered a polished, half-hour speech that mostly drew polite applause, but at the end brought the crowd to its feet by saying, "America will never be a socialist country." That got an even more enthusiastic response than when Pence told the crowd that the country needs four more years of President Donald Trump. But the top of the speech was dedicated to the subject of the day: energy. "Energy is a source of prosperity for American communities and American families," Pence declared. He noted that the average oil and gas worker in Ohio and Pennsylvania makes $88,000 a year, production is growing and the United States is poised next year to become a net energy exporter for the first time in 70 years. Pence tore through a litany of measures taken by the administration that he said protect the nation's economic future. "We approved the Keystone and Dakota pipelines, withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord, eliminated the hydraulic fracking rule, rolled back methane [regulations], we're ending the Clean Power Plan, scrapped the stream protection rule and now under President Donald Trump, the war on coal is over," he said.
Road brine de-icer raises concerns - Record-Courier - A Mogadore business that manufactures brine used as a de-icer on Ohio roads is under fire by environmentalists, who say the substance is radioactive. But the president of the company said his product is less radioactive than many other things, including many foods and the rock salt that road crews put on local streets. Members of the Portage Community Rights Group brought their concerns to the Portage County commissioners recently, asking them to support regulations of AquaSalina, a product manufactured in two Northeast Ohio locations, including a facility in Mogadore. A student group brought similar concerns to Kent City Council, whose Committee of the Whole is expected to discuss the issue on Wednesday. The environmental groups point to a 2017 report from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources that found high levels of radioactivity in the product. Scientists from ODNR tested samples of AquaSalina from locations in Summit County, as well as Tuscarawas, Cuyahoga and Guernsey counties. David Mansbery, president of Natures Own Source, which manufactures AquaSalina, said the ODNR study is flawed, and he’s spent $100,000 trying to get the state agency to correct its report. He describes his product as "natural ancient seawater" that melts ice better in extreme, sub-zero temperatures. Mansbery, who also owns Duck Creek Energy, an oil and gas drilling company in Brecksville, said the water comes from the drilling process. However, he said it is not "frack water," the fluid used in the hydraulic fracturing of underground rock in the controversial drilling process known as "fracking." Instead, it is the underground seawater that comes up with the oil and gas when drilling takes place. The water, he said, is filtered, and "plant-based" additives are combined with it to make it a more effective de-icer. "We don’t claim that we make it," he said. "We just make it better."
MGX Minerals and Eureka Resources Announce Joint Venture to Recover Lithium from Produced Water - MGX Minerals Inc. and Eureka Resources have signed a Letter of Intent to form an exclusive joint venture to recover lithium from water produced at non-conventional oil and gas sites across the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in the eastern United States. Deep natural gas reserves located in the Marcellus and Utica shale account for approximately 40% of all natural gas produced in the United States. The oil and gas operations in this region also generate large volumes of produced water. Eureka uses advanced treatment technology to convert 10,000 barrels per day of this produced water into valuable co-products, including fresh water, high-purity sodium chloride and calcium chloride. Through this joint venture, Eureka will begin extracting lithium as well. MGX has developed a rapid lithium extraction technology that eliminates or greatly reduces the physical footprint and investment needed for large, multi-phase, lake-sized, lined evaporation ponds. Its technology also enhances the quality of lithium extraction and recovery across a complex range of brines as compared with traditional solar evaporation. This technology can be used on oil and gas produced water, natural brine, lithium-rich mine brine and industrial plant wastewater.
"Extraction of lithium from oil and gas well sources is a broad paradigm shift" - MGX Minerals and Eureka Resources are planning a joint venture to extract lithium from water produced at non-conventional oil and gas sites in eastern US.The pair signed a letter of intent to form an exclusive JV, planning to use MGX's "rapid lithium extraction technology" at Eureka's treatment plants to recover the battery material ingredient.Eureka said it converted 10,000 barrels a day of "produced water", from oil and gas operators in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, into valuable co-products including fresh water and high-purity sodium chloride."Through this joint venture, Eureka will begin extracting lithium as well," the companies said.MGX president and CEO Jared Lazerson said the JV would not only look to install an initial rapid recovery system immediately but viewed it as "the first step in executing the strategic vision of petrolithium". "The extraction of lithium from oil and gas well sources is a broad paradigm shift for the energy sector," he said."There may be a lot of lithium in the eastern U.S. Our clean technology unlocks this potential." Eureka president and CEO Dan Ertel said through the JV, the company could help meet the growing need for lithium while simultaneously making a positive environmental impact.
Alaska, Ohio lead rig count plunge -- Reduced drilling activity in Ohio, Alaska, North Dakota and other regions triggered a plunge last week in the number of rigs seeking oil and gas. The rig count dipped by 11 drilling rigs last week led by losses of five in Ohio, four in Alaska, and three in North Dakota, according to weekly figures compiled by the services firm Baker Hughes, a GE company. The overall rig count is down to 1,027 active rigs, including 834 rigs primarily drilling for crude oil. Texas dipped by one active rig, but is still home to 502 active rigs, nearly half of the nation's total. West Texas' booming Permian Basin, which extends into New Mexico, accounts for 465 rigs all by itself. The Permian makes up 56 percent of all the oil-drilling rigs in the country. Because of pipeline shortages in West Texas, many companies are continuing to drill Permian wells while leaving more of them uncompleted until new pipelines come online. The total count is up from an all-time low of 404 rigs in May 2016. With this week's dip, the oil rig count is down 48 percent from its peak of 1,609 in October 2014, before oil prices began plummeting. However, rigs today are able to drill more wells than before and to deeper depths to produce more oil and gas. That's largely why the U.S. is producing record volumes of crude oil and natural gas.
Utica Shale oil, natgas production expected to grow in '18 - Oil production in 2019 is expected to increase by 20% from 2018, reaching 23.4 million barrels (Mmbbl), and reversing a declining trend from 2015 to 2017, he said. Ohio’s all-time oil production record was set in 1897, at 23.9 million barrels, and Ohio is likely to smash that record very soon, Shumway said. Natural gas production is projected to increase 34% from 2017 to 2018, he said, from 1.8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), to 2.4 Tcf in 2018. Those 2018 totals are based on production totals for three quarters and estimates for Q4 2018. In 2018, Ohio’s Belmont County had the most well completions with 98. Monroe County had 95 and Jefferson County had 42. Ohio had 408 well completions in 2018, a drop of 9% from 2017. Of that total, 336 wells were producing in 2018. In addition, a total of 493 permits were issued by the state, a drop of 47% from 2017. Of those completions, 70 were by Ascent Resources, 45 were by Gulfport, 39 by Antero Resources, 36 by Rice and 35 by Chesapeake. Antero’s wells drilled increased by 77% in 2018, while most other companies showed declines, he said. To date, Chesapeake has drilled the most Utica wells in Ohio with 688, followed by Ascent with 378, and Gulfport with 304. The most linear feet were drilled in Belmont County: 1.85 million feet. It was followed by Monroe and Jefferson counties. In 2018, energy companies drilled 6.5 million feet on 371 wells. That compares to 6.03 million feet drilled on 378 wells in 2017. The top year for linear feet drilled in Ohio was 2016 with 7.95 million feet. Ohio has 328 wells with laterals that exceed 10,000 feet, with the greatest number in Belmont, Monroe and Jefferson counties, he said. Pennsylvania has 346 laterals that exceed 10,000 feet, with the greatest number in Washington, Greene and Susquehanna counties.
Pennsylvania natgas production sets blistering pace - Natural gas production in Pennsylvania for 2018’s final quarter and the full year featured double-digit percentage growth and, for the years 2011-2018, growth in production, production per well, and number of producing wells.The data, from the state Department of Environmental Protection (Dep), was presented Tuesday by the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office. During the final three months of last year, natural gas production from horizontal wells jumped 17.8% year-over-year, to 1.65 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), from 1.40 Tcf in the year-ago quarter. The wells were tapping primarily the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays.Combined with the small production volume via vertical wells, total fourth quarter production increased 17.7%, to 1.65 Tcf, from 1.40 Tcf. (All numbers are rounded.) For all of 2018, total gas production from horizontal wells jumped 14.2%, to 6.12 Tcf, from 5.35 Tcf in 2017. Production from 2011 to 2018, leaped a whopping 483%, to 6.12 Tcf, from 1.05 Tcf.For the last nine quarters dating back to 2016’s fourth quarter, horizontal well production jumped 29.1%, to 1.65 Tcf, from 1.28 Tcf. There has been a quarter-over-quarter increase in horizontal well production in eight consecutive quarters.Also growing each quarter since the final three months of 2016 was average horizontal well production, the Ifo reported. From the final quarter of 2016, through the same three months of 2018, average production per horizontal well skyrocketed 57.0%, to 481 million cubic feet (Mmcf), from 307 Mmcf.The increase in average production per horizontal well from the third quarter of last year to the end of 2018, rose 49 Mmcf, or 11.3%, from 432 Mmcf, to 481 Mmcf. Ifo reported each point in the average production per well data represents horizonal wells spud at least three quarters before the reporting period, and no earlier than 12 quarters before that date, and produced above 90,000 cubic feet per day. Looking at full-year data, in addition to strong production volume growth, average production per well likewise rose. From 2011 to 2018, volume increased at an average rate of 28.6% per year. From 2011 to 2018, volume rose to 1.67 Bcf, from 672 Mmcf. The number of producing wells also continued to rise, from 1,768 wells in 2011, to 8,736 producing wells in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 25.6% annually during the period.
Fracking linked to increased hospitalizations for skin, genital and urinary issues in Pennsylvania - Rashes, urinary tract infections, and kidney stones requiring hospital stays are more common in areas with more drilling, according to a new study The study, which will be published in the March issue of the journal Public Health, looked at hospital records in Pennsylvania's 67 counties from 2003-2014. Researchers found that the more fracking wells were in a county, the more hospitalizations the county saw for genital and urinary problems like urinary tract infections, kidney infections, and kidney stones. "It's important point to keep in mind that hospitalizations are for acute illness or serious exacerbations of chronic illness," "So if we see strong associations with hospitalizations, it's likely that additional cases of mild symptoms for the same illnesses have been addressed at home or in an outpatient setting, or not addressed at all." The researchers observed a similar link between fracking wells and hospitalizations for skin issues like rashes caused by cellulitis and abscesses. But while the link between fracking and genital and urinary issues was clear, the many illnesses that could fall under the category of skin-related issues in hospital diagnosis codes (everything from acne and eczema to diaper rash and ulcers) make the study's findings about skin-related issues less definitive. However, "we do know from formal complaints to the Pennsylvania Department of Health related to fracking activities that these symptoms exist," Denham, said, noting that about 200 individuals filed formal complaints documenting health impacts they thought could be related to fracking from 2011 to 2014, and 40 percent of those included skin problems. The researchers compared yearly hospitalization rates for each county with the number of new fracking wells drilled, the total number of wells, and the density of wells by land area for each county by year. After correcting for demographic factors like race and income, Denham and her colleagues found that as the number of new wells and the well density in a county increased over time, there was a corresponding increase in hospitalization rates for kidney infections, kidney stones, and urinary tract infections, particularly in women ages 20-64. "[Genital and urinary] diseases are "not something that comes to mind first when we think of the potential impacts of fracking," Denham said. "We were thinking we'd see respiratory or cardiovascular issues, so our findings were surprising."
Natural gas fracking boom fuels Appalachia plastics hub— Along the banks of the Ohio River here, thousands of workers are assembling the region's first ethane cracker plant. It's a conspicuous symbol of a petrochemical and plastics future looming across the Appalachian region.More than 70 construction cranes tower over hundreds of acres where zinc was smelted for nearly a century. In a year or two, Shell Polymers, part of the global energy company Royal Dutch Shell, plans to turn what's called "wet gas" into plastic pellets that can be used to make a myriad of products, from bottles to car parts.Two Asian companies could also announce any day that they plan to invest as much as $6 billion in a similar plant in Ohio. There's a third plastics plant proposed for West Virginia.With little notice nationally, a new petrochemical and plastics manufacturing hub may be taking shape along 300 miles of the upper reaches of the Ohio River, from outside Pittsburgh southwest to Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. It would be fueled by a natural gas boom brought on by more than a decade of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling process that has already dramatically altered the nation's energy landscape—and helped cripple coal. But there's a climate price to be paid. Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from the Shell plant alone would more or less wipe out all the reductions in carbon dioxide that Pittsburgh, just 25 miles away, is planning to achieve by 2030. Drilling for natural gas leaks methane, a potent climate pollutant; and oil consumption for petrochemicals and plastics may account for half the global growth in petroleum demand between now and 2050. Despite the climate and environmental risks, state and business leaders and the Trump administration are promoting plastics and petrochemical development as the next big thing, more than three decades after the region's steel industry collapsed and as Appalachian coal mining slumps.
A plastics hub in coal and steel country - --Considering the potential decades-long economic impact that an ethane cracker plant under construction by Shell Polymers near Pittsburgh will have, it’s surprising to me that it has received so little national media coverage. Shell’s $6-billion project that pulls natural gas from the sprawling Utica and Marcellus shale formations may soon be joined by others in Ohio and West Virginia. According to an IHS Markit report, this region is forecast to supply 37% of the nation’s natural gas production by 2040. (It should be noted that the report was commissioned by Shale Crescent USA, which promotes economic development within the tri-state region.) While much of the national media has been distracted by, shall we say, other matters, some journalists have been conducting due diligence. One article published recently in the Courier Journal out of Louisville, KY, part of the USA Today network, caught my attention. As a reader of PlasticsToday, you’ll immediately understand why just based on the headline: “Plastics may be the new coal in Appalachia. But at what cost to health and climate?” “With little notice nationally, a new petrochemical and plastics manufacturing hub may be taking shape along 300 miles of the upper reaches of the Ohio River, from outside Pittsburgh southwest to Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky,” writes James Bruggers of InsideClimate News. (The article was picked up by the Courier Journal.) “It would be fueled by a natural gas boom brought on by more than a decade of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling process that has already dramatically altered the nation's energy landscape—and helped cripple coal.” My first question: Apart from the human toll in some parts of the country where coal mining provides jobs, why is crippling coal bad? Should we mourn its passing? Bruggers, however, wonders if the climate price attached to the emergence of a plastics hub in the region is any better than what came before. “Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from the Shell plant alone would more or less wipe out all the reductions in carbon dioxide that Pittsburgh, just 25 miles away, is planning to achieve by 2030,” he writes. “Drilling for natural gas leaks methane, a potent climate pollutant; and oil consumption for petrochemicals and plastics may account for half the global growth in petroleum demand between now and 2050.”
New Warnings on Plastic’s Health Risks as Fracking Industry Promotes New 'Plastics Belt' Build-Out - A new report traces the life cycle of plastic from the moment an oil and gas well is drilled to the time plastic trash breaks down in the environment, finding “distinct risks to human health” at every stage. Virtually all plastic — 99 percent of it, according to the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) report — comes from fossil fuels. And a growing slice comes from fracked oil and gas wells and the natural gas liquids (NGLs) they produce. The report concluded that plastics bring toxic or carcinogenic health risks to people at every stage. “Until we confront the impacts of the full plastic lifecycle, the current piecemeal approach to addressing the plastic pollution crisis will not succeed,” the report concludes. “At every stage of its life cycle, plastic poses distinct risks to human health, arising from both exposure to plastic particles themselves and associated chemicals.” People can be sickened not only when plastics are produced, in other words, but also while plastic is actively used by consumers and then again after it’s thrown out, where plastic trash often breaks down into smaller and smaller bits that can contaminate the food chain and make its way into people’s bodies. The scope of the risks requires an international response, the center said. “No country can effectively protect its citizens from those impacts on its own, and no global instrument exists today to fully address the toxic life cycle of plastics.” In the U.S., however, a major push is underway — and attracting hundreds of billions in investment, both foreign and domestic — to move in the opposite direction and produce more plastics and other petrochemicals. The goal? To create new demand from industry for the raw materials produced by fracked shale wells.
Shale gas boom slows progress on renewables in PJM grid territory — In the contest between competing energy sources to produce electricity in the United States, select regions of the U.S. — especially in windy Texas and the Great Plains, and the sunny Pacific Coast — are tilting to renewable technologies. But in cloudy and cold rural West Virginia counties and in the 12 neighboring mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes states served by PJM — the nation’s largest electrical transmission grid operator — the confrontation between renewable technology and fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, is a mismatch. And it’s anticipated to stay that way for at least the next two decades, maybe longer. Of the more than 180,000 megawatts of installed generation capacity available from PJM’s members, less than 6 percent is produced by wind or solar technology. Nationally about 15 percent of generating capacity comes from these two renewable resources. Coal-fired power, counted on a decade ago to generate over 40 percent of the power in the PJM service area, has fallen to less than a third. Natural gas, meanwhile, which was 25 percent of generating capacity a decade ago, is nearing 40 percent. Nuclear power accounts for 19 percent. PJM executives anticipate that a decade from today solar and wind capacity will still not exceed 10 percent of generating capacity. A sizable portion of that, PJM executives say, will come from distributed rooftop solar stations.Had it not been for passage of state renewable generating requirements in Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Michigan — states served all or in part by PJM — the level of wind and solar generation in the PJM service area would be even lower, executives say. According to market analysts, the reason is as straightforward and visible as the thousands of natural gas wells installed in forests and fields of the triangle of rural counties in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania drained by the Ohio River. Most of those wells reach more than a mile into the earth to tap the gas-saturated shales of the Marcellus and Utica geologic formations. With astonishing speed since the first wells were drilled and began producing in 2005, gas developers turned a region once piled with the rusting bones of obsolete industrial factories into one of the largest natural gas production fields in the world. The upper Ohio River region has become the site of billions of dollars of ongoing and planned construction for gas-fired electric stations, gas processing plants, big gas pipelines, and the development of a gas-liquids plastics and methanol manufacturing corridor downstream from Pittsburgh.
Southwestern Energy to focus on Appalachian gas, liquids, after exiting Fayetteville shale - — With the sale of its Fayetteville shale assets late last year, Southwestern Energy plans to sharpen its focus on the Appalachian Basin, balancing its drilling efforts between its extensive dry-gas and liquid-rich acreage, company officials said Friday. In its release of its fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 results, the producer reported that in 2018 it grew its total Appalachia production by 21% to 702 Bcf-equivalent (1.92 Bcfe/d) year on year, while its liquids production grew 40% to 63,100 b/d. The company reported total production, adjusted for the Fayetteville asset sale in December, of 946 Bcfe (2.59 Bcfe/d) for the year. Company officials said that last year Southwestern improved its well performance and operational efficiencies through the use of techniques such as the drilling of extended-length laterals. "We drilled three laterals over 15,000-foot each, one being the company record of almost 16,200 feet, and all three of these wells were on time and on budget," Going forward, he said the producer would continue to test ultra-long laterals in 2019, pointing to an 18,000-foot lateral Southwestern drilled last month in West Virginia. The operator expects to see average lateral lengths rise from about 7,500 feet in 2018 to more than 10,000-foot on wells brought online in 2019, he said. Carrell said, during 2018, the company also brought online two water-handling projects that are expected to help lower development costs in the Appalachian Basin. "In Pennsylvania in the Tioga area, we will reduce well cost by at least $400,000 [per] well and, in West Virginia, we now expect well cost reductions from $500,000 per well to as much as $700,000 per well," he said. While focusing on exploration-and-production activities over the past several years, Southwestern also has leveraged its upstream assets to become an Appalachian gas and liquids marketing powerhouse, Way said. "More than 30% of our gas sales are tied to the premium Gulf Coast price markets this year, and 20% of our gas sales are tied to the Northeast city-gate markets, where we have the opportunity to capture elevated pricing from winter-driven demand," he said. Looking forward, Southwestern added new long-haul pipeline takeaway capacity, which is timed to come online in 2021,
Brand New Oil, Gas, and NGL production map for OH, WV, and PA (interactive) Click Layers icon on the top-left to see layers appear and you can toggle on/off gas, NGLs (PA and WV only), and oil. This is a complete inventory of monthly and/or quarterly natural gas, NGL, and oil production from 2002 to 2018 in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. This map includes production data for:1, 15,682 producing wells in Pennsylvania
2. 3,689 producing wells in West Virginia
3. 2,064 producing wells in Ohio
Chester County investigation of pipeline builder Energy Transfer now includes grand jury - Energy Transfer, parent company of Sunoco Logistics and builder of the Mariner East natural gas liquids pipelines, is the target of a Chester County grand jury investigation.Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan would not confirm or deny the grand jury investigation, which was reported by the Delaware County Daily Times newspaper editor Phil Heron, who had been called as a potential juror last week.Hogan announced a criminal investigation into the company’s practices building the Mariner East pipelines in December. In January, Hogan hired a former federal prosecutor to assist with the investigation.At the time, Hogan said Seth Weber’s appointment “certainly sends a message that we are taking it very seriously, and that somebody who has experience in this field is taking it very seriously.”Hogan is a former federal prosecutor himself, and has worked defending oil and gas industry clients in private practice. Grand juries are typically convened in secret in order to protect the target of an investigation in which no criminal charges have yet been filed. Prosecutors have control of a grand jury, which reviews evidence, and can vote to issue subpoenas or recommend charges be filed. “It doesn’t mean any charges are going to result from this but it’s a very serious commitment of the D.A.’s time,” Urbanowicz said. “So I don’t think it’s a decision that’s made lightly.” Construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline has resulted in more than 80 environmental violations. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection assessed more than $12.6 million in penalties against the company for drilling mud spills that damaged waterways and sensitive wetlands. In Chester County, construction of the line resulted in the loss of private drinking water wells and sinkholes that exposed the parallel Mariner East 1 line. Regulators forced the company to shut down the Mariner East 1 line because of the most recent sinkhole. An exposed natural gas liquids line is at risk for explosion.
Pennsylvania fines Rice Midstream $1.5M for pipeline violations -- The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has fined Rice Midstream Holdings $1.5 million for pipeline violations in southwest Pennsylvania, Kallanish Energy reports.The violations occurred on the company’s Beta Trunk Pipeline in Aleppo and Richhill townships in Greene County. The violations stem from sediment discharges into waterways, unstable construction and the failure to maintain pollution controls, the state agency said.The Beta Trunk Pipeline is a 7.5-mile gathering line within a larger Beta pipeline system that moves natural gas from well pads to transmission facilities.Oct. 11, 2017, Rice reported and the DEP confirmed sediment-laden water topped numerous erosion and sediment control best management practices into Mudlick Fork and Harts Run.The erosion controls were not properly installed or maintained, DEP said. Subsequent inspections found similar violations on seven dates from January through March 2018.Rice voluntarily shut down construction of new sections of the pipeline, redirected resources to correct the problem, and had resolved the violations by April 30, 2018.In May 2018, the company reported three significant slope failures and there were erosion control failures in another area. Soil had also been improperly stockpiled in a wetland. Those violations were corrected by July 5, 2018. Last December. DEP approved a permit change to repair the slope failures. Portions of the Beta Trunk Pipeline remain in service. DEP is inspecting the portions that are under construction.
Operator of natural gas gathering pipeline in Greene County fined -- The operator of a natural gas gathering pipeline in Greene County has been fined $1.5 million for environmental violations related to erosion and sediment control.The state Department of Environmental Protection said Monday it had assessed the civil penalty against Rice Midstream Holdings LLC for violations that occurred on the Beta Trunk Pipeline in Aleppo and Richhill townships in 2017 and 2018.Although the pipeline is now owned by Equitrans Midstream Corp., the violations began prior to the acquisition of Rice in 2018.The Beta Trunk Pipeline is an approximately 7.5-mile gathering line within a larger Beta System that takes natural gas from several well pads to transmission facilities. Although portions of the line are in service pursuant to DEP permitting in 2017, portions remain under construction.Rice is required to use erosion and sediment control practices in its pipeline construction to prevent sediment pollution into water sources, the DEP said.On Oct. 11, 2017, Rice reported — and a same-day DEP inspection confirmed — sediment-laden water overwhelmed unnamed tributaries to Mudlick Fork and Harts Run. The DEP said best management practices were not properly maintained or not installed at all.Subsequent inspections revealed similar violations Jan. 21, 22, and 23, 2018; Feb. 12 and 15, 2018; and March 6 and 30, 2018, the DEP said. Rice voluntarily shut down construction of new sections of the pipeline, redirected resources to the remediation of unstable areas and resolved the violations as of April 30, 2018.However, on May 25, 2018, Rice reported three significant slope failures within and outside the Beta Trunk Pipeline’s permitted limit of earth disturbance — violations corrected as of July 5, 2018. In December, the DEP approved a permit modification to repair the slope failures.
Buffer zones debated for drilling near state's dams - Hundreds of shale gas wells are crowding close to and sometimes snaking under Pennsylvania’s many dams. That’s because there’s no risk-based setback requirements for shale gas development around dams in Pennsylvania, now the nation’s second biggest natural gas producing state, with more than 11,500 Marcellus and Utica shale gas wells drilled and fracked, another 10,000 permitted, and the potential for tens of thousands more in the future. That’s in contrast to buffer zones of 3,000 to 4,000 feet around scores of dams in other shale gas drilling states. Examples of shale gas wells near dams in southwest Pennsylvania are easy to find. CNX has drilled and fracked 17 Marcellus Shale gas wells within 2,100 feet of the Beaver Run Dam in Westmoreland County, where a few thousand feet farther from the dam, the company lost control of a Utica Shale well last month, causing pressure spikes and gas flaring at nine nearby shallow wells near the reservoir. Click on arrows to expand. Red lines denote dams, and stars denote gas wells within 4,000 feet of dams. In light of studies and analyses that suggest gas drilling could cause surface subsidence, some say that kind of encroachment is cause for concern or at least for a focused risk study to assess what could happen to dams when drilling and fracking occurs nearby.
FERC moves ahead on environmental reviews for Pennsylvania, Texas pipeline projects — The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission plans an environmental assessment for two pipeline expansions in Pennsylvania that combined would move natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales to markets in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The decision to opt for an EA can mean a somewhat shorter review at FERC, in comparison to a full environmental impact statement. The projects include Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line's Leidy South Project and National Fuel Gas Supply's FM100 project. Leidy South effectively expands the path of Transco's 1.7 Bcf/d Atlantic Sunrise project, moving gas from production areas in Pennsylvania along the Central Penn Line to an interconnection with Transco's mainline near the Pennsylvania-Maryland border and potentially easing prices at Atlantic Seaboard demand markets like Transco Zone 5 and Zone 6. The expansion (PF19-1) would add about 580 MMcf/d of firm capacity, which has been reserved by producers Cabot Oil & Gas and Seneca Resources. The shippers are also large stakeholders in Atlantic Sunrise.The project involves installation and replacement of several short pipeline segments, two new compressor stations, upgrades of two compressor stations and other facilities. Transco has targeted in-service in time for winter heating in December 2021. The related FM100 (PF17-10) project would add 330,000 Dt/d, fully subscribed to Transco under a proposed capacity lease to supply gas from Marcellus and Utica shale to the Leidy South project. FM100 entails 29.5 miles of 20-inch diameter pipeline, along with smaller segments and two new compressors. In other actions advancing natural gas projects:
- **Venture Global got FERC's go-ahead Wednesday to begin limited site preparation at its Calcasieu Pass LNG project, which recently won FERC certificate approval as well as a signoff from the Department of Energy for exports to countries that lack free trade agreements with the US.
- **Transco won FERC's authorization to run compression associated with the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline above previously certificated levels (CP15-138).
- **FERC issued a positive environmental assessment for Gulf South Pipeline's Willlis natural gas lateral project (CP18-525) in Texas, intended to provide nearly 200,000 Dt/d to Energy Texas' Montgomery County Power Station. The staff EA found that with mitigation measures, the project would not constitute a major action significantly affecting the environment.
- **FERC said it plans an EA for the Lockridge Extension Pipeline project (CP19-52) proposed by Natural Gas Pipeline of America in Texas to provide 500 MMcf/d of firm service southbound to a new bidirectional Interconnect with Trans-Pecos Pipeline at Waha Hub.
PGW wins key city approval for Southwest Philly LNG venture -- Philadelphia Gas Works’ plan for a liquefied natural gas production facility won a key approval this week, moving the $60 million Passyunk Energy Center closer to groundbreaking. The proposal now needs only a final vote by City Council, which is expected by the end of March. Passyunk Energy Center will be built on PGW property, but entirely financed by Liberty Energy Trust, a Conshohocken company. Liberty will pay the city-owned utility annual fees and profits of at least $1.35 million. PGW and the gas commission have said the revenue would help reduce the need to raise customer rates. The LNG venture has stoked debate since it was first announced in September. Emily Schapira, the executive director of the Philadelphia Energy Authority, which promotes renewable energy projects for the city, says the LNG facility won’t increase carbon emissions. In fact, she says it would reduce carbon emissions, based on an environmental review commissioned by PGW. LNG is created by cooling methane to -260 degrees Fahrenheit. The process is energy intensive but useful because LNG is easier to store and transport than natural gas in other forms.
Energy company says LNG port coming to Delaware River --A New York energy company plans to build a liquified natural gas port on the Delaware River near the First State, according to a recent securities filing. It is the latest proposal for a long-controversial idea to allow cargo ships containing the condensed, liquid version of the combustible fuel to sail through Delaware Bay, past New Castle and Wilmington and under the Delaware Memorial Bridge. The company, New Fortress Energy, did not disclose the specific location for the proposed LNG port, but said it would be along the Delaware River and 195 miles from its natural gas liquifying facility northwest of Scranton, Pennsylvania. A number of ports near or in Delaware roughly match that description, including those in Wilmington and Chester and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. But the evidence points to New Jersey. Three years ago, New Fortress Energy proposed a fuel terminal and port for a property it owns in Gloucester County, New Jersey – one that for decades had been home to a DuPont dynamite factory. At the time, environmentalists from the Sierra Club suspected that the company had plans to bring LNG ships into a port there, even though the company publicly backed away from any such idea in 2016 amid opposition from residents.
Duke Energy’s stalled Constitution Pipeline wins second hearing from regulators A U.S. court has remanded the case of the stalled Constitution Pipeline, partly owned by Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp., to federal regulators for reconsideration, making resurrection of the currently moribund project possible.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington D.C. Circuit granted a request from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to remand the pipeline question for a new review. The case will be reconsidered in light of a Jan. 25 ruling by the D.C. court in an unaffiliated case that challenges FERC’s reasoning for upholding a New York state decision that stopped the 124-mile natural gas pipeline in its tracks. Duke subsidiary Piedmont Natural Gas owns a 24% share of the pipeline. It is designed to transport natural gas from the Utica and Marcellus shale fields of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio north to New England. The consortium that owns the proposed $900 million project is led by The Williams Cos. Inc., which will build and operate the pipeline on behalf of the partners. A year ago, Duke recognized a $42 million impairment of the value of its planned $216 million investment in the pipeline as the case remained mired in the courts. The most recent court action clears the way for FERC to hold new proceedings on whether to waive the New York action and resume Constitution’s permit process, says Piedmont spokeswoman Tammie McGee. At issue is a water quality permit the New York Department of Environmental Conservation denied for the project in April 2016. If the permit is denied, the project cannot be built.
Northern Access Pipeline won't bring energy security -- National Fuel’s Northern Access Pipeline cannot remotely be considered an essential infrastructure project for New York’s energy security. Rather, it is a destructive corporation’s desperate attempt to prepare and secure new markets for its polluting and socially harmful commodity. This is evidenced by National Fuel’s own statements that the primary purpose of the pipeline is to export fracked gas to Canada and by the fact that the company has felt the need to enlist a front group run by a Washington public relations firm to convince New Yorkers that it will be a benefit to more than just National Fuel’s high-paid executives and shareholders. More than 71 percent of the gas that would be shipped through Northern Access would go under the Niagara River to what the company calls “premium markets,” that is, where the methane from National Fuel’s fracking fields in Pennsylvania can fetch a higher price than if it were sold in the United States. These exports will boost National Fuel’s profits, which fuel exorbitant executive pay – CEO Ronald Tanski was paid more than $8 million in 2018, 98 times what the median National Fuel worker makes according to a filing with the SEC – and massive dividends to shareholders like downstate investor Mario Gabelli, who owns more than $384 million of National Fuel stock.
Pipeline opponents press bill to require more scrutiny - Proponents gathered Thursday to support legislation to make it more difficult for companies to build pipelines to transport “fracked” gas. The Maryland Senate and the House of Delegates are considering the measure. The bills are in part a response to efforts by Columbia Gas Transmission, a subsidiary of TransCanada, to build a pipeline under the Potomac River near Hancock. The Maryland Board of Public Works in January denied an easement and permission to install a natural gas pipeline under the Western Maryland Rail Trail, effectively blocking the project for now. The bills are sponsored in the House by Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo, D-Montgomery, and in the Senate by Sen. Bobby Zirkin, D-Baltimore City. The bills would require the state to conduct water-quality certification reviews, as it is authorized to do under section 401 of the Clean Water Act, for any proposed “fracked gas pipelines.” “This bill is designed to do one thing and pretty much one thing only,” Fraser-Hidalgo said, “and that is, that if a natural gas pipeline … is going to be put in inside the state of Maryland, through our waterways, that we need to do our own testing … our own research, and make sure that if this is going to happen, that this is indeed in the best interest of the citizens of the state of Maryland. “And specifically, if it’s going to happen, that we limit, as much as possible, any of the potential risks.
Residents Say Natural Gas Production Is Marring West Virginia. And the Legislature Isn’t Doing Anything About It. Though studies recommended additional protections years ago, lawmakers have not taken action to put them in place. But when residents sued, a Supreme Court justice said it was the Legislature’s job. West Virginia Delegate Terri Sypolt says she understands how natural gas drilling has changed the look and feel of communities in the state, bringing an influx of noisy truck traffic and construction. So when she returned to Charleston for this year’s legislative session, she introduced a bill for the third consecutive year to monitor the air and noise around drilling operations, hoping her colleagues would take action to help residents.The bill didn’t make it onto a committee agenda, let alone to the floor of the House of Delegates. As natural gas booms around the Marcellus Shale, nearby residents continue to bear the burden of the industry’s growth. Many live with constant light, truck traffic, dust and noise from gas production fueled by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as the Gazette-Mail and ProPublica chronicled last year. Business groups and the state coal association have argued in court filings that the inconveniences are unavoidable. With days left in the legislative session, proponents of reform have essentially given up. The deadline has passed for bills to initially clear the House, and lawmakers and groups that have pushed for protection for residents have moved on to other issues. Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, a Democrat from Monongalia County, in the northern part of the state, sponsored legislation this year to increase the distance between drilling and homes. But even early in the session, she gave it little chance of passing and said she’s now focused on legislation that would protect women from discrimination and unequal pay. Her bill would increase the “limit of disturbance” of a drilling operation from 625 feet to 1,500 feet of a home, meaning people would be farther removed from the noise, dust and light. It also would require drilling companies to set up real-time monitoring and compensate landowners for any property value decrease. She’s introduced similar bills every year since 2015, but they’ve never made it out of the House of Delegates Energy Committee. “You’re the first person to ask me about it,” she told a reporter in January. Delegate Mike Pushkin, a Democrat from Kanawha County, sponsored legislation to protect surface owners from 2015 to 2017, but he didn’t bother this year. “I’m more kind of on bills that I feel like I can get support for and get passed,” he said.
A guide to every permitted natural gas well in west Virginia (ProPublica) Since the rise of hydraulic fracturing made it possible to get to the rich layer of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, the number of horizontal well permits — which allow producers to drill for miles underground in all directions from a single point — has increased dramatically in West Virginia. The state issued only a dozen horizontal well permits in 2006. That jumped to over 5,000 last year, according to data from the state's Department of Environmental Protection.Accessing natural gas in West Virginia's mountainous terrain is much more complicated than in flat Texas or North Dakota. To build horizontal wells, gas producers must first clear the landscape for well pads, which are large, gravel clearings over acres of continuous open space. For the first time ever, ProPublica and the Gazette-Mail used software to show as many as 1,500 well pads, located on the forested hilltops and valleys of Wetzel, Doddridge, Marshall, Harrison and a handful of other counties along the state's Marcellus belt. Here's what they look like.
To Fight a Pipeline, Live in a Tree - For almost five months, Phillip Flagg has been living in a chestnut oak tree 50 feet above the ground. His home is a four-by-eight sheet of plywood, a little larger than a typical dining room table, that is lashed to the oak’s boughs. Since going aloft on October 12, he has not set foot on the ground. Below him there’s small group of about a dozen scrupulously anonymous young people who take care of Flagg’s basic human needs. They’re all here to halt the construction of a natural gas pipeline in rural Elliston, in the Virginia highlands near Roanoke. For many of them, organizing, staffing, and supporting long-term eco-protests like this is as a way of life. Unlike his campmates, Flagg, a 24-year-old native of Austin, Texas, doesn’t mind revealing his identity. Before Yellow Finch, as this particular tree-sitting exercise is called, he participated in two other “action camps.” The Yellow Finch action camp, named after a nearby road, is trying to block the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 300-plus‐mile underground pipeline that would transport natural gas extracted by hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” from shale in the Appalachian regions of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York. The natural gas is heading to southern Virginia and ports further south, for export to energy markets in the U.S. and overseas. But legal challenges mounted by groups like the Sierra Club have delayed pipeline construction, and hundreds of local landowners along the pipeline’s route have already had tracts of land seized by eminent domain when they refused to sign easements that would allow Mountain Valley to proceed. Yellow Finch is the latest in a series of tree-sits, or “aerial blockades,” of MVP, with the first beginning in February 2018. It may also be the longest ongoing blockade for this project, so far. About eight others have occurred at different sites along the pipeline route, supported by organizations such as Appalachians Against Pipelines; all have been shut down through legal processes. But Yellow Finch endures, in defiance of Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC, and the elements. In his months in the treetops, Flagg has so far endured single-digit temperatures, snowstorms, ice, rain, and even a hurricane. He’s protected only by tarps and a rain fly, leaving him just enough room to stand up under the peak. He worries about lightning strikes, but only “in a sort of vague way,” he says. “I’ve never heard of a tree-sit being struck by lightning.”
Dominion Energy Stakes Out Plans for ACP in Spite of the Legal Landscape - Dominion Energy and its partners in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are looking for new ways around the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, including a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Richmond-based energy company, the lead partner in the project, said Tuesday that it “expects an appeal” to the Supreme Court within 90 days to challenge a 4th Circuit decision. The court tossed out a critical federal permit for the 600-mile pipeline to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains along the Augusta County and Nelson County line. Dominion declared its intention after a 4th Circuit decision on Monday to dismiss the company’s request for the full appeals court to reconsider a December decision by a three-judge panel. That panel vacated the permits the U.S. Forest Service issued for the project to cross the Appalachian Trail near Wintergreen Resort and portions of two national forests. The company — anticipating the possible rejection of its request for an “en banc” hearing by the Richmond-based 4th Circuit — estimated earlier this month that the Supreme Court appeal could add $250 million to the cost of the project by delaying completion of the final segment of the pipeline until the end of 2021. The cost already has risen by $3 billion — to as much as $7.5 billion — since then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced it with Dominion officials in September 2014. The company already has spent $2.8 billion on the stalled project, Dominion officials said in an earnings conference call with investment analysts on February 1st. The company is preparing to split the project into two phases to allow it to first build the pipeline from Buckingham County — where it plans to build a hotly disputed natural gas compressor station at the intersection with an existing pipeline — to Lumberton, N.C. Dominion also proposes to build a 70-mile spur to serve Hampton Roads, where natural gas supplies are limited for industrial customers and economic development prospects. The company proposes to begin work on the first phase by the end of this year and complete it by late 2020. Environmental groups are filing legal challenges to every move by Dominion and its partners — Duke Energy and Southern Company Gas — to build the pipeline, including a state permit issued in December for the Buckingham compressor station at Union Hill, a historically black community that has been the focal point of protests.
Pipelines put health and environment at risk - and we don't need them anyway - As the State Water Control Board reconsiders the Water Quality Certification for the Mountain Valley Pipeline and hopefully the AtIantic Coast pipeline, I’ve got to add “But wait, there’s more” regarding the pipelines, and government culpability. The “more” is more public risk. Both pipelines would disproportionately affect environmental justice communities like Union Hill, take property, drastically reduce property values, threaten public safety, put drinking water at risk, pollute streams, clearcut and fragment forests, scar our landscape, and exacerbate climate change, all for projects that we don’t need. But wait, there’s more. Both pipelines are coated with a fusion bonded epoxy (FBE) to reduce pipe corrosion and explosion risk. It degrades when exposed to sunlight, and is chalking off the pipes. Both pipelines chose not to add another coating that would have prevented. The National Association of Pipe Coating Manufacturers Bulletin 12-78-04 recommends that pipes coated with FBE without additional protection be stored no more than six months in the sun. The ACP admits that all of their pipes will be stored much longer than that, and even longer than the recommendation of pipe manufacturer Dura-Bond. The MVP testified in court that they were concerned about FBE loss. The pipes for the ACP have been stored outside for about three years, although the actual dates have been hidden from the public. These pipes will remain in storage indefinitely, since the project is on hold. Experts advise me the pipes are losing 1-2 millimeters of FBE coating per year, and are probably still safe at two years’ storage, but further storage makes safety questionable. But wait, there’s more.The pipeline industry, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), and the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) have thrown an iron curtain of secrecy around this issue. PHMSA confirms that FBE is coming off the pipes, but states that inspections show that the ACP pipes remain safe. PHMSA won’t divulge how many of the estimated 80,000 ACP pipes have been inspected, or give any detailed inspection information. PHMSA states that no inspection results will be available until the ACP is completed in 2021. Important public safety information regarding pipe inspections, blasting records, hydrostatic tests, welding records, and backfill inspections will remain hidden until then. The SCC will divulge nothing about their involvement. But wait, there’s more.
Prices Rise As Weather Forecasts Remain Very Bullish And Regional Cash Prices Support Sentiment - Highlights of the Natural Gas Summary and Outlook for the week ending March 1, 2019 follow. The full report is available at the link below.
- Price Action: The now prompt April contract rose 12.0 cents (4.4%) to $2.859 on a 14.0 cent range ($2.872/$2.732).
- Price Outlook: Despite a smaller than reported EIA storage withdrawal, prices rose as weather forecasts remain very bullish. Since early February, over 220 bcf of demand has been predicted due to the below normal weather forecasts. Due to still adequate over storage levels, price spikes on the futures, may be restrained. However, regional daily cash prices have responded with prices at the Washington/British Columbia border reaching a record $200/MMBtu with Midcontinent prices soaring above $10/MMBtu. When there is bullish weather, there is demand. CFTC data indicated a (22,671) contract reduction in the managed money net long position as longs liquidated and shorts added. The managed money net long position is the lowest since September 25, 2018. The managed money long position is the lowest since September 18, 2018 Total open interest fell (46,275)to 3.382 million as of February 19. Aggregated CME futures open interest rose to 1.188 million as of March 01. The current weather forecast is now cooler than 10 of the last 10 years. Pipeline data indicates total flows to Cheniere’s Sabine Pass export facility were at 4.1 bcf. Cove Point is net exporting 0.8 bcf. Corpus Christi is exporting 0.694 bcf. Cameron is exporting 0.000 bcf.
- Weekly Storage: US working gas storage for the week ending February 22 indicated a withdrawal of (166) bcf. Working gas inventories fell to 1,539 bcf. Current inventories fall (143)bcf (-8.5%) below last year and fall (444) bcf (-22.4%) below the 5-year average.
- Supply Trends: Total supply rose 0.8 bcf/d to 83.9 bcf/d. US production rose. Canadian imports rose. LNG imports rose. LNG exports rose. Mexican exports fell. The US Baker Hughes rig count fell (9). Oil activity decreased (10). Natural gas activity increased +1. The total US rig count now stands at 1,038 .The Canadian rig count fell (1) to 211. Thus, the total North American rig count fell (10) to 1,249 and now trails last year by (34). The higher efficiency US horizontal rig count fell (5) to 911 and rises +64 above last year.
- Demand Trends: Total demand rose +1.5 bcf/d to +108.5 bcf/d. Power demand rose. Industrial demand fell. Res/Comm demand rose. Electricity demand rose +895 gigawatt-hrs to 78,684 which exceeds last year by +4,892 (6.6%) and exceeds the 5-year average by 4,014 (5.4%%).
- Nuclear Generation: Nuclear generation fell (2,918)MW in the reference week to 88,626 MW. This is (1,827) MW lower than last year and +74 MW higher than the 5-year average. Recent output was at 89,716 MW.
The heating season has begun. With a forecast through March 15 the 2018/19 total heating index is at (2,690) compared to (2,379) for 2017/18, (2,107) for 2016/17, (2,419) for 2015/16, (2,593) for 2014/15, (2,831) for 2013/14, (2,567) for 2012/13 and (2,399) for 2011/12.
Very Strong Cash Cancels Out Weekend HDD Losses - It was a case of dueling catalysts in the natural gas market today, as day ahead Henry Hub cash prices skyrocketed over $4 early this morning pulling the April gas contract higher but weekend HDD losses prevented any gains from holding. In the end the April contract settled just about flat on the day. The largest losses were with summer gas, as winter gas was firmer on the day. Very strong cash prices have pulled the April/May spread to flat. Exploding day ahead prices today returned to levels that have not been seen since December. In our Morning Update we warned that "cash should remain quite strong" but maintained a "Neutral" sentiment as saw recent GWDD losses canceling that out. The coldest days are in the short-term, as we noted, which would limit the extent to which futures would react to cash. This verified quite well, as gas prices reversed lower through the day and the Climate Prediction Center picked up on these more pronounced warm risks in the medium and long-range. Traders are eagerly awaiting the latest cash numbers tomorrow, as though cold will not be quite as intense Wednesday as it will be today and tomorrow it will still be quite strong..
Storage Levels Creeping Lower Keeps Gas Firm - Attention today turned to low storage levels, as a growing storage deficit to last year kept a bid in April natural gas prices, allowing the contract to settle up nearly 3 cents on the day. The rally came in spite of much weaker cash prices today, with cash trading a full $1 under yesterday's levels. Forward spreads tightened today as well, especially the J/V April/October spread, which progressed quite a bit higher today despite the relatively small move in the April outright contract. The low storage concerns are exacerbated by rather tight balances thanks to extreme cold across the country the last few days. Alongside significant demand we are still seeing LNG exports near highs, too, which have helped balances run tight since exports recovered back in mid-February. Yet some of this tightness will certainly be transitory, as temperatures will moderate quickly across the country over the next few days. Still, as we noted in our Morning Update, some cold will remain, and overnight GWDD additions clearly added support to the forward curve today. Climate Prediction Center forecasts continue to show colder trends this afternoon too.
Weaker Cash And Briefly Warmer Models Let April Gas Retrace - The April natural contract settled down around a percent and a half as overnight weather models moderated slightly and Henry Hub day ahead cash prices plunged below $3. After spiking over $4 to start the week Henry Hub day ahead cash traded back under $3 today. Such cash action was enough to depress the April contract relative to the rest of the futures curve. Thus the April/May J/K spread took a large turn down on the day. This fit our expectations well, as we turned our sentiment "Slightly Bearish" in our Morning Update due to bearish spreads, warmer overnight model trends, and other fundamentals we saw moving in a bearish direction. Overnight models were not all that much warmer, but GWDD losses were allowed to let the front of the curve at least retrace recent gains. Then prices were able to bounce into the settle on colder afternoon weather model guidance, which the Climate Prediction Center showed in their Week 2 forecast probabilities as well. Now, traders are preparing for what should be another hefty storage draw to be announced tomorrow.
Low Storage Concerns Push Gas Prices Higher - April natural gas prices ended the day up almost 1% after bouncing around in the early part of the session. Concerns over low storage levels combined with a colder than normal weather forecast were the culprit for the move up. The gains were not confined to April prices, but extended throughout the futures curve. We did observe some weakness early in the day, as the strongest cold is now behind us, with demand lowering into this weekend. With temperatures moderating, cash prices were held in check, trading just over 2.90 today. The early morning weakness was short-lived, with the market rallying ahead of expectations of a strong gas draw in today's EIA report, which came true, as we drew 149 bcf last week, much stronger than last year and the 5-year average. We saw this number as supportive, as it was tight relative to the average over the last several weeks. Afternoon weather models then went colder in week two, and these forecasts added additional support, allowing prices to end the day close to their session highs. Our afternoon update dealt with all of these issues and outlined how we see natural gas price risk heading into the weekend.
Natural gas trading, prices increase on colder weather, nuclear outages— North American natural gas trading has been relatively higher the last four trading sessions as colder weather and nuclear outages increased the market's reliance on gas to meet its needs. S&P Global Platts received 8,660 physical fixed-price deals for North American gas on March 1. This was an all-time high of deals received. Platts received 7,094 deals on Monday. This was the second most deals ever received. The trend continued as Platts received 6,900 deals on Tuesday, the fourth-highest amount of deals seen. Platts received just under 6,900 deals on Thursday, according to preliminary numbers. The cash price for Pacific Gas and Electric Malin increased 22.5 cents on the day to $3.625/MMBtu as the colder weather added upward pressure. US total demand has averaged 131 Bcf the last two days, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. Demand averaged 110 Bcf for all of February. The increased demand stemmed from the recent onset of colder-than-average weather. The US has averaged 32 heating degree days the last two days, according to Platts Analytics. The onset of the colder weather is evident across the country as the US averaged only 23 heating degree days in February. The uptick in nuclear outages across the country also increased the reliance on gas. Daily power generation replaced by natural gas due to nuclear outages increased by 105 MW, to average 11,026 MW, the highest value in the last seven days, according to Platts Analytics. Year-to-date power generation replaced has averaged 5,429 MW, 32% higher than the 1,309 MW seen last year, according to Platts Analytics. Looking forward, the most recent eight- to 14-day temperature forecast calls for slightly colder-than-average weather across much of the country, according to the US National Weather Service. Power burn demand for Midwest sat at 2.5 Bcf/d on Wednesday, but is expected to fall 831 MMcf/d to 1.67 Bcf/d by March 10, according to Platts Analytics. The backing off of the cold weather and decrease in power burn may contribute to the downward trend in deal count seen after the spike on March 1.
US oil and gas methane emissions equivalent to 14 coal-fired power plants - As Oil Change International reports, the Center for American Progress has issued a new reporton the methane emissions from the US onshore oil and gas industry for 2014. The introduction to the report notes that the oil and gas sector was responsible for 33 percent of all methane emissions in the US in 2014 and that "Methane is a supercharged global warming pollutant that is 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time scale."The report reveals that methane emissions from the onshore oil and gas production sector amounted to more than 48 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2014, the equivalent of 14 coal-fired power plants over one year. The report notes that this is figure is based on the conservative and outdated methodology used by the US EPA to calculate emissions equivalency (see footnote 7). The US government website referenced by the report shows that the US government uses a multiplier (global warming potential, GWP) of 25 to convert methane to CO2e. Ireland uses the same multiplier.As the report points out, this is conservative because it measures the GWP of methane over a 100-year time frame, rather than the 20-year time frame in which methane's warming potential is the greatest (and which also coincides with the window of opportunity for addressing climate change). It is outdated because it is based on the recommendations of the fourth IPCC report. The fifth IPCC report states that over a hundred-year timescale, methane is 34 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Over a 20-year timescale, methane's global warming potential is 86. The US National Climate Assessment published the study Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Systems in 2012, which puts theglobal warming potential of methane at 105 times that of carbon dioxide.The Center for American Progress notes that while the US EPA has recently introduced standards to regulate new sources of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, these standards will not apply to existing sources – wells already in operation. As this Bloomberg article reports, methane from even abandoned and plugged wells can be a problem, especially if they are located near a fracking site. Abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania have been found to be leaking methane into homes and water, as well as into the air. A 2014 study found that abandoned wells can continue to be a significant source of methane emissions for decades.
Video: Flames from natural gas pipeline rupture light up sky near Mexico, Mo. - A gas line exploded in Mexico, Mo., on Sunday, March 3. The rupture occurred nearly one mile north of the city along Highway 15, according to the Audrain County Sheriff’s Office. By @ItsRake via Storyful A huge fire from a ruptured natural gas pipeline lit up the sky near Mexico, Mo., early Sunday, a video from the Audrain County, Mo., Sheriff’s Office shows. The fire was reported early Sunday about 1 mile north of Mexico, Mo. No one was killed or seriously injured in the fire, according to the sheriff’s office. The video, taken by a member of the sheriff’s office, shows the blaze from a distance. Once the supply to the pipeline was cut, it took about 40 minutes for the fire to burn the remaining gas and extinguish itself, the sheriff’s office wrote in a statement on its Facebook page. Missouri 15 remained closed in the area while the highway was repaired and utility crews replaced several poles and lines.
Energy Transfer Gas Rupture Caps Missouri Mainline Capacity -The fiery rupture of a natural gas pipeline that lit up the early-morning sky in Missouri on Sunday will limit capacity of the Panhandle Eastern pipeline while repairs are being done, Energy Transfer LP said in a notice. Nominations to the main-line conduit will be held to 1.125 million British Thermal Units per day, according to the notice. The rupture occurred north of Mexico, Missouri, about 120 miles (193 km) from St. Louis. It didn’t cause serious injuries, but did interrupt power to several homes, the Audrain County Sheriff’s Office noted in a Facebook post. A spokesman for Energy Transfer did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The rupture took place downstream from the Centralia Compressor Station. The resulting fire was extinguished after about 40 minutes, the sheriff’s office reported. The incident is yet another bump in the road for billionaire Kelcy Warren’s Energy Transfer, whose shares have languished amid numerous legal and political challenges. In addition to wide-spread opposition to its Dakota Access oil pipeline, the pipeline giant has seen regulatory and legal challenges to its Rover natural gas conduit and the Mariner East 2 gas-byproducts line, as well as construction delays on its Bayou Bridge oil line in Louisiana. In September, the company also had a fire on a gas gathering line in Pennsylvania that led to the evacuation of nearby homes.
Pipeline company riddled with history of damage, malfunctions - — The cause of a gas pipeline rupture along MO-15, one mile North of Mexico remains unknown as of Monday.Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration spokesperson said on Monday afternoon, an investigator has been deployed to the site of the pipeline rupture on Energy Transfer Partners’ Panhandle Eastern Pipeline in Audrain County. The PHMSA Spokesperson said the failed section of pipe will be shipped to a DNV laboratory for metallurgical analysis. PHMSA’s investigation is ongoing.Little Dixie Fire Protection District Fire Chief Steve Gentry said this isn't the first time the company has had a rupture in Audrain County."The last time this happened was in 1996," Gentry said.Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. has a history of pipeline ruptures according to online documents by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.Pipeline malfunctions and ruptures are linked to the company date as far back as 1982 in Centralia. A cut pipeline and a mechanical malfunction sent natural gas surging into stove and furnace pilot lights at 120 times the normal rate, creating a blowtorch effect that started fires in at least 50 homes.
- In 2006, an incident in Sturgeon involved the company, listing the cause as outside force damage causing $55,000 in property damage.
- In 2008, an incident in Pilot Grove due to corrosion causing $1,046,359 in damage.
- In 2009, an incident in Fayette caused by natural force damage, causing $722,850 in damage.
- In 2013, an incident in Pettis County caused by corrosion causing $2,092,739 in damage. Another incident happened in 2015 due to a malfunction causing $46,332.
The last report in Missouri is shown in Johnson County caused by a malfunction causing $1,001,549 in damage.
$680 million pipeline gets green light to move natural gas from Oklahoma to Gulf Coast - A pipeline to move natural gas from Oklahoma to destinations along the Gulf Coast and southeastern United States got the green light from federal regulators and $680 million in financing for construction. Working in a joint venture, Houston liquefied natural gas company Cheniere Energy and Washington D.C. private equity firm EIG Global Energy Partners are moving forward with plans to build the 200-mile Midship Pipeline in Oklahoma. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials approved the 36-inch diameter natural gas pipeline on Wednesday. Cheniere and EIG issued a statement on Friday saying the two companies secured $680 million in financing for the project and issued a notice for contractors Strike LLC, M.G. Dyess, TRC Pipeline Services and Cenergy LLC to proceed with construction.Expected to be placed in service by the end of the year, the Midship Pipeline is designed to move 1.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from Oklahoma's SCOOP and STACK shale plays to delivery point just north of the Red River near Bennington, Oklahoma. The Midship Pipeline will connect to Kinder Morgan's Midcontinent Express Pipeline and the Boardwalk Pipeline Partners-owned Gulf Crossing Pipeline, allowing natural gas from Oklahoma to move to the TexOk Hub near Atlanta, Texas and the Perryville Hub near Tallulah, Louisiana. Subsidiaries and affiliates of Cheniere, Devon Energy Corporation, Marathon Oil Corporation, and Gulfport Energy Corporation have secured commitments on the Midship Pipeline, Cheniere and EIG reported.
Calcasieu Pass LNG export terminal gets final federal authorization ahead of construction — Venture Global LNG's proposed Calcasieu Pass export terminal received US Department of Energy approval Tuesday to ship cargoes to countries with which the US does not have free-trade agreements. The milestone marks the final federal authorization the up to 10 million mt/year Louisiana project needs to move forward. While the developer has a contractor, long-term offtake agreements with shippers covering the bulk of its capacity, and plenty of market momentum, it has not yet publicly announced a positive final investment decision, which generally comes before full construction begins. The status of financing arrangements to pay for the billions of dollars in costs also has not been disclosed. A spokeswoman did not respond to messages seeking comment. The company has been the most active among developers of second wave US projects in securing commercial agreements for the LNG it plans to produce, and it has said previously that it wanted to be able to make an FID and begin construction as soon as possible so it can be up and running by the early 2020s to help meet the forecast global demand during that timeframe. When the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced last month that it had approved Venture Global's permit certificate for Calcasieu Pass in Cameron Parish, the developer said in a statement that it planned to "immediately commence construction activities" in coordination with regulatory agencies. Tuesday's company statement following the DOE authorization to export up to 1.7 Bcf/d of LNG to non-FTA countries said only that it was looking to "commence site works imminently," in line with an implementation plan it filed with FERC. When Venture Global announced that Kiewit had been awarded the engineering, procurement, and construction contract for Calcasieu Pass, it did not disclose how much it had agreed to pay. It also has not disclosed how much offtakers Royal Dutch Shell, Italy's Edison, Portugal's Galp, Britain's BP, Spain's Repsol and Poland's PGNiG have agreed to pay for the LNG that the terminal will produce.
In late January, Gulf Coast gasoline crack spreads reached their lowest levels since 2014 - U.S. Gulf Coast gasoline crack spreads had been declining since mid-2018 and briefly went negative in January and early February 2019 before rising, while distillate crack spreads remained relatively stable. The gasoline crack spread is the difference between the spot prices of gasoline and crude oil. EIA attributes relatively low gasoline crack spreads to more costly crude oil inputs and high gasoline inventories. Crack spreads in U.S. Gulf Coast petroleum product markets are typically among the world’s highest because, among other factors, Gulf Coast refineries have upgraded their equipment to refine lower-cost heavy crude oils into more valuable refined products, such as gasoline. Their complexity also facilitates relatively high yields of higher value products such as distillate and jet fuel and low yields of lower value residual fuel oil compared with simpler refineries. Since December, prices of medium and heavy crude oils with higher sulfur content have increased relative to prices of light, sweet crude oils. This price increase is likely because of the reduction in output from producers within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Canada and the threat of production disruptions in Venezuela. These countries tend to produce medium and heavy grades of crude oil with higher sulfur content, so a large share of the global oil supply reductions since January has been of this quality. Because U.S. Gulf Coast refineries have upgraded equipment such as cokers, they typically process crude oils that have lower API gravities (meaning they are relatively dense and heavy) and have higher sulfur content, which are typically less expensive than light, sweet crude oils. Based on a five-day moving average, the price spread between the price of Mars—a medium, sour crude oil produced in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico—and the price of Light Louisiana Sweet (LLS) crude oil narrowed to within $1 per barrel in late January after trading between $3 to $4 per barrel less than LLS for most of 2017 and 2018.
The U.S. is trying to end the longest oil spill in history. And this company is fighting against it in court. - As the longest offshore oil spill in U.S. history creeps toward its 15th year, the federal government is preparing to launch a determined effort to contain the oil and cap the leaking wells. But the energy company responsible for cleaning up the spill has gone to court to stop efforts to fix a leak that is sending hundreds of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Taylor Energy of New Orleans recently filed four lawsuits against the Interior Department, U.S. Coast Guard and a private contractor to contest their assessment that the spill is catastrophic and to shut down plans to cap more than two dozen leaking wells. The wells were torn open in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan triggered powerful currents that collapsed the walls of a deepwater canyon. The tumbling walls slammed into an oil production platform that Taylor Energy operated 12 miles off the Louisiana coast, burying most of its 25 wells. According to one estimate, up to 700 barrels of oil per day are flowing into the Gulf, rivaling the catastrophic 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill. The estimate is based on an analysis by Oscar Garcia-Pineda, a specialist in remote sensing of oil spills, which the government accepted but Taylor Energy disputes. The BP disaster leaked 4 million barrels over five months. If Garcia-Pineda’s estimate is correct, the Taylor spill amounts to 1.5 million barrels to 3.5 million barrels in more than 14 years. A day after The Washington Post revealed Garcia-Pineda’s analysis, the Coast Guard issued Taylor Energy an ultimatum: hire a company to build a device to contain the oil or face a fine of up to $4,000 per day. When the energy company failed to negotiate a contract, the Coast Guard took over the cleanup effort. On Wednesday, during oral arguments for Taylor Energy’s case against Couvillion Group, the private contractor hired by the Coast Guard to contain the spill, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle wanted to know why the company is seeking to block efforts to clean it up. Taylor Energy’s attorney said the company believes the plan won’t work and could make the problem worse. Lemelle asked the Coast Guard’s lawyer why the cleanup is taking so long. “This occurred in 2004. How long does it take the government to decide what to do?” The attorney, Erica Zilioni, said new data shows that three leaks are ejecting more oil into the environment than previously thought. Before now, the government had relied almost solely on reports from contractors hired by Taylor Energy to estimate the size of the spill.
Perry wants new FERC regulators to push through LNG export applications - Dive Brief:
- Secretary of Energy Rick Perry called on President Trump Thursday to quickly nominate regulators to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to help approve new export facilities for liquefied natural gas (LNG).
- Perry praised FERC's approval of the Calcasieu Pass LNG export facilitylast week, but said having a full contingency of five regulators would help push through 12 more LNG applications pending at the commission. Senior DOE officials previously expressed optimism that the compromise reached on Calcasieu could be applied to the pending applications.
- The White House is considering nominating NRG Energy executive David Hill to fill a vacancy on the commission, Politico reported this week, but the chair of the Senate Energy Committee, which oversees FERC confirmations, said she and Perry have not been notified of a nomination by the White House.
Dive Insight: Perry's statements on LNG Thursday reflect a broad effort from the Trump administration to boost natural gas exports as part of its "energy dominance" strategy. Last week, DOE officials celebrated the approval of Calcasieu Pass, the first LNG facility cleared in two years, saying the climate change compromise reached among FERC regulators could provide a "roadmap" for the 12 remaining applications. FERC's swing vote on the LNG issue, however, pushed back on those comments the next day, saying the statements from DOE officials and FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee may appear to "prejudge" the other applications. "We just reached an agreement on Calcasieu Path," Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur told Utility Dive. "Yes, we do operate by precedent, so that's now a case in the books, but we have to look at every case individually. That's what we do in all areas of our work." At a Thursday morning press conference with the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Perry said he "didn’t see any connection" between Calcasieu and the rest of the applications. "What I saw was we made this decision and we're going to look at each one of these as an individual project and let them stand on their own," he told reporters. More important than the compromise on climate, he said, is that the White House nominate two FERC regulators — one to fill a current vacancy, and one to replace LaFleur when she steps down later this year.
Sinopec may ink 20-year LNG deal with Cheniere when trade spat ends (Reuters) - China Petroleum and Chemical Corp plans to sign a 20-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply agreement with Cheniere Energy once China and the United States end their trade dispute, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. Cheniere and China Petroleum and Chemical, known as Sinopec, reached a consensus in late-2018 on commercial terms after months of negotiations, but the signing of the deal was held back by the ongoing trade friction between the world’s top two economies, one of the sources, who has direct knowledge of the matter, told Reuters. “Without the trade spat, the deal should have been signed some time ago,” the source said, declining to be named because the matter is not public. In recent weeks, Beijing and Washington appear to have moved closer to a deal to end a bruising eight-month dispute that has seen the countries slap tariffs on billions of dollars worth of the other’s good. A resolution is widely expected to include stepped-up Chinese purchase of U.S. goods. Sinopec intends to buy close to 2 million tonnes a year of LNG from Houston-based Cheniere starting 2023, the two sources added, without giving a deal value. Cheniere may start delivering some supplies before 2023, said the second of the two sources. Based on the delivered cost of U.S.-sourced supplies into east China in January at $8.30 per million British thermal units given by Chinese customs, the 20-year deal would amount to roughly $16 billion. Sinopec and Cheniere both declined to comment on the status of a deal. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that as part of a trade deal with the United States, China would buy $18 billion worth of natural gas from Cheniere. Officials from Cheniere visited Beijing in late February, said a third source, who was also familiar with the matter. Sinopec, a late comer to China’s LNG scene compared to domestic rivals China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) and PetroChina, has said it wants to more-than double its receiving capacity over the next six years to around 41 million tonnes annually, by building three new terminals along China’s east coast and expanding existing facilities. China, the world’s second-largest LNG buyer after Japan, imported just over 2 million tonnes of the super-chilled fuel in the first nine months of 2018 from the United States, according to Chinese customs.
Trump administration offshore drilling plan due 'in coming weeks': official (Reuters) - The Trump administration’s revised five-year program to expand offshore drilling in most federal waters will be released “in the coming weeks,” an Interior Department official said on Wednesday, after months of opposition from coastal state lawmakers opposed to exposing their shorelines to oil and gas exploration. Walter Cruickshank, acting director of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said at a House hearing that the agency is finalizing its proposed five-year Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas leasing program for 2019 to 2024 but declined to say whether certain states would be exempt. BOEM last year proposed to open up over 90 percent of coastal waters in the outer continental shelf to oil and gas drilling, offering 47 lease sales, including areas like California that had not been offered since the 1980s. The proposal drew concern from Republican and Democratic lawmakers in most coastal states, and sharp criticism in public comments to the plan last year. California Congressman Jared Huffman pressed Cruickshank at the House natural resources hearing on whether the revised plan would reflect the strong opposition reflected in the public comment period. Cruickshank said the agency acknowledged that the bulk of public comments from California, for example, was opposed to offshore drilling but said they were just one factor that BOEM will consider in drafting the revised proposal. “Public input certainly informs those factors but by law it is not and cannot be the only thing we consider,” he said. U.S. curbing program for abused migrant kids California and Washington threatened to block permits for transporting oil from new offshore rigs through their states.
Massachusetts AG Maura Healey moves to block seismic testing for offshore oil and gas — Massachusetts on Tuesday joined eight coastal states in a legal effort to temporarily block seismic testing for oil and gas reserves beneath the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposes to vastly expand offshore lease sales for oil and gas drilling, including off the coast of New England. Seismic testing for exploration purposes was approved by the Trump administration in November. A coalition of environmental groups sued, saying the sound blasts would take a massive toll on marine wildlife, including whales, dolphins, and porpoises. A federal court last month allowed the states to join the lawsuit. This week's effort asks a judge to halt the testing until that lawsuit is heard. Attorney General Maura Healey joined her peers in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Virginia to file a supporting brief. The overarching federal lawsuit, filed in December, names U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the National Marine Fisheries Service, and seeks to completely stop the seismic testing plan. false Nine states seek to stop seismic testing for oil and gas exploration on the East Coast. “Approving these blasting tests paves the way for the Trump administration to open up the Atlantic coast to drilling and poses a severe threat to our coastal communities, our fishing industry, and the health of the ocean,” Healey said at the time. The federal fisheries service has authorized the "incidental take" of marine life when the acoustic surveys are conducted. Any actual testing would need a permit from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
A Trump official said seismic air gun tests don’t hurt whales. So a congressman blasted him with an air horn. -- A hearing on the threat seismic testing poses to North Atlantic right whales was plodding along Thursday when, seemingly out of nowhere, Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.) pulled out an air horn and politely asked if he could blast it. Before that moment at a Natural Resources subcommittee hearing, Cunningham had listened to a Trump administration official testify, over and over, that firing commercial air guns under water every 10 seconds in search of oil and gas deposits over a period of months would have next to no effect on the endangered animals, which use echolocation to communicate, feed, mate and keep track of their babies. It’s why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave five companies permission to conduct tests that could harm the whales last year, said the official, Chris Oliver, an assistant administrator for fisheries. As committee members engaged in a predictable debate along party lines — Republicans in support of testing and President Trump’s energy agenda, Democrats against it — Cunningham reached for the air horn, put his finger on the button and turned to Oliver. “It’s fair to say seismic air gun blasting is extremely loud and disruptive ... is that correct?” the congressman asked. “I don’t know exactly how loud it is. I actually never experienced it myself,” Oliver replied. So Cunningham gave Oliver a taste of the 120-decibel horn. An earsplitting sound filled the small committee room. An audience of about 50 gasped and murmured. “Was that disruptive?” Cunningham asked. “It was irritating, but I didn’t find it too disruptive,” Oliver said. Cunningham, who represents Charleston and other coastal cities, pressed on. What if it happened every 10 seconds for days, weeks and months, he said. He asked Oliver to guess how much louder commercial air guns are than his store-bought air horn. When Oliver didn’t bite, he told him the sound from air guns is 16,000 times that of his air horn.
Russian oil imports surge in US as Venezuela’s slow to a trickle - Only two ships carrying 766,000 barrels of crude oil from Venezuela arrived in the United States last week in the wake of debilitating oil sanctions lodged against the state-run oil company, PDVSA, according to investment bank Caracas Capital Markets, which tracks Venezuelan oil shipments.Russian companies, meanwhile, sent nine ships carrying more 3 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products, according to a review of the U.S. Bill of Ladings database by Caracas Capital.That import data is clear evidence that Russia is profiting off the geopolitical battle, selling into the U.S. market while helping to prop up the Caracas leadership that Washington is aiming to replace, said Russ Dallen, a managing partner at the investment bank who advises U.S. officials on Venezuelan matters. “The amazing thing is that Russia is replacing Venezuela in the U.S. markets,” Dallen said. “They’re taking advantage of the incompetence of Venezuela and expanding into the United States market.” In late January, the Trump administration slapped new sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, in its latest effort to push out Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and install new leadership under National Assembly chief Juan Guaidó.Venezuela’s oil sector accounted for as much as 70 percent of the Maduro government’s income.The last time Russia sent more than three million barrels of oil to the United States was in 2011 before the U.S. imposed sanctions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea.Those sanctions, imposed in 2014, prevented U.S. companies from financing or send U.S. technology for the Russian industry. But they did not block the purchase of oil from Russia.While U.S. refiners can continue to buy Venezuelan oil for the next couple months, any proceeds paid for the oil must be directed to a special account controlled by the U.S. Treasury. Without a way to collect payment, Venezuelan oil executives have started to self-embargo oil exports to the United States.
Enbridge says Line 3 pipeline project in Minnesota to be delayed a year - A new timeline for Minnesota's permitting process will push the project back, the Canadian company says. The controversial replacement and expansion of Enbridge’s Line 3 crude oil pipeline will be delayed about a year because the Minnesota permitting process will take longer than expected, the Alberta company announced this weekend. The project, previously slated to start shipping crude by the end of 2019, is now expected to enter service in the second half of 2020, Enbridge said in a news release late Friday. Construction is being pushed back because the Minnesota permitting process won’t be complete until November, and the ensuing federal permits won’t be received until as long as 60 days after that. “We now have a firm schedule from the state on the timing of the remaining permits for our Line 3 Replacement project,” Enbridge CEO Al Monaco said in the news release. Last June, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved the $2.6 billion pipeline, a replacement for Enbridge’s aging and corroding Line 3. But Enbridge still needs the other, more technical state permits, primarily from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Department of Natural Resources. It also needs a key water-crossing permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. Meanwhile, environmental groups, two Indian tribes and the state Department of Commerce have all filed appeals in court to overturn the PUC’s decision. Gov. Tim Walz has said he will continue the state’s appeal, which was started last year under his predecessor, Mark Dayton.
Walz calls Enbridge timeline 'optimistic' after Line 3 project delay - -- Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Enbridge Energy's goal of getting work started on the Line 3 oil pipeline project before year's end was aggressive and optimistic.The comment came Monday, March 4, days after the energy company announced it would delay construction on the project by a year. Enbridge officials had hoped to get the project started before the end of the year. But on Friday, March 1, officials announced the company would postpone the proposed start date to late 2020 due to holdups in state and local permitting.Walz made the assessment just after he announced he would aim to get the state to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. Part of that initiative would require energy companies to transition replacement or new power generation projects to fossil-free energy sources unless those prove to be unreliable or unaffordable. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor governor said the state's "goalposts" for approving a project are based on science and protection of natural resources and they can't be moved.“Our process has not changed, our process was clear what it would take to go through the MPCA process, the DNR process and then the Corps of Engineers with the water crossing permit that needed to be in there,” Walz told reporters. “I think Enbridge had a fairly aggressive optimistic timeline in place."The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission in 2018 unanimously approved the Line 3 replacement project. It was a key step for the company, but additional permitting requirements remain before Enbridge can break ground in Minnesota. Enbridge officials last week said they expect Minnesota’s permits will be finalized in November and that federal permits will wrap up 30 to 60 days after that.
Enbridge's Line 3 Pipeline Expansion Delayed In Latest Major Blow To Canadian Energy Industry - Enbridge Inc. is delaying the date when it expects its replacement Line 3 crude oil pipeline to be in expanded service, in what is being called a "major blow" to the oil industry in Canada. According to Bloomberg, the project had previously been set to begin shipping crude in Q4 2019. But now the company is pushing back construction due to slow permitting in Minnesota.Enbridge expects the pipeline to begin service in the second half of 2020 now, as its Minnesota permits won't be complete until November of this year. Federal permits won't be received until as long as 60 days after that. This pipeline was of importance because the government of Alberta was planning on using it to end mandated production cuts that were implemented to deal with a supply glut of crude oil. The glut has been a result of a lack of pipeline space, making it difficult to ship supply to refineries. The Line 3 expansion is set to cost $6.8 billion and help add 370,000 barrels of daily shipping capacity. Its delay is the latest of several blows for the Canadian energy industry, including the stalled Keystone XL pipeline and the stalled Trans Mountain expansion. In addition, the industry has suffered from the cancellation of TransCanada's Energy East pipeline and the Canadian government's rejection of the Northern Gateway conduit, which was also proposed by Enbridge.This delay flies in the face of the company's expectation of having the Line 3 expansion finished this year, a timeline that Enbridge reiterated as recently as February 15. The expansion would help ship crude along a 1031 mile route from Alberta's oil hub to Superior, Wisconsin, where construction is already completed.
Deadly pipelines, no rules — Delaney Tercero, 3, was sitting on her family's couch with her father and sister that summer day. Her mother was doing laundry. They didn't know a pipeline with a dime-sized hole a few yards from their front door was filling their mobile home with raw natural gas.Delaney's mother opened the dryer. The house blew up. Men pulled Delaney from the rubble. A neighbor wrapped her in a scarf, trying to comfort her. Others rubbed burn cream on her sister's burns. Witnesses told responders her mother was burned "head to toe." A helicopter whirled Delaney to a burn unit in Lubbock, but she died two days later, 100 miles from home. Her mother, father and sister were badly burned in the Aug. 9, 2018, explosion, but they lived (Energywire, Sept. 10, 2018). That still amazes their next-door neighbor, Ronnie Littlefield."Those poor people there," Littlefield said on a recent Sunday afternoon, looking over their fence at the debris field where the family's home once sat. "I don't know how anybody survived."The state dispatched inspectors, and they found the pipe's anti-corrosion coating had been "compromised." They also found it had been leaking for "an undetermined length of time."But Targa Resources Corp., the $9.6 billion Houston company that owns the line, will face no penalty from state or federal officials for the explosion. Targa didn't violate any rules, because for this type of pipeline, there are no rules.They're called "gathering lines," generally small pipelines carrying oil and gas from wellheads to processing sites. The Targa pipe was connected to a battery of tanks near the two homes in the pumpjack-studded farm fields outside Midland. Targa did not respond to repeated requests for comment.It was a small part of a network of thousands of miles of pipes underlying the frenzied oil and gas development in the Permian Basin. Nationally, more than 450,000 miles of such gathering lines snake underground from wells, and reports of death and injury have emerged from Texas to Pennsylvania. It's not known how many fatalities have occurred, because the federal government doesn't keep records on explosions from rural gathering lines. Neither do most states.
Permian oil output seen doubling to 8 million barrels in four years, boosting US exports --As if stuck in a partially clogged drain, oil from the hottest U.S. shale play has been caught in a bottleneck due to a lack of pipeline capacity.But the transportation tie-up at the Permian Basin is about to ease up, and a new network of pipelines will help U.S. producers unleash more crude into the Gulf Coast and then onto the world market."There's a lot of shale capacity being prepared. There's a lot of pipeline capacity. We're going to triple pipelines going into the market from 3 to 9 million in three years, from last year to late 2021," said Francisco Blanch, head of commodities and derivatives at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.Much needed pipeline capacity is being added to take Permian crude from the heart of Texas down to the Gulf Coast, to oil refineries but also to Texas ports that are making plans for more and larger ships to carry oil exports from the U.S. to customers in Asia and elsewhere. The Permian Basin covers an area of more than 75,000 square miles in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Citigroup energy analyst Eric Lee said Permian output at just under 4 million barrels a day is up about 1 million barrels from a year ago and should be a million more, or 5 million a day, a year from now, in early 2020. The Permian has benefited from consistent improvements in technology, which increasingly have been capable of extracting more oil from the shale formation.
Exxon and Chevron just announced big plans to surge oil and gas output from top US field - Exxon Mobil and Chevron on Tuesday said they both plan to surge oil and natural gas output from America's top shale field in the coming years, a strategy that the energy giants say will yield significant returns.As early as 2024, Exxon believes it can increase output from the Permian Basin to 1 million barrels per day of oil equivalent, a measure that blends crude oil and gas production. That represents an 80 -percent increase, the company said in a news release a day ahead of its meeting with investors.Meanwhile, Chevron aims to more than double its oil and gas output to 900,000 boepd by the end of 2023. Chevron sees Permian production hitting 600,000 boepd by the end of next year, the company said at its meeting with analysts on Tuesday.The Permian is the epicenter of the U.S. shale boom, which has made the nation the world's top producer of oil and natural gas. Drillers in the region underlying western Texas and southeastern New Mexico use advanced techniques like hydraulic fracturing to coax oil and gas from shale rock formations.Once the domain of independent frackers, the shale drilling process is being industrialized by large international oil companies. The oil majors are stitching together large swaths of land and drilling multiple horizontal wells from a single location, making the expensive method more efficient. "The big thing that I think has changed is the shale game has become a scale game, and so people that can do things at large scale and bring the capabilities to bear that a company like Chevron has are the ones that really can take this to the next level," Chevron Chairman and CEO Michael Wirth told CNBC's "Closing Bell"on Tuesday. Chevron's output from the Permian hit 377,000 boepd last quarter, an 84 percent increase from a year ago. The company says it plans $19 to $22 billion in capital spending per year from 2021 to 2023. Exxon's Permian production surged 93 percent in the final quarter of 2018 from the year-ago period.
Shale oil moderating as long-cycle output in fast decline- Hess — Long-cycle oil production remains on "life support," while shale output's future climb will likely be more moderate than many analysts expect, John Hess, CEO of Hess Corporation, said Friday. "Shale is not the next Saudi Arabia," Hess said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event. Hess said the resource base of shale is not as strong as that of Saudi Arabia, and the US cannot sustain its current growth rate. Still, shale will make up as much as 11% of the world's oil supply by the middle of next decade, up from 6% now, Hess said. US oil production averaged nearly 10.95 million b/d in 2018, a new record and up from about 6.5 million b/d of oil output averaged throughout 2012, the US Energy Information Administration reported Thursday. EIA expects that US oil output crossed the 12 million b/d threshold in January. Nearly all of that growth has been fueled by shale, particularly in the Permian recently, EIA said. But Hess said Friday that investors, who have pumped $50 billion in public equity and $20 billion in private equity into production projects, are now pushing producers to slash costs, likely preventing a surge in output. "It's gone from drill baby drill to show me the money," Hess said. "The focus was on production growth, now it's on financial returns." Hess said that the lack of investment in long-cycle production could also complicate the future supply picture. He said oil company leases in deepwater Gulf of Mexico blocks fell to about 2,500 this year, down from 8,800 in 2004 while global exploration budgets have plummeted.
Striking it Rich: Money managers get more, children get less - Houston Chronicle - A little more than a decade ago, lawmakers gave an obscure board the power to invest the state's oil and gas revenue — money designated to benefit Texas schoolchildren — with outside fund managers. Then fracking boomed, pumping billions in royalties into the coffers of the Texas School Land Board. Big-name businessmen showed up quickly, hoping to be chosen to handle the investments and to gather the fees that came with the duty.And the campaign contributions flowed. Big donors received lucrative partnership agreements. Investment managers charged hundreds of millions in fees.Lines were blurred, and in some instances, crossed.Since the land board started investing with outside fund managers on behalf of the state's K-12 endowment in 2006, it has committed or invested nearly $3.7 billion with companies run by friends, business associates or campaign donors.Those donors together have given more than $1.4 million since 2006 to board members or elected officials with the power to appoint them, a Houston Chronicle investigation reveals. Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has recused himself four times since he took office in 2015, citing “personal relationships.” And they've since charged the fund more than $218 million in fees, records show. While the fees climbed during the past decade, the amount of money the $44 billion Texas Permanent School Fund sends to schools has declined, in real dollars, compared with the two decades prior.
Texas drivers are hitting a key road hazard that has proven deadly in some cases - Driving home one rainy evening, Michelle Gilmartin swerved off a two-lane street to avoid hitting a car that stopped in front of her. She struck a gas meter in front of a house instead. As leaking natural gas hissed, Gilmartin helped her twin 9-year-old boys out of her SUV and rushed them to safety. After that 2017 accident in Keller, the gas company moved the meter farther from the road, behind a fence. But many other meters in that area — and throughout Dallas-Fort Worth — still stand near streets and alleys with no barriers to protect them, posing a risk. In Texas, motorists have damaged gas meters more than 3,600 times since 2010, The Dallas Morning News found in a joint investigation with NBC5. More than 800 of those crashes happened in North Texas. In a worst-case scenario, such crashes can be deadly. In 2006, a woman was killed in Central Texas in an explosion that was triggered when she accidentally backed over a gas meter near the edge of a driveway. The majority of these accidents don’t result in fire, death or injury — just jangled nerves and damaged property. But experts say unprotected gas meters — many installed decades ago — near roads and alleys are an invitation for trouble, and that gas companies and agencies that regulate them should do more to identify and remove the hazards. “These absolutely need to be moved — this is silly,” said Brigham McCown, former administrator of the federal agency that oversees pipeline safety, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. “At some point you have to say we have an issue here, we have a problem,” McCown said.
A new battle over oil and gas drilling just broke out in Colorado - Colorado drillers are gearing up for a fight after Democratic lawmakers proposed overhauling the state's oil and gas commission and reforming regulations that could create new roadblocks to fossil fuel development. Two of the state's top Democrats introduced the legislation late Friday. They are calling Senate Bill 181 — Protect Public Welfare Oil and Gas Operations — "the most meaningful changes to oil and gas regulations Colorado has seen in over 60 years." The move comes just months after the Colorado oil and gas industry celebrated the defeat of new restrictions on drilling in a referendum in November. The legislation could curtail drilling in one of the nation's top oil and natural gas producing states, where advanced technology like hydraulic fracturing has sparked a production boom over the last decade. That could affect Colorado-focused frackers and larger drillers with a footprint in the state, like Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy. The bill would give cities and counties more influence over regulation, including inspecting oil and gas facilities and imposing fines over spills. It would also change the mission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from fostering the development of the state's fossil fuels to regulating the industry. The lawmakers also propose overhauling the powerful commission's makeup, cutting the number of members required to have industry experience from three to one. They would require at least one member of the commission to have training in several fields, including wildlife and environmental protection, soil conservation and public health. Another measure would raise the threshold for the number of mineral rights holders that would need to give their approval before drillers can tap a shared pool of oil and gas, making it potentially more difficult to develop some reserves.
The Next Major Flashpoint For US Shale - Colorado is overhauling the laws governing how the oil and gas industry operates in the state. The legislation seeks to put more protections on public health, safety and the environment as it relates to oil and gas development. Colorado has emerged as a major source of shale drilling in recent years, and as new fracked wells proliferate, they have encroached upon denser populations, particularly around the suburbs north of Denver. Last year, a public referendum on increasing the required setback distance for shale wells from homes and schools became a huge flashpoint. The industry poured money into the vote, vastly outspending proponents of greater setbacks. Expanding setback distances would have put a lot of drilling off limits, so much so that the industry said it threatened to grind oil and gas production to a halt. The vote went down in defeat, and the shale industry breathed a sigh of relief. But the same election also delivered victories for proponents of more regulation. The new governor is less of an ally of oil and gas interests than the former governor, and Democrats scored gains in the legislature. That brings us to today, where the legislature is looking to overhaul oil and gas regulations, which the industry sees as a threat to its operations.The bill would do several things.First, it would grant more authority to cities and counties to regulate drilling operations in their jurisdictions. This has been a perennial fight in Colorado. Several years ago, a series of bans on fracking in individual cities set off legal battles. The Colorado Supreme Court shot down those prohibitions and drilling accelerated across key parts of the state. The new legislation would give local communities more say on siting, inspections and other matters – a more modest proposal than the fracking bans and moratoria of years past. Currently, the state’s interest in developing oil and gas supersedes local interests. The state regulator can, by itself, approve the siting of a drilling operation. Under the proposed changes, drillers would need local permits for siting. The legislation would also restrict the use of “forced pooling,” which allows a company to drill in an area that has multiple landowners so long as just one of the landowners approves. They can drill even if other landowners in that “unit” are opposed. The proposed changes under consideration would require at least 50 percent of landowners to offer their consent. Royalty rates would also increase slightly. As it stands, non-consenting landowners receive a 12.5 percent royalty rate. That would rise to 15 percent “It all but guarantees the industry could not operate in certain jurisdictions,” Tracee Bentley, executive director of the Colorado Petroleum Council, told a state senate committee. The bill would send the message that “Colorado is closed for business.”
Utah oil spill reaches San Juan River - A pipeline break discovered March 1 in southeast Utah spilled a mixture of oil and produced water that reached the San Juan River near Montezuma Creek, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A broken wellhead-gathering line operated by Elk Operating Services spilled about 28 barrels, or 1,176 gallons, into Bucket Wash and the San Juan River, according to an EPA incident report. One barrel equals 42 gallons. The source of the leak has been isolated and secured. The spill flowed 3.5 miles down Bucket Wash with an estimated 3-4 barrels reaching the San Juan River. It flowed downstream to Sand Island Campground and boat launch, near Bluff, where cleanup crews were stationed. Spill recovery is wrapping up, said Katherine Jenkins, community involvement coordinator for EPA Region 8.Booms were placed in the San Juan River at the confluence of Bucket Wash and at Sand Island to prevent the oil slick from traveling farther downstream. Skimmers and vacuum trucks were deployed to remove the fluids. Cleanup was also done in Bucket Wash. The cause of the pipeline break is under investigation, Jenkins said, and whether the company will face penalties has not been determined. The impacts of the oil spill on the environment also are being investigated. The site of the release was on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and upstream of the Navajo Nation lands.
Noem offers bills aimed at possible Keystone XL protests (AP) — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said Monday that she’s proposing a new framework for oil pipeline construction before building starts on the Keystone XL pipeline, introducing legislation that would require companies behind such projects to chip in on protest-related expenses and create a way to go after the money of those who fund destructive demonstrations.Noem said she wants make sure there’s enough funding so local governments don’t bankrupt themselves during construction. She also wants officials to be able to aggressively pursue people who financially back violence and gain access to those funds as well.The push comes late in the state’s 2019 legislative session, timing that critics panned. “To the best of our knowledge, this type of approach has not happened anywhere in the nation before, and this next-generation pipeline construction model was developed to directly address issues caused by out-of-state rioters funded by out-of-state interests that have attacked nearby projects,” Noem said. “The current model for developing major energy infrastructure projects clearly needed to have an update.”Noem’s bills come after opponents of the Dakota Access oil pipeline staged large protests that resulted in 761 arrests in southern North Dakota over a six-month span beginning in late 2016. The state spent tens of millions of dollars policing the protests. Officials are working hard to make sure disruptive and violent protests don’t happen in South Dakota with Keystone XL, Noem said. The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota said the legislation could infringe on free speech rights. One bill would tap a pipeline developer, among other sources, to fund expenses in areas such as law enforcement that arise from pipeline protests. Approved claims from the state, cities or counties would be billed to the pipeline developer, which could contest the claims. The other bill would create an avenue for the state to seek money from people who engage in “riot boosting.” Under the bill, individuals or groups would be liable if they encouraged people in a riot to be violent.
Potential North Dakota oil tax misallocation blamed on 'ambiguous' state law, but treasurer disagrees -- A North Dakota legislative leader said Monday he expects to decide this week how to address what the state’s land commissioner described as a misallocation of millions of oil tax dollars.The issue involves the state's share of oil extraction tax money generated by activity on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Land Commissioner Jodi Smith said she discovered that two constitutional funds have been shorted more than $120 million in roughly the past decade, and money has instead flowed to other state funds.The two potentially shorted funds are the Common Schools Trust Fund and the Foundation Aid Stabilization Fund, which benefit all public schools in the state. Smith said the Water Resources Trust Fund could be affected as well.Smith, who was chosen as the new head of the state Department of Trust Lands in late 2017, said she came across the discrepancy by being "inquisitive" about agency issues. Her department is responsible for managing permanent educational trust funds and sovereign mineral acres, among other duties. "We just continued to kind of look into it and look into it," she said, adding that "a lot of people were under the assumption that we did receive that."
Judge finds law defining mineral ownership under Lake Sakakawea constitutional -- — A new North Dakota law better defining oil and gas ownership under Lake Sakakawea is constitutional but requires the state to refund too much money, a judge ruled Wednesday, Feb. 27. East Central Judicial District Judge John Irby issued a 25-page order in the lawsuit from Rep. Marvin Nelson, D-Rolla, former governor candidate Paul Sorum and others that challenged legislation approved by lawmakers in 2017. The taxpayers argued they were seeking to prevent the state Board of University and School Lands from “giving away” up to $2 billion in oil and gas mineral rights in coming years, challenging the law as unconstitutional. Attorneys representing North Dakota said the law is not a giveaway, but a process to define the boundary of the state’s mineral interests. The legislation sought to clarify ownership of minerals under Lake Sakakawea through a review of the historic ordinary high water mark of the Missouri River as it existed before the Garrison Dam. Irby ruled in favor of the state, finding the law itself is constitutional. Irby wrote the law “codifies the state’s policy of not making any claims to the minerals above the ordinary high water mark of the historic Missouri River channel.” But a second portion of his ruling fell in favor of the taxpayers. Irby wrote he is “troubled” with the implementation provisions of the law, which were estimated to reduce state revenues by $205 million by refunding oil royalty, rent and bonus payments.
Tribes accuse Corps of withholding pipeline study records— Tribes battling the Dakota Access oil pipeline in court are accusing the Army Corps of Engineers of withholding dozens of documents that could bolster their case that the pipeline could unfairly impact them. Many of the records that attorneys for the four Sioux tribes allege are missing relate to the pipeline’s crossing beneath the Lake Oahe reservoir on the Missouri River in the Dakotas, which the tribes rely on for drinking water, fishing and religious practices. Fears of a spill into the river sparked prolonged protests in 2016 and early 2017 that drew thousands of pipeline opponents from around the world to southern North Dakota. The Corps, which permitted the $3.8 billion pipeline that began moving North Dakota oil to Illinois in June 2017, “produced a fragmented and incomplete record designed to defend a flawed agency action, one that omits key documents important to the tribes’ legal challenge,” attorneys for the Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Yankton and Oglala Sioux tribes wrote in a Wednesday court filing. They implored U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to order the Corps to turn over the requested documents. The Justice Department, which represents the Corps, declined comment. Boasberg in June 2017 ruled that the Corps “largely complied” with environmental law when permitting the pipeline built by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, but he ordered more study on tribal impacts. The Corps in August 2018 said it had finished more than a year of additional study and that the work substantiated its earlier determination that the pipeline does not pose a higher risk of adverse impacts to minorities. The tribes are challenging the assertion, hoping to persuade Boasberg to shut down the pipeline.
U.S. will soon surpass Saudi Arabia in petroleum exports: Rystad - The United States' surging oil and gas production will soon allow the country to surpass Saudi Arabia in liquid petroleum exports. While Saudi Arabia will remain the top crude oil exporter, the U.S. is destined to usurp the kingdom as soon as late 2019 when it comes to overall liquid petroleum exports, including fuels and some natural gas liquids, according to a new report from the Norwegian research firm Rystad Energy. "Increasingly profitable shale production and a robust global appetite for light oil and gasoline is poised to bring the U.S. to a position of oil dominance in the next few years," said Rystad Energy senior partner Per Magnus Nysveen.The U.S. is producing a record high of more than 12 million barrels of crude oil a day, including about 5 million barrels daily from Texas alone, according to the U.S. Energy Department. The country is exporting more than 8 million barrels of petroleum liquids per day, including about 3 million barrels of commercial crude oil. The other petroleum liquids include gasoline, jet fuel, natural gas liquids like propane, other oils and distillate fuel oil, which is used to make diesel and heating oils. That compares to Saudi Arabia exporting 9 million barrels of liquid petroleum products a day, including 7 million barrels of commercial crude. RELATED: Oil slides on economy fears, stuck in tightest range since 2017 "The political and economic impact of this shift in global trade has already been dramatic, and will be even more pivotal within the next five years," Nysveen added. "The U.S. trade deficit will evaporate and its foreign debt will be paid quickly thanks to the swift rise of American oil and gas net exports," he said. "The tanker shipping industry will see the boom of the millennium, as the excess fossil fuels from America will find plenty of eager buyers in fast-growing Asia." U.S. crude production should exceed 13 million barrels a day by the end of the year, including about 4 million barrels of crude exports daily.
Bethany McLean: Saudi America & The Truth About Fracking - For years now we've been covering the false promise of the American shale oil "miracle". Yes, it has extracted a lot more oil out of American soil that most thought possible. But at an economic loss. And at great environmental cost.If the shale drilling companies can't make any profit, either when oil prices are high or low -- why are we still pursuing shale deposits so aggressively?To shed further light on this paradox, this week we welcome journalist Bethany McLean to the program. McLean is editor-at-large at Fortune Magazine and a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and Slate magazines. She is also author of the excellent book: Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking And How It's Changing The World. McLean warns that the hype, the hucksterism, and the geological shortcomings of the deposits themselves, are setting up both investors and American society for tremendous disappointment: The real catalyst of the shale revolution was the Great Financial Crisis and the era of unprecedentedly-low interest rates that followed. And that had two effects. One was that it made debt cheap. So these companies that are heavily dependent on being able to raise capital could raise debt at low prices. And without that, I’m not sure there would’ve been a shale revolution because they needed such immense amounts of capital to fund their drilling. But it had a second impact, which is that when pension funds were no longer able to earn a return in traditional fixed income markets, they’ve increasingly put their money into riskier assets like hedge funds that invest in credit and private equity firms. Those entities, in turn, have increasingly invested in shale. Now there’s a lot of money that believes believes the story that technological improvements are going to make this industry profitable in the long run. But there are lots of ways that private equity firms and other investors can make money even if the companies themselves don’t. And what I mean by that is that for a long time, a shale company that was publicly traded was valued not on its profits but rather, on a multiple of its production or its reserves.
US energy secretary warns anti-OPEC bill could bring oil price spike - US Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday that anti-OPEC legislation under consideration in Congress could lead to an oil price spike by preventing the world's producers from managing supply. Perry essentially defended OPEC's role of balancing oil supplies and delivered a critique of the proposed bill for which President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed support, although not since taking office. The White House, which did not respond to a request for comment on Perry's remarks, has not said whether Trump would sign the bill if Congress passes it. The House Judiciary Committee on February 7 unanimously approved the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, clearing it for a vote by the full House of Representatives. A similar bill introduced in the Senate has not received a vote. Versions of the so-called NOPEC legislation have been introduced for two decades without going anywhere. "I think we need to be really careful before we pass legislation that may have an impact that goes way past its intended consequence," Perry said during a press conference at the Department of Energy headquarters, joined by International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol. Perry said the global oil market still needs supply management. "I'm for stable pricing which is directly related to supply," he said. "If you remove that, and there is no coordination of supply to the market, you could have a massive amount of energy supply come into the marketplace and impact producers." Perry said that would push some producers out of the market, leading to underinvestment, lower production and an eventual price spike. IEA's Birol testified to Congress later Thursday that global refiners are preparing for the implementation of IMO's 0.5% sulfur cap on marine fuels. Birol said there was initially a "bit of panic" in the oil industry about the rules, but now refiners are adjusting to the impending regulations. "There may be some temporary price spikes for diesel and jet fuel prices, but we think the market will adjust and we don't expect those price spikes will be long-lasting and big," he said.
Shale Companies In Turmoil As Newer Wells Drink Their Milkshake - US shale companies' decision to drill thousands of new wells closely together - and close to already existing wells - is turning out to be a bust; worse, this approach is hurting the performance of wells already in existence, posing an even greater threat to the already struggling industry. In order to keep the United States as an energy supplying powerhouse, shale companies have pitched bunching wells in close proximity, hoping they would produce as much as older ones, allowing companies to extract more oil overall while maintaining good results from each well.These types of predictions helped fuel investor interest in shale companies, who raised nearly $57 billion from equity and debt financing in 2016 – up from $34 billion five years earlier, when oil was over $110 per barrel. In 2016, oil prices dipped below $30 a barrel at one point.And now - surprise – the actual results from these wells are finally coming in and they are quite disappointing. Newer wells that have been set up near older wells were found to pump less oil and gas, and engineers warn that these new wells could produce as much as 50% less in some circumstances. This is not what investors - who contributed to the billions in capital used by these companies back in 2016 - want to hear. Making matters worse, newer wells often interfere with the output of older wells because creating too many holes in dense rock formations can damage nearby wells and make it harder for oil to seep out. The "child" wells could also cause permanent damage to older "parent" wells. This is known in the industry as the "parent-child" well problem. Billionaire Harold Hamm, who founded shale driller Continental Resources, said last year: "Shale producers across the country are finding you can get a lot of interference, one well to the other. Laying out a whole lot of wells can get you in trouble.”Some of the biggest names in shale, including Devon Energy, EOG Resources and Concho Resources, have already disclosed that they are suffering from this problem. As a result, they and many others could be forced to take massive write-downs if they have to downsize their already optimistic estimates from drill sites.
Be Wary Of Unrealistic Shale Growth Expectations - U.S. shale drillers are facing a serious problem: Their wells are not producing as much oil and gas as they had anticipated. When facing shareholder scrutiny, shale drillers have countlessly hyped the litany of technological breakthroughs, efficiency gains and innovative drilling techniques. But the hype has slammed into reality on a few fronts. First, after years of bankrolling the shale industry in hopes of juicy profits, Wall Street is starting to lose patience. Some companies turn a profit, but the industry on the whole has been losing money since its inception in the mid-2000s. A second – and no less damning – development is starting to occur on the operational side of things. Shale companies are finding that the returns on pushing their drilling practices to evermore intense frontiers are beginning to fizzle. For years, drillers increased the length of their laterals, injected more and more sand and water underground, and packed wells closer and closer together. These techniques of intensification promised to produce more oil and gas for less money.Suddenly, there is evidence that the industry is running into a wall. The Wall Street Journal reported that shale wells placed too close together are starting to report unexpectedly disappointing results. The thinking is that the wells are interfering with each other. Adding more wells seems to be reducing the productivity of all the wells situated in close proximity. This so-called “parent-child” well problem, in which additional wells (the “child” wells) undercut the performance of the original well (the “parent”), may be the beginning of a larger problem with the shale industry.The WSJ says that some of the newer wells are producing as much as 50 percent less than the parent wells. Ultimately, when all is said and done, adding more wells may actually result in less oil and gas recovered since the pressure drops and the reservoir suffers damage. Not only are child wells less productive than the parent, but they actually cannibalize production from the parent wells by sapping reservoir pressure and in some cases flooding the parent well with fracking fluids from the child well. For instance, wells placed 375 feet apart may produce 28 percent less than wells produced 600 feet apart, the WSJ analysis finds. The figures grow worse the more the wells are packed tightly together – placing them only 275 feet apart results in a 40 percent decline in output relative to those placed 600 feet apart.But companies can’t simply space out the wells and still achieve the same production targets. They have finite acreage, sometimes carved up in a patchwork, so it’s not always possible to simply stretch out the same number of planned wells over longer distances. In other words, the parent-child well problem may mean that companies will have to drill fewer wells than they had anticipated. That means that they could be facing “an industrywide write-down if they are forced to downsize the estimates of drill sites they have touted to investors, some of which promised decades’ worth of choice spots,” the WSJ concluded.
Sumas gas prices set US record as Arctic blast descents. - Natural gas spot prices at Sumas, WA, on Friday went as high as $200/MMBtu, a record price not only for the Pacific Northwest spot gas market, but for the U.S. That level surpassed even the highest price seen in the premium Northeast market in the pre-Shale Era. Other Western prices also rose Friday but not to anywhere near Sumas, with intraday highs at the other hubs mostly staying below $10/MMBtu. This is just the latest instance of turmoil in the Pacific Northwest gas market since last fall, when a rupture on Enbridge’s Westcoast Energy/BC Pipeline system (on October 9) disrupted Canadian gas exports to Washington State at the Sumas border crossing point. Ongoing testing on the Westcoast system and the resulting capacity reductions for deliveries to Sumas, along with reduced deliverability at the region’s largest storage facility, Jackson Prairie, over the past month have made the Pacific Northwest more of a demand “island” than ever, especially as those issues coincide with this week’s polar-vortex weather. Sumas prices for today’s flows re-entered the stratosphere, averaging just under $16/MMBtu, but remained the highest price in the country. Today, we review the market conditions contributing to the sky-high prices.
Analysis: Alberta natural gas storage inventory decline points to upside for AECO this summer — As natural gas storage inventories in Alberta plunged compared with the five-year average due to the frigid temperatures seen over the past month, which are expected to continue in March, the increased demand for injections required later in 2019 is expected to drive AECO hub's summer basis higher, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics.Temperatures in Calgary started off relatively warm this winter, averaging 5 degrees Fahrenheit above normal from November 1 through January 31. However, frigid temperatures entered the picture in February, with Calgary seeing average temperatures 24 F below normal. As a result, demand on the NOVA Gas Transmission (NGTL) system in Alberta averaged 7 Bcf/d in February, 27.3% above the 5.5 Bcf/d five-year February average and 11.1% higher than the 6.3 Bcf/d average in January, according to Platts Analytics data. As demand was surging, production dropped 0.5 Bcf/d month on month in February, due to freeze-offs and NGTL maintenance.The increase in demand and decrease in output has boosted AECO considerably, the cash premium for which climbed to $1.13/MMBtu above Henry Hub in trading last week. On Monday, it was down only 1 cent at $1.12/MMBtu premium. In January, cash AECO averaged a $1.71/MMBtu discount to Henry Hub. In February 2018, cash AECO averaged a 28 cent deficit to Henry Hub. Since the cold weather moved in early February, withdrawals on NGTL's storage system, which serves as a proxy for Alberta storage as a whole, accelerated to average 2 Bcf/d, an increase of 0.7 Bcf/d compared with January, according to Platts Analytics. The higher demand looks set to linger into March and maybe even April. The two-week forecast calls for the cold temperatures to persist, while Canadian government forecasts are calling for the cold snap to continue through April. If withdrawals continue at a clip roughly 20% above the five-year average through the end of March, Alberta storage levels would be down to 240 Bcf by month's end. If this happens, in order to reach end-of-summer 2018 levels of 380 Bcf, average summer injections must average 0.65 Bcf/d, according to Platts Analytics data. The average daily injection would have to rise 80.6% compared with last summer's 0.36 Bcf/d.
Fracking connection probed in 4.6-magnitude earthquake near Red Deer - The Alberta Energy Regulator is working to determine if a fracking operation caused an earthquake near Sylvan Lake and Red Deer on Monday.Natural Resources Canada said a 4.6-magnitude earthquake rocked parts of central Alberta just before 6 a.m. The federal department’s website said the tremor was classified as a light earthquake.The AER has confirmed Vesta Energy had been fracking in the area just prior to the quake, which was detected by the company’s private seismic monitoring devices around 12 kilometres south of Sylvan Lake at a magnitude of 4.16.The AER said the earthquake was reported to them by the company at 6:20 a.m.“We are currently reviewing the events to determine if the incident is due to hydraulic fracturing activities or natural causes,” said Natalie Brodych, spokeswoman with the AER.The regulator said Vesta has stopped work at the site while the AER investigates whether fracking led to the quake.Earthquakes Canada initially had trouble pinpointing the earthquake, locating it first northeast of Red Deer, then south of the city. The most recent update has placed it 19 kilometres west of Red Deer, near Sylvan Lake. The earthquake occurred about a kilometre below the surface.
Fracking Suspended At Vesta Energy Ltd. Site Linked To Red Deer, Sylvan Lake Earthquake — The Alberta Energy Regulator has ordered a company to suspend fracking operations at a well site linked to an earthquake that was felt in the communities of Red Deer and Sylvan Lake. Natural Resources Canada says the 4.6 magnitude earthquake occurred in central Alberta around 5:55 a.m. on Monday.The regulator says Vesta Energy Ltd. must suspend hydraulic fracturing operations at the site.It says Calgary-based company must submit a report of all seismic activity in the area since April and specific fracturing data for the well site from Jan. 29 to Monday.The regulator has also ordered Vesta to file a plan to eliminate or reduce future seismic activity from fracturing.Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping chemicals and sand underground to break up rocks to help get oil and natural gas flowing. "A Vesta representative contacted the AER through the 24-hour emergency response number at 06:20 a.m. on March 4, 2019, and informed the AER that seismic activity of magnitude 4.32 was detected due to Vesta's fracturing at the site, and that Vesta had shut down the fracturing operation," the regulator said in a release Tuesday."All operations at the site are suspended immediately unless otherwise directed in writing by the director."There were no immediate reports of damage but the community of Sylvan Lake said the power went out in most of the town Monday morning.
Enbridge files $29.5 million suit over 2017 pipeline spill near Edmonton - Pipeline giant Enbridge has filed a $29.5-million lawsuit against four companies over a 2017 spill it says was caused by construction on another pipeline nearby. Enbridge’s Line 2A pipeline east of Edmonton breached on Feb. 17, 2017, causing nearly 1,000 cubic metres of crude oil condensate blend to spill into the surrounding construction site, west of Anthony Henday Drive near 92 Avenue. Enbridge filed a statement of claim against the four companies on Feb. 15, claiming they played a role in puncturing the pipeline. The claim names four defendants: Grand Rapids Pipeline GP Ltd., Ledcor Pipeline Limited, Jay-Nart Directional Drilling Ltd., and Alberta Hot-Line Ltd. Statements of claim contain allegations that have not been proven in court. According to the claim, Grand Rapids — owned by TransCanada and PetroChina Canada — sought permission in 2016 to run a pair of pipelines above and below eight Enbridge lines east of Edmonton. Enbridge allowed the crossing, but set out strict rules for how construction would take place near its pipelines. To install Grand Rapids’ 20-inch pipeline, contractors were to perform an open cut excavation around three Enbridge pipelines, including Line 2A. However, Enbridge’s claim alleges the defendants instead opted to install the pipeline by boring horizontally across the entire Enbridge corridor, a technique that was “different and more risky than what was contemplated under the crossing agreement.” Enbridge claims the project was “behind schedule and over budget” at the time. The defendants allegedly began boring west to east on Feb. 17, 2017, to create a hole for the pipeline. At around 3 p.m., Enbridge says a 28-inch reamer used to drill the hole struck Line 2A, spilling 988 cubic metres of oil. According to the Transportation Safety Board, the oil was contained to an excavated area on the construction site, which was on land owned by Shell Canada. Most of the oil was recovered. The agency found a “lack of field measurements” to confirm the locations of buried pipelines along the route contributed to the breach. Enbridge’s claim asks for $29.5 million to cover lost product, cleanup costs, business interruptions, repairs and ongoing environmental consultations, assessments and reclamation work.
SeaRose spill results in $70-million deferred revenue for budget 2019 - November’s oil spill from the SeaRose FPSO will result in $70-million in deferred revenue in Budget 2019. Finance Minister Tom Osborne says the $70-million is not lost, but rather deferred because the oil is still in the ground, and at some point they will get the revenue. Osborne says he would have preferred to have the revenue in this year’s budget, as it would’ve helped to ensure forecasts remain on track. The Finance Minister says deferred oil production will impact the 2018-19 Budget. Osborne says production and price of oil are both affected. At this stage, he says the cost of oil is above $70 a barrel on an annual basis, and they budget for $63. Opposition Leader Ches Crosbie is raising the alarm following revelations that the area of November’s spill from the SeaRose FPSO had reached the size of Fogo Island on the surface of the water. Crosbie questioned Natural Resources Minister Siobhan Coady in the House of Assembly this afternoon. He wanted to know if the Minister was aware of the area of the ocean covered by the spill. Minister Coady says within hours of the spill, the amount of oil spilled—250,000 litres—was known. The spill occurred as officials were in the process of resuming production following a shutdown caused by one of the most intense storms in the offshore in decades. Sea states were still high at the time. Production has yet to resume on the SeaRose. Minister Coady says Husky is awaiting an appropriate weather window to recover the failed connector and plug the flowline. She says the situation is being monitored and Husky is still waiting on a four-day weather window.
Delays of Mexico oil, gas auctions will slow revenue, production growth: commissioner — Mexico's decision to delay auctions on new oil and gas development until at least 2021 will result in billions of dollars in revenue losses and significantly stymie new production over the next decade, a member of the country's National Hydrocarbon Commission said Tuesday. "Every year you don't have a bidding, it's going to cost you $1 billion," said CNH Commissioner Hector Moreira Rodriguez during an event at the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute in Washington. Moreira estimated that by delaying auctions, Mexico's oil output may reach roughly 2.7 million b/d within a decade, up more than 1 million b/d from current production levels, but roughly 300,000 b/d below where output could be if auctions were held as originally planned. Delaying "has a cost," Moreira said. "Let's hope we can convince them to start earlier." Production growth could be further slowed if additional auctions are delayed, he said. In December, new Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that Mexico would halt its hydrocarbon auction rounds by three years, a decision expected to complicate the president's pledge to boost oil production to 2.4 million b/d by 2024. According to a transition report issued by the outgoing administration of Enrique Pena Nieto in December, a two-year delay in auctions would cause oil output to reach 2.46 million b/d by 2027, compared with 3.07 million b/d if the auctions were held as originally planned. Similarly, if auctions continue, Mexico would produce 7 Bcf/d of natural gas by 2028, 640 MMcf/d more than if the lease sales are shelved for two years, according to the report. But even with auctions proceeding as planned, infrastructure constraints, declines in existing oil fields, mounting Pemex debt, concerns from investors and Lopez Obrador's push towards energy nationalism, panelists at Tuesday's event dismissed any forecast calling for significant oil output growth in Mexico.
Recent fuel shortages in Mexico accelerating private imports, BP joins Total and Repsol — Fuel shortages experienced in Mexico earlier this year are incentivizing major oil companies to rely less on Pemex's supply logistics system, market observers said Friday. BP will join a limited group of major fuel wholesalers that are importing gasoline and diesel to Mexico later this year, the company announced Tuesday. Repsol and Total made similar announcements earlier this year, joining ExxonMobil, Glencore and Marathon Petroleum as Mexico's only private gasoline importers. In the second quarter, BP will begin trucking 15,000 b/d of gasoline and diesel from Texas and later rail it into northern, central and western Mexico by the second half of 2019, the company said in a statement. BP plans to develop 10 new terminals within five years in the country and imports fuel from Ohio, Texas and Washington state, Alvaro Granados, BP Mexico's downstream director, told news agency AFP on Thursday. Despite this, Granados said BP would continue working with Pemex as a strategic partner. "This won't be an alternative supply chain ... We don't want to skip Pemex nor break what is for us a strategic alliance," he added. The company has only announced participating at one terminal to date, IEnova's 500,000-barrel Baja Refinados storage and distribution terminal in Northwestern Mexico. BP contracted half of the terminal's capacity, which is expected to be operational in 2020. The anti-fuel theft strategy implemented by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in December affected major fuel retailers like BP that depended on Pemex to supply their retail stations, Gonzalo Monroy, director of Mexico City-based energy consultancy group GMEC, told S&P Global Platts. During the height of fuel shortage crisis in mid-January, according to Mexican federal consumer protection agency Profeco, 70% of retail stations it visited during the weekend across 11 states in Mexico's western and central regions were closed due to lack of fuel.
Sheffield takes tough stand against fracking - The Star - Sheffield has taken a formal stand against fracking with a new council policy that automatically opposes it. The council will write into its planning policies a ‘presumption’ against any request to drill for shale gas – which means it will take an automatic stand against fracking. It was a surprise win for the Liberal Democrats who came up with the suggestion and were pleased to see it approved by all parties at full council. Sheffield now joins the ten local authorities that make up Greater Manchester who have all adopted a region-wide policy of opposition to fracking. Lib Dem Leader Coun Shaffaq Mohammed said: “Fracking is old fashioned, we need to move away from old technologies and move towards renewable energy if we are serious about tackling climate change. “Fracking in the United States has decimated areas and communities here in the UK are up in arms and don’t want it.” Daniel Carey-Dawes, infrastructure policy manager at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, welcomed Sheffield’s policy but warned the Government could still overrule it. He said: “As yet another sizeable local authority joins the long list of those firmly against fracking, the question remains why the Government seems intent on overruling local democracy with its latest fracking proposals. “Councils who are on the doorstep of fracking locations – current or potential – have a duty to represent the serious concerns of their local electorate about their countryside and environment, but this ability will be ripped away if the Government ploughs ahead regardless.”
Fracking: Government guidance 'unlawful' rules High Court -- New government guidance on fracking is unlawful, the High Court has ruled. Campaign group Talk Fracking argued that the government had not considered the latest scientific evidence when formulating its policy. Ministers have been advising councils that gas from fracking in their area would help combat climate change. But a judge found that the government had failed to consider the latest evidence. Justice Dove ruled that "material from Talk Fracking, and in particular their scientific evidence as described in their consultation response, was never in fact considered relevant or taken into account" when formulating the revised policy. He also ruled that the government had unlawfully failed to carry out a lawful public consultation when the policy was revised. The judgment applies to England only. Claire Stephenson, who brought the claim on behalf of Talk Fracking, said: "We are delighted that the court has agreed in part with our arguments that the government's policy on fracking is unlawful. "The government have continually sought to ignore public opinion on fracking, despite the overwhelming opposition on a national level. Planning guidance issued by the government last year says local councils should "recognise the benefits of on-shore oil and gas development ... for the security of energy supplies and supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy." It adds that planning authorities should "put in place policies to facilitate their exploration and extraction." Following the ruling, a spokeswoman from the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: "We note the judgment in the case brought by Talk Fracking, and will now consider our next steps."
World's largest sovereign wealth fund to scrap oil and gas stocks - Norway's trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund plans to dump oil and gas companies from its benchmark index, the finance ministry announced on Friday.The move, initiated by Norges Bank which manages the fund, is designed to make the Norwegian government's wealth less exposed to a lasting drop in oil prices."The Government is proposing to exclude companies classified as exploration and production companies within the energy sector from the Government Pension Fund Global to reduce the aggregate oil price risk in the Norwegian economy," the finance ministry said in a statement published on its website.The exclusion will affect companies that explore and produce oil and will not impact integrated oil and gas companies such as BP and Shell. The Norwegian government also said that the companies to be excluded are those belonging to FTSE Russel's Index sub sector called exploration and production. According to the government, the value of 134 stocks to be excluded from fund amounted to NOK 70 billion ($7.9 billion), Reuters reported.Shortly after the announcement, energy stocks worldwide extended losses on Friday morning.International benchmark Brent crude traded at around $65.18 on Friday, down around 1.7 percent, while U.S.West Texas Intermediate (WTI) stood at around $55.78, more than 1.6 percent lower.Energy stocks are notoriously volatile. Brent crude collapsed from a near four-year high of $86.29 in early October down to $50.47 in late December — marking a fall of more than 40 percent in less than three months. Norway's government said on Friday that the fund would still be allowed to invest in oil and gas firms so long as they were committed to activities concerning renewable energy.
US sanctions on Venezuela creating strong pull for HSSR from Europe to USGC - — A strong pull from the US Gulf Coast for high sulfur oil products has emerged amid US sanctions on Venezuela, drawing heavy flows of high sulfur straight run cargoes from the Baltic and Northwest Europe across the Atlantic. The sanctions against Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA, introduced on January 28 and expected to remain in effect until Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro leaves office, have forced US Gulf Coast refiners to scramble for new sources of heavy crude and cut off flows of US refined products and diluents to Venezuela. Displaced heavy crude barrels mean there are less heavy byproducts being produced by refineries in the US that would typically run Venezuelan crudes. Consequently, refineries in the USGC have turned to HSSR to process in their crude distillation units. HSSR is used as alternative to crude when medium to heavy sour crude prices are high. In parallel, the Urals crude market has maintained strength, with Urals NWE last assessed at forward Dated Brent minus 75 cents/b on Tuesday, compared with minus $2.7/b this time last year. An increase in Urals differentials would typically boost the feedstocks market, particularly high sulfur feedstocks such as HSSR. The arbitrage from the Baltic Sea was said to be workable by numerous sources, with many attributing it to the counterseasonal strength in the high sulfur fuel oil crack amid falling supply from Russia, a strong pull for product from Singapore, and ongoing refinery upgrades globally in preparation for the International Maritime Organization's sulfur cap, which will require sulfur content in marine fuels to be cut to 0.5% from next year from 3.5% currently. The front-month fuel oil crack was last seen trading on ICE Wednesday at minus $3/b, compared with minus $10.72/b this time last year. The front month fuel oil crack reached the narrowest discount on February 13 at $2.6/b, since the assessment began in June 2006. HSSR is currently trading below the HSFO crack, one source said, providing more of an incentive to work the arb for HSSR, a cheaper alternative, from the Baltic ports to the USGC.
Germany Plans To Directly Regulate Russia-led Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline - Germany will be looking to regulate the controversial Russia-led Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project using its national sovereignty, a senior German energy official said on Monday in comments implying that only the EU section of the pipeline would fall under the recent changes in the European Union’s gas directive. “We would like to say that we will be implementing this compromise directly, and do not see any need for a further mandate,” S&P Global Platts quoted German parliamentary state secretary at the federal energy ministry, Thomas Bareiss, as saying at the EU energy ministers’ council in Brussels on Monday.Germany is the end-point of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which will follow the existing Nord Stream natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea. Germany supports Nord Stream 2 and sees the project as a private commercial venture that will help it to meet rising natural gas demand. Several European companies—ENGIE, OMV, Shell, as well as Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall—are partners of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom in the Nord Stream 2 project.United States, however, has long opposed the Gazprom-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and has hinted that it could impose sanctions on companies involved in the project.Several EU member states, including Poland and Lithuania, also see the new pipeline project as a threat to Europe’s energy diversification and as boosting Russia’s grip on European gas supplies even more. “We are...glad that gas pipelines will be covered by the sovereignty of the member states through whose territory or seas they go through, and will be the responsibility of that member state’s competent authorities,” Germany’s Bareiss said on Monday. According to Platts, the comments of the German official imply that Germany would not be seeking an inter-governmental agreement with Russia on the entire pipeline, but will instead focus on regulating the EU section of the project covering 12 nautical miles from the German coast.
Australia planning to import LNG: What's next? Coals to Newcastle? (Reuters) - Australia is on the verge of becoming the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, with dozens of tankers a week carrying fuel to North Asia. It could also soon be importing LNG as supply sources in its southern states run out. Five LNG import projects are vying to start up between 2021 and 2022, possibly forcing gas users in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria into more direct competition with Asian buyers for gas from northern Australia. Those states represent a yearly market of 420 petajoules (PJ), equivalent to 7.8 million tonnes of LNG worth about $3 billion. That represents just 2 percent of global LNG trade, but import proponents say the terminals would be another key outlet for spot cargoes of the fuel, especially during periods of low demand in the northern hemisphere. Piping gas from Queensland in northern Australia to southern markets is expensive, making LNG imports potentially viable. Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic says, though, if final investment decisions are delayed into 2020, the case for imports will weaken as pipeline tariff reforms are likely by then. “Based on the five proposals to date, Australia now appears to be planning to overbuild LNG import capacity in response to an overbuild of LNG export capacity,” Kavonic said.
When insanity makes sense. Australia's best option is LNG imports: Russell (Reuters) - Australia has painted itself into a corner with its natural gas industry and faces the stark reality that there are no easy choices to alleviate the dual problem of a looming supply crunch and the associated higher prices. Australia is far from the first country to find itself with an energy issue, but it is unusual insofar as the country is about to become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and still it can’t get its policy settings right to ensure domestic supplies. It sounds counter-intuitive and somewhat bizarre, that a country that in 2019 will export nearly 80 million tonnes of LNG finds that the best solution to its domestic supply crunch is to start importing cargoes of the same super-chilled fuel. There was grudging acknowledgement at this week’s Australian Domestic Gas Outlook (ADGO) conference that LNG imports were likely the “least worst option”, as one of the delegates put it. In tracing the story of how Australia reached this point, a tale emerges of poor policymaking, overly ambitious LNG projects and a failure of natural gas users to realise that the market dynamics were permanently shifting. Much of the blame for the domestic natural gas problem is settled on three LNG plants built in Queensland state over the past seven years that tripled the amount of gas needed in the eastern Australia market. These three plants, with a combined capacity of about 25 million tonnes a year, were planned and executed on the basis that they would use their own reserves as feedstock. These reserves themselves were somewhat controversial, being based on coal seams, and while nobody doubts the engineering achievement of building three LNG plants based on a new type of natural gas, many now question the wisdom. The three ventures were built more or less at the same time and didn’t engage in any cooperative sharing of infrastructure, partly because of the difficulty in aligning the interests of so many various partners and partly because the authorities believed in a competitive gas industry. The net effect was that while the three projects were responsible for developing a massive new natural gas resource, they also sucked up the skills, capital and appetite from the rest of the industry to explore for gas for the domestic market.
Asian LPG premiums surge on supply tightness, Houston shipping delays — Asian LPG premiums have ballooned amid supply tightness in the region for March and April deliveries, market sources said Wednesday. The spread for H1 April CFR Japan physical propane to the FOB Saudi Arabia CP April propane swap has averaged $18/mt to date this month, S&P Global Platts data showed. This is sharply higher than the whole month average spread for March CFR Japan physical propane to the FOB Saudi Arabia CP March propane swap of $12.83/mt, according to Platts data. The H1 April CFR Japan physical propane premium was $20/mt above the propane FOB Saudi Arabia CP April swap Tuesday, Platts data showed. Demand for Middle East LPG barrels was high not only because of the ongoing US-China trade tensions, a lack of Iranian cargoes due to sanctions and petrochemical end-users allocating more feedstock ratio to LPG, but also because buyers in Northeast Asia were seeking alternative barrels due to fog delays in Houston, sources said. "The Middle East market is tight, there is no doubt about it, and March [calendar trading] is tight because of delivery delays due to fog in Houston," a Singapore-based trader said. "Because of the delay, the cargoes that were supposed to reach in H2 March were delayed into H1 April, and so on. Because of the disruption, the market is stronger and April should have more cargoes, but the [physical] trade does not show that." In the spot physical market Tuesday, SK bid for a 23,000 mt propane cargo for H1 April delivery at FEI April plus $20/mt. This was higher than its best bid on Monday for the same requirement at FEI April plus $17/mt. South Korean trader E1 also bid for a H1 April delivery propane cargo Tuesday, at FEI plus $18/mt.
Nuclear reactor restarts in Japan displacing LNG imports in 2019 -In 2018, Japan restarted five nuclear reactors that were shut down after the 2011 Fukushima accident. As those reactors return to full operation, the resulting increase in nuclear generation is likely to displace generation from fossil sources, in particular natural gas. Because Japan imports all of its natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), increased nuclear power production is likely to reduce Japanese imports of LNG in the electric power sector by as much as 10% in 2019. Japan now has nine operating nuclear units with a total electricity generation capacity of 8.7 gigawatts. Electricity generation produced by natural gas-fired plants in Japan has been declining annually from its peak in 2014 and is likely to decline further in 2019, while generation from nuclear units will likely increase. In response to the 2011 Fukushima accident, Japan suspended operations at all nuclear reactors for mandatory safety inspections and upgrades, leaving the country with no nuclear generation from September 2013 to August 2015. Existing coal-fired power plants were already operating near full load; therefore, utilities had to import large volumes of LNG to meet electricity demand. As the five nuclear reactors were gradually restarted in 2018, they began to offset natural gas-fired generation, and as a result, LNG imports decreased as the reactors reached full operation. In 2019, their first full year of operation, EIA estimates that the restarted nuclear reactors will further displace Japan’s LNG imports by about 5 million metric tons per year (MMmt/y), or 0.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of LNG. This amount is equivalent to 10% of Japan's power sector natural gas consumption and 6% of Japan’s LNG imports in 2018. Consumption of crude oil and petroleum products by power plants also increased between 2011 and 2013, with utilities spending about $30 billion each year for additional fossil fuel imports in the three years following the Fukushima accident. Generation from crude oil and petroleum products returned to pre-Fukushima levels by 2014 mainly as a result of relatively high crude oil prices, and it has since declined further.
'Devastating' Impacts Feared as Oil Spill Threatens UNESCO Heritage Site in Pacific - An oil spill in the Pacific Ocean's Solomon Islands after a mining company's cargo ship ran aground is threatening an endangered environmental gem. "The impact of this oil spill will have a devastating effect on the surrounding environment, including potentially on a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as the livelihood of the people of Rennell," Australia's High Commissioner to the Solomon Islands Rod Brazier said in a statement. The ship, which was chartered by Indonesian mining company Bintan Solomon Islands, was carrying a load of bauxite — a stone used in aluminum production — when it ran aground on Rennell Island Feb. 5. Since then, oil has slowly leaked out of the ship into the surrounding waters. The disaster is unfolding next to the southern third of the island, known as East Rennell Island, which makes up the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. "East Rennell was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1998 and is the largest raised coral atoll in the world," UNESCO said in a Feb. 20 statement on the spill. Bintan has abdicated any legal responsibility for the spill, claiming that it was only the chartering company and thus had no liability for the crash. The ship's operator, King Trader Ltd., sent a team to salvage the ship,according to the Associated Press. Yet Bintan has continued loading operations in the bay where the ship ran aground, stirring up the oil and making the problem worse, The Guardian reported. "Bauxite extraction and loading is continuing in the bay," a source in the islands told the paper. "That is further churning up the oil." New Zealand and Australia sent teams to help with the cleanup and salvage operations. Press reports said that 75 tons of fuel have spilled into the ocean already while 600 tons of oil remain on board.
Australia sends more help for Solomon Islands oil spill - Australia is sending more help to the Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands to stop oil from a grounded cargo ship destroying a World Heritage-listed marine sanctuary, Australia’s foreign minister said on Sunday. At least 75 tons of heavy fuel oil has spilled from Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier Solomon Trader since Cyclone Oma drove it onto a reef at Rennell Island on Feb. 5, Reuters reported. The ship was carrying 700 tons of oil when it ran aground and there are fears the remaining fuel will spoil Rennell Island, the world’s largest raised coral atoll and home to many species found nowhere else. “Australia remains extremely concerned by the ongoing risk of a major oil spill,” said Foreign Minister Marise Payne in a release on Sunday. “Up to 75 tons of heavy fuel oil from the ship has dispersed across the Island’s sea and shoreline, contaminating the ecologically delicate area. “Given escalating ecological damage, and a lack of action by commercial entities involved, the Solomon Islands government has requested Australia’s assistance.” Payne said in response, Australia was sending equipment, vessels and experts under the leadership of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The eastern half of Rennell Island was the first natural property to be inscribed on the World Heritage List with customary management, and is home to 1,200 Polynesians who live by subsistence farming, hunting and fishing, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization website showed.
‘We cannot swim, we cannot eat’- Solomon Islands struggle with nation’s worst oil spill - On a normal weekend, the waters of Kangava Bay would be busy with children playing or collecting clam shells and villagers heading out to catch reef fish to eat. But last Sunday the bay was quiet. Locals can no longer cool off in the neon blue waters of Rennell Island, a tiny dot in the vast South Pacific that lies at the southern tip of the Solomon Islands. They can no longer spot parrotfish swimming in the shallows, picnic on the sand or fetch fresh water from streams and springs near the sea. The reason lies just yards offshore. It is hard to miss. Four weeks ago the huge Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier MV Solomon Trader, carrying 700 tonnes of oil, ran aground on Kongobainiu reef after becoming loosed from its mooring. Now dead fish float in the bay. The tide is black. A thick oily blanket of tar covers the surface of the water and coats beaches, rockpools, logs and leaves. The coastal villages of Matanga, Vangu, Lavangu and Kangava have been the hardest hit by the oil spill. Paul Neil, who lives in Lavangu village, told the Guardian that children had been told not to swim in the sea and that fishing had been banned for the foreseeable future. With no way to find their own food, the villagers were now depending on deliveries from the capital Honiara, 150 miles away. Neil said the slick had changed the local way of life.“Now we cannot use our sea and reef to do fishing and find shells to eat. We really suffered from it,” he said. Steward Seuika, whose family live close to Kangava Bay, said residents had been forced to drink rainwater after fresh water collected from springs near the shore became contaminated with oil. “The oil slick affects our corals and marine life. It also contaminates our water which comes out from the stones on the land near the beach. So now we run out of clean water to drink.” As well as the food shortages, some locals have reported being burned after coming into contact with the oil while trying to clean it up. There were also reports that others were struggling to sleep because of the smell.
NNPC Denies pipeline explosion in Bayelsa -The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it has no record of pipeline explosion in Nembe, Bayelsa State, as being reported in some quarters. No fewer than 50 people were reported to be missing after a leaking oil pipeline exploded and caused stampede in Nembe Kingdom in Bayelsa, according to the spokesperson of the community’s council of chiefs, MrNengi James-Eriworii.He said the blast which happened in the early hours of Friday caused massive oil spillage in the community. “It is not our pipeline, it is Aiteo that was mentioned, which ordinarily they are supposed to be on joint venture with NNPC.“I have cross-checked with our downstream unit that manages our pipeline and they said that they didn’t have such records,” he said.But, Aiteo Exploration Ltd, operator of the 97 kilometres Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL), confirmed that there was an explosion at the creek which burned till Saturday.Public Relations Manager of Aiteo, Mr Ndiana-Abasi Mathew, confirmed the incident to newsmen in a phone message on Saturday.Spokesperson of the Nembe Chiefs Council, Chief Nengi James–Eriworio, also confirming the incident, said the explosion caused massive destruction of the area with air and water heavily polluted.“People have deserted the area and the company has refused to respond in spite of series of emergency calls to report the incident to them“As at early morning of Saturday, the fire is still raging. And with gas and crude leak flowing freely, you can then imagine the fate of our people. “The poor response of Aiteo to this incident is not acceptable and questionable. The people are traumatised and their health put at risk,” James-Eriworio said.
Unlikely twins and differing fortunes: Malaysia's Petronas & Indonesia's Pertamina (Reuters) - On the southernmost edge of the Asian landmass and on the shores of the busy shipping lanes of the Singapore Strait, Malaysia’s Petronas is starting up a state-of-the art petroleum processing hub, called RAPID. The huge complex in Malaysia’s Johor province is currently testing its systems, running crude oil through its fuel processing units and labyrinth of pipes and producing large exhaust gas fires from its flare tower. The flames are clearly visible for miles around, including on Indonesian islands just across the narrow strait. The 300,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) RAPID or Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development will come onstream around May. Among other customers, it will sell fuel to Indonesia, shining a spotlight on the contrast between Petronas and its Indonesian peer Pertamina. Both are state-owned oil companies that dominate the energy sector in their own nations. But their fortunes have markedly diverged because Malaysia has allowed Petronas to follow its own growth path, while Pertamina is hobbled by Indonesian government intervention and bears the burden of a subsidy program. “Lots of people see Petronas and Pertamina as twin companies. But that’s not really the case. Petronas is very much a commercial company, almost like an independent oil company while Pertamina is driven more by government policy and agenda, a national oil company,” said Andrew Harwood, research director for Asia/Pacific upstream oil and gas at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. For Petronas, RAPID marks a milestone as it prepares for a future with less crude oil output while serving the region’s booming fuel demand. RAPID, being built in collaboration with Saudi Aramco, has cost around $15 billion and is one of Petronas’ biggest ever investments. It is part of an even bigger Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) being developed by more than 50,000 workers at an estimated cost of more than 100 billion ringgit ($24.61 billion), and which will eventually also include a deep-water oil and a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal.
China's Feb crude oil imports rise 21.6% on year to 10.27 mil b/d — China's crude oil imports in February climbed 21.6% year on year to 10.27 million b/d, preliminary data from the General Administration of Customs showed Friday. This was the fourth time China's monthly crude imports breached 10 million b/d, marking an increase of 2% from 10.07 million b/d in January.GAC releases data in metric tons, which S&P Global Platts converts to barrels using a 7.33 conversion factor.The country's crude imports in February totaled 39.23 million mt, compared to 42.6 million mt in January, the preliminary GAC data showed.February fuel oil imports were 1.22 million mt, up 11.7% on year.Meanwhile, China's oil product exports rose 9.2% year on year to 3.81 million mt in February, GAC data showed. On a daily basis, the volume went up 2.2% from 130,000 mt/day in January.As a result, net oil product exports grew 67% on year to 1.46 million mt in February, the data further revealed.
South Sudan urges China's CNPC to boost crude output, explore for more oil - South Sudan's oil minister, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, said China's state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation should increase oil production from its key blocks in the country, helped by new exploration in the concessions. In a meeting with CNPC and its subsidiaries in Beijing during a five-day trip to China last week, Gatkuoth's priority was on talks for the optimization of oil production and water management at the producing block 3/7, the oil ministry said. CNPC is the largest shareholder in blocks 3/7 and blocks 1/2/4, which contain South Sudan's Upper Nile and Unity oil fields respectively. China dominates South Sudan's oil industry with CNPC operating the country's Dar Petroleum Operating Company (DPOC) and Greater Petroleum Operating Company (GPOC) consortia which are producing all the country's oil. "South Sudan is building a sustainable oil sector that makes investment in our oil and gas blocks more appealing," Gatkuoth said in a statement. "The resources are recognized to be world class and we invite new partners to work with us to add to the great work already done by CNPC and its partners in South Sudan." Militancy and tribal strife in South Sudan -- which gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a bloody civil war -- have largely thwarted hopes of restarting its main fields, which previously produced over 350,000 b/d. Together with some 130,000 b/d of Dar blend crude from Blocks 3/7 in the northeastern Upper Nile state and 4,000 b/d from Block 5A operated by Malaysia's Petronas, the country is pumping about 165,000 b/d. Gatkuoth also discussed with CNPC the resumption of oil production from the Unity blocks 1/2/4, helped by "exploring for new oilfields." Last year, CNPC signed a Memorandum of Understand to consider expanding its current upstream footprint in the country, increase existing production and train local engineers. Gatkuoth told S&P Global Platts in September he hope CNPC would explore and develop two large oil blocks, B1/B2, after long-running talks with French oil major Total collapsed in early 2018.
Bahrain seeks to reach deal with US firms over tight oil - Bahrain is speaking to U.S. oil firms with shale oil expertise about developing a vast oil and gas field revealed in 2018, and hopes to have an interested firm by the end of the year, the kingdom's oil minister stated. Last April Bahrain emphasized that it had revealed its largest oil and gas find since 1932 off its west coast, assessed to cover at least 80 billion barrels of tight oil. The first test well is being drilled now, Oil Minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa informed Reuters in an interview. "We should have it flowing ... maybe by the end of April." Tight oil is a kind of light crude oil held in shale deep underneath the earth's surface that is take out with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, using deep horizontal wells.
OPEC likely to defer output policy decision until June: sources (Reuters) - OPEC and its partners are unlikely to decide on their output policy in April as it would be too early to get a clear picture of the impact of their supply cuts on the market by then, three OPEC sources said on Monday. The sources said the production policy by the so-called OPEC+ alliance is expected to be agreed on in June with an extension of the pact the likely scenario so far, but much depends on the extent of U.S. sanctions on both OPEC members Iran and Venezuela. “So far the likely decision is to extend the agreement in June. Nothing much is planned for April, just to discuss the OPEC and non-OPEC (cooperation pact),” one OPEC source said. OPEC and its allies meet next in Vienna on April 17-18 and delegates say another gathering is scheduled for June 25-26. Another OPEC source said the most likely outcome of the June meeting was “a rollover” of the current oil supply cuts. “But production by the exempt countries is already more than 700,000 bpd below the October level. Maybe there will be some adjustment,” the second source said. On Jan. 1, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies began new production cuts to avoid a supply glut that could soften prices. OPEC, Russia and other non-members — the OPEC+ alliance — agreed to reduce supply by 1.2 million barrel per day for six months. OPEC’s share is 800,000 bpd, to be delivered by 11 members — all except Iran, Libya and Venezuela, which are exempt from cuts. The baseline for the reduction was in most cases their output in October 2018.
Triton is the world’s most murderous malware, and it’s spreading - As an experienced cyber first responder, Julian Gutmanis had been called plenty of times before to help companies deal with the fallout from cyberattacks. But when the Australian security consultant was summoned to a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2017, what he found made his blood run cold. The hackers had deployed malicious software, or malware, that let them take over the plant’s safety instrumented systems. These physical controllers and their associated software are the last line of defense against life-threatening disasters. They are supposed to kick in if they detect dangerous conditions, returning processes to safe levels or shutting them down altogether by triggering things like shutoff valves and pressure-release mechanisms. The malware made it possible to take over these systems remotely. Had the intruders disabled or tampered with them, and then used other software to make equipment at the plant malfunction, the consequences could have been catastrophic. Fortunately, a flaw in the code gave the hackers away before they could do any harm. It triggered a response from a safety system in June 2017, which brought the plant to a halt. Then in August, several more systems were tripped, causing another shutdown. The first outage was mistakenly attributed to a mechanical glitch; after the second, the plant's owners called in investigators. The sleuths found the malware, which has since been dubbed “Triton” (or sometimes “Trisis”) for the Triconex safety controller model that it targeted. In a worst-case scenario, the rogue code could have led to the release of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas or caused explosions, putting lives at risk both at the facility and in the surrounding area.
Hedge funds carry on buying oil despite Trump intervention: Kemp - (Reuters) - Hedge funds continued to boost their bullish position in crude and fuels last week despite a call from U.S. President Donald Trump for OPEC to "relax and take it easy". Hedge funds and other money managers were net buyers of an extra 16 million barrels of Brent crude futures and options in the week to Feb. 26, according to ICE Futures Europe. Fund managers have been net buyers of 155 million barrels of Brent futures and options since Dec. 4, increasing their net long position in 11 out of the last 12 weeks (https://tmsnrt.rs/2C7ehEZ ). Funds were net buyers in the week to Feb. 26 despite the president's intervention a day earlier, which strongly suggests buying was even higher before his message on Twitter. Portfolio managers seem increasingly convinced the United States and China will reach a trade deal and the global economy will avoid a prolonged and deep slowdown. At the same time, production cuts by Saudi Arabia as well as U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela are expected to curb the growth in oil production in 2019/2020. Fund managers now hold more than six bullish long positions for every bearish short one, up from a ratio of 2:1 in early December, and the most bullish ratio for four months.
Will Trump Take Action Against OPEC? - Brent is creeping back up towards the high-$60s per barrel, prompting a scolding of OPEC by President Trump via tweet earlier this week.Trump’s irritability with high oil prices is well-known, but the tweet suggests that he sees oil prices getting too close to dangerous political territory once again. He wants more supply to lower prices, but OPEC is much less likely to heed his warning this time around, having been burned by him last year following the surprise waivers issued on Iran sanctions, which helped crash the market.Trump told OPEC to “relax and take it easy,” and in response, Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih said: “We are taking it easy; 25 countries are taking a very slow and measured approach.”Al-Falih’s comments suggest that OPEC will not back down in the face of pressure from the U.S. government.The standoff is unfolding at a time when the U.S. Congress is pushing forward on the “NOPEC” legislation, which would open up OPEC members to antitrust regulation by the U.S. Justice Department. Legislation targeting OPEC has floated around Washington for years, but the momentum and odds of passage into law have never been higher. A confluence of events have come together in favor of the bill, including Democrats in the House of Representatives, an erosion of Saudi support on Capitol Hill, and a mercurial President that likes to rhetorically beat up on OPEC. At a minimum, the possibility of the NOPEC bill becoming law grants President Trump significantly more leverage in his demands for OPEC to lower oil prices. So far, at least publicly, he has refrained from using that threat, most notably in his February 25 tweet calling on OPEC to “relax.” “The effect of President Trump’s comment would likely have been greater had he explicitly mentioned the [NOPEC bill],” Standard Chartered analysts wrote in a note. The investment bank noted that the sharp fall in oil prices that day may have been a result of the market interpreting the tweet as a veiled threat to OPEC regarding the NOPEC bill. However, Standard Chartered said that may not have been the case. “Trump has not up to now been known to specialise in veiled threats; he tends to be explicit.”
Why US oil producers don’t want Congress to go after OPEC - Capitol Crude Podcast - On this early edition of Capitol Crude, we predict the top themes of next week's CERAWeek, the mega-conference where US shale producers, US government officials and OPEC ministers rub elbows. Listen now...
Oil prices rise on trade deal hopes, OPEC supply cuts - Oil prices rebounded on Monday, buoyed by OPEC output cuts and reports that the United States and China are inching closer to a deal on a tariff row that has slowed global economic growth. International benchmark Brent crude futures were up 64 cents, or 1 percent, at $65.71 a barrel around 8:15 a.m. ET (1315 GMT), rebounding from Friday's 1.5 percent. Brent fell 3 percent last week. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 55 cents, or 1 percent, at $56.35 per barrel. WTI fell 2.5 percent on Friday, matching the weekly loss for the U.S. benchmark. The United States and China appear close to a deal that would roll back U.S. tariffs on at least $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, as Beijing makes pledges on structural economic changes and eliminates retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, a source briefed on negotiations said on Sunday in Washington.Hopes of an end to the trade spat between the two world's biggest economies added support to a market that has been rallying for the past two months on cuts to production.Supply from OPEC fell to a four-year low in February, a Reuters survey found, as top exporter Saudi Arabia and its allies over-delivered on the group's supply pact while Venezuelan output registered a further involuntary decline. The Reuters survey is one of several estimates ahead of OPEC's official production figures, which will be released next week in its monthly report. In the United States, there are signs that the oil production boom of the past years, which has seen crude output rise by more than 2 million bpd since early 2018 to more than 12 million bpd, may slow down.U.S. energy firms last week cut the number of oil rigs looking for new reserves to the lowest in almost nine months as some producers follow through on plans to cut spending despite an increase of more than 20 percent in crude futures so far this year. Hedge funds and other money managers raised their net long, or bullish, positions on Brent crude by 15,887 contracts to 291,336 in the week to Feb. 26.
Oil rises on U.S.-China trade deal hopes, OPEC's ongoing supply cuts (Reuters) - Oil prices rose about 1 percent on Monday as the United States and China appeared closer to ending a trade war that has slowed global economic growth while OPEC ally Russia said it would ramp up its crude supply cuts. Gains were tempered by a drop in equity indexes, which weakened sentiment on oil markets. Brent crude futures settled at $65.67 a barrel, up 60 cents or 0.9 percent. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures ended 79 cents, or 1.4 percent, higher at $56.59 a barrel. Washington and Beijing were close to reaching a trade deal that would roll back U.S. tariffs on at least $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as China pledges to make structural economic changes and end retaliatory tariffs, a source briefed on negotiations said on Sunday. “The bottom line is the optimism surrounding the trade situation,” “Comments from oil minister Novak that he was going to get to his level by the end of March also bid the market,” Yawger said. Russia, the biggest non-member ally of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, plans to speed up crude output cuts this month, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. OPEC and its partners, known as OPEC+, will likely decide on a new output policy in June instead of during the group’s April meeting in Vienna, OPEC sources told Reuters. OPEC+ is expected to extend supply cuts at its June meeting, but much depends on the extent of U.S. sanctions on OPEC members Iran and Venezuela, the sources said. Crude supply from OPEC hit a four-year low in February, a Reuters survey found, as top exporter Saudi Arabia reduced production more than it had agreed to, and as U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil took effect.
Oil wobbles as OPEC supply cuts offset restart at Libya's biggest field - Oil prices struggled for direction on Tuesday as OPEC-led efforts to tighten supply offset the restart of Libya's biggest oilfield and the prospect of weaker demand. Supply curbs by OPEC and its allies have helped to drive oil prices more than 20 percent higher this year. Russia plans to speed up its output cuts this month, the energy minister said on Monday.Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 19 cents to $65.48 a barrel around 11:05 a.m. ET (1605 GMT), off a session low of $65.04.U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude were down 10 cents at $56.49, after dropping as low as $56.09.To prop up the market, OPEC and its allies, an alliance known as OPEC+, have been cutting output by 1.2 million barrels bpd since the start of the year.The actual cut has exceeded the pledged amount because of U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, plus unrest in Libya that had prompted the closure of El Sharara, giving additional tailwind to prices.OPEC+ is likely to achieve its goal of draining oversupply from the market by next month, Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC on Monday."It appears that Saudi Arabia and Russia would be happy with crude oil prices of between $60 and $70 for the rest of this year," said Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank.
Bulls Battle Bears As Oil Prices Stall OilPrice.com - Oil started off the weak on a soft note, but was firming up by mid-day Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. and China are close to a trade deal that would consist of China lowering tariffs and restrictions on American farm, chemical, auto and other products while the U.S. would remove most or all tariffs put on Chinese goods last year. Obstacles remain and both sides face domestic pressure not to concede too much. The deal could include an $18 billion purchase for LNG from Cheniere Energy. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that China will probably make some concessions in the trade negotiations in order to give the U.S. a face-saving win, but Beijing will not fundamentally alter the way it conducts trade in the way that the U.S. government wants. The U.S. Department of Energy said last week that it was offering up six million barrels of light sweet oil from the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR). The sale was the result of previously signed legislation although it could be fortuitously timed for the spring as the oil market begins to tighten. The OPEC+ coalition is likely to defer a major policy decision until its June meeting in Vienna, rather than make an early decision in April as was thought to be possible. Sources told Reuters that as of now an extension of the production cuts is the most likely scenario. Libya’s largest oil field, the Sharara field, is in the process of restarting. The 300,000-bpd field has been shut since December, so its restart will undercut global oil prices. “The main development has been the restart of El Sharara,” Olivier Jakob, analyst at Petromatrix, told Reuters. “It’s a new input which is on the bearish side.” In a blockbuster report, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. shale industry is encountering disappointing results by packing shale wells too closely together. The “parent-child” well problem is only starting to become known, but a growing body of evidence suggests that additional wells situated in close proximity to the original well can cannibalize overall production. The WSJ found that wells placed just 275 feet apart can produce as much as 40 percent less than wells placed 600 feet apart. The results call into question years of hype about intensifying drilling operations.
OPEC can declare mission accomplished on price-boosting oil output cuts by April: Goldman Sachs - OPEC and its allies will probably achieve their goal of draining oversupply from the oil market and boosting prices by next month, says Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs.The 14-nation producer group and its allies led by Russia set out to balance the market after oil prices plunged more than 40 percent at the end of last year. To do that, they aim to keep 1.2 million barrels per day off the market in the first six months of the year."OPEC is pursuing a shock and awe strategy" by slashing output at the start of their production-cutting deal, Currie said on Monday. He noted that OPEC is throttling back output faster than Goldman expected, while Venezuelan supply continues to tank and Russia says it will accelerate its production cuts."This market is likely to be rebalanced by April," he told CNBC's "Closing Bell."That will force OPEC to lay out its plans for lifting the production curbs by May or June, he said. Currie believes that by telegraphing its exit strategy, OPEC can dissuade U.S. drillers from turning on the taps, thereby preventing another price-crushing oil glut. However, OPEC's "shock and awe" policy, combined with robust oil demand, could easily push Brent crude oil back to $70 to $75 a barrel in the near term, up from current prices in the mid-$60 range, Goldman forecast last week.
WTI Extends Losses As EIA Confirms Major Crude Build - WTI extended losses overnight after API reported a massive increase in U.S. crude stockpiles, raising oversupply concerns. Piling on the downside risk, OECD cut its outlook for global economic growth again amid trade tensions and political uncertainty.“The message is clear: the U.S. remains well-supplied and will continue to do so as oil production inches further into record territory,” said Stephen Brennock, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates Ltd. in London. API:
- Crude +7.29mm (+1.45mm exp)
- Cushing +1.1mm (+1.63mm exp)
- Gasoline -391k
- Distillates -3.1mm
DOE
- Crude +7.07mm (+1.45mm exp)
- Cushing +873k (+1.63mm exp)
- Gasoline -4.23mm
- Distillates -2.393mm
Confirming API's surprise, DOE reported a much bigger than expected crude build of 7.07mm barrels (+1.45mm exp) but sizable draws on gasoline and distillate stocks offset some pessimism. Bloomberg Intelligence's Energy Analyst Fernando Valle noted that last week's draws helped ease oversupply worries, but gasoline remains a worry in the short term. A recovery in exports could ease concerns, but with Mexico still struggling with transport disruptions, there is limited scope. We are still constructive on diesel, with domestic demand showing no signs of a slowdown.US Crude production looks set to slow if the lagged reaction function of oil rig counts upholds its historical relationship... Bloomberg's Sheela Tobben notes that U.S. sanctions on Venezuela continue to take a toll on the country's crude flows to the U.S. Shipments fell to just 83k b/d last week, smallest in data going back to 2010. WTI was well down from pre-API levels overnight ahead of the official DOE data. After an initial pop - presumably on the product draws - crude prices extended losses...
Oil falls on rising US production, stockpile build - Oil prices fell to session lows during mid-morning trade, extending earlier losses on a reported build in weekly U.S. crude stockpiles that was confirmed on Wednesday by government figures. U.S. crude inventories rose by 7.1 million barrels in the week ending March 1, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported, roughly matching data from the American Petroleum Institute released on Tuesday.The surge compared with analysts' expectations for a modest increase of 1.2 million barrels in a Reuters poll.International Brent crude futures were down 42 cents at $65.44 per barrel around 10:30 a.m. ET (1530 GMT), from their last settlement. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down 85 cents, or 1.5 percent, at $55.71 per barrel.Crude stocks at the delivery hub at Cushing, Oklahoma rose by about 800,000 barrels, EIA said.Somewhat offsetting the surge in crude stockpiles, the nation's gasoline inventories fell by 4.2 million barrels and stocks of distillate fuel including diesel were down 2.4 million barrels. "An increase in U.S. crude inventories is weighing on oil prices and in the long term, concerns over rising oil production in the Permian region is keeping a lid on prices," EIA will also issued its latest estimate on weekly U.S. oil production on Wednesday. The preliminary figures showed American output at 12.1 million barrels per day, matching last week's record. Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp released rival Permian Basin projections on Tuesday pointing to increased shale oil production.If realized, the increases would cement the pair as the dominant players in the West Texas and New Mexico field, with one-third of Permian production potentially under their control within five years. The rise in North American production undermines the ongoing supply cut efforts led by OPEC.
Oil retreats as equities slump on weaker European growth outlook -- Oil prices retreated towards session lows on Thursday, tracking a slump in equity marketsafter the European Central Bank cut its economic growth forecast for the continent. Crude futures rose earlier on Thursday on the back of ongoing OPEC-led supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against exporters Venezuela and Iran. However, gains were capped by record U.S. crude output and rising inventories. Brent crude futures were down 5 cents at $65.94 per barrel around 10 a.m. ET (1500 GMT). The international benchmark for oil prices earlier rose as high as $67. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 15 cents to $56.37 per barrel, off the session peak at $56.99. Europe's central bank slashed its growth estimate to 1.1 percent, down from its last forecast for 1.7 percent expansion. That followed another forecast for weaker economic growth from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation & Development on Wednesday. The OECD said the world economy would grow 3.3 percent in 2019, down 0.2 percentage points from its last set of forecasts in November. Prices are being supported by efforts led by OPEC and other countries — a grouping known as 'OPEC+' — to withhold around 1.2 million barrels per day of oil, a strategy aimed at tightening markets. "In our view, OPEC's strategy is to rebalance the market as quickly as possible and exit the cuts by the end of June in order to grow production alongside shale producers in the second half of this year," U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a note on Wednesday. U.S. sanctions against the oil industries of OPEC members Iran and Venezuela have also had an impact, traders said. Venezuela's state-run oil firm PDVSA this week declared a maritime emergency, citing trouble accessing tankers and personnel to export its oil amid the sanctions.
Oil edges up on Venezuela and Iran sanctions, OPEC supply cuts(Reuters) - Oil prices edged higher on Thursday, supported by OPEC-led supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against exporters Venezuela and Iran, but gains were capped by falling stock markets and renewed concerns over demand growth. Brent crude futures gained 31 cents, or 0.47 percent, to settle at $66.30 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 44 cents, or 0.78 percent, to settle at $56.66 a barrel. “The big picture is that short-term fundamentals are very strong,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “There’s still some nervousness about supply.” The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia this year have aimed to cut output and tighten oil markets, which has supported prices. U.S. sanctions against the oil industries of OPEC members Iran and Venezuela have also supported futures, traders said. Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA this week declared a maritime emergency, citing trouble accessing tankers and personnel to export its oil due to sanctions. When the United States reimposed sanctions against Iran in November, Washington granted waivers to eight Iranian oil buyers, allowing them to buy limited amounts of crude for another 180 days. Washington has put pressure on these governments to gradually cut their imports of Iranian oil to zero, but importers remain in talks over potential extensions. India wants to keep buying Iranian oil at its current level of about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), as it negotiates with Washington about extending a sanctions waiver past early May, two sources in India said. Signs of strong demand for refined products from U.S. Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday also buoyed prices. However, prices were pressured by concerns surrounding Europe’s economy, which pushed Wall Street lower and fueled worries about global oil demand.
Oil prices drop as ECB warns on weaker economy, US supply soars --Oil prices fell more than 2 percent on Friday on a worsening global economic outlook after the European Central Bank warned of continued weakness and fresh data showed Chinese imports and exports slumped last month. Crude futures extended losses after U.S. government data showed the country added just 20,000 jobs in February, compared with estimates for a gain of 180,000 positions.International benchmark Brent crude futures lost $1.73, or 2.6 percent, to $64.57 a barrel around 8:52 a.m. ET (1352 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down $1.51, or 2.7 percent, at $55.15. Financial markets, including crude oil futures, took a hit after comments on Thursday from ECB President Mario Draghi, saying the European economy was in "a period of continued weakness and pervasive uncertainty."Europe's economic weakness comes as growth in Asia is also slowing.So far oil demand has held up, especially in China, where imports of crude remain above 10 million barrels per day. Yet a slowdown in economic growth is likely to dent fuel demand and pressure prices at some point.China's dollar-denominated February exports fell 21 percent from a year earlier, representing the biggest drop in three years and far worse than analysts had expected, while imports dropped 5.2 percent, official data showed on Friday.On the supply side, crude oil has been receiving support this year from output cuts led by OPEC. But these efforts are being undermined by soaring U.S. crude oil production, which has increased by more than 2 million bpd since early 2018 to an unprecedented 12.1 million bpd. That makes America the world's biggest producer, ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Oil Prices Sink On Negative Economic Data - Oil prices sold off on Friday on weak data from China, poor jobs figures in the U.S., and news that Norway’s sovereign wealth fund was divesting from the oil sector. Weak economic data in China dragged down crude oil in early trading on Friday. “The trade surplus shrank unexpectedly sharply in February because exports slumped by more than 20% year-on-year. Imports were down year-on-year for the third month in a row. All of this fuels new fears about the economy in China and the world,” Commerzbank wrote in a note. “That said, Chinese crude oil imports appeared unaffected by any of this in February: according to the Chinese customs authorities, they soared by 22% year-on-year to 10.23 million barrels per day – their third-highest level ever.” China is already the world’s largest market for electric vehicles, and EVs could translate into peak demand – at least in China – as early as 2025. That conclusion comes from Morgan Stanley, which sees a peak coming much sooner than most analysts. “China will no longer be the growth driver of global crude demand,” Andy Meng wrote in March 5 report. “We believe the refiners and petroleum stations are the largest potential losers, while the battery companies are likely to become the key winners.” Demand for gasoline and diesel are slowing in China, but crude oil imports have been steadily rising. Refiners are processing crude into refined products and exporting them, exacerbating the global oversupply of gasoline. Bloomberg says even more refining capacity is opening this year, which could drag down the entire sector. The Wall Street Journal reports that Kimmeridge Energy Management, a private equity firm, is using its 5 percent stake in PDC Energy to push for changes to executive compensation, a dividend for shareholders, exploration of potential deals with rivals and a reduction of administrative costs. The move highlights the increasing pressure on shale companies to demonstrate profitability and shareholder returns. Rosneft sent cargoes of naptha to Venezuela to help PDVSA process its heavy crude, a lifeline for President Maduro who is suffocating under U.S. sanctions. Without diluents, PDVSA’s oil production would collapse, so the shipments could prevent such a catastrophe. Meanwhile, PDVSA has lost control of several key refineries in the Caribbean.
Oil drops as U.S., China data feed global growth worries, still logs a weekly gain -- Oil futures finished lower Friday as a downbeat employment report from the U.S. and trade data from China reinforced worries about global economic growth and energy demand. Prices, however, pared much of their earlier losses to score a gain for the week as a third-consecutive weekly decline in U.S. oil-drilling rigs pointed to a potential fall in domestic production activity. Output stood at a record 12.1 million barrels a day last week. Active U.S. rigs drilling for oil fell by nine to 834 this week, according to data Friday from Baker Hughes. Against that backdrop, April West Texas Intermediate crude declined by 59 cents, or 1%, to settle at $56.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after dropping earlier to as low as $54.52. Prices rose 0.5% for the week, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Global benchmark May Brent crude lost 56 cents, or 0.8%, to $65.74 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, but still saw a weekly rise of 1%. U.S. equities declined Friday, fueling risk-off sentiment, as data revealed that the U.S. added just 20,000 new jobs last month, the smallest gain since September 2017. Asian markets also saw a sharp retreat after China reported that exports fell by a much larger-than-expected 20.7% in February, compared with the prior year. Weak economic data raise concerns of a slowdown in energy demand. “Recent downward revisions to European and global growth estimates by central banks and consensus estimates continue to test the sustainability of the current multi-year bull market” for equities, said Fraser. The European Central Bank on Thursday slashed its 2019 forecast for gross domestic product growth to 1.1% from a previous 1.7% and earlier this week, China lowered its economic growth target this year to between 6% and 6.5%.
Rumours grow of rift between Saudi king and crown prince - There are growing signs of a potentially destabilising rift between the king of Saudi Arabia and his heir, the Guardian has been told. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are understood to have disagreed over a number of important policy issues in recent weeks, including the war in Yemen. The unease is said to have been building since the murder in Turkey of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA has reportedly concluded was ordered by Prince Mohammed. However, these tensions increased dramatically in late February when the king, 83, visited Egypt and was warned by his advisers he was at risk of a potential move against him, according to a detailed account from a source. His entourage was so alarmed at the possible threat to his authority that a new security team, comprised of more than 30 hand-picked loyalists from the interior ministry, was flown to Egypt to replace the existing team. The move was made as part of a rapid response, and reflected concern that some of the original security staff might have been loyal to the prince, the source said. The king’s advisers also dismissed Egyptian security personnel who were guarding him while he was in Egypt, the source added. The friction in the father-son relationship was underlined, the source said, when the prince was not among those sent to welcome the king home. An official press release listing the guests at the airport in Riyadh confirmed Prince Mohammed was not among them, adding to speculation it was intended as a pointed snub to the crown prince. The crown prince, who was designated “deputy king” during the Egypt trip, as is customary, signed off two major personnel changes while the king was away. They included the appointment of a female ambassador to the US, Princess Reema bint Bandar bin Sultan, and that of his full brother, Khalid bin Salman, to the ministry of defence. The latter appointment has further centralised power in one branch of the ruling family. Although the changes had been mooted for some time, the source said the announcement was made without the knowledge of the king, who was especially angered by what he believed was a premature move to elevate Prince Khalid to a more senior role.
Google, siding with Saudi Arabia, refuses to remove widely-criticized government app which lets men track women and control their travel. - Google has declined to remove from its app store a Saudi government app which lets men track women and control where they travel, on the grounds that it meets all their terms and conditions. Google reviewed the app — called Absher — and concluded that it does not violate any agreements, and can therefore remain on the Google Play store. The decision was communicated by Google to the office of Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who, with other members of Congress, wrote last week to demand they remove the service. Google did not respond to a request for comment on the decision. INSIDER last month reported how Absher — an all-purpose app which Saudis use to interact with the state — offers features which allow Saudi men to grant and rescind travel permission for women, and to set up SMS alerts for when women use their passports. Rep. Speier and 13 colleagues in Congress wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook on February 21, demanding that the app be removed. They gave a deadline of Thursday 28 February to explain why the app is hosted on Google Play.
‘Traitor’ Is the New ‘Infidel’ as Nationalism Grips Saudi Arabia -- Muna AbuSulayman was relaxing in bed last month when her phone pinged with news that the grand mufti, Saudi Arabia’s religious leader, had died. After checking that the alert appeared to originate from an official source, the former talk show host shared it with 544,000 Twitter followers. It was a misjudgment that pitched a woman who loves her country deep into an ugly struggle over what it means to be Saudi as the kingdom forges a new identity under its young crown prince. The story about the mufti was fake. AbuSulayman deleted her post and apologized within minutes, but the damage was done. For several nights, she watched as tweet after tweet claimed she was “scum,” “impure” -- she’s from the ethnically diverse western region -- and a foreign-funded “traitor” who should be stripped of her citizenship. Saudi Arabia’s undergoing an aggressive nationalist rebranding, downplaying an austere religious doctrine associated abroad with terrorism, and promoting veneration of de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he pursues an economic overhaul. Amid efforts to maintain domestic support while redesigning the contract between state and citizen, traitors, not infidels, are the enemy. Many Saudis seem to have taken their lead from official rhetoric. Accusations of betrayal are lobbed online, printed on threatening notes and trumpeted in red letters on newspaper front pages. Anyone perceived as showing the kingdom in a bad light can be targeted, even comedians poking fun at its idiosyncrasies. “If a person is neutral or stands with the enemy against this country, it’s our right to call him a traitor,” Abdullah Al Fozan, a member of the consultative council, said in a televised diatribe that went viral late last year. The risk is that baiting people to turn on fellow citizens under the guise of patriotism might rupture a society already under strain from the costs imposed by Prince Mohammed’s “Vision 2030” reforms, and deter the foreign investors and visitors he wants to attract.
Report: Jamal Khashoggi's Body Incinerated In Oven At Saudi Home -- The body of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was never recovered because it was incarnated in a large outdoor oven at the Saudi consulate general's residence in Istanbul, Turkey, a new Al Jazeera report revealed. The 2-minute special debuted Monday on Al Jazeera Arabic and showed pictures of the large oven in the courtyard of the Saudi consulate general's residence. Al Jazeera spoke with the builder of the oven who said it "had to be deep and withstand temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius — hot enough to melt metal." Cremation of a dead body occurs at temperatures reaching between 1400 to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. The extreme heat reduces the body to its basic elements and dried bone fragments. The process usually takes place in a cremation chamber, but in this case, could have taken place in a Saudi outdoor oven. According to the Al Jazeera report, Turkish authorities monitored the body burning from outside the residence. They recorded large suitcases, thought to contain Khashoggi’s dismembered body, carried inside. They said the cremation took place over three days.On the third day, the cover-up began: “Large quantities of barbeque meat were grilled in the oven after the killing in order to cover up the cremation," Turkish authorities told Al Jazeera.
None Of Their Business - Qatar Blasts Saudi Objections To Possible Russian S-400 Purchase - Russia and Qatar appear to be getting closer to striking a landmark deal for transfer of the S-400 anti-missile defense system to Doha, considered the most advanced anti-air system of its kind, and lately the result of tensions with the West wherever it is present, whether in Syria or Turkey. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated at a press conference Monday while standing alongside Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani that Moscow is "ready to consider Doha’s requests for weapons delivery, if such requests appear," according to TASS news agency. "Our military-technical cooperation with Qatar is regulated in a bilateral manner, 18 months ago we signed an intergovernmental agreement on military-technical cooperation," Lavrov said. "Today, we reaffirmed the need to follow this agreement.""When our Qatari partners send us requests for delivery of Russian military products, we will consider them," the Russian FM added. Al-Thani confirmed earlier on Monday that Doha is currently holding negotiations with Moscow on the purchase of S-400 missile systems, but that no decision has been reached. This brings up two pressing and potentially explosive issues: the ongoing diplomatic and economic war between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and the fact that Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East at Al Udeid air base. Over the past year Saudi Arabia has routinely leveled the charged that Qatar is a state-sponsor of terror and thus should be prevented by global powers from purchasing advanced weapons, a charge that Qatar denies. In its corner Saudi Arabia also has other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states like the UAE that have long sought to isolate Doha. But since Saudi-led GCC states initiated a blockade against tiny but oil and gas rich Qatar staring in 2017, ties between Doha and Moscow have actually improved and grown. Qatari FM al-Thani addressed the continuing GCC crisis by saying: With regards to Saudi or other countries, it is none of their business, it's a sovereign decision by Qatar.
Iran's Khamenei doubted Europe could help Tehran against U.S. sanctions (Reuters) - A closed-door speech last year by Iran’s Supreme Leader voicing doubt about the Iranian government’s diplomatic overtures to Europe was released on Monday in a sign of feuding over foreign policy that led to a short-lived resignation by the foreign minister. The address by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in mid-2018 appeared to forecast difficulties European countries would have in honoring pledges to protect trade with Iran from new U.S. sanctions after Washington abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. The speech showed that while President Hassan Rouhani was trying to save the nuclear deal with European powers, who remained committed despite the U.S. exit, Khamenei was not optimistic. The publication of the comments eight months afterward presented Khamenei as viewing the situation as unchanged. Khamenei, an anti-Western hardliner, was quoted as saying by his official website that the Europeans would naturally say they are protecting Iranian interests with their package but the Iranian government “should not make this a main issue”. He said the nuclear deal did not resolve “any of the economic problems” of Iran. He predicted that a mechanism proposed by the EU to shield business with Iran against the U.S. sanctions would also be no panacea for Iran’s economic hardship. “(The Europeans) are bad. They are really bad. I have a lot to say about the Europeans; not because of their current policies, but their mischievous nature over the last few centuries,” said Khamenei. His comments, made in a meeting with the cabinet, were published a week after Rouhani rejected the resignation of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a U.S.-educated veteran diplomat who championed the nuclear deal. Khamenei’s comments cast doubt on the efficacy of Zarif’s past and current efforts to keep the agreement alive.
Netherlands Recalls Iranian Ambassador In Tit-For-Tat; Follows EU Charges Of Iran Terror Plots - In a diplomatic tit-for-tat the Netherlands on Monday recalled its ambassador to Iran after members of its diplomatic staff at its embassy in Tehran were expelled, Foreign Minister Stef Blok announced on Monday. "[We] Have decided to recall the ambassador in Tehran for consultations," Blok said in a tweet. "The decision follows the expulsion of two Dutch embassy staff. That is unacceptable." Though the immediate reasons for this latest spat between the two countries remains unclear, tensions have heightened after the European Union first began accusing Iran of "assassination attempts" and state-sponsored "terrorist plots" in Europe. Last month Iran slammed EU charges as "groundless" — charges which Dutch officials had helped push into the open in tandem with other European leaders. Earlier, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) publicly leveled accusations against Iran's intelligence service of planning an assassination operation against an Iranian separatist and opposition group member in Denmark. The Dutch Foreign Minister led efforts to bring Iran to account for plotting violent acts on European soil. Stef Blok alongside Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren said in January when the issue came to a head that they had "strong indications" that Tehran was behind assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin in 2015 and 2017.
US maritime security in the shale age – Platts Capitol Crude Podcast - Have record US oil production and crude exports changed the US role in global maritime security? How can oil flows calm the brewing feud between the US and China? Is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz a credible threat? Listen now...
Israeli Navy Prepared To Block Iranian Oil Transit, Netanyahu Threatens - Short of last month's incident wherein Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared via Twitter that he's seeking "war with Iran", new comments issued this week represent the most aggressive declaration of how far Israel is willing to go to thwart Iran in the region.Echoing the Trump administration's desire to bring Iranian exports to zero through sanctions, Netatyahu said on Wednesday that he's considering ordering Israel's Navy to target Iranian oil tankers to prevent them from selling oil abroad. This as a number of other signatories to the P5+1 nuclear deal have vowed to continue buying despite US sanctions and threatened repercussions from Washington.“Iran is trying to circumvent the sanctions through covert oil smuggling over maritime routes, and to the extent that these attempts widen, the navy will have a more important role in blocking these Iranian actions,” Netanyahu said.Of course what the Israeli prime minister calls "covert oil smuggling" Iran would see simply as its right to conduct valid and legal shipping as a sovereign economic power. But given the tightening economic noose and expansive US naval presence in international waters, Iran has reportedly been switching off location transponders on its ships as well as other measures to conceal its maritime traffic (using "ghost ships" to flout US sanctions), including even altering names of ships or flag registries. Netanyahu continued, as reported by Reuters, “I call on the entire international community to stop Iran’s attempts to circumvent the sanctions by sea, and of course, by any (other) means.” It appears Netanyahu could be setting the stage for some kind of Israeli escalation against Iranian assets abroad and on the water, though as Reuters speculates, "It was not clear how Israel would stop such shipping activities or whether it would risk direct confrontation at sea with Iranian vessels." Especially as "The Israeli navy, whose largest vessels are missile corvettes and a small submarine fleet, is mostly active in the Mediterranean and Red seas."
Trump Move on US Troops In Syria Does Not Bode Well For US-Turkey Relations -- News recently that President Trump has once again done a U turn on his Syria policy – and will keep US forces in the north with their SDF (mainly Kurdish) allies – couldn’t have been more felt than in Turkey. Trump’s decision to listen to his military advisors and even titans in Congress like Lindsey Graham to keep a contingent of US troops in the north with the SDF and in the south east at Al Tanf is hugely important in that it keeps other allies there – namely France and the UK – on board and retains America’s barrier to Iran taking the east of the country as a key corridor all the way to Lebanon. It also keeps Saudi Arabia and Israel happy who were particularly vexed by the hasty decision which would have dramatically changed the Syria War chequers board. But the decision, which is believed to involve 400 troops staying and not 200 as reported – comes with a high price: it looks as though it will alienate Turkey once and for all.Just recently, the tumultuous relations between Trump and Erdogan took a turn for the better and, since the release of a US pastor, improved quickly, which helped the Turkish economy and signaled better cooperation in the future over arms procurement and possibly even the extradition of clergy Gulen, which Ankara believes is the brainchild behind the attempted coup in the summer of 2016.The decision initially announced by Trump to pull out altogether from Northern Syria played well for Ankara which was able to plan on how to go about hitting the YPG element of the SDF, build a security corridor and generally throw its weight around in Syria with little worry of troubling Washington. There was though always a question hanging over the decision of what to do if Assad would strike a deal with the Kurds and Trump’s repeated statements resonating the same message over and over again – that the Kurds would always be the ally of the US and that Washington would not abandon them – rang hollow. Pulling out US soldiers from the SDF belt would have created a lot of confusion as enemies would have become friends and a new Syria war would have emerged between Turkey and the Kurds – who, to complicate things further at one point, looked as though they were poised to get the support of both the Assad regime and its enemies Israel and Saudi Arabia at the same time.
Erdogan Says If US Can't Haul Its Weapons Out Of Syria, Turkey Should Get Them -- "If US is to take weapons out of Syria, they can, but if they won't, give them to Turkey, not terrorists," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a Turkish TV interview on Wednesday. It's the latest moment wherein Turkey's president has lashed out at Washington, and comes amidst tensions over the United States objecting to Russian S-400 anti-air defense systems being transferred to Turkey. Of that contentious debate, for which the US has held up delivery of F-35 stealth jets purchased previously by Turkey, Erdogan said emphatically, "this is over". He affirmed the Russian deal had already been inked with the first delivery expected in July. "We are an independent Turkey, we are not slaves," he said to Turkish broadcaster Kanal 24. Thus it appears the imminent transfer of the S-400s is a done deal, perhaps also sealing future years of permanently damaged US-Turkey relations, especially as at the same time Turkey rejected the recent US offer to sell American-made Patriot defense systems. The advanced Russian-made S-400 air defense system purchased by Turkey has been seen as a threat by the United States, given the potential for compromising the F-35 advanced radar evading and electronics capabilities. The main argument for blocking the F-35 transfer is the fear that Russia would get access to the extremely advanced Joint Strike Fighter stealth aircraft, enabling Moscow to detect and exploit its vulnerabilities. Russia would ultimately learn how the S-400 could take out an F-35.Meanwhile, the chief of US European Command, Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, told Congress on Tuesday that delivery to Turkey of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter should ultimately be cancelled if Turkey moves ahead with buying the S-400 systems from Russia. But it appears Erdogan's "this is over" comment was directed at the continued congressional debate. "We're done, this is over," Erdogan said during the interview. "The deal has been finalized."
Watch: US-Led Forces Drop Banned White Phosphorous on East Syria — According to Middle East news source Al Masdar News, the U.S. Coalition dropped internationally banned white phosphorous on the last tiny Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria during intense operations on Saturday evening. American warplanes specifically dropped the white phosphorous on ISIS positions inside the Baghouz camp, which coalition statements have described as the last holdout to the “most hardened” militants, numbering in the hundreds, in Abu Kamal District of Deir Ezzor governate near the Iraqi border. Amidst intense fighting led on the ground by US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), civilians have continued to pour out of the town to escape the fighting. Sky News has put the number of people that have left the ISIS enclave over the past three months at about 40,000. Al Masdar reports the video footage of the IUS white phosphorous attack on the Islamic State’s positions was originally captured by ‘Ayn Al-Firat (Eye of the Euphrates) news organization on Saturday: A number of Middle East analysts also confirmed the controversial munitions’ use over the weekend. Last year Russia accused the United States and its allies of repeatedly using white phosphorous in eastern Syria, which the Pentagon has denied. Use of the munition in civilian areas is banned under the 1949 Geneva Conventions and is considered by many countries a dangerous and brutal chemical weapon.
Israeli army, settlers 'routinely harass' Nablus students - Al Jazeera- School principal Mohammad Jaser presses a button to open the intercom system and makes a routine announcement. "The Israeli army has been spotted near the premises," Jaser says, his voice blaring from speakers and into the classrooms of the al-Sawiyeh al-Lebban school near Nablus in the northern West Bank last month. "Stay inside your classrooms, away from the windows, and lock the doors," he instructs the students. "Prepare for an evacuation."The students and teachers at the mixed school, located between the villages of al-Sawiyeh and al-Lebban, have been trained to respond to incidents like this.The school is often the target of Israeli army activity in the area and has faced numerous incidents of armed settlers entering the premises and threatening students.Due to the high frequency of violence at the school, emergency drills and training have been implemented to teach students how to respond to the incursions."Now, when we spot Israeli soldiers or settlers around the school, students know exactly what to do," Jaser said.Students, for instance, receive training on how to lessen the effects of tear gas and some are trained to provide first aid to their injured peers during confrontations, he says. 'They like to point their weapons at the students' The al-Sawiyeh al-Lebban school serves about 500 students, including 20 girls, from the sixth grade until the 12th.
Poverty-Stricken Afghanistan Donates $1 Million in Aid for Palestinians -- — Afghanistan donated $1 million in financial aid for Palestinian refugees at an event in Istanbul, Turkey’s commercial capital, on Sunday. Afghanistan’s ambassador to Turkey Abdul Rahim Sayed presented the aid to Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), at a ceremony also featuring Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Cavusoglu praised the Afghan government and people for their help for the Palestinian people, coming in the wake of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s call for Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) states to support the Palestinians.More than a decade and a half after a US-led campaign that toppled the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan has been battling abject poverty. A joint study by the European Union and Afghanistan’s Central Statistics Organisation in May 2018 showed that Afghanistan’s povery rate was at 55% in the year 2016-17 – that’s more than half of it’s population living on less than one dollar per day. “The Afghan people have greater need than the Palestinians of the $1 million due to the conditions in which they live – terror and other challenges in particular,” said Cavusoglu, adding: He further added: “This contribution and aid that the Afghan people gave will never be forgotten. The Palestinians will never forget the aid and support they were given.”
Official- Taliban target army corps, killing 23 soldiers - (AP) — Taliban insurgents targeted an Afghan army corps at their camp in the southern Helmand province, killing at least 23, officials said Saturday. Omar Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, said 20 other troops were wounded in the attack that began Friday and ended Saturday evening after a 40-hour battle in the Wahser district. The death toll could rise after a final assessment, added Zwak. As many as 40 security forces may have been killed, according to a provincial official who spoke anonymously as he was not authorized to brief the media. Zwak added that military vehicles and offices were damaged by blasts and shooting in the attack. Qari Yusouf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said in a statement that the insurgent group was responsible for the attack, which came even as Taliban negotiators met for talks with a U.S. peace envoy in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar. He said Taliban fighters engaged both Afghan and foreign forces inside the camp and killed “scores.” Zwak said U.S. advisers were present in the base, but in a separate area. “The foreign forces present at the base were all safe as the Taliban could not reach that part of the compound,” he said. Zwak said the attack began when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at Shorab camp. He said three other suicide bombers also blew themselves up as gunmen followed behind them. Zwak said 22 Taliban gunmen were killed in the fighting. In recent years, the Taliban and the Islamic State group have carried out near-daily attacks in Afghanistan, mainly targeting the government and its security forces. The Taliban control several district centers in Helmand, which is a major source of the world’s illegal opium supply. Camp Shorab was previously a British air base known as Camp Bastion.
China won't judge you: Why Saudi Arabia's crown prince is betting billions on Asia - Saudi Arabia is aggressively expanding its international relationships, and that will have inevitable consequences for the United States and its influence in the country.A high-profile tour by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month culminated in pledges of $20 billion worth of investment in longtime partner Pakistan, $28 billion in economic accords with China and an open-ended goal to invest $100 billion in India, along with promises of increased trade and security cooperation.In a post-Khashoggi world — where Riyadh's longtime bond with its foremost security ally, Washington, faced its biggest crisis in years over human rights issues — the kingdom is working to ensure it has a range of options at its disposal.Saudi Arabia also needs a survival strategy: With falling oil prices and a highly fossil-fuel dependent economy, it's racing against the clock to diversify its revenue streams and bolster partnerships with larger powers to secure trade and security alliances. This pursuit is set to continue with help from the U.S., but it will also foster greater engagement with the East — both for economic and geopolitically strategic aims.Sharply heightened scrutiny and criticism from the West means that "Saudi Arabia needs the buy-in from major Asian economic powers now more than ever," Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, recently wrote in Time Magazine. Numerous European and American policymakers have sought to blame the crown prince for his alleged role in the October murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a charge the monarchy denies. The governments of Pakistan, India and China, by contrast, haven't uttered a peep about the killing.
Saudi crown prince defends China's right to put Uighur Muslims in concentration camps - Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman defended China’s right to use concentration camps for Muslims on Friday, saying it was Beijing’s “right” according to the Telegraph newspaper. “China has the right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremization work for its national security,” Salman said while in China signing multi-million dollar trade deals much to the chagrin of the country’s Western allies. Chinese leader Xi Jinping told Salman that the two countries must strengthen international efforts to “prevent the infiltration and spread of extremist thinking,” the report said. The Uighur are an ethnic Turkic group that practices Islam and lives in Western China and parts of Central Asia. A surveillance regime has been instituted after allegations that the minority in the Western Xinjiang region supports terrorism. The groups have previous appealed to Salman to take up their cause, as the kingdom, despite being criticized for its lack of support for Palestinians and other oppressed citizens in the Middle East, has nevertheless defended the rights of certain Muslim groups worldwide. In contrast, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, recently condemned China, calling its treatment of the Uighur population “a great cause of shame for humanity” last month and asking it to close the “concentration camps.”
Is Google Still Working On A China Search Engine It Told The World It Had Scrapped? -When Google told the world back in December that it had abandoned plans to re-launch its search service in China, what it really meant, according to a group of employees who have been monitoring the company's plans, was that it was putting the project on the back burner.According to the Intercept, which, at this point, has established itself as the preferred venue for disgruntled Alphabet employees seeking to leak damaging information about the company, despite saying it would mothball the project, Google has continued work on some aspects of "Project Dragonfly" - the codename for its self-censoring search engine for the mainland, marking yet another example of the company misleading the press about the project. Google withdrew from China nearly 10 years ago under pressure from the Communist Party. But CEO Sundar Pichai has apparently decided that access to the world's second-largest economy would be worth tolerating the government's strict restrictions on political speech. Much to the consternation of Pichai, who had apparently hoped to keep the company's plans hush-hush, a group of employees have been closely monitoring internal communications after Google refused to definitively rule out ever returning to China. They discovered emails sent by "Dragonfly"'s top managers suggesting that some developers have continued to work on the project, rather than being reassigned, as the company had initially promised.
Weathering the U.S. trade war? China's commodity imports, PMIs suggest yes - Russell (Reuters) - One of the characteristics of inflection points is volatility in the data, with the two surveys of China’s vast manufacturing sector providing a case in point. The official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for February showed a somewhat depressing drop to 49.2 from January’s 49.5, sitting for a second month below the 50-level that separates growth from contraction. But the gloom created by the National Bureau of Statistics PMI was partially lifted by a more upbeat Caixin/Markit report. This survey of mainly private Chinese companies rose to 49.9 in February from the prior month’s 48.3. While this is still below the 50-level, it was above the market consensus of analysts’ forecasts. Encouragingly, the sub-index for total new orders was back in positive territory at 50.2. A possible explanation of the difference between the two PMIs is that the Caixin/Markit measure is more nimble and the companies it surveys are more likely to have been early beneficiaries of the recent stimulus measures undertaken by Beijing. If the official PMI picks up in March, then perhaps it could be argued that China’s efforts to stimulate the economy in the face of a slowing partly caused by the trade dispute with the United States are working. The trade imbroglio looms large in any assessment of the outlook for the Chinese economy, and markets have been relieved by optimistic noises emanating from mainly the U.S. side. It is probably safer to be cautious as in the past few months there have been several occasions when a resolution seemed to be imminent, but these hopes have been consistently dashed. While following the Twitter feed of U.S. President Donald Trump may benefit traders who thrive on volatility, it may be more illuminating to look at the data for China’s imports of commodities. COMMODITY RESILIENCE Seaborne imports of iron ore were 81.8 million tonnes in February, according to vessel-tracking and port data compiled by Refinitiv. This may look like a large drop from January’s 92.5 million, but it’s worth factoring in that February is three days shorter than January and the whole of the Lunar New Year holidays fell within the month. A better comparison is to take the total for the first two months of 2019 and compare it to the same period last year. This shows China’s imports of the steel-making ingredient were 174.3 million tonnes in the first two months of this year, compared with 173.9 million in the same period in 2018. This suggests fairly steady demand, and fits with a picture of a Chinese economy that has lost some momentum but isn’t yet at risk of a serious slowdown.
Deflationary Red Alert- Chinese Car Dealers Are Slashing Prices, And It's Not Helping - A new deflationary tide is rising amid the battleground that is China's auto industry, where manufacturers and dealers are scrambling to try and find a solution to tumbling demand, and while many have resorted to generous incentives and loan offers for consumers to regain market shares, Bloomberg reports that so far none of the measures have succeeded in stimulating the moribund local car markets.Incentives and reductions totaling more than 10% of the sticker price are now common, while interest free loans are also being offered to try and lure car buyers to showrooms, especially outside of China’s major cities. For now, however, buyers still aren’t taking the bait and car sales continue to decline this year in China, after their first annual drop in more than two decades. Making matters worse, amid the slowdown of the world's second largest economy consumers are starting to do away with big purchases in general. There’s also an argument surfacing that heavy incentivizing could wind up doing more harm than good to automakers' finances, possibly setting up for more layoffs, restructurings and mergers in the industry. Shi Jianhua, a deputy secretary general of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said: “2019 should be a year of the survival of the fittest and we may see more merger and reorganization cases in the auto industry." The changes may negatively affect smaller Chinese manufacturers more than larger ones, who can offset poor Chinese sales with sales from other countries. But customers of cheaper brands in China tend to live in smaller cities and are often more easily affected by the slowing economy.Cui Dongshu, secretary general of China Passenger Car Association told Bloomberg that "the sales slump is adding more pressure on Chinese brands. The speed of the industry reshuffle will be accelerated." By reshuffle he also means a potential wave of mass corporate defaults.
China's Employed Population Shrinks For The First Time Ever - China's imminent, and historic conversion from a current account surplus to deficit nation is not the only "tectonic shift" taking place in the world's most populous nation. According to the latest census data from its National Bureau of Services, China's employed population has shrunk for the first time ever on record, and at the end of 2018, the number of people employed fell to 776 million, a drop of 540,000 from 2017. Meanwhile, in yet another sign that China’s population is aging rapidly, the broader working-age population, or people between the ages of 16 and 59, also shrank for the seventh consecutive year, down a total of 2.8% from 2011 to 2018 according to Caixing. Last year’s China's total working-age population stood at 897 million, down 5 million from 902 million in 2017, according to the NBS.Li Xiru, director of the Population and Employment Department at NBS, warned last month that the employed population would further drop in the coming years.While China is already beset with a myriad of economic and asset price bubbles, most notably a massive corporate debt load and a still gargantuan shadow banking system both of which it has to balance against an unprecedented housing bubble to avoid a collapse in the financial system sparking a "working class insurrection", the country’s shrinking work force creates even more headaches for officials as it pushes up labor costs, sparking inflationary pressures and placing more strains on an economy already struggling against external headwinds. As China Daily reported recently, the shortage of workforce means labor cost will continue to increase and industrial transfer and technology will substitute workers. And since university graduates - who expect far higher wages - account for nearly half of the labor force entering the market, the market is unable to provide traditional industries with the required number of workforce and the past high-input economic development mode is unsustainable. The futures is even bleaker: the working-age population is expected to see a sharp drop from 830 million in 2030 to 700 million in 2050 at a declining speed of 7.6 million every year, . Meanwhile, with decreasing supply of labor force, the salary of all industries grew at a rate of 11.3 percent in 2011, 10.5 percent in 2012, and 9.7 percent in 2013, said Zeng, adding that as a result many foreign enterprises left China and shifted to Southeast China due to rising labor cost.
Trade Panic- China To US Weekly Spot Rates For 40' Containers Collapse -- A continued slowdown in the rate at which weekly spot rates for 40' shipping containers are being shipped from China to North America suggests US demand for Chinese goods continues to stumble, and signals a broader economic slowdown globally looms. The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) represents ocean freight prices for 40' shipping containers, is published weekly on Sundays and represents the price of the previous week (Sunday through Saturday). Prices used in the index are rolling short term freight spot tariffs between carriers, freight forwarders, and high-volume shippers. Index values are calculated by taking the median price for all prices on active lanes with weighting by the shipper. During the last sixteen weeks, FBX 40' shipping container rates from China to North America have seen a dramatic move lower, raising concerns about the health of underlying demand. The North America West Coast to China/East Asia Index (FBX02) is down 39% since early November highs, retesting the 50% Fibonacci retracement level late last month and recently broke below December's lows, is expected to probe 61.8%-Fib in the coming weeks. The index had a notable impulse starting in March/April 2018, the move lasted 224 days and sent the index up 218% - thanks to President Trump's trade war against China, which forced US importers to pull orders forward to get ahead of tariffs. However, by early November, rates collapsed after the importers were finished, with no signs of a trough in early March.
China faces ’tough economic’ challenges - Premier Li Keqiang has warned of “tough challenges” ahead after cutting China’s economic growth target for 2019 to levels not seen for 30 years. In his annual state-of-the-union-style address, he told nearly 3,000 delegates at the 13th National People’s Congress in Beijing that GDP growth would be between 6% and 6.5% this year, as predicted by Asia Times. Last year, it was 6.6%, which was the lowest level since 1990, after being buffeted by a cooling economy and China’s brutal trade war with the United States. “We will face a graver and more complicated environment, as well as risks and challenges in pursuing development this year,” “Setbacks in economic globalization, challenges to multilateralism, shocks in the international financial market and especially the China-US economic and trade frictions had an adverse effect on the production and business operations of some companies [in 2018], as well as on market expectations,” he added. Li also announced on the opening day of the Congress that the government’s target for consumer price inflation this year would be around 3% with a budget deficit goal of 2.8% of GDP. He then went on to reveal that three-quarters of China’s provinces had already lowered their annual growth targets for 2019. “We have made a moderate adjustment to our projection on the basis of a thorough assessment of destabilizing factors and uncertainties affecting the economic performance,” Li said, reading from the annual Government Work Report. Still, to help small businesses struggling with the downturn, Beijing will raise the value-added tax, or VAT, threshold to 100,000 yuan (US$15,000) in monthly sales from 30,000 yuan (US$4,500). Major large state banks have also been told to increase their lending by up to 30% for the private sector and, in particular, small- and medium-sized companies. In January, the National Bureau of Statistics, or NBS, announced that GDP growth for 2018 slowed to what at first glance appeared a robust 6.6%. In reality, this was the slowest pace in nearly 30 years as manufacturing stalled and consumer spending dipped.
China economy- Beijing unveils $298bn tax cuts to boost growth - China's number two leader Li Keqiang has warned the country faces "a tough struggle," as he laid out plans to prop up the world's second-largest economy. Opening the annual session of China's parliament, he forecast slower growth of 6% - 6.5% this year, down from a target of around 6.5% in 2018. China has struggled with a slowing economy and a US-led trade war. It plans to boost spending, increase foreign firms' access to its markets, and cut billions of dollars in taxes. "In pursuing development this year, we will face a graver and more complicated environment as well as risks and challenges... that are greater in number and size," Mr Li said in a lengthy speech. "We must be fully prepared for a tough struggle." Mr Li told 3,000 delegates at the National People's Congress that China would aim to deliver nearly 2 trillion yuan ($298bn; £227bn) of cuts in taxes and other company fees. A value-added tax (VAT) for transportation and construction sectors will be sliced from 10% to 9%, and VAT for manufacturers will fall from 16% to 13%, he said. China will increase its military budget by 7.5% to 1.2 trillion yuan, down from last year's 8.1% rise. The country's defence spending is closely watched for any signals as to its military intentions. Mr Li also said China would continue to carry out a prudent monetary policy and use reserve requirements as policy tools. China cut reserve requirements - the amount commercial banks are required to hold on reserve - several times last year to boost lending. The economy expanded 6.6% in 2018, growing at is slowest rate since 1990.
China’s exports fall more than 20% in February; overall trade data come in much weaker China on Friday reported worse than expected trade data for the month of February, customs data showed amid Beijing’s trade dispute with the U.S. Dollar-denominated exports plunged 20.7 percent for the month of February from a year ago, missing economists’ expectations of a 4.8 percent decline, according to a Reuters poll. January exports had risen 9.1 percent from a year ago. Dollar-denominated imports fell 5.2 percent in February from a year ago, missing economists’ forecast of a 1.4 percent fall. January imports had fallen 1.5 percent on-year. China’s February trade balance was also significantly weaker than expected at $4.12 billion. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the overall trade balance to come in at $26.38 billion. The country’s trade balance in January had been $39.16 billion. China’s politically sensitive trade surplus with the U.S. narrowed sharply to $14.72 billion in February from $27.3 billion in January.
Chinese Stocks Plunge and It All Started With a Single Downgrade - Chinese stocks tumbled the most in nearly five months as traders took a rare sell rating from the nation’s largest brokerage as a sign that the government wants to slow down the rally. The Shanghai Composite Index lost 4.4 percent to close below the key 3,000 point level. People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China Ltd., which had become a poster child of the ramp-up in equities, saw its A shares sink by the 10 percent daily limit. Citic Securities Co. advised clients to sell the shares, saying they are “significantly overvalued” and could decline more than 50 percent over the next year. The stock had surged by the maximum allowed by the exchange for five straight days. "Such a sell rating must have been authorized by the regulators," said Yang Wei, a fund manager at Longwin Investment Management Co. "The stock market is overheating, there is too much speculation. Regulators want to see a slow bull market, not a mad bull market." Chinese stocks have been unstoppable this year, gaining the past eight weeks to beat every other national market in the world. The government’s focus on economic growth, the new securities regulator’s less stringent take on financial risk and optimism over China’s relationship with the U.S. have combined to revive investor confidence. The $1.8 trillion rally since January has been so fast it triggered signs of overheating in all of the country’s major benchmarks.
Washington Provokes Beijing By Flying 2 B-52 Bombers Over South China Sea -So far, simmering tensions between the US and Chinese Navy in the South China Sea haven't had much of an impact on trade-deal talks. But that doesn't mean investors should just ignore the US's increasingly provocative "freedom of navigation" operations in the contested region that is also a vital chokepoint for one third of global trade. As Trump reportedly pressures his negotiators to walk away with a deal, the US air force has for the first time since just before Thanksgiving risked a confrontation with Beijing by flying two B-52 bomber on a mission that brought them within close proximity to the Chinese mainland. The "training mission" brought the bombers close to disputed airspace over the South and East China Seas, according to RT. The mission was part of the US Pacific Command’s "Continuous Bomber Presence Missions", which are designed to act as a means of deterrence against Beijing, which hasn't shied away from flexing its growing military presence in the Pacific. Two US Air Force B-52H Stratofortress long-range bombers, based in Guam, participated in “routine training missions” on Monday by flying through the disputed airspaces over the South and East China Seas. As one bomber “conducted training in the vicinity of the South China Sea,” the other practiced off the coast of Japan in “coordination with the US Navy and alongside our Japanese air force,” US Pacific Air Forces said in a statement. The provocation is particularly notable because of Beijing's increasingly belligerent rhetoric toward Taiwan, which President Xi pledged earlier this year would soon be "reunited" with the mainland, eliciting cries from Taiwan's leader that the Taiwanese people would never accept this. The bombers reportedly took off from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam.
Tensions Soar After Chinese Boat Rams, Sinks Vietnamese Vessel In Disputed Waters - Tensions in the South China Sea are once again soaring after a Vietnames fishing boat reportedly came under attack by a Chinese vessel near the contested Paracel Islands, a Vietnamese official said Friday. According to the Australian Associated Press the dangerous incident has sent tensions in the region to "a new high". The Vietnamese boat was fishing near Discovery Reef some 370 kilometers off Da Nang in Paracel island chain when according to Hanoi government officials it was rammed by the presumably larger Chinese vessel. The fishing boat capsized, leaving five Vietnamese crewmen clinging to the side of their upturned vessel for two hours before they were rescued by another nearby fishing boat. Crucially, the Paracel archipelago is an intensely disputed island chain and territory, claimed by both Vietnam and China, the latter which took control of the islands in 1974. It's known as Xisha in Chinese and Hoàng Sa in Vietnamese, and the People's Republic of China has over the past years attempted to solidify its hold by building up reefs and artificial islands, including the construction of military installations and harbors. This has resulted in a significant uptick in similar "ramming attack" incidents on Vietnamese boats of late. The Chinese coast guard is said to be especially active in intercepting and chasing away all non-Chinese boats, assisted in this regard by civilian boats who act as a maritime militia enforcing Chinese claims over the waters. Over the past year more than a dozen such incidents have been reported in regional press, something that's become commonplace enough for one analyst and east Asian affairs expert, Greg Poling at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to comment: “China’s neighbors have become so numb to the constant exercise of low-intensity violence and intimidation that it will warrant barely a mention in regional press.”
US Admiral Warns About 'Hazardous' Military Buildup In South China Sea - Though it rarely makes headlines in the US, the simmering rivalry between American and Chinese military forces has prompted some to declare the South China Sea - where Beijing has been building out its military and naval infrastructure in defiance of international court rulings - the "world's most dangerous hotspot". And as China has transformed rocky atolls into stationary aircraft carriers, nobody has been more vocal about the dangers of China's increasingly aggressive posture in the Pacific than Admiral Philip Davidson, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who has warned about the growing geopolitical threat even as many established economists have played down the risk of a conflict because, in theory, the economic links between the world's two largest economies represent a reliable counterweight. Offering yet another ominous warning just days after Washington again provoked Beijing by flying two B-52 bombers over the contested sea, Davidson told a group of reporters that he had observed a rise in Chinese military activity in the Pacific. Asked about the US's "freedom of navigation" operations in the region, Davidson declined to offer specifics but said only that the US would remain "an enduring Pacific power." But turning the focus again to China, Davidson warned that China's military buildup was a "hazard" to trade flows and financial information that circulates via fiber optic cables running on the ocean floor under the South China Sea. "It’s building, it’s not reducing in any sense of the word," Davidson told reporters on Thursday in Singapore when asked about China’s military activities in the South China Sea. "There has been more activity with ships, fighters and bombers over the last year than in previous years, absolutely.""It’s a hazard to trade flows, the commercial activity, the financial information that flows on cables under the South China Sea, writ large,” Davidson added
Trade War Deepens- China Bans Canadian Canola Shipments Amid Soaring Diplomatic Tensions - Canada's largest grain processor said Tuesday that Beijing has canceled its registration to ship canola seed to China, fueled by the arrest of a top executive for the Chinese tech giant Huawei, The Wall Street Journal reported.The move suggests that rising diplomatic tensions between China and Canada are damaging commerce between the two countries. Tensions have already crushed hopes that senior officials in Ottawa and Beijing would develop further trade ties. The import ban against Richardson International Ltd. is due to a series of Chinese non-compliance notices declaring some shipments of canola seed from Canada were contaminated with "hazardous pests." Canadian officials disputed that claim."I am very concerned by what we've heard has happened to Richardson. We do not believe there's any scientific basis for this," Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said in Montreal."We are working very, very hard with the Chinese government on this issue."Revoking the import license comes as Canada is advancing an extradition hearing for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. She was arrested in early December by the Canadain government at the request of the Trump administration, where she was wanted on fraud charges.
An airstrike and its aftermath - Reuters graphic - Tensions have been elevated since Pakistan-supported militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in a suicide bombing on Feb. 14, but the risk of conflict rose dramatically on Tuesday when India launched an airstrike on what it said was a militant base inside Pakistan. Indian officials said the raid near the town of Balakot in northeast Pakistan destroyed a training camp of Jaish-e Mohammad, the militant group behind the deadly suicide attack on Feb. 14. India said “a very large number of JeM terrorists.” had been killed. The villagers, however, said only one person was wounded and they knew of no fatalities. From what villagers could see, the airstrike missed its target. India’s Foreign Secretary, Vijay Gokhale, said the strike killed “a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders, and groups of jihadis who were being trained for Fidayeen action were eliminated.” Fidayeen is a term used to describe Islamist militants on suicide missions. Another senior government official told reporters that about 300 militants had been killed. Pakistan disputed India’s death toll estimates, saying the operation was a failure that saw Indian jets bomb a hillside without hurting anyone.It isn’t clear whether the discrepancy in claims will become a factor as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a second term in India’s general election due by May.On the wooded slopes above Jaba village near Balakot, residents pointed to four bomb craters and some splintered pine trees. But there were little other visible effects of the explosions that blasted them awake around 3 a.m. People in the area said Jaish-e Mohammad did have a presence, running not an active training camp but a madrassa, or religious school, less than a kilometer from where the bombs fell. A sign which had been up earlier in the week identifying the madrassa’s affiliation to Jaish-e Mohammad had been removed by Thursday and soldiers prevented reporters from going into the compound. But it was possible to see the structure from the back. It appeared intact, like the trees surrounding it, with no sign of any damage like that seen near the bomb craters.
Pakistan continues partial opening of airspace amid India crisis - Pakistan has continued a limited opening of its airspace for commercial flights, after closing it earlier this week at the height of tensions with neighbouring India that saw both countries carry out air raids inside each other's territories for the first time since the 1971 war. Pakistan's civil aviation authority said on Sunday it was allowing restricted operations at the Allama Iqbal international airport in the eastern city of Lahore.This comes after partial operations at Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and the capital, Islamabad, resumed on Friday.Other airports in Gilgit Baltistan, Punjab province and the interior Sindh region remained closed on Sunday. The travel restrictions are expected to be lifted on Monday at 1pm local time (08:00 GMT), according to the country's civil aviation authority. International and domestic air travel in the region has been widely disrupted, with several airports in Pakistan and India shut, flights rerouted and suspended, amid fears of a major military escalation between the South Asian nations.
Indian TV channels have become ′graphic war rooms′ - Indian journalists are being pressured to conform to the official narrative on Pakistan. Ravish Kumar from Indian broadcaster NDTV told DW that those who don't comply have faced public ridicule on social media. Ravish Kumar: The reporting [on the current crisis] by Indian TV channels is quite bad. They are not reporting on the conflict as much as they are using the conflict as an excuse to build up the ruling party's electoral prospects in the upcoming general elections. The intention of this warmongering is to polarize people and consolidate votes. We have the problem of unemployment, for example, and many other issues that have recently emerged. They haven't been addressed over the past five years. All these issues have been bypassed. The media is using "experts" to legitimize their [the ruling party's] propaganda. I have appealed to people that for the next one and a half months, they should not watch television at all to avoid listening to this warmongering. We are under pressure because if the general mood is tuned toward warmongering, we have to decide between catering to this mood and reporting factual information. This has become a big challenge. For example, the chief of the Indian air force has not said exactly how many people were killed in the airstrike that India carried out.
Kashmir Is Potentially The Flashpoint For A Future Nuclear War- With his reckless “pre-emptive” airstrike on Balakot in Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inadvertently undone what previous Indian governments almost miraculously, succeeded in doing for decades. Since 1947 the Indian Government has bristled at any suggestion that the conflict in Kashmir could be resolved by international arbitration, insisting that it is an “internal matter.” By goading Pakistan into a counter-strike, and so making India and Pakistan the only two nuclear powers in history to have bombed each other, Modi has internationalised the Kashmir dispute. He has demonstrated to the world that Kashmir is potentially the most dangerous place on earth, the flash-point for nuclear war. Every person, country, and organisation that worries about the prospect of nuclear war has the right to intervene and do everything in its power to prevent it. On Feb. 14, 2019, a convoy of 2,500 paramilitary soldiers was attacked in Pulwama (Kashmir) by Adil Ahmad Dar, a 20-year-old Kashmiri suicide-bomber who, it has been declared, belonged to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad. The attack that killed at least 40 men was yet another hideous chapter in the unfolding tragedy of Kashmir. Since 1990, more than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict, thousands have “disappeared,” tens of thousands have been tortured and hundreds of young people maimed and blinded by pellet guns. The death toll over the last 12 months has been the highest since 2009. The Associated Press reports that almost 570 people have lost their lives, 260 of them militants, 160 civilians and 150 Indian armed personnel who died in the line of duty. Depending on the lens through which this conflict is viewed, the rebel combatants are called “terrorists,” “militants,” “freedom fighters” or “mujahids.” Most Kashmiris call them “mujahids” and when they are killed, hundreds of thousands of people—whether they agree with their methods or not—turn out for their funerals, to mourn for them and bid them farewell. Indeed, most of the civilians who were killed this past year, are those who put their bodies in the way of harm to allow militants cornered by soldiers to escape.
Robert Fisk Exposes Israel’s Hidden Role in the India-Pakistan Conflict — Well-known British journalist Robert Fisk recently wrote a very telling and troubling article inThe Independent regarding the outsized role of the state of Israel in the burgeoning tensions between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers. The story — despite its importance, given the looming threat of nuclear war between the two countries — was largely overlooked by the international media.The tit-for-tat attacks exchanged between India and Pakistan last week have seen long-standing tensions between the two countries escalate to dangerous proportions, though Pakistan helped to deescalate the situation somewhat by returning and “saving” an Indian pilot whose plane had been shot down in retaliation for India’s bombing of targets in a disputed area administered by Pakistan.That bombing was retaliation for a car bomb attack launched by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militants, a group that both India and Pakistan recognize as a terrorist organization, against Indian forces. Some analysts have speculated that India’s decision to bomb this area was made by Indian President Narendra Modi, a Hindu ethno-nationalist, in order to rally his base ahead of upcoming Indian elections in May.Yet, whatever the reason, the bombing has revealed the close ties that have formed between Modi’s India and Israel, particularly between their militaries. As Fisk notes, following the bombing, Indian media heavily promoted the fact that Israeli-made bombs — specifically, Rafael Spice-2000 “smart bombs” — had been used in the attack. Fisk writes:“Like many Israeli boasts of hitting similar targets, the Indian adventure into Pakistan might owe more to the imagination than military success. The ‘300-400 terrorists’ supposedly eliminated by the Israeli-manufactured and Israeli-supplied GPS-guided bombs may turn out to be little more than rocks and trees.” Recently released satellite images seem to corroborate what Fisk predicted, as the bombing failed to hit its intended target and instead damaged a nearby forest.
Model Who Exposed Elite Pedophile Ring Found Dead - A controversial Argentine media personality was found dead on Saturday night at a private event's facility in Tigre district, north of Buenos Aires City. Natacha Jaitt's body was found in a bed at the Xanadú party salon in La Ñata, in the Tigre district, north of Buenos Aires City, police confirmed. Investigators are currently looking into the circumstances of the 41-year-old's death, including running checks on the five people who had been with her in the hours prior. An autopsy was underway at the San Fernando morgue. Jaitt, a well-known media personality, previously worked as a model, actress, escort, and TV and radio presenter. The socialite was a well-known personality in Argentina, often for the wrong reasons. Known to have formerly been a drug user, those closest to her insisted that – despite recent media reports about the circumstances surrounding her death – Jaitt was no longer consuming drugs. On social media and among entrainment reporters, conspiracy theories intensified about her having been murdered as a result of accusations she made in early 2018 that dozens of high-profile sports and entertainment personalities in Argentina were involved in an underage prostitution ring. In 2018, Jaitt had made explosive allegations that dozens of high-profile sports and entertainment personalities were involved in an underage prostitution ring. Indicating she feared for her safety, she once went as far as to warn via Twitter that she could pay the ultimate price for revealing dirty information she had on some of the country's rich and famous. "WARNING: I am not going to commit suicide, I am not going to take too much cocaine and drown in a bath, or shoot myself. So if this happens, it wasn't me. Save this Tweet," she wrote in April, 2018. Jaitt had made a series of tweets and television appearances, just days after explosive allegations in April 2018 about child prostitution at major Argentine football clubs, including Independiente and River Plate.
Guaidó Vows Prompt Return to Venezuela as Absence Saps Opposition's Momentum — What will happen to Venezuela’s opposition leader, and the movement he leads, when he returns to Venezuela? That question has been asked across South America since Juan Guaidó left his country more than a week ago, defying a travel ban from Venezuela’s courts to embark on a largely improvised tour of the continent to shore up support. For his followers, the return can’t come soon enough, as his continued absence raises questions about the momentum of the movement he began. “I think it’s confused the people because it’s left us without a road map — it risks people losing faith in his project,” said María Durán, who works at a nongovernmental organization in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. “There are people who ask: What happened?” Originally, Mr. Guaidó had vowed to be back on Feb. 23, planning to go in with a humanitarian aid shipment meant to pierce a military blockade of the borders set up by President Nicolás Maduro. But Mr. Maduro parried off the attempt with tear gas and rubber bullets, closing border bridges into Venezuela. Then, the opposition floated the idea of a return after Mr. Guaidó met on Feb. 25 with Vice President Mike Pence and other regional leaders in Bogotá, Colombia. Mr. Maduro responded with an interview with ABC News saying he could have Mr. Guaidó arrested for breaking the law.
In jab at Maduro, Guaido makes triumphant return to Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido returned to his country on Monday after flouting a court-imposed travel ban by touring Latin American countries to boost support for his campaign to tighten regional pressure on President Nicolas Maduro. A crowd of cheering supporters greeted Guaido and his wife as they stepped into the Maiquetia airport’s arrivals hall, and then sped to an opposition rally in eastern Caracas where thousands had gathered to welcome him. The return of Guaido, recognized by most Western nations as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state, signals that Maduro’s adversaries have at least temporarily avoided the arrest of a leader who has united the traditionally fractured opposition. But it will also lift pressure on Maduro to act against Guaido as his authority continues to wane and the country’s economic meltdown fuels malnutrition and hunger. “Hope has been born and it will not die - things are going well,” Guaido told the crowd at a plaza in the Las Mercedes district. “We are going to celebrate this small victory today.” He announced plans to meet on Tuesday with public employees, who have been historically pressured by the ruling Socialist Party to join pro-government rallies, as well as for a major march on Saturday.
Venezuela buckles under massive power, communications outage (AP) — Venezuela’s worst power and communications outage on Friday deepened a sense of isolation and decay, endangering hospital patients, forcing schools and businesses to close and cutting people off from their families, friends and the outside world. While electricity returned to some parts of Caracas nearly 24 hours after lights, phones and the internet stopped working, several other populous cities remained in the dark as evening approached. The blackout marked another harsh blow to a country paralyzed by turmoil as the power struggle between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido stretches into its second month and economic hardship grows. Venezuelans have grown begrudgingly accustomed to power cuts, but nothing like the one that hit during rush hour Thursday evening, sending thousands of people on long nighttime treks in the dark to their homes. It reached virtually every part of the oil-rich country of 31 million, which was once Latin America’ wealthiest but is now beset by shortages and hyperinflation projected by the International Monetary Fund to reach a staggering 10 million percent this year, compelling about one-tenth of its population to flee in recent years. Venezuelans struggling to put food on the table worried that the few items in their fridges would spoil. One hospital advocate reported there were at least two confirmed deaths due to the outage: A baby in a neonatal unit and a patient at the children’s hospital. Venezuelans with chronic conditions liked diabetes searched for ice to preserve their limited supplies of medicines. The blackout promptly became a point of dispute between Maduro, who blamed sabotage engineered by the “imperialist United States,” and U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido, who said state corruption and mismanagement that have left the electrical grid in shambles were the cause. Guaido, the leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly, returned from a Latin American tour to Venezuela on Monday in order to escalate his campaign to topple Maduro and hold elections and called for new protests on Saturday.
Russia says will prevent U.S. military intervention in Venezuela -(Reuters) - Russia will do all possible to prevent a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, the TASS news agency quoted the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament as saying on Sunday. “We are very much concerned that the USA could carry out any provocations to shed blood, to find a cause and reasons for an intervention in Venezuela,” Valentina Matvienko told Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez in Moscow. “But we will do all in order not to allow this,” said Matvienko, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.
Russia's Geopolitical Rivals Preparing For Space Wars And More Conflicts- Russian General - Chief of the Russian General Staff and First Deputy Defence Minister, General Valery Gerasimov told reporters Saturday that the US is preparing to wage wars against a "high-tech adversary," which will involve high-precision air and space-based missiles, electronic warfare weapons, and active information warfare.“Therefore, the search for rational strategies for waging war with a different adversary is of paramount importance for the development of the theory and practice of military strategy. We need to clarify the essence and content of military strategy, the principles of prevention, preparation for war and its conduct”, the Chief of the General Staff said.He told reporters that Russian Armed Forces were actively preparing for war and armed conflicts on the modern battlefield by developing “classical” and “asymmetric” warfare techniques. Gerasimov warned that the US and its allies have set aggressive tones in their foreign policy, and are working on offensive military operations.
Widening Russia Money Laundering Scandal Hits Europe Bank Shares - More European banks are being drawn into money-laundering allegations centered on dirty Russian money, adding to the scandal in an industry still recovering from the financial crisis. Initially centered on Danske Bank A/S in Denmark and Sweden’s Swedbank AB, allegations of suspicious transfers widened this week to include Raiffeisen Bank International AG in Austria and several Dutch institutions. Danske has lost half its market value since admitting its role in a money laundering scandal in 2016. The disclosures describe a network of banking relationships that was used to export funds from criminals in the former Soviet Union to western nations, often via Estonia and Lithuania. Investigations are under way in the Baltic nations, the U.S., the U.K. and the Nordic countries, but almost daily revelations suggest there are more surprises to come on the scale of the misconduct. Raiffeisen Bank International AG led declines in European banking shares on Tuesday -- slumping as much as 15 percent -- after Bill Browder’s Hermitage Fund said the bank ignored warning signs that would have helped stop the laundering of funds from Russian criminal activity. Dutch banks fell after a report that the three largest were used to move cash from Russia. The fresh allegations are based on files obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or OCCRP, and 15min.lt, a Lithuanian website. They were reported by a number of participating media outlets and nicknamed Troika Laundromat because many of the shell companies involved in the transactions allegedly had ties to Troika Dialog, a Russian investment bank that was bought by state-owned Sberbank PJSC in 2012. Troika Dialog “acted in full compliance with the highest international standards of transparency and financial reporting” throughout its history, said the press office of Ruben Vardanyan, who led the firm for about two decades. The Troika Laundromat is the fourth scheme the group has uncovered, the others being the Proxy Platform, the Russian Laundromat, and the Azerbaijani Laundromat. The Guardian reported that the latest documents show an estimated $4.6 billion was sent to Europe and the U.S. from a Russian-operated network of 70 offshore companies with Lithuanian accounts. The paper said there’s no suggestion that the end recipients of funds were aware of the source of the money. It’s not clear what share of the transfers was illegitimate.
OECD Slashes Global GDP Forecast, Warns Outcome Could Be Weaker Still - The world is rapidly headed for a recession unless something changes, according to the latest gloomy warning from the OECD overnight, which has joined the IMF in warning that the global economy is suffering more than expected from trade tensions and political uncertainty which are clouding prospects particularly in Europe, where the OECD slashed its 2019 growth outlook to just 1%, almost half its prior 1.8% forecast. "The global expansion continues to lose momentum," the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said as it downgraded the 2019 GDP forecast of almost every Group of 20 nation including the US, China, UK and euro area, while it now expects Italy to be headed to worst year since 2013. "Growth outcomes could be weaker still if downside risks materialize or interact." The OECD's growth guillotine was not exactly a surprise as these are the organization’s first forecasts in almost four months, and it is forced to play catch-up with developments in a world in which central banks U-turned from hawkish to dovish to reflect a sharp slowdown from Japan to the US. Indeed, as Bloomberg notes, in that period little has gone right for the world’s biggest economies: Weakness in the euro area and China are proving more persistent, trade growth has slowed sharply and uncertainty over Brexit has continued. Perhaps because it came about a month after the IMF's own latest forecast cut, the OECD’s numbers were even more downbeat than the monetary fund's, particularly the euro region and the U.K., where the organization warns that things could get even worse. It isn't just doom and gloom, however, with a modest silver lining peaking between the clouds in recent weeks, with some modest signs that the global economy may be turning the corner as the U.S. and China are making progress on ending their lengthy trade dispute (if only for market-moving reasons), while JPM's global composite Purchasing Managers Index rose in February for the first time in three months.
ECB Follows Fed in Flip-Flopping on Interest Rate Guidance - The European Central Bank on Thursday announced four dovish policy measures that went beyond what markets had expected. At the conclusion of its policy meeting, the bank stressed that its extraordinary steps would be highly responsive to data and provide greater policy optionality. The markets will most likely hear messages that have broader implications. The ECB said it would introduce a new round of targeted longer-term refinancing operations, known as TLTROs, that provide additional funding to banks; push back to December the guidance on a first interest rate hike; reinvest in full the maturing principal payments; and operate fixed-rate tender procedures with full allotment. In explaining the bold move, ECB President Mario Draghi stressed the risks of economic weakness driven mostly by external factors. This weakness was highlighted by the fall in inflationary expectations and, more visibly, the sharp reduction in the central bank’s euro-zone growth projection for 2019 to 1.1 percent from 1.7 percent — a relatively dramatic cut that remains accompanied by “pervasive uncertainty,” according to Draghi, and that highlights the risks of economic “stall speed” (especially if, like me, you fear that a further cut in growth projections is likely). The markets’ textbook initial reaction to the policy announcement reflected the potential impact of increased central bank liquidity: Government bond yields fell, stocks moved up, and the euro weakened. The stocks rally reversed when Draghi detailed the darker growth and inflation outlook during his press conference, pointing to weaker fundamentals that offset the initial market focus on more ample liquidity. Following his comments, yields for 10-year German government bonds fell to levels not seen since 2016. Markets generally expected a dovish signal from the ECB given the projected flagging of euro zone growth and inflation, but they didn’t expect it to come as soon or be as comprehensive.
US Dollar Hits 52-Week High in Cleanest-Dirty-Shirt-Syndrome on New ECB Stimulus, as Old ECB Stimulus Fails to Stimulate - The Dollar Index (DXY), which tracks the dollar against the euro, yen, pound sterling, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona, and Swiss franc, and which is dominated by the euro, jumped 0.83% to 97.71 at the moment, hitting at least briefly its 52-week high, as the euro slumped 1.1% against the dollar, following the ECB’s announcement earlier today. But it wasn’t just a one-day event for the dollar, but an eight-day rally in an uptrend that started in early February (data via Investing.com): The real worry is the economy in the Eurozone – despite the fabulous stimulus the ECB has heaped on it for years, including a brutal negative-interest-rate policy and massive QE that has inflated the ECB’s balance sheet to over 40% of Eurozone GDP (by comparison, the Fed’s balance sheet is down to 19.5% of US GDP). The Eurozone economy is deteriorating rapidly. In the post-meeting press conference today, ECB president Mario Draghi announced that the ECB had slashed its economic growth forecast for the Eurozone to 1.1% for 2019, a sharp cut from its forecast of 1.7% growth at the December meeting, and down from its 1.9% growth forecast last summer. “Incoming data have continued to be weak, in particular in the manufacturing sector, reflecting the slowdown in external demand compounded by some country and sector-specific factors,” the statement says. Instead of admitting that its radical experimental monetary policies were a colossal error as the economic growth is now dwindling despite or because of the stimulus, and instead of gradually raising its policy rates above the rate of inflation to end its brutal “financial repression,” and instead of shedding the bonds on its balance sheet to push up long-term interest rates and force a restructuring of the bogged-down European economy so that it would liquidate or restructure the debts of zombie companies and lighten the load of restructured companies to allow them to have a fresh start – all of it at investors expense – the ECB does the opposite. It promises new bank liquidity programs in the Eurozone which is already drowning in central-bank liquidity, to get banks to lend more to these zombie companies and keep them from restructuring their debts.
Trump May Charge Allies Up To 600% More For Hosting US Troops - President Trump has ordered his administration to draw up formal demands for Germany, Japan and all other countries hosting American troops to pay the full price of US soldiers deployed on their soil, along with a 50% premium for the privilege of hosting them, reports Bloomberg, citing a dozen administration officials and people briefed on the matter. In some cases, nations hosting American forces could be asked to pay five to six times as much as they do now under the “Cost Plus 50” formula. –Bloomberg Trump has long-complained that countries hosting US troops aren't paying enough, to the point where he nearly derailed recent talks with South Korea over how much they're paying for the 28,000 US troops on their soil - overruling his negotiators and telling National Security Advisor John Bolton "We want cost plus 50." The president’s team sees the move as one way to prod NATO partners into accelerating increases in defense spending -- an issue Trump has hammered allies about since taking office. While Trump claims his pressure has led to billions of dollars more in allied defense spending, he’s chafed at what he sees as the slow pace of increases. -Bloomberg"Wealthy, wealthy countries that we’re protecting are all under notice," said Trump during a January 17 speech at the Pentagon. "We cannot be the fools for others."Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, just stated that because of me NATO has been able to raise far more money than ever before from its members after many years of decline. It’s called burden sharing. Also, more united. Dems & Fake News like to portray the opposite!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2019 Bloomberg's sources caution that the idea is "one of many under consideration," in order to try and convince US allies to pay more, and the plan may be toned down. That said, "it has sent shock waves through the departments of Defense and State, where officials fear it will be an especially large affront to stalwart US allies in Asia and Europe." Other current and former administration officials "describe it as far more advanced than is publicly known," reports Bloomberg. In addition to seeking more money from allies hosting US troops, the Trump administration wants to use the new policy as means of leverage over countries to do what the US demands overseas.
Our Drivers Have Been Attacked - UPS Halts Deliveries To Swedish No Go Zone - Though European leaders and their counterparts in the US (along with their allies in the mainstream press) have continued to deny their existence, migrant-dominated "no go" zones remain a persistent public safety threat to the Swedish public. And in the latest repudiation of the Swedish government's refusal to accept the term, and acknowledge the fact that - as Swedish police chiefs warned back in 2017 - these areas represent "parallel societies" where Swedish institutions aren't recognized, UPS has ceased delivery to Rosengard, a notorious neighborhood in Malmo, Sweden, after several of its drivers were assaulted and robbed.According to local media reports cited by RT, delivering to the neighborhood has become too dangerous for UPS, after the US carrier told the press that "our drivers have been attacked and therefore we have decided not to hand out packages at [the district]." The decision to cease package delivery follows a spike in crime in the notoriously poverty-stricken neighborhood, where police say they cannot effectively carry out their law enforcement duties.Rosengard, a troubled, immigrant-dominated neighborhood, has gained notoriety due to a spike in violent crime recorded in recent years. Gun violence, armed robberies, and other offenses seem to have become commonplace there, according to media reports. The district, plagued by unemployment and poverty, has previously appeared on a list of Sweden’s ‘vulnerable areas’, which some media and local politicians refer to as ‘no-go zones’. Across Europe, the term "no go zone" is used to describe areas where even the police are afraid to go. UPS isn't the first organization operating in Sweden to adopt an official company police to avoid 'no go' zones. That list also includes PostNord, the country's government run postal service.
Yellow Vests Hit French Police With “Poo Bombs” in Newest Wave of Protests — According to French police, Yellow Vest protesters are now using an ancient form of biological warfare in the newest wave of protests. This weekend, authorities reported that Yellow Vest protesters hurled bags of fecal matter at the police. The rudimentary poop-filled mini bombs were made using thin bags and balloons with the intent that they would easily burst on impact. Rudy Manna from the Alliance police trade union in the southern port city of Marseille, told the AFP that many of the “bombs” hit their targets.“Three policemen were soaked through with it,” Manna said.Marseille police headquarters even reported that one officer was injured when he was hit in the elbow with “a poop-filled projectile.” Very few pictures of the officers were taken, aside from the photo below which was posted to Twitter. “[The police officers] had it in their hair, on their shoes, they had to dump their clothes. They’ve told me they’ve never been that humiliated. And since it was truly sh*tty afternoon, the showers did not work at the North Station, they had to clean themselves with cold water in the garage,” Manna said. “The policemen were deeply humiliated,” Manna added.Police suspect that this could be a coordinated strategy, since similar incidents were reported in other cities, including Montpellier. Protesters were organizing on social media and were reportedly encouraging fellow demonstrators to arm themselves with ‘Caca-tovs,’ presumably a play on Molotov cocktails and “caca.” Twitter user adda françois posted the following picture, which appears to show the creation of these bombs. A member of the Yellow Vests posted a video to YouTube, where he explained that protesters should consider using the projectiles because they have a “psychological” impact on the police. The anonymous protester in the video said that this idea originated in Venezuela in 2017. However, it is likely that this type of strategy dates back to ancient times. It was reported that over 40,000 people took part in the past weekend’s protest, with 10% of the demonstrators concentrated in Paris, and the rest spread throughout other large metropolitan areas in the country.
Dear Europe, Brexit is a lesson for all of us: it’s time for renewal – by Emmanuel Macron, Guardian - Citizens of Europe, if I am taking the liberty of addressing you directly, it is not only in the name of the history and values that unite us, but because time is of the essence. A few weeks from now the European elections will be decisive for the future of our continent. Never since the second world war has Europe been so essential. Yet never has Europe been in such danger. Brexit stands as the symbol of that. It symbolises the crisis of a Europe that has failed to respond to its peoples’ need for protection from the major shocks of the modern world. It also symbolises the European trap. The trap lies not in being part of the European Union; the trap is in the lie and the irresponsibility that can destroy it. Who told the British people the truth about their post-Brexit future? Who spoke to them about losing access to the EU market? Who mentioned the risks to peace in Ireland of restoring the border? Retreating into nationalism offers nothing; it is rejection without an alternative. And this is the trap that threatens the whole of Europe: the anger mongers, backed by fake news, promise anything and everything. We have to stand firm, proud and lucid, in the face of this manipulation and say first of all what Europe is. It is a historic success: the reconciliation of a devastated continent is an unprecedented project of peace, prosperity and freedom. Let’s never forget that. And this project continues to protect us today. What country can act on its own in the face of aggressive strategies by the major powers? Who can claim to be sovereign, on their own, in the face of the digital giants? How would we resist the crises of financial capitalism without the euro, which is a force for the entire EU? Europe is also those thousands of projects daily that have changed the face of our regions: the school refurbished, the road built, and the long-awaited arrival of high-speed internet access. This struggle is a daily commitment, because Europe, like peace, can never be taken for granted. I pursue it tirelessly on behalf of France, in order to take Europe forward and to defend its model. We have shown that things we were told were unattainable, the creation of a European defence capability and the protection of social rights, were in fact possible.
How British MPs are inching towards backing Theresa May’s Brexit deal — Slowly but surely, British MPs are inching towards backing Theresa May's Brexit deal.The chances of it passing have increased significantly in recent weeks, with some hardline Eurosceptics indicating they will support the deal and Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party indicating that they are willing to compromise on their conditions for backing the prime minister."I always tell people it's unlikely the prime minister's deal will get through, but it's still the likeliest option," one Conservative MP who voted for the deal in January told Business Insider.However, May still faces a huge challenge to get the deal through parliament. It was defeated by 230 votes in January, meaning a total of 116 MPs need to drop their opposition to the deal before it can pass through parliament.So how can she get her deal over the line when she puts it before parliament for a second time by March 12? The problem for May is one of simple maths. The prime minister relies on a slender majority after the disastrous snap election in 2017, and a handful of Tory MPs are determined to vote against the deal in any event. That means she will need the support of at least some Labour MPs to have any chance of the deal passing — significantly more than the three who voted for her deal in January. However, that is not impossible.Consider the Labour MPs who defied the party whip to vote against Yvette Cooper's amendment which sought to take a no-deal Brexit off the table in January, as the above chart shows.Many of the 14 MPs including Gareth Snell, John Mann, and Caroline Flint represent Leave-voting constituencies and are determined to avoid the perception that they are impeding the UK's exit from the EU. Downing Street believes there is a reasonable chance some of them could be persuaded to support the government as Brexit approaches, although none have publicly stated that they will support the deal yet.
There are still big questions about a second Brexit referendum - The Labour Party has swung behind the move to put the issue of UK membership of the EU back to the people – though it is still unclear this would be supported by a majority of MPs. John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor, said this week that the party will put an amendment down to the Prime Minister’s meaningful vote, promised by 12 March. Labour could back the idea being offered by its backbenchers, Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, to approve the Prime Ministers’s deal, conditional on that approval being confirmed in a referendum. Confirmation via the referendum would mean the deal was approved, where rejection would mean revocation of Article 50. But if that amendment succeeded, it could mean that a deal that does not command a majority in the House might live on as the only alternative to remaining in the EU. For MPs who voted against the deal or prefer the UK to leave with no deal at all, this would be unpalatable. Some aspects of the Prime Minister’s deal are clear. People would know they were voting for an orderly withdrawal, a transition period ending in December 2020, a settlement on citizens’ rights, a financial settlement agreed and a final version of the Irish border backstop.The Prime Minister’s deal would also end “vast contributions” to the EU budget and freedom of movement, as well as leave the UK outside the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market. But beyond that it is far from clear what the UK’s future relationship with the EU would look like under her deal. The Prime Minister herself admits it encompasses a spectrum of options.
Brexit and migration: our new research highlights fact-free news coverage - Immigration anxieties played a significant role in British people’s decision in June 2016 to vote to leave the EU. This has fuelled a debate over the quality of media reporting on migration issues.In order to get a better idea of the role the media played, we examined nearly 1,000 news items, feature articles and editorials from six UK newspapers: the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, the Sun, the Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian, published in 2006 and in 2013. These were politically important years: 2006 was the year before Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU and the time when it was becoming clear that migration forecasts for the countries that joined the EU in 2004 had been way off. In 2013 David Cameron, delivered his Bloomberg speech in which he promised the EU referendum. One thing that quickly became apparent was that media coverage contained a selective mixture of statistics, reported comments from politicians and other public figures, academic studies, think-tank reports, and emotive polemics backed with no evidence at all. The practice of mentioning evidence in passing and then dismissing or overriding it was also present. The most prominent theme was that mobility within the EU damages British sovereignty. Newspapers from across the political spectrum suggested that intra-EU mobility was impossible to control and that the free movement principle overrides British sovereignty. The theme was also marked by growing scepticism towards migration data and evidence.The language used to describe EU migration tended to emphasise quantity and scale (“mass”, “vast”, “large scale”). There were lots of “floods” and “waves” and extensive use of military metaphors (“army”, “war”, “battle”, “siege” or “hordes”) in the tabloid press. When covering migration from Bulgaria and Romania, the press regularly trotted out the figure of 29m migrants – which, in fact, is the combined population of the two countries. Rather than reporting on actual migration of Bulgarians and Romanians, papers preferred hypothetical scenarios where they would migrate en masse simply because they could.
“What Surprises Me Is the Extent of the Mess” - Der Speigel - As the UK ambassador to the European Union, Ivan Rogers had a front-row seat as Brexit negotiations got underway. In an interview, he speaks with DER SPIEGEL about the mistakes made in London and the huge challenges that remain.
Brexit: UK ‘abandons’ key backstop demand in move set to spark Tory row - Theresa May is braced for a Tory row after reports the government has abandoned a key demand to change her Brexit deal. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox is said to have dropped a push for certain changes to the 'Irish backstop' - a clause in the 585-page Brexit deal that could trap the UK under EU customs rules from 2021. MPs voted last month to send Mrs May back to re-open talks with Brussels over the backstop. She vowed to get either a time limit, exit clause or "alternative arrangements". But today the Daily Telegraph reports demands for a time limit or exit clause - which the EU always said were a non-starter - have been dropped by the Attorney General, who returns to Brussels this week.Tory Brexiteer Steve Baker told the newspaper it was a "satirical" approach to what MPs voted for. "The Brady amendment required that you replace the backstop with alternative arrangements," he fumed. "That's light years away from tweaking arbitration mechanisms." The Telegraph also reported that Mr Cox's approach falls short of demands by a key group of Tory Brexiteer lawyers, led by veteran MP Sir Bill Cash. Questioned on the reports today, Communities Secretary James Brokenshire refused to deny explicitly that the two demands have been dropped.
May gets Brexit boost from key Tories linked to backstop - British Prime Minister Theresa May has been given a Brexit boost as key Tories have signalled swinging behind her stance in exchange for movement on the backstop. Chairman of the highly influential 1922 Committee of backbench Tories Graham Brady expressed optimism that a breakthrough on the backstop was close. The hardline European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, also indicated a more conciliatory tone on the issue. The ERG has drawn up "three tests" the British government must pass to win backing, according to the Sunday Times. In private talks with Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, the ERG called for a legally-binding mechanism to escape the backstop, with a clear exit route and an unambiguous rewrite of the language in the government's legal advice, the newspaper said. The stance has been drawn up in conjunction with the DUP, according to the Sunday Times. Mr Brady made it clear that he could swing behind the prime minister's Withdrawal Agreement ahead of crunch Commons votes. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Brady said: "The whole country is tired of vacillation and delay. "When the right compromise is offered, we should pull together behind the Prime Minister and help her to deliver our exit from the European Union on March 29."
Theresa May Has Received A Peace Offering From Tory Rebels - - At this point in the Brexit process, pound traders have every reason to ignore optimistic headlines about Theresa May's withdrawal deal. Time and time again, the pound has risen on reports that May might finally secure the votes she needs to pass the deal, which is broadly opposed by Brexiteers and the 10 MPs in the DUP - the Irish Unionist party that helps shore up May's government. And every time, hopes for May's deal have been dashed when the MPs have reiterated their unwillingness to stomach the Irish Backstop as its currently written in the deal. And while May and members of her government have spent months pressing the EU for "legally binding assurances" that the Backstop, should it take effect, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has so far refused to budge.However, now that May has officially sanctioned a series of meaningful votes later this month on her "Plan B" deal, possibly followed by a vote on a 'no deal' Brexit, possibly followed by a vote on whether May should press for a 'Brexit Day' delay (something that would require approval from the EU27, an approval that is looking increasingly likely) - the eurosceptic faction of her fractious Tory caucus may finally be willing to yield in the hopes of averting a delayed Brexit or - worse - another referendum. The first inkling that the ERG - the coalition of roughly 70 MPs who have stymied May at every turn - might be willing to capitulate came last week when one of its leaders, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said he might be willing to accept May's deal, so long as the EU agrees to a time limit on the backstop. Of course, the EU has insisted ad infinitum that this will never happen, but in the grinding quagmire of Brexit negotiations, every incremental softening in rhetoric is cause for celebration. And so it is with Sunday's big news: As May's attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, seeks modifications to the deal that would impose a time-limit on the backstop (like his predecessors, he has met with limited success), the Sunday Times of London has reportedly obtained a copy of a "peace agreement" drawn up by the ERG that features "three tests" for May's deal that must be met if the prime minister hopes to finally pass the withdrawal treaty and definitively rule out the possibility of a 'no deal' economic apocalypse.
£1.6bn ‘bribe’ for poorer towns as May seeks Labour’s backing for Brexit deal - Left-behind towns in England are to get a £1.6bn funding boost as part of a package of measures to win support for Theresa May’s Brexit deal among Labour MPs, who said the new cash would not buy their votes. Labour MPs including Lisa Nandy and Gareth Snell who have signalled they might back May’s deal criticised the approach and said the cash would do little to tackle the effects of austerity. The communities secretary, James Brokenshire, denied the money was a Brexit bribe and said it would be enough to have a “transformative” impact on areas that felt left behind. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, he refused to say how many towns would benefit, but pointed out that the cash would be allocated whatever happens in next week’s meaningful vote on the EU withdrawal bill. “This funding is there regardless of the outcome … there is no conditionality,” he said. “This funding is there to see that towns grow … and we leave no part of our UK left behind.” Brokenshire said the money would be available until 2026, which would equate to as little as £320m per year assuming that the funds take a year to allocate. The prime minister said the Stronger Towns Fund, much of it allocated to the north of England and the Midlands, would go to areas that had not “shared the proceeds of growth”. May, who is also expected to announce post-Brexit guarantees on workers’ and trade union rights in the coming days, said £1bn had been allocated already, of which more than half would go to the north of England, where towns such as Wakefield, Doncaster and Wigan voted heavily for Brexit.
May ‘did not understand EU when she triggered Brexit’ - Theresa May and her circle of advisers did not understand how the European Union works, and consequently followed a negotiating strategy in 2016 that was doomed to fail, the former UK ambassador to the EU Sir Ivan Rogers has said. Speaking to the Institute for Government on Monday, Rogers said the people around the prime minister at the start of the article 50 process “didn’t know very much about European councils or that much about the EU”. Rogers, who resigned a year ago and has developed a reputation for producing some of the most caustic assessments of the misunderstandings between the UK and the EU, said the UK lived under the illusion that it could circumvent Brussels by making direct deals with the major capitals. He said: “Capitals obviously matter, but I think having lived through this with a number of prime ministers, a number of different negotiations ... that reflex in the British system always to think that we can deal direct with the organ grinders and not the monkeys: it never works like that. “It didn’t work like that in the Cameron renegotiation either. That stuff is not done in the way British politics works, leader to leader. It’s done via the bureaucrats, and the sherpas, and the people at the top of the institutions.” Rogers also warned that the chances of a no-deal Brexit sticking for long were close to zero. “The UK and EU know there is no chance of no-deal Brexit being the long-term end state, as the UK would quickly come back to the negotiating table,” he said. “There is not a world where we are going to end up with no deal.” He also warned the UK could face a legal challenge to the European court of justice if it sought to stay temporarily in the EU by extending article 50 for more than three months, but also tried to avoid participation in the May European parliamentary elections. He said the only talks extension on offer to the UK from the EU may be as long as nine to 12 months, since the EU will not wish to grant an extension simply because the UK is in a state of political chaos. He added if unelected UK MEPs remained in the European parliament, it was possible that any newly appointed commission, endorsed by that parliament, would be struck down as illegal.
CPMR analysis: UK to lose €13bn regional funding post Brexit -New analysis from the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) estimates that the United Kingdom would be entitled to approximately 13 billion euros of regional development funding for the 2021-2027 period should it stay in the European Union. The CPMR has published a projection of the share of funding from the EU Cohesion policy for its member régions, including those within the UK.This projection, based on the European Commission’s allocation methodology for the ERDF and ESF+ funds, shows that the UK regions and nations would be entitled to an increase of 22% for the 2021-2027 period, compared to the allocation of 10.6 billion euros for 2014-2020.This increase can largely be explained by the fact many areas of the UK are falling behind the EU average in terms of regional prosperity. According to the CPMR projection, Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly and West Wales & the Valleys, the two regions in the UK currently classed as ‘less developed regions’ under the European Commission’s eligibility rules, would still stand to receive a significant share of the UK allocation of Cohesion Policy. In addition, the regions of South Yorkshire, Tees Valley & Durham and Lincolnshire would also become less developed regions for the 2021-2027 period. All five of these regions would stand to receive EU support in excess of 500 euros per capita for the seven-year period.
Theresa May warned she should not ‘attempt to bounce’ MPs into agreeing Brexit deal next Tuesday - BREXITEERS and eurocrats have accused Theresa May of trying to bounce them into agreeing a new Brexit deal at the very last minute. In a bid to build pressure on both sides of the Channel, the PM was suspected last night of holding back a solution until just before the showdown Commons vote next Tuesday. The PM has been told to give MPs at least 48 hours to look over a new dealEPA 2 Attorney General Geoffrey Cox and Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay arrive in Brussels this afternoon, where they are expected to table revised text to the unpopular Irish backstop for the first time. But No10 signalled the key changes were unlikely to be agreed this week as “there definitely remains more work to be done”. Officials now believe a trip to Brussels on Sunday night by Theresa May is now likely, to tie down the final deal with EU boss Jean-Clause Juncker before she unveils it to MPs on Monday afternoon. But that breakneck timetable risks infuriating the European Research Group of hardline Tory Brexiteers. It warned No10 its members must have a minimum of 48 hours to study Mr Cox’s new backstop. Veteran Tory Eurosceptic MP Sir Bill Cash, who leads an ERG panel of eight lawyers set up to study the plan, told The Sun: “It would be in the national interest for Parliament to have 48 hours to scrutinise what Geoffrey Cox proposes before the debate starts on Tuesday. We all need to make a proper analysis. To do otherwise would be seriously unwise.”
Brexit: Slouching Towards Bethlehem -- Yves Smith - Fewer than 24 days till Brexit, and no one knows what will happen. And even more peculiar is that this remarkable degree of uncertainty seems to have become normalized. Nevertheless, some of the latest developments:
- It’s now official that the latest UK efforts to reopen the backstop are going nowhere. It was so clear that this effort was doomed to fail that the only plausible justification for sending in Attorney General Geoffrey Cox and acting as if something might happen was to give a thin veneer of legitimacy to May pushing the Meaningful Vote back to March 12. Bear in mind that the Ultras had nevertheless manned up, assembling a group of high-powered lawyers to review whatever Cox brought back to see if it met three tests they had set up. The face-saver that Cox is now trying to secure is getting an enhanced “arbitration mechanism”. Nevertheless, the Government is still insisting that it’s trying to obtain “legally binding changes” despite the EU repeatedly saying “no” and Barnier reiterating that stance.
- May’s deal is expected to go down in defeat again next week. 230 votes is a big hurdle to overcome. And there’s now no strong reason for anyone who doesn’t like the agreement to vote for it, since May has made clear she needs an extension even if the bill passes, so that March 29 drop dead isn’t seen as an event horizon. Yet is hasn’t been removed as one either.
- But the UK and EU don’t seem to see eye to eye on an extension. May has said she wants only a short extension, which translates into maybe a few weeks but more likely a few months. That timeframe happens to line up with the results of recent polls, which show that support for an extension drops off sharply if it were to be longer than three months. In addition, that would probably fall within the limits needed to keep the UK from having to participate in upcoming European Parliament elections. A report to the German parliament confirmed a widely-held view that if the UK’s extension extended to the seating of the new European Parliament on July 2, UK citizens could sue over having their rights violated and would have a near-certain win. Leave Means Leave has already announced it will sue to have the UK participate in European Parliament elections on May 23 in the event of a Brexit extension. Many EU leaders have said they aren’t keen about a short extension, since they don’t see how it could solve anything on the UK side. That does not necessarily translate into “no” votes, but this position seems to be widely shared.
Brexit: Deadline looms as ministers push for changes to deal - The UK's attorney general says Brexit negotiations will continue as EU officials call for "acceptable" ideas by Friday to break the impasse. Geoffrey Cox said plans to solve the deadlock over the Irish backstop were "as clear as day", with just days until MPs vote on the Brexit deal. Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom confirmed the vote will be held on 12 March. Chancellor Philip Hammond has warned Brexiteers to vote for the deal or face delay to the UK's exit from the EU. The backstop is an insurance policy designed to prevent physical checks on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Mr Cox, who was in Brussels on Tuesday to push for further changes to the Brexit deal, said talks will "almost certainly" continue through the weekend. He said there had been "careful discussions" with the EU and stressed it was government policy to seek the legal changes to the backstop. "We are discussing text with the European Union," he said. "I am surprised to hear the comments that have emerged over the last 48 hours that the proposals are not clear; they are as clear as day, and we are continuing to discuss them." Earlier, when speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Hammond refused to be drawn on how he would vote if Mrs May's deal is defeated. "If the prime minister's deal does not get approved on Tuesday then it is likely that the House of Commons will vote to extend the Article 50 procedure, to not leave the European Union without a deal, and where we go thereafter is highly uncertain," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Brexit in 23 days: EU says still ‘no solution’ in negotiations - Just over three weeks before the UK walks out of the European Union, there has been no breakthrough to amend Britain's divorce deal. The deadlock between the EU and Britain is centered on the so-called Irish backstop. The European Union said Wednesday there has been no progress in the latest talks with Britain, just days before the UK lawmakers are set for a second vote to avoid a hard Brexit. EU diplomats led by negotiator Michel Barnier and his UK counterparts met in Brussels on Tuesday in a bid to amend their divorce deal before Britain's scheduled exit on March 29. "Michel Barnier has informed...that while the talks take place in a constructive atmosphere, discussions have been difficult," said Margaritis Schinas, spokesman for the European Commission, the bloc's executive. "No solution has been identified at this point that is consistent with the withdrawal agreement, including the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland, which will not be reopened," Schinas said. At the center of the deadlock is the Irish backstop that is aimed at ensuring there is no hard border between Ireland, a member of the EU, and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom.British Attorney General Geoffrey Cox told Sky News television talks that both sides "exchanged robust strong views and we're now facing the real discussions" after the UK put forward some "very reasonable proposals." British Prime Minister Theresa May lost a vote in Parliament on a draft Brexit deal in January largely due to resistance from lawmakers within her Conservative Party who opposed to the backstop arrangement. May is hoping to bring an amended Brexit deal back to deeply split UK lawmakers ahead of another vote on Tuesday, warning that another failure in parliament risked a no-deal exit or delay.
Brexit deal ‘will be defeated by 100 votes’, ministers believe, after talks in Brussels collapse heresa May’s Cabinet is resigned to her Brexit deal being defeated by up to 100 votes next week after talks in Brussels collapsed without progress on Wednesday. Downing Street is already making plans for a third “meaningful vote” on the deal on the assumption that Tuesday’s vote is lost, and Mrs May is considering making a major speech on Friday to plead for support from MPs. One minister said it appeared “certain” that the Commons vote on the Brexit deal will be lost, and that Mrs May’s next move would depend on the scale of the defeat. Meanwhile the Chief Whip, Julian Smith, has warned MPs their Easter break could be cancelled if Brexit is delayed, adding to the growing sense of inevitability that the Government will lose the vote. If Brexit is delayed until June, the most likely date, MPs would only have three months to find a new way forward and could ill afford their 18-day holiday. Mrs May was defeated by a record majority of 230 when MPs voted on her Brexit deal in January, and her advisers believe that if she can limit the defeat in the next vote to a majority of fewer than 60 she would stand a chance of winning a third vote. However, some ministers believe the margin of defeat will be as high as 100 votes, leaving the Prime Minister in “serious difficulty”. Mrs May has promised that MPs will be able to vote on whether to keep a no-deal Brexit on the table on Wednesday, and will vote on whether to delay Brexit on Thursday. Number 10 has so far refused to say whether Tory MPs will be whipped to keep no-deal or to block a Brexit delay, or even how the Prime Minister would herself vote. On Wednesday night the House of Lords added to Mrs May's problems by voting for a customs union with the EU, defeating the Government by 207 votes to 141 in an amendment to the Trade Bill. It means Mrs May must now overturn the amendment in the Commons if she is to avoid being forced into a customs union against her will.
Brexit: Theresa May suffers humiliating Lords defeat as peers demand UK stays in a customs union Theresa May faces a fresh headache over her Brexit strategy after peers inflicted a defeat on the government in favour of keeping the UK in a customs union with the EU. The House of Lords supported a cross-party bid to keep Britain in a tariff-free trade bloc with Brussels, which means the legislation will bounce back to the Commons for approval. Supporters of the Labour-led amendment to the Trade Bill argued MPs should have the opportunity to "think again" on the issue. But Tory frontbencher Lord Bates pointed out the elected Commons had already rejected such a proposal, adding: "It doesn't need a chance to think again." It comes as Brexit progress appeared to have ground to a halt after what both Downing Street and the European Commission admitted were "difficult" talks in Brussels on Tuesday. The commission said there was still "no solution" to the Irish backstop impasse, despite a meeting between the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier and attorney general Geoffrey Cox and Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay. The lack of progress ramps up pressure on the prime minister ahead of the critical Commons vote on her Brexit deal next week.
‘A slap in the face’: Barnier sets May on course for Brexit defeat Theresa May appears set for a second humiliating defeat when she brings her Brexit deal back to parliament next week, after the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, rebuffed her pleas for last-minute concessions. The prime minister urged MPs to “get it done” and back her deal, in an impassioned speech at a dockside warehouse in the leave-voting town of Grimsby. A vote against the deal would mean “not completing Brexit and getting on with all the other important issues people care about, just yet more months and years arguing”, May told MPs. “If we go down that road we might never leave the EU at all.” Addressing workers from Ørsted, a Danish energy and wind turbine firm, May also urged the EU to make new concessions over the Irish backstop – the issue that caused many of her MPs to vote against the deal the first time – before last-ditch talks in Brussels this weekend. The EU “has to make a choice too”, the prime minister said. “We are both participants in this process. It is in the European interest for the UK to leave with a deal. We are working with them but the decisions that the European Union makes over the next few days will have a big impact on the outcome of the vote. “European leaders tell me they worry that time is running out and that we only have one chance to get it right. My message to them is: now is the moment for us to act.” But Barnier immediately appeared to rebuff the prime minister, by responding with an offer of reverting to his original plan, the Northern Ireland-only backstop, which May repeatedly said no prime minister could accept, because it risked creating a border in the Irish Sea. The EU’s chief negotiator said in a series of tweets that the EU was committed “to give the UK the option to exit the single customs territory unilaterally, while the other elements of the backstop must be maintained to avoid a hard border. [The] UK will not be forced into a customs union against its will.”
EU’s Tajani says Brexit date can be delayed few weeks at most: report (Reuters) - It is crucial to prevent Britain crashing out of the European Union in a disorderly way without a deal, the head of the European Parliament told a German media outlet. In an interview with the Funke group of newspapers, Antonio Tajani added the date of Brexit can be delayed past March 29 by only a few weeks at most. British lawmakers are due to vote on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan for a second time on Tuesday. May has said that, if her plan is defeated, lawmakers will be able to vote on Wednesday and Thursday on whether they want to leave the bloc without a deal, or ask for a short delay to Brexit. “It’s a matter now of avoiding the biggest mistake of all - a chaotic Brexit without contractual arrangements in place,” Tajani said in an interview due to be published on Saturday. Such a disorderly no-deal Brexit would be a disaster for the British economy and would also hurt the EU, Tajani said, adding that he would be happy if Britain were to remain in the bloc. Tajani said the political declaration on Brexit could perhaps be slightly more clearly formulated but he ruled out changing the withdrawal agreement, especially on the Northern Ireland issue. “I’m convinced that the exit date can only be delayed by a maximum of several weeks - from the end of March to the start of July at most,” he said. Tajani said Britain would need to provide a reason for postponing its exit from the EU such as wanting to use the extra time to hold fresh elections or a new referendum. “They’ve decided to leave - it’s their problem, not ours,” he added. Tajani said Britain’s departure from the EU would deter other countries from leaving the bloc, adding: “We need to change the European Union but we need to stick together.”
New Scottish currency is all about joining in the Euro disaster - The Scotsman -The SNP is to consider adopting a new Scottish currency a few years after independence is achieved.Why on earth would politicians seeking to deliver an independent Scotland believe it should have its own currency? It is a question worth asking, for while I believe a Scottish currency is a perfectly rational economic position to take, politics must come into it and this is far from settled, even in the minds of nationalists.If you think Brexit has shown that leaving our 42-year-old relationship with the European Union is difficult then just imagine how problematic it would be for Scotland leaving the 312-year-old United Kingdom that has included a currency union with England for three centuries. That little difficulty explains why the SNP has had more positions on a Scottish currency Nicola Sturgeon has had foreign trips.The country will need a new central bank with no track record and carrying a huge share of UK public debt. Even the SNP’s Growth Commission report admits (but underestimates) the Scottish Government annual deficit will require severe austerity like nothing seen before, to bring it under control. Gone will be the annual transfer of give-or-take £10bn from the UK. Local councils are crying now under SNP cuts, but they will be screaming until hoarse after Scexit. Then there’s the unhelpful low price of oil providing little in the way of revenues. The chances of the Scottish currency appreciating in value are not good. A Scottish currency will need a central bank with access to currency reserves, probably of at least £40bn. To help, economist and former SNP MP George Kerevan suggests all Scots’ deposits in Scottish bank accounts be converted to the new currency. If, as is highly likely, the currency then depreciates against Sterling the value of those deposits depreciate too. We are talking here about life savings losing value overnight and from then on. That’s not a clever way to sell independence. Similarly, all mortgages, loans and purchases made in the UK by Scots using Sterling before independence shall need to be paid back in the equivalent Sterling value to avoid default. Again, as the Scottish currency depreciates the amount that has to be paid back rises. That’s not a smart way to sell independence.
‘This will be a wasteland’: Northern Irish farmers fear Brexit - South of Enniskillen, John Sheridan whistles while herding dozens of ewes into a cube-shaped, metal ultrasound scanner installed in the middle of hilly green pastures. Those who aren't pregnant will be fattened up and sent to the Republic of Ireland for processing, Sheridan explains. From there, they will end up on mostly Belgian and French tables. Like many farmers, the 57-year-old depends on the frictionless flow of goods, services and people between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which are both part of the EU single market. But that seamlessness could end if Britain leaves the European Union as scheduled on March 29 without a deal. A so-called "hard Brexit" would see trade revert to WTO rules, which would impose costly tariffs and border checks where none currently exist. That prospect, says Sheridan, threatens the viability of his family farm.. "Brexit has the ability to put us out of business altogether." Northern Ireland is highly dependent on trade with the Republic of Ireland, especially agricultural. The food and drink processing industry in Northern Ireland is worth approximately 4.4 billion pounds, and farming alone supports more than 48,000 jobs. Nearly 80 percent of Northern Irish farms are cattle and sheep businesses, mostly small to medium-size. "Each animal is worth around 80 pounds ($105), and the levy would be half of that," Ivor Ferguson, the president of the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU), told Al Jazeera. "That would make it too expensive, and 50 percent of our sheep farmers wouldn't be in business and would have to give up sheep farming. That would have a devastating effect."
Revealed- Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws - Facebook has targeted politicians around the world – including the former UK chancellor, George Osborne – promising investments and incentives while seeking to pressure them into lobbying on Facebook’s behalf against data privacy legislation, an explosive new leak of internal Facebook documents has revealed. The documents, which have been seen by the Observer and Computer Weekly, reveal a secretive global lobbying operation targeting hundreds of legislators and regulators in an attempt to procure influence across the world, including in the UK, US, Canada, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia and all 28 states of the EU. The documents include details of how Facebook:
- • Lobbied politicians across Europe in a strategic operation to head off “overly restrictive” GDPR legislation. They include extraordinary claims that the Irish prime minister said his country could exercise significant influence as president of the EU, promoting Facebook’s interests even though technically it was supposed to remain neutral.
- • Used chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s feminist memoir Lean In to “bond” with female European commissioners it viewed as hostile.
- • Threatened to withhold investment from countries unless they supported or passed Facebook-friendly laws.
The documents appear to emanate from a court case against Facebook by the app developer Six4Three in California, and reveal that Sandberg considered European data protection legislation a “critical” threat to the company. A memo written after the Davos economic summit in 2013 quotes Sandberg describing the “uphill battle” the company faced in Europe on the “data and privacy front” and its “critical” efforts to head off “overly prescriptive new laws”. Most revealingly, it includes details of the company’s “great relationship” with Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister at the time, one of a number of people it describes as “friends of Facebook”. Ireland plays a key role in regulating technology companies in Europe because its data protection commissioner acts for all 28 member states. The memo has inflamed data protection advocates, who have long complained about the company’s “cosy” relationship with the Irish government.
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