The Wall Street Captured Fed Consolidates Its Power Under Biden - Pam Martens - Janet Yellen, the current U.S. Treasury Secretary, is also the Chair of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which includes every Wall Street regulator. Before coming to the Treasury Department, Yellen was the Chair of the Federal Reserve and had spent the bulk of her working career at the Fed or the San Francisco Fed. When Yellen was not reappointed as Fed Chair by Donald Trump when her Chairmanship term expired in 2018, she immediately cashed in her chips on Wall Street, collecting millions of dollars in speaking fees in 2019, and undisclosed millions more in 2018. (See Janet Yellen’s Cash Haul of $7 Million Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg; She Failed to Report Her Wall Street Speaking Fees from JPMorgan and Others in 2018.) The most poignant analysis of Yellen’s cash haul from Wall Street came in a Tweet from Jesse Eisinger of the public interest publication, ProPublica. Eisinger wrote: “Deeply troubling two-fisted money grab from banks by Janet Yellen. This is corruption, but isn’t called that because it’s so quotidian.” Eisinger also noted: “Sure, Yellen might think she can make independent decisions once in office. But how arrogant is it to imagine that money corrupts everyone but you?” Yellen’s power was already enormous as Treasury Secretary. She oversees an octopus of federal agencies that include the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which oversees all national banks that operate across state lines; the Bureau of Engraving and Printing; the U.S. Mint; the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) which is tasked with combating money laundering but has failed miserably in that job; and numerous other units. Yellen is in charge of the slush fund known as the Exchange Stabilization Fund, which is allowed to meddle in markets. The Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 makes Yellen the Chair of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, and, thanks to stealthy legislation passed during the Trump administration, the Treasury Secretary is now also a permanent member of the National Security Council (NSC). If all of this power were not frightening enough for a woman who just two years ago received multi-millions through largess from Wall Street, David Dayen has now penned an expose on how Yellen and the Biden administration are further consolidating the Fed’s power over Wall Street’s mega banks. Dayen notes that it was Yellen who picked a low-level employee at the Fed, Michael Hsu, to serve as Acting Comptroller at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC oversees the most dangerous megabanks on Wall Street and reports on their hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivative trades.According to Dayen, Hsu quickly turned around and appointed Benjamin McDonough as the OCC’s Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel. Where had McDonough come from — the Legal Division of the Federal Reserve.But that is hardly the extent of the Fed’s growing influence in the Biden administration. Dayen writes as follows: “…Nellie Liang, a Federal Reserve economist in multiple divisions for 30 years, is President Biden’s choice as Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance. Laurie Schaffer, a longtime lawyer at the Fed, currently serves as principal deputy general counsel at Treasury. Biden’s deputy national security adviser for international economic issues, Daleep Singh, previously headed the markets team at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”
Lawmakers aren’t ready to rubber-stamp Fed digital dollar -— The Federal Reserve has indicated it would need congressional help if the central bank moves ahead with a plan to create a digital dollar. But lawmakers aren't yet ready to give their stamp of approval.At a hearing Wednesday, Senate Banking Committee members raised questions about how a Fed-designed digital currency would be structured, how it would complement the private sector and whether a digital dollar is even necessary, among other concerns. Some Democrats have appeared opened to the idea of a central bank digital currency, especially if a digital dollar is paired with a proposal to provide free digital wallets. Yet they pleaded for caution at the hearing.
Wolf Richter: Oh Lordy, Yellen Comes Out for Higher Interest Rates: “A Plus for Society’s Point of View and the Fed’s Point of View” By Wolf Richter -- Starting in 2018, President Trump harangued and hammered Fed Chair Jerome Powell to end Quantitative Tightening and to cut interest rates, and Powell buckled and did his infamous “180.” And now suddenly – unless this gets walked backed again tomorrow – we’ve got the opposite. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Sunday that higher interest rates would “actually be a plus for society’s point of view and the Fed’s point of view.” Under Fed Chair Yellen, the Fed hiked interest rates five times, starting in December 2015. Yellen departed in February 2018 as Trump had refused to reappoint her, and instead replaced her with Powell. At the time, the sixth rate-hike was already baked in for the March 2018 meeting. She is no stranger to rate hikes. Now Yellen – presumably with the backing of President Biden – is supporting Powell on rate hikes, which is a dramatic shift from the prior administration.The issue in the interview was inflation and whether or not it would be fired up further by the federal government’s $4 trillion additional spending spread over 10 years, adding $400 billion per year in extra spending.Yellen said that this would not be enough for inflation to over-run. And she said that the current “spurt” in prices powered by the stimulus would fade next year – toeing the line that the biggest burst of inflation in three decades that blew through the Fed’s target by a big margin would just be “temporary.”But, and here it comes: If the current burst of inflation turns out to be not temporary and triggers more persistent inflation, and thereby higher interest rates, it would be a good thing.“If we ended up with a slightly higher interest rate environment, it would actually be a plus for society’s point of view and the Fed’s point of view,” she told Bloomberg News.“We’ve been fighting inflation that’s too low and interest rates that are too low now for a decade,” she said. “We want them to go back to” a normal interest rate environment, “and if this helps a little bit to alleviate things then that’s not a bad thing – that’s a good thing.” “Alleviate things?” What things would be alleviated by higher interest rates? She didn’t say. Savers and government-bond investors earning a little bit of interest as to get some kind of cash flow going again so that they can spend a little more? People have been praying for this for years! If the temporary surge in inflation sticks and becomes persistent, monetary policy makers can handle it, she said. “I know that world – they’re very good,” she said. “I don’t believe they’re going to screw it up.”
10Y Yields Plunge Below 1.50% As Record Short Squeeze Accelerates -With the recent JPMorgan Treasury Client Survey showing that self-reported Treasury net longs were at record lows (and by extension, shorts were all time high) understandably perhaps ahead of an inflation print that is expected to be among the highest on record, there were virtually no traders left to short Treasurys, with all bears already on board. This meant that as a result of a massive position imbalance, the risk was for a raging short squeeze on even a whiff of deflationary news, and that's precisely what we have seen in recent days, starting with last Friday's disappointing payrolls report which sent 10Y yields lower by 8 bps, and continued with the collapsing odds that a Biden infrastructure plan will pass, amid a breakdown in GOP talks and opposition by centrists such as Manchin. The squeeze, which started with last Friday's big payrolls miss, has continued through this morning, when the 10-year Treasury yield fell as much as 4bps, sliding below 1.5% for the first time since May 7 - which was also a kneejerk short covering burst following last month's even bigger payrolls miss - as traders scrambled to unwind record short positions. The 10-year yield peaked at about 1.77% in March and has since fallen as low as 1.46% on May 7 after the release of April's dismal payrolls report. It dropped more after last week's slightly less dismal May jobs report. The sudden drop in yields takes place before a closely watched 10Y auction of notes at 1pm today and ahead of key U.S. inflation data due Thursday. While Bloomberg claims that there was no clear catalyst for the latest move lower, "suggesting a potential shift by the market’s large short base ahead of the U.S. data and a European Central Bank meeting Thursday", Rabobank suggests that the move is "related to the headline that talks between President Biden and Republicans over his proposed infrastructure spending bill have collapsed. Recall that on matters of spending in the US, “The President proposes, and Congress disposes”. And that with the Senate 50-50, and Democratic senators Manchin and Sinema opposed to using Budget Reconciliation to ram stimulus through, and to the removal of the Senate filibuster to allow stimulus to proceed on a straight up-down vote, there is no way that this spending can happen - unless something changes."
Seven High Frequency Indicators for the Economy -- These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment. The TSA is providing daily travel numbers. This data shows the seven day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Light Blue), 2020 (Blue) and 2021 (Red). The dashed line is the percent of 2019 for the seven day average. This data is as of June 6th. The seven day average is down 27.5% from the same day in 2019 (72.5% of 2019). (Dashed line) There was a slow increase from the bottom - and TSA data has picked up in 2021. The second graph shows the 7 day average of the year-over-year change in diners as tabulated by OpenTable for the US and several selected cities. This data is updated through June 5 2021. This data is "a sample of restaurants on the OpenTable network across all channels: online reservations, phone reservations, and walk-ins. For year-over-year comparisons by day, we compare to the same day of the week from the same week in the previous year." Note that this data is for "only the restaurants that have chosen to reopen in a given market". Since some restaurants have not reopened, the actual year-over-year decline is worse than shown. Dining picked up during the holidays, then slumped with the huge winter surge in cases. Dining is picking up again. Florida and Texas are above 2019 levels. This data shows domestic box office for each week and the median for the years 2016 through 2019 (dashed light blue). . Movie ticket sales were at $119 million last week, down about 52% from the median for the week. ----- Hotel Occupancy: STR ----- This graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average. The red line is for 2021, black is 2020, blue is the median, dashed purple is 2019, and dashed light blue is for 2009 (the worst year on record for hotels prior to 2020). The 4-week average occupancy is now slightly above the horrible 2009 levels. This data is through May 29th. Hotel occupancy is currently down 4% compared to same week in 2019 (due to the timing of Memorial Day). Note: Occupancy was up year-over-year, since occupancy declined sharply at the onset of the pandemic. However, the 4-week average occupancy is still down significantly from normal levels. This graph, based on weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows gasoline supplied compared to the same week of 2019. As of May 28th, gasoline supplied was down about 3.1% (about 96.9% of the same week in 2019). The previous week was the first week this year with gasoline supplied up compared to the same week in 2019. This graph is from Apple mobility. From Apple: "This data is generated by counting the number of requests made to Apple Maps for directions in select countries/regions, sub-regions, and cities." There is also some great data on mobility from the Dallas Fed Mobility and Engagement Index.This data is through June 5th for the United States and several selected cities. The graph is the running 7 day average to remove the impact of weekends. All data is relative to January 13, 2020. This data is NOT Seasonally Adjusted. Here is some interesting data on New York subway usage (HT BR). According to the Apple data directions requests, public transit in the 7 day average for the US is at 83% of the January 2020 level and moving up. Here is some interesting data on New York subway usage. This graph is from Todd W Schneider. This is weekly data since 2015. Schneider has graphs for each borough, and links to all the data sources.
Price spike triggers new political debate on inflation --New data showing a higher than expected May jump in inflation underscored how a bumpy recovery from the coronavirus recession poses political challenges for President Biden and the Federal Reserve. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 5 percent in the year leading into May, the Labor Department reported Thursday, marking the fastest annual increase since August 2008 and slightly exceeding the expectations of economists. The CPI minus food and energy prices, which are more volatile, also rose 3.8 percent The CPI, a closely watched gauge of inflation, was driven higher primarily by factors analysts expect to be temporary, such as a national used car shortage, a rush of diners back into restaurants, and demand for certain goods outpacing manufacturers’ ability to supply them. For those reasons, most economists and investors saw little cause for alarm in the new data. The S&P 500 index set a new record shortly after the release of the report, and the bond market showed little concern about a potential emergency rate hike in the future. “Demand has been much stronger than many anticipate and that demand has caused supply bottlenecks, which has put pressure on prices,” “However, once the U.S. economy fully reopens and overseas economies more fully reopen, you’re going to see these price pressures mitigate.” Republican lawmakers insisted Thursday that the new inflation data showed the peril of Biden’s plans for trillions in further spending and Powell’s commitment to keeping interest rates near zero percent through 2021 and beyond. “The combination of the Fed’s average inflation targeting and its view that inflation will be transitory virtually guarantees the Fed will be behind the curve if inflation is enduring. Congress' massive spending contributes to the problem. It's time to end it,” said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, in a Thursday tweet. Biden and the Fed also took more heat from former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, the chief Democratic critic of his agenda, who insisted that the May report underscored the danger of further stimulus for the fragile economy. “The confidence with which inflation serene economists hold to their views, even after being repeatedly surprised, is a mystery to me,” tweeted Summers, who also served as NEC director for former President Obama. “Reasonable people can disagree,” he continued. “But I do not see how any responsible policy maker can fail to recognize that overheating is now the largest risk in the near term.” With months until inflation rates could move back toward historic
U.S. inflation will accelerate if recovery stays on track: Kemp (Reuters) - U.S. consumer prices are rising at the fastest rate for several years, as the economy recovers from the coronavirus recession and manufacturing supply chains struggle to keep up with demand. But the rate of inflation is still being flattered by the relatively modest increase in energy prices, masking the impact of faster increases in food products and other commodities. If energy prices rise further in the second half of 2021 and into 2022, as the expansion matures, inflation could prove more persistent than anticipated by officials at the Federal Reserve. The U.S. consumer price index has increased at a compound annual rate of 2.55% over the last two years, the fastest for more than eight years, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But energy prices have risen at an average rate of only 2.20% over the same period, which uses 2019 rather than 2020 as a baseline to avoid distorted comparisons caused by the first wave of the epidemic last year. Prices for non-energy items have increased at a rate of 2.59%, the fastest for more than 12 years since the financial crisis of 2008/09 (https://tmsnrt.rs/3wlHYMQ). Inflation has accelerated most sharply in the goods sector, where manufacturers have struggled to meet the surge in demand, especially for motor vehicles and consumer electronics. As a result, prices for merchandise other than food and energy are increasing at the fastest rate since the early 1990s. U.S. central bank officials have said they believe the acceleration will prove temporary, with price increases slowing in 2022 and 2023. But inflationary pressures normally intensify as a business cycle becomes longer and more capacity constraints emerge. It would be unusual for inflation to slow as employment rises, manufacturing capacity becomes more fully utilised and service sector output increases.
Deficit rises to nearly $2.1T --The federal deficit in May rose to nearly $2.1 trillion over the first eight months of fiscal 2021, according to data from the Treasury Department released Thursday.Spending from October through May totaled $4.67 trillion, up from the $3.89 trillion in the same period a year ago.Meanwhile, tax revenues for the first eight months of the fiscal year totaled $2.6 trillion, comparable to the same time period last year.In May alone, the deficit was $132 billion, down from the same time a year ago, according to the Treasury Department. Federal spending last month reached $596 billion, while revenue climbed to just $464 billion.Spending contributed to benefits from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package continuing to be paid out, according to Reuters.Deficit spending for fiscal 2020 spiked to a record $3.1 trillion. Deficit spending is likely to be a hot topic as Biden moves ahead with other spending proposals outside of the pandemic. The president released his $6 trillion budget proposal late last month, with the deficit projected to reach $3.6 trillion this year before dropping to $1.8 trillion in 2022. In following years, the deficit would fall between $1.3 trillion and $1.6 trillion.
Bipartisan group prepping infrastructure plan as White House talks lag -A bipartisan Senate group is prepping a fall-back infrastructure proposal as talks between the White House and GOP senators appear to be at a stalemate. The group of roughly six senators, including Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), are expected to shop it to a broader group of roughly 20 centrist-minded senators, known as the G-20, this week. "We've pretty much agreed on the spending level. I'm sure there will be some adjustments as we go along, and the pay-fors. ...We have a proposal that we'll take to the entire group and see how they feel about it," Romney said. "Maybe they'll just throw it out altogether." Romney indicated that the group crafting the bill could start pitching it to their colleagues during a Tuesday meeting. Others involved with the talks warned that the closed-door powwow could instead be used to let key negotiators hash out final details before unveiling it to their colleagues. The group is reportedly planning to pitch their colleagues on a bill of around roughly $880 billion, less than the top-line being discussed by a separate GOP-only group led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and well below what the White House wants. But senators involved in the bipartisan group also stressed that the details of their plan are still in flux. "We're going to meet tomorrow and talk about that," Portman said about the price tag. Romney did, however, knock down reports from over the weekend that carbon pricing would be part of the group's suggestion on how to pay for their proposal, telling reporters that is not included in the plan. The effort by the bipartisan group comes as there's growing frustration, in both parties, about the pace of talks between the White House and a group of GOP senators led by Capito. Members of the bipartisan group stressed that they saw their effort as a fall-back plan to the GOP's negotiations with the White House. "We were very supportive of the effort that Senator Capito and the other ranking Republicans are having with the White House. We continue to support that," Portman said. Capito and Biden, who met last week and separately spoke by phone on Friday, will talk again on Tuesday. But the two sides remain far apart on both the price tag for an infrastructure package and how to pay for it, with little progress appearing to be made toward an agreement.
Climate emerges as infrastructure sticking point - Climate change is emerging as a sticking point in infrastructure negotiations, as proposals fromPresident Biden a --nd Republicans remain disparate on actions to address the warming planet. Following additional negotiations last week, during which Republicans upped their offer by $50 billion, the White House said it still did not go far enough on climate change. Meanwhile, climate hawks are expressing fear that climate action could fall to the wayside in a push to get bipartisan legislation across the finish line. On Friday, after a meeting between Biden and Republican negotiator Sen.Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Capito’s counteroffer “did not meet [Biden’s] objectives to grow the economy, tackle the climate crisis, and create new jobs.” Psaki said during a press briefing Monday that her statement referenced “investment in areas like [electric vehicle] EV buses and EV charging stations and some of the components that are essential to investing in industries of the future and ensuring that we’re creating millions of jobs while also doing it in a way that protects our climate.” But, asked whether those were “must-haves,” the spokesperson said “I’m not outlining must-haves here, I’m outlining what the president would like to see more of in a piece of legislation.”While neither Democrats nor Republicans gave specifics on what was discussed, where each side’s public proposals fall on climate shows two very different visions for the extent and scope that tackling climate change will play in the infrastructure package. Read more about the negotiations here:
Biden's infrastructure talks with GOP collapse amid irreconcilable differences - — President Joe Biden's infrastructure talks with Republicans collapsed Tuesday, the lead GOP negotiator said. "I spoke with the president this afternoon, and he ended our infrastructure negotiations," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said in a statement. The end of the talks will increase pressure on Democrats to pass a sweeping package using a special process that doesn't require any Republican votes in the Senate. Weeks of negotiations failed to bring the White House and Republicans close to a deal. They remained far apart on a total price tag for a bill, which types of projects should be included and whether to raise any new taxes. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that as negotiations "seem to be running into a brick wall," Democrats are "pursuing a two-path proposal" that includes focusing on new talks among a group of senators from both parties, including Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio. "At the same time, we are pursuing the pursuit of reconciliation," Schumer said, referring to the process of passing legislation with a simple majority in the Senate, which Democrats used to advance the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief law. "It may well be that part of the bill that'll pass will be bipartisan and part of it will be through reconciliation. But we're not going to sacrifice the bigness and boldness in this bill," he said. After negotiations broke down, the backup bipartisan infrastructure group wrapped up an almost three-hour meeting Tuesday evening in the Capitol basement hideaway of Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. "This group is making a lot of progress, but we have a total of 100 senators, not eight," Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told reporters. "We went through line by line, and we've got pretty good agreement on most of those and went to the pay-fors, as well, and they're a little less solid. ... We got the categories, we got a round number for each one."
Manchin pushes back against Dem-only infrastructure bill as bipartisan negotiations crumble - Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is resisting growing pressure from his fellow Democrats to go it alone on President Biden's proposed $2.3 trillion tax and spending plan, even as infrastructure negotiations between the White House and a coalition of Republicans ran into a wall this week. Asked Tuesday whether he supported using budget reconciliation to pass the package, known as the American Jobs Plan, Manchin said: "I’m not even close to the thought process on that. We’re just trying to find an infrastructure bill we can all agree on." Manchin's comments come amid signs the bipartisan talks are coming to an end after months of back and forth, with the two sides still deeply divided over the size and scope of a package to rebuild the nation's crumbling roads and bridges. Although Biden is expected to meet on Tuesday with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the West Virginia Republican spearheading the negotiations, she told reporters that she does not have plans to produce a new counteroffer after Biden rejected a proposal to increase a $928 billion plan by $50 billion. The president has said that he wants at least $1 trillion in new spending. "We made a good robust effort. The biggest infrastructure package ever with pay-fors that we delineated," Capito said Monday. "And he said, ‘That’s not enough.’ So, I accept that. I mean I have to. He’s the president." Capito added: "We’re going to keep talking. But I’m not coming back with anything in the next 24 hours." Biden's ongoing talks with Republicans are just one of "several paths" for an infrastructure package, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. Another option, Psaki said, is working with a group of bipartisan lawmakers who have been quietly drafting a backup proposal. It's unclear what pricetag the group would offer. Separately, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Friday unveiled a bill that would invest $547 billion over five years in roads and bridges, as well as rail and other public transport. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., scheduled a markup of the bill for Wednesday. Biden spoke to DeFazio on Friday to "offer his support" for the markup, the process through which bills make their way through committees, Psaki said.
Democrats reach turning point with Manchin --Democrats say they’re at a turning point with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).Manchin’s decision to make known his opposition to the party’s sweeping voting rights legislation, a top priority for many Democrats, has raised serious questions about whether they can enact the bold agenda envisioned for President Biden’s first term.Manchin and another centrist, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), have created irksome obstacles within their own caucus, and Democrats have yet to land on a strategy for dealing with the internal dissent.A host of Democratic leaders and progressive activists who spoke to The Hill on Monday expressed a mix of resignation and anger over Manchin’s weekend op-ed voicing his objection to the For The People Act. Several noted there appeared to be no heads up to the White House or key Democratic leaders that it was coming. And it was widely seen as an abrasive move.While a number of Democrats were careful with their public remarks, anger is building given the difficulties to passing major structural reforms now coming from within the party.“Anger at Manchin and Sinema, when it comes to response, it’s nearly as strong as what we saw under [former President] Trump,” said Brianna Wu, executive director of Rebellion PAC, a left-wing political action committee attempting to recruit primary challengers to centrist lawmakers.A vocal portion of the party believes that challenging Manchin and Sinema from the left is the best way forward.The thinking is that with enough pressure, voters will see the moderates’ attempts to work with Republicans as increasingly politically untenable. Progressives like Wu want to run ads meant to dampen Manchin’s and Sinema’s approval ratings on their home turfs. And they believe they can make inroads.But other Democrats believe finding a Democrat to the left of Manchin who can win a general election in Trump-loving West Virginia is nothing more than wishcasting. Manchin isn’t up for reelection until 2024, and with the 2022 midterm elections on the horizon, they argue the window for experimentation is limited.“I don’t think we have time for primary challenges,” said first-term Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.). “It’s unclear if West Virginia is going to give us anyone better than Joe Manchin.”Jones and other elected officials are looking at Biden to redirect the conversation around voting rights entirely. In Jones’s view, the president has worked with prominent Republicans and centrists within his own party for decades and should be tested on his ability to sway the senator to passing the bill with the right framing. If the president can’t make inroads with Manchin over an act that fundamentally protects democratic principles, Jones said, he’s unlikely to be able to move him on other components of his agenda.
Progressives draw red line on keeping climate provisions in infrastructure bill - -Progressive anxiety about sufficiently strong climate change provisions being left out of forthcoming infrastructure legislation burst into public Wednesday with several Democratic lawmakers warning they would not rubber-stamp eventual legislation.Faced with razor-thin majorities in both chambers and bipartisan negotiations that have languished for weeks, many Democrats behind the scenes worry climate change has faded from center stage — and they worry about sacrificing what the scientific community says is necessary to stave off the worst consequences to claim a bipartisan victory.“The White House and Democratic Congress need to hold strong on real meaningful bold substantial climate provisions that President Biden proposed in his American Jobs Plan,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said at an event with Climate Power on Wednesday. “There is little appetite in our caucus for an infrastructure plan that ignores the greatest crisis, the most existential crisis that we face.”Earlier in the day, Heinrich tweeted insufficiently ambitious climate legislation “should not count on every Democratic vote,” and linked to a POLITICO article in which National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy acknowledged President Joe Biden might not get all of his loftier climate priorities, such as a clean energy standard, in eventual infrastructure legislation.Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) was even blunter in a tweet: "No climate, no deal," he wrote.At the same virtual event, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said he was “very confident” the Senate would ultimately be able to coalesce around an infrastructure package with a major climate title, including a clean energy standard. He added later he "agree[s] wholeheartedly" with Heinrich's sentiment that Democratic votes should not be taken for granted.“In fact, I think that's the only infrastructure bill we can pass out of the Senate,” he said of one with sufficiently strong climate provisions.\
House Problem Solver's Caucus Pushes $768 Billion Infrastructure Compromise --Could President Biden's push to pass the first part of his "Build Back Better" 'Great Society'-style scheme be any more disorganized?Last night, Bloomberg reported that talks between President Biden and Sen. Shelly Capito, the lead GOP negotiator had collapsed over deep disagreements over what constitutes "infrastructure". Biden has been trying to push his climate agenda via the legislation, something Republicans have resisted. After talks fell apart, a handful of senators were said to be in negotiations.And on Wednesday morning, Bloomberg reported that a different bipartisan group of lawmakers, comprising Democratic and Republican members of the House "Problem Solver's Conference," had managed to keep alive hope for a deal by coming together to back some $761.8 billion in new spending over eight years.Together with the $487.2 billion of spending likely to be approved via Biden's budget, this would bring the total to $1.2 trillion, while President Biden has pushed for a $1.7 trillion package.The Republican and Democratic co-chairs of the Problem Solvers, which is made up of 58 centrist House members, met with White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese late Tuesday about their efforts. One of the co-chairs, Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat and frequent CNBC commentator, is also working closely with Senators Bill Cassidy and Kyrsten Sinema. The other co-chair, Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, is reportedly also involved in talks with other lawmakers.The draft proposal by the Problem Solvers, according to the House aide, would designate $959 billion over eight years to transportation, including $518 billion for highways, roads and safety; $64 billion for bridge investment; $155 billion for transit, $25 billion for electric vehicle infrastructure; $120 billion for Amtrak passenger rail; $41 billion for airports; and $25 billion for waterways and ports.Some $90 billion would go to "asset neutral" investments, such as multi-model large investments.And $200 billion would be steered to energy, water, telecom and veterans housing, including $45 billion for broadband, $25 billion for electric grid and other green energy, and $14 billion for water storage in the West, added the aide, who was granted anonymity to discuss the plan.As White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki reminded reporters during Tuesday's press conference, Biden is leaving Wednesday for his first trip abroad since taking office. While Biden focuses on plugging the new G-7 corporate tax deal, expect the various groups of lawmakers engaged in semi-sanctioned "talks" to keep leaking details about their progress. Though whether any of this will actually succeed in moving the needle toward a deal remains to be seen. So far, at least, the only bipartisan support seen in Washington lately was in the Senate, which yesterday passed a bill to help the US counter and compete with China.
House committee passes $547 billion transportation bill with focus on climate after marathon meeting - After meeting throughout the night, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed a $547 billion package early Thursday aimed at fixing the nation’s roads and transit systems while putting a bigger focus on the environment. The committee spent 19 hours in a meeting that began Wednesday morning and considered more than 200 amendments to the transportation package and separate legislation to fund wastewater facilities. Committee Chairman Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) said the bills would lay the foundations for President Biden’s proposed $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan. “I commend my colleagues for their hard work helping craft these two bills to deliver what Americans expect and deserve: safe roads and bridges, reliable transit options and a robust passenger rail network, wastewater systems that aren’t on the brink of failure, and a commitment to address the existential threat of climate change,” DeFazio said in a statement. The final vote was 38-26, with two Republicans joining Democrats to support the bill. Democratic lawmakers and left-leaning groups say the bill represents a fundamental rethinking of the way the federal government approaches transportation policy — an effort to move beyond the highway-dominated approach of the 20th century. The five-year bill is separate from Biden’s infrastructure push but embodies many of the ideas proposed by the president. In Biden’s infrastructure moonshot, a big question: Can the nation still achieve its highest ambitions? It includes $343 billion for road and bridge construction, as well as highway safety — a boost of more than 50 percent over the last transportation bill Congress passed in 2015. It seeks to ensure that states maintain existing highway infrastructure before adding new lanes and would create programs aimed at reducing carbon emissions from driving. The bill would significantly boost funding for other modes of transportation. It calls for $109 billion for transit and $95 billion for rail, including a tripling of funding to Amtrak, to $32 billion. Despite the two Republican votes in support, the debate underscored partisan divisions over how the federal government should approach transportation policy. GOP leaders branded the legislation the “My Way or the Highway Bill” and sought to characterize it as hopelessly radical.
'Tentative Infrastructure Deal' Reached By Tiny Group Of Senators Led By Romney - After talks between President Joe Biden and Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) broke down earlier this week, a bipartisan group of 10 senators led by Mitt Romney (R-UT) say they've reached a tentative deal on the the size of an infrastructure deal, as well as how they'd pay for it. The deal would spend a fraction of the $4.1 trillion called for by President Biden, and would not require an increase in taxes, according to The Hill, which suggests it may be a "tough sell within the broader Senate Democratic caucus." That said, members of the bipartisan group warned on Thursday that they still need to run it past the Senate GOP conference and the White House to see if there's a broader buy-in. "We have a tentative agreement on the pay-fors, yes, but that’s among the five Democrats and the five Republicans. It has not been taken to our respective caucuses or the White House so we’re in the middle of the process. We’re not at the end of the process, not at the beginning but we’re in the middle," said Romney, who added that an overall top-line spending number has also been tentatively agreed upon. "I believe it’s complete but others may have a different point of view." Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine confirmed that a tentative deal exists, and called it a "significant" sign of progress. "Among the ten of us there is a tentative agreement on a framework but obviously there’s a long ways to go. I would not say that we have the leaders on board or we have started negotiating with the White House but I think having 10 senators come together and reach an agreement on a framework is significant," she said. Earlier Thursday, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Fox News that Republicans "haven't given up hope" for a deal. "We haven't given up hope that we'll be able to reach a deal on something really important for the country that we really need to accomplish, and that is a major infrastructure bill," he said, adding "I think it's clearly possible. We haven't given up on reaching an agreement on infrastructure. ... I think there's a good chance we can get there."
Bipartisan Senate group announces infrastructure deal - A bipartisan group of 10 senators Thursday afternoon announced an agreement on a “compromise framework” to invest $1.2 trillion in infrastructure over the next eight years. Sources familiar with the deal said it would provide $974 billion over five years. They also said the framework is focused on “core, physical infrastructure” and would not increase taxes, though it includes an option to index the gas tax to inflation. Further, it would provide $579 billion in new funding over what would otherwise be spent without any new legislation. “Our group — comprised of 10 senators, five from each party — has worked in good faith and reached a bipartisan agreement on a realistic, compromise framework to modernize our nation’s infrastructure and energy technologies,” members of the bipartisan group said in a joint statement. “This investment would be fully paid for and not include tax increases,” they added. The statement was issued by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the leaders of the group that also includes Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), John Tester (D-Mont.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Mark Warner (D-Va.). The senators cautioned that the deal still needs to be presented to the Senate Republican conference and the White House to see if there’s broader buy-in. But they said they “remain optimistic this can lay the groundwork to garner broad support from both parties and meet America’s infrastructure needs.” The bipartisan framework would spend only a fraction of the $4.1 trillion President Biden has called for and includes an option to index the gas tax to inflation, which could make it a tough sell within the broader Senate Democratic caucus. “We have a tentative agreement on the pay-fors, yes, but that’s among the five Democrats and the five Republicans. It has not been taken to our respective caucuses or the White House so we’re in the middle of the process. We’re not at the end of the process, not at the beginning but we’re in the middle,” Romney told reporters Thursday afternoon. Romney said there’s also a tentative agreement to the overall top-line spending number. “I believe it’s complete but others may have a different point of view,”
Half of pandemic unemployment money may have been stolen: report – Fraudsters may have plundered as much as half of the unemployment benefits that the US pumped out in a hurry during the pandemic. Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, a fraud prevention service, told Axios that the US has lost more than $400 billion to crooked claims.The US may have been robbed of as much as half of all money given out through unemployment benefits during the pandemic, Hall told the outlet. Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, estimated that most of the stolen money, at least 70 percent, probably ended up outside the US, according to Axios.Much of the pilfered funds likely went to criminal syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere, he said, according to the outlet.“These groups are definitely backed by the state,” Talcove told Axios. A lot of the money was also likely stolen by US street gangs, who have been taking a greater share of the stolen funds in recent months, Axios reported. Criminals were likely able to defraud the government by stealing personal information and using it to impersonate would-be unemployment claimants, Axios reported.Other groups, the report said, may have tricked legitimate claimants into handing over their personal information. Low-level criminals, or so-called mules, would then be given debit cards and asked to withdraw money from ATMs, the report said. That money could then be transferred abroad, often via untraceable cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.It’s long been assumed by many politicians and government watchdogs that criminals would make off with at least some of the emergency pandemic relief funds.State unemployment systems were ill-prepared for the demands of the pandemic. It was widely assumed that some of the hundreds of billions doled out would slip through the cracks, but many politicians said it was critical to get the money out as quickly as possible.Now, the latest estimates reveal the scope of the fraud that took place over the past year.
Outsourcing Production Of Virtually Everything Has Brought US Economy To Brink Of Nightmare Scenario -Many of the imbalances that are contributing to the nightmarish shortages that we are currently witnessing are not going to be solved any time soon. Ever since I started The Economic Collapse Blog, I have been warning that outsourcing the production of just about everything and running massive trade deficits year after year would eventually have very serious consequences down the road. Well, now we are officially “down the road”, and our incredibly foolish trade policies have put us in a very precarious position. During the “good times”, being extremely dependent on the rest of the world to make stuff for us wasn’t a problem, but now it is rapidly becoming a national security issue. For example, without a steady flow of computer chips, our society as it is formulated today simply could not function. We need computer chips for our vehicles, for the trucks that transport all of our goods, for the farm equipment that produces our food, for the extremely sophisticated equipment in our hospitals and for the millions upon millions of electronic devices that connect to the Internet.The global chip shortage has been a very painful reminder of how exceedingly dependent we have become on technology, and it has also shown us how unwise it was to outsource production of most of our chips to Asia.Back in 1990, the United States produced 37 percent of all computer chips in the world.Today, that number has fallen to just 12 percent.Business leaders are now pledging to start ramping up production here in the U.S., but that will take an extended period of time, and Intel’s CEO is openly admitting that the current shortage of chips could take “several years” to be resolved…
Biden Administration Announces "Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force"- The Biden administration appears to have a plan to address supply chain bottlenecks in key industries - not the least of which is the semiconductor industry. On Tuesday, the administration announced a "supply-chain disruptions task force" (thank God, we're saved), to identify bottlenecks. It'll be headed up by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo with the help of "Mayor Pete" and will focus on areas like homebuilding and construction, in addition to semiconductors, Bloomberg reports. Among the reasons to establish this task force are rising prices and extended delivery times, according to the report. As to the former, we can't help but wonder if Raimondo's first "task force" meeting should be held at the offices of the NY Fed.The group will hold meetings with "stakeholders and supply-chain experts" and will announce its results in the near term. Jared Bernstein, a member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, commented: “There will be more information forthcoming on precise measures that this more near-term initiative will be taking in weeks not months.”The White House also released a 250 page report on Tuesday with "assessments and an expansive list of recommendations". The report reads: “For too long, the United States has taken certain features of global markets -- especially the fear that companies and capital will flee to wherever wages, taxes and regulations are lowest -- as inevitable.”Among items to be looked at are magnets: "The investigation will specifically look at neodymium magnets that are crucial to creating a field for motors to run in perpetuity in everything from electric vehicles to missile guidance systems to wind turbines. China is the largest global producer of those magnets, which are made up of rare earths."As well as semiconductors:"On semiconductors, the Commerce Department will increase information flow between producers and suppliers of chips as well as their end-users. The White House also recommends Congress appropriates at least $50 billion in funding for semiconductor research and production in the U.S. -- a key pillar of a broader China competition bill that the Senate may approve on Tuesday."
Biden And EU Leaders To Unravel Trump's $18 Billion 'America First' Tariff Fight -President Joe Biden and his European Union counterparts will commit to ending outstanding trade battles next week at an EU-US summit in Brussels on June 15, as globalists eager to get back to 'business as usual' seek to unravel tariffs related to a steel and aluminum conflict which came to a head under the Trump administration - contributing to over $18 billion in US and EU exports subject to steep levies.According to Bloomberg, which has seen a draft of the conclusions, the allies will agree to resolve disagreements - including a nearly two-decade old aircraft dispute which involves illegal government aid provided to Airbus and Boeing - before July 11. In advance of the agreement, US and EU leaders have agreed to suspend aircraft tariffs until July ahead of the pending settlement.In 2019, the World Trade Organization authorized the U.S. to level tariffs against $7.5 billion of EU exports annually over state support for Airbus, while the EU won permission to hit back with levies on $4 billion of U.S. goods.The two sides will also work toward rolling off tariffs in the steel and aluminum dispute before Dec. 1,according to the draft. In 2018, the U.S. imposed levies on metals exports from Europe on national-security grounds. The EU retaliated by targeting 2.8 billion euros ($3.4 billion) of American imports with tariffs on a range of big-brand products, including Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycles, Levi Strauss & Co. jeans and bourbon whiskey. -Bloomberg"We should finally put ongoing disputes, of which unfortunately there are some, behind us," said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas - who must be giddy as a schoolgirl after President Biden handed both Germany a massive gift by laying off sanctions over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline through which Russia will natural gas to Europe. "We are now making progress in some areas: the moratorium on punitive tariffs from the Airbus-Boeing dispute and the EU decision against responding in kind to the measures in the dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs."
Harris tells migrants: 'Do not come, do not come' - Vice President Harris on Monday pleaded with migrants from Central American countries to stay home in a speech in Guatemala during her first foreign trip.Harris has the tricky task of reintroducing the United States as a friend and ally to the region while finding ways to reduce migration, which has often been Central America's only social safety valve amid worsening humanitarian conditions. The vice president was blunt in her message to Central Americans, repeating the line, "Do not come."To soften the blow, she framed the Biden administration's closed-door policy in a message of hope for the region."I want to emphasize that the goal of our work is to help Guatemalans find hope at home. At the same time I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States Mexico border: Do not come, do not come," Harris said.The Biden administration's Central America strategy represents, like many other aspects of Biden's immigration policy, a stark shift from the Trump administration's initiatives.While former President Trump's policy was catalogued as cruel by its opponents, it was simple: Mexico and Central America could avoid monetary sanctions through tough enforcement of migratory laws.The Biden administration's more holistic approach offers humanitarian benefits, de-escalating the enforcement measures that can have a punitive effect on desperate migrants, but it presents a risk for Harris, whose political future will likely be forever tied to the strategy's results.In March, Biden put Harris in charge of the administration's efforts to stem the flow of migrants seeking entry to the United States at the southern border. She is also tasked with forming partnerships with Northern Triangle countries to get at the root causes of a surge of immigration during the early months of the administration.In a press conference alongside Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, Harris announced a handful of new initiatives, including a joint task force to combat human trafficking and smuggling, a young women’s empowerment program and a U.S. anti-corruption task force.She said that the U.S. would invest in agricultural businesses and affordable housing and help support entrepreneurs in Guatemala. The White House said that it plans to invest $48 million over four years to boost economic opportunity in Guatemala, according to a fact sheet.Harris also announced that the U.S. would send a half-million surplus coronavirus vaccines to Guatemala as part of a broader effort to boost the global vaccine supply.But Harris's repeated appeal for migrants to stay home overshadowed the minutiae of the visit, as it laid bare the harsh truth that migrant apprehension numbers at the U.S.-Mexico border remain the standard by which immigration policy success is measured.
AOC blasts VP Harris for telling illegals to 'not come' - Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is blasting Vice President Kamala Harris for telling illegal immigrants to not come to the United States amid a record surge in illegal border crossings — calling the veep’s comments “disappointing.”Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) offered the rebuke in a series of tweets Monday evening, retweeting a video of the vice president discouraging illegal migration during her trip to Guatemala.“I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come, do not come,” Harris said while speaking to reporters at a press conference alongside Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei. “The United States will continue to enforce our laws, and secure our border. There are legal methods by which migration can and should occur, but we, as one of our priorities, will discourage illegal migration,” said Harris, who on Tuesday is in Mexico meeting with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “And I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back.” For AOC, Harris’ comments were “disappointing to see.”“First, seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival,” the progressive pol wrote.\“Second, the US spent decades contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America. We can’t help set someone’s house on fire and then blame them for fleeing.”The New York Democrat went on to call on the US to “finally acknowledge its contributions to destabilization and regime change in the region.”“Doing so can help us change US foreign policy, trade policy, climate policy, & carceral border policy to address causes of mass displacement & migration,” she added.
The Immigration Debate Shows Progressives Have Abandoned the Working Class - Vice President Kamala Harris had strong words for migrants making their way to America's border on her first trip as vice president, to Guatemala. "Do not come," Harris said—twice—while speaking to reporters. "The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. There are legal methods by which migration can and should occur, but we, as one of our priorities, will discourage illegal migration." But the idea that America should have a national border—one which it polices and secures—and that America is entitled to a formal legal process whereby it grants citizenship to would-be immigrants, was not an obvious point to everyone."This is disappointing to see," tweeted Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the standard-bearer for the progressive Left. "First, seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival. Second, the US spent decades contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America. We can't help set someone's house on fire and then blame them for fleeing." In publicly expressing her dissent, Ocasio-Cortez telegraphed to the Biden administration in no uncertain terms that any legal restrictions at all on immigration will face fierce opposition from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. She was not the only one."We should not abandon our values and rights to far right white nationalists," tweeted fellow Squad-member Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) atop video of Harris's speech. This view, that discouraging illegal immigration is a white nationalist value, is actually a new one for progressives. "Open borders?" democratic socialist Bernie Sanders (D-VT) scoffed in an interview with Ezra Klein for Vox as recently as 2015. "That's a Koch Brothers proposal." "It would make a lot of global poor richer, wouldn't it?" Klein pressed. "It would make everybody in America poorer," Sanders responded. "You're doing away with the concept of a nation-state, and I don't think there's any country in the world that believes in that. If you believe in a nation-state or in a country called the United States or U.K. or Denmark or any other country, you have an obligation in my view to do everything we can to help poor people." It was a right-wing proposition to have unbridled immigration, Sanders insisted as recently as six years ago. "What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy," Sanders explained. "Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don't believe in that."Sanders was voicing what many Americans—both white and people of color— had already figured out. A large majority of African Americans and Hispanics said they would vote for a presidential candidate who stood for strengthening our border security to reduce illegal immigration, a 2019 Harvard-Harris poll found. That shouldn't be surprising; illegal immigration has been tied to a 20-60 percent decrease in Black working-class wages. Another recent study suggested that immigration accounts for a third of the decline in the Black employment rate over the last 40 years. "Black Americans are more supportive of limiting immigration than any other bloc of the Democratic coalition. And Hispanics actually tend to be more concerned about illegal immigration than are whites or Blacks,"
Guatemala's President Says Biden Admin's Unclear Messaging On Illegal Immigration Fueled Border Surge -Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei criticized the Biden administration for unclear messaging on immigration that he said contributed to the border surge. Giammattei told Fox News that, “You can see that humanitarian messages were used here by the coyotes in a distorted manner,” with “coyotes” a term for human smugglers. “They said that they were going to support family reunification,” Giammattei said, referring to the Biden administration’s policy of allowing unaccompanied minors to enter the United States on humanitarian grounds and of seeking to unite them with family members in the United States. “So the coyotes came and took the children and teenagers to the United States,” he said. “And the border filled up. Not only with people from Guatemala, but lots of people.” “That’s why we have suggested that the messaging be clear,” Giammattei added. The surge of people migrating from Central American countries has become one of the biggest political challenges to the Biden administration, with Republicans blaming the wave of illegal border crossings on a rollback of Trump-era immigration policies and on messaging that many would-be migrants and human traffickers are interpreting as an invitation to come to the United States.
VP Kamala Harris meets with Mexico's AMLO about immigration – Vice President Kamala Harris' first foreign trip drew to a close Tuesday after her first face-to-face meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in which she sought to bolster cooperation on border security, Central American migration and COVID-19 vaccine sharing. After a morning of meetings with López Obrador – known by his initials as AMLO – at Palacio Nacional, or the National Palace, Harris said she had "very direct and candid conversations" about her aim to tackle the underlying causes of migration from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. She later met with female entrepreneurs and labor leaders. The trip gave Harris a chance to burnish her foreign policy credibility on the world stage. . Harris reiterated the administration's message to undocumented migrants considering making the dangerous journey to the USA: "Do not come." During the two-day jaunt, the vice president responded to criticism over not making a trip to the U.S. southern border. "The work that we are doing by being in Guatemala yesterday and in Mexico today is the work of reinforcing the point that we have to look at not only what is actually happening at the border but what is causing that to happen," she said Tuesday afternoon. "We cannot be simplistic and assume that there is only one element or way of approaching the overall problem. If this were easy, it would have been handled a long time ago, and there is no question that it is complex." When asked at a press conference whether she will visit the U.S.-Mexico border, Harris said "Yes, I will." However, she did not say how soon she would make the trip. Harris said she and López Obrador discussed Mexico's enhanced port security initiatives, economic development and cracking down on drug smuggling and human trafficking. The two spent nearly two hours together at the National Palace, where they toured the historic building's murals. Harris and López Obrador met privately before and after the event, which lasted an hour. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will travel to Mexico next week to expand on talks, Harris said. Harris announced the United States will invest $130 million in technical assistance and cooperation over the next three years to Mexico as it implements labor legislation to fund programs that will support workers, improve working conditions and address child and forced labor. The United States agreed to invest $250 million in economic development in southern Mexico.
Biden admin officials 'perplexed' at Harris' performance during Central America trip -- Biden administration officials are “quietly perplexed” about Vice President Kamala Harris’ fumbling multiple questions about the border and are concerned her unforced errors will overshadow her first international trip, according to a report.Speaking to CNN, administration officials discussed how the question of visiting the border dogged Harris for the whole trip, with her answer to NBC News’ Lester Holt stealing the spotlight from her work.“At some point, you know, we are going to the border,” a defensive Harris told Holt on “Today” in Guatemala — 1,308 miles away from the US-Mexico crossing.“We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border, we’ve been to the border,” Harris said, to which Holt replied, “You haven’t been to the border.” Harris, seeming to laugh at her own joke, responded: “And I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”Administration officials told CNN there was “a real hope” that the trip would be a success, and voiced their concern that “what looked like ill-prepared answers to that inevitable question would overshadow it.”
Kamala Harris’s anti-immigrant tour: identity politics in service of imperialism - “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” (Poem by Emma Lazarus, inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty) “Do not come, do not come…if you come to our border, you will be turned back.” (Vice President Kamala Harris to migrants fleeing destitution and rampant violence in Central America) Kamala Harris this week made her first foreign trip since taking office as US vice president. It was a lightning three-day visit to Guatemala and Mexico aimed at firming up the use of their security forces to violently suppress the flow of Central American migrants seeking to escape desperate poverty along with police and gang killings, and to reunite with family members in the US. Much was made in the US and international media of Harris being the first woman and first African/Asian-American to represent Washington abroad on such a high-level state visit. A child of immigrants, Harris was entrusted with the dirty and, indeed, homicidal job of coordinating a multinational crackdown on immigration. Nowhere could one find a more blatant illustration of the role played by identity politics in defending the capitalist order at home and US imperialist interests abroad. Harris’s trip included window-dressing along these lines, including a promised $40 million to “empower” young women. This represents a drop in the ocean for a country where fully half of the population is categorized as poor and which has the sixth-highest malnutrition rate on the planet. As for the rate of chronic child malnutrition, it now stands at a shocking 70 percent, the highest in the world, with children dying every day for lack of food. Harris spent her day in Guatemala in discussions with President Alejandro Giammattei, an extreme right-wing politician who came into office with the backing of the country’s ruling oligarchy and the military. He was nearly overthrown last year by mass protests, which included the burning of the Congress building, that broke out against government austerity and its criminal mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As VP Harris visits Mexico City, a migrant tent camp grows in border town— Amid scorching temperatures, the number of tents grows daily in this city across the border from McAllen, Texas, as some 700 migrants, including hundreds of children, have set up camp at Plaza de la República.Carolina wiped away tears as she shared how she and her 12-year-old daughter, Genesis, were deported from the U.S. just hours before. “I am desperate,” she said, her emotions still raw. The pair crossed the river into McAllen the night before, on a raft packed with others seeking to migrate to the U.S. They were held for about six hours, they said, and bused back across the bridge to Reynosa. “I don’t even have a house to live in — the hurricanes destroyed everything," Carolina said, sobbing, referring to Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which caused mass destruction in Honduras and the region. Next to her was Jeny, a Honduran nurse who has just arrived at the camp with her two children, Fani, who is 15, and José, 11. They made it across the Rio Grande Monday night and told an agent that gangs murdered her brother and father over the last four months. A few hours later, she and her children were bused back to Mexico. “I don’t even know how to find a tent to sleep in,” she said.Jeny, stranded with her son and daughter in Reynosa, said gangs in Honduras killed her father and brother this year. Erika Angulo / NBC NewsThe Reynosa encampment is hardly safe for migrants escaping violence.Felicia Rangel-Samponaro runs Sidewalk School, a nonprofit that offers classroom instruction for asylum-seeking children in six cities across the border. She said two weeks ago at least six people were kidnapped from the plaza.Gang members “come into the plaza,” Rangel-Samponaro said. “They drag a person away. You hear the person screaming for help. Everyone stands around and watches, which is understandable. No one wants to die.” Rival gangs and cartels clash often in Reynosa, a city of some 600,000 people in the state of Tamaulipas. The U.S. State Department warns American travelers not to visit the city.It’s seen a recent influx as many families are being returned to Mexico under Title 42, which was implemented by the Trump administration during Covid-19 and allows the government to turn away migrants seeking asylum for public health reasons. The Biden administration has allowed unaccompanied minors to stay — but has not done away with Title 42. Still, the Mexican state of Tamaulipas has told authorities that it will not accept families with children under 7, and some of those families have been allowed to stay in the U.S.Compounding the human bottleneck at the border are smugglers feeding misinformation to many of the migrants, convincing them with false promises that President Joe Biden will further ease border restrictions.
Report: Nearly 4,000 children separated from parents at border under Trump --The Biden administration has reportedly found that nearly 4,000 children were separated from their families after the Trump administration enacted its “zero tolerance” policy. Citing sources familiar with the administration’s findings, ABC News reported that more than 3,900 children were separated from their families between July 2017 and January 2021. Around 400 other children were sent back to their home countries. Fewer than than 60 families are currently in the process of being reunited. In April it was reported that a review by the Biden administration could reveal whether additional families were separated at the border due to the Trump administration's policies. “We found the list we had when we came in was not comprehensive and included large time frames that had not been reviewed,” a Department of Homeland Security official said at the time. This report is part of an initial review from the Biden administration’s Family Reunification Task Force, ABC reported. The group is being chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The task force is offering families of children who are still in the U.S. on their own the option of coming to the U.S. to be reunified with their children. According to ABC, 62 family members have been approved for entry into the U.S. so far. When asked why so few families are being reunited right now, a Homeland Security official told ABC that it was a "giant task" that required the coordination of multiple government agencies. The official added that the largest obstacle was convincing the parents of the children "to trust the government again." The Biden administration in May announced that the first families separated at the border would be reunited. At the time of the announcement, Mayorkas said these reunifications were "just the beginning." "Today is just the beginning. We are reuniting the first group of families, many more will follow, and we recognize the importance of providing these families with the stability and resources they need to heal," Mayorkas said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announces plan to arrest migrants and build border wall - Texas will begin building its own border wall and next week will start arresting migrants who trespass on private property, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday. "Change is needed to fix the border crisis," Abbott said. The order was one of several new initiatives announced by Abbott during the Border Security Summit, including appropriating $1 billion for border security, asking the federal government for relief for landowners and creating a task force on border security. Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz said he was present for the summit breakout session that included local elected officials and said his impression was that Abbott's border wall was more of a border "fence." Abbott "said 'fence' two or three times," Saenz said. Saenz said Abbott did not go into the details of how and when the border wall would be built. But his understanding is that the border wall, the fence or the border barrier would become the basis for arresting migrants -- with the damage to the fence used as proof of the trespassing of private property. Abbott said he would provide more details on the border wall next week. Abbott also spoke of a disaster declaration he had issued last week, which directed the state's Department of Public Safety to enforce both federal and state criminal laws, including criminal trespassing, smuggling and human trafficking while having Texas Health and Human Services Commission take "all necessary steps" to discontinue the state licensure of "any child care facility that shelters or detains unlawful immigrants" under a contract with the federal government. Desperate and alone: The painful consequences of family 'self-separation' at the border Desperate and alone: The painful consequences of family 'self-separation' at the border Abbott said the effort to jail migrants will require the cooperation of local mayors, law enforcement, prosecutors and judges and that arresting more people will require more jail space, something he says he plans to work on with county officials to achieve. Saenz said a local official asked Abbott about migrant families, and if people with children would be arrested. Abbott responded by saying that only single adults would be arrested, Saenz said, making clear that the policy did not apply to families with children. Abbott kicked off his remarks by blaming the border crisis on what he calls the "open-border policies" of the Biden administration. Last week, Abbott teased on Fox News that he was planning to arrest all migrants entering the country starting this week. During the Border Security Summit, he said the arrests would start next week.
Biden administration launches anti-human trafficking task force - The Biden administration on Monday announced the formation of a new task force to combat human trafficking and smuggling groups operating in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico in tandem with Vice President Harris’s trip to the region. The initiative was one of a handful highlighted by Harris during a press conference Monday afternoon alongside Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei. The Justice Department said that the new task force, known as Joint Task Force Alpha, will involve federal prosecutors partnering with officials working for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to dismantle and prosecute human trafficking and smuggling networks operating out of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. “Transnational human smuggling and trafficking networks pose a serious criminal threat. These networks not only seek to profit from the exploitation of migrants, but also routinely expose them to violence, injury, and even death,” Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote in a memo to U.S. attorneys on Monday. “The Joint Task Force will investigate and prosecute those who are criminally smuggling and trafficking individuals into the United States, with a particular focus on individuals and networks that abuse, exploit, or endanger those being smuggled, pose national security threats, or have links to transnational organized crime,” Garland wrote. The memo says that since October of last year, DHS has rescued more than 4,000 migrants at the southwest border who were abandoned by smugglers. The task force will involve federal prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys' offices for the District of Arizona, Southern District of California, Southern District of Texas and Western District of Texas as well as prosecutors from the Justice Department’s criminal and civil rights divisions. The task force will also be assisted by DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol law enforcement officials. “We will take action to identify smugglers and their associates to ensure that we enhance the security of the U.S. border, and help save the lives of vulnerable people these organizations routinely prey upon," Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. Officials will work with foreign partners in the Northern Triangle and Mexico in order to investigate and prosecute human trafficking and smuggling groups in addition to spearheading investigations in the U.S.
Rep. Omar claims America committed 'unspeakable atrocities' -- Far-left “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) equated the United States with Hamas and the Taliban Monday, writing on Twitter that all three had committed “unspeakable atrocities.” During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Omar pressed Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his opposition to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation of alleged war crimes committed by US military personnel in Afghanistan, as well as the Israeli military in their conflicts against Arab militias. “In both of these cases, if domestic courts can’t or won’t pursue justice and we oppose the ICC, where do we think victims are supposed to go for justice?” Omar asked. In his response, Blinken referenced the fact that neither the US or Israel are parties to the ICC, saying “we continue to believe that absent a [United Nations] Security Council referral or absent the request by the state itself, that [an ICC investigation is] not appropriate.” “Mr. Secretary, I do understand that point,” Omar said. “I’m asking what mechanism is available to them.” The lawmaker later posted video of the exchange on Twitter, with the caption: “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice.”
Biden administration releases emergency temporary standard for healthcare facilities -The Labor Department on Thursday released a COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for health care workers, following more than a year of Democratic lawmakers pushing for such a standard the all front-line workers in the coronavirus pandemic. The standard covers health care facilities treating COVID-19 and requires that employers comply with safety and health standards issued and enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), such as mask wearing and cleaning procedures. It also requires health care facilities to provide their workers with a safe workplace free from recognized hazards and to notify them when there are exposed to infections. OSHA updated guidance for employers and workers not covered by the OSHA ETS that it deems higher-risk workplaces, including manufacturing, meatpacking plants, grocery stores and retail stores. That guidance includes staggering break times, staffer worker arrivals and departure times, and providing visual cues like signs to maintain distancing. The agency announced in April it sent a draft ETS on the coronavirus pandemic to the Office of Management and Budget, defending the extra time the agency took to move on establishing a standard. President Biden issued an executive order in January on protecting worker health and safety, which called on OSHA to issue an ETS by March 15. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was critical of OSHA’s decision not to include other workers in the standard on Thursday and called the move for health care workers a “first step.” “OSHA’s decision to omit other frontline workers exposed to COVID-19, including farmworkers, grocery workers, workers in meat-packing facilities and those working in homeless shelters and prisons, is troubling and shortsighted,” she said.
G7 Countries Reach Deal on 15% Global Minimum Tax Rate for Multinational Corporations -Representatives from seven of the world’s wealthiest nations reached an agreement on Saturday to support a global minimum tax rate of at least 15% for multinational companies, a move aimed at curbing the use of tax havens and ending the decades-long race to the bottom on corporate taxation.The deal struck by the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, and Canada still faces a long road to implementation, but Saturday’s development marks substantial progress toward a global accord that could allow governments to raise revenue from corporate giants notorious for shifting operations and profits overseas to avoid taxes.“The G7 has taken significant steps this weekend to end the existing harmful dynamic, making commitments today that provide tremendous momentum towards achieving a robust global minimum tax at a rate of at least 15%,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Saturday. “This effort is far from over, and we look forward to engaging closely with the G20 and members of the OECD Inclusive Framework process in the coming weeks to finalize an agreement on the global minimum corporate tax as soon as possible.” While arguing that the proposed 15% global minimum tax rate is too low, economist Gabriel Zucman hailed the G7 agreement as “a game-changer because it slashes incentives for multinational firms to book profits in tax havens, thus removing incentives for tax havens to offer low tax rates.” “In effect, this severely undermines (and ultimately destroys) the development model of tax havens,” Zucman explained that a 15% global minimum tax “does not mean that all countries must increase their corporate tax rate to 15%.” “It means that multinational profits will be subject to a 15% minimum effective rate,” he continued. “Take a German multinational that books income in Ireland, taxed at an effective rate of 5%. Germany will now collect an extra 10% tax to arrive at a rate of 15%—same for profits booked by German multinationals in Bermuda, Singapore, etc. Other nations will proceed similarly.” According to the E.U. Tax Observatory, an independent research organization, a 15% global minimum tax on multinational corporations would allow the U.K. to bring in €200 million in additional revenue per year just from BP—which, like other major oil giants, works to avoid its tax obligations in its home country by shifting profits to overseas tax havens.
Amazon could sidestep new G7 corporate tax measures because its profit margins are below a 10% threshold - Amazon may be able to avoid new taxes agreed by the G7 because its profit margins are below a 10% threshold, The Guardian reported. The G7 group of wealthy nations announced a two-pronged agreement Saturday that tackles the tax contributions of the world's biggest tech companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Google parent Alphabet, and Apple. The deal seeks to introduce a 15% global minimum corporate tax rate. It also aim to address one of the key ways that global tech giants keep tax contributions to a minimum — by declaring corporate profits in tax havens, away from the countries where much of their business is done. One criterion under discussion for selecting which companies to further tax is their profit margin, with a 10% threshold being discussed.Above that margin, 20% of whatever profit they declare would be reallocated — and taxed — in the countries where they make sales. —Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) June 5, 2021This second aspect of the deal is where Amazon may have an advantage, The Guardian reported. Despite colossal sales, Amazon's profit margin is low because of its strategy of aggressive growth and reinvestment, as Vox reported. "Our profits have remained low given our continued investments across Europe," the company wrote in a May blog post, which emphasizes the "millions" of dollars paid there by the company. According to The Guardian, Amazon's profit margin in 2020 was 6.3%, significantly below the 10% threshold.
The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax — ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing. In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row. ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits.Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, amassing little wealth and paying the federal government a percentage of their income that rises if they earn more. In recent years, the median American household earned about $70,000 annually and paid 14% in federal taxes. The highest income tax rate, 37%, kicked in this year, for couples, on earnings above $628,300. The confidential tax records obtained by ProPublica show that the ultrarich effectively sidestep this system. America’s billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell.To capture the financial reality of the richest Americans, ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before. We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period.We’re going to call this their true tax rate.The results are stark. According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.It’s a completely different picture for middle-class Americans, for example, wage earners in their early 40s who have amassed a typical amount of wealth for people their age. From 2014 to 2018, such households saw their net worth expand by about $65,000 after taxes on average, mostly due to the rise in value of their homes. But because the vast bulk of their earnings were salaries, their tax bills were almost as much, nearly $62,000, over that five-year period.
IRS data shows: US billionaires’ true tax rate far lower than that of workers On June 8, ProPublica published the first in a projected series of articles documenting the massive scale of legally sanctioned tax evasion carried out by America’s ever-expanding class of billionaires. The article, based on an exhaustive study of leaked Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents, focuses on the period from 2014 through 2018. It demonstrates that in the course of those five years, the 25 richest Americans paid federal taxes on their increased wealth at a far lower rate than the typical US household. The report also cites tax data on billionaire oligarchs such as Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk and Michael Bloomberg going back to the first decade of the current century, showing that they paid little or no taxes regardless of which big business party—Democrats or Republicans—occupied the White House. It explains as well that even were the Biden administration to carry out its promised increases in income tax rates for the rich, the impact on the vast fortunes of today’s robber barons would be minimal. The authors state that in determining the increased wealth of America’s “top 0.001 percent,” they included not simply their salaries, which in many cases comprise only a small share of their actual income, but also “investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits.” The result, they note, demolishes “the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most.” They continue: “The IRS records show that the wealthiest can—perfectly legally—pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.” In order to calculate what ProPublica terms the “true tax rate” of the 25 richest Americans, the report compares how much in taxes these individuals paid over a given period to how much their wealth grew, using wealth estimates published by Forbes magazine. Between 2014 and 2018, Forbes estimated that these 25 people saw their wealth increase collectively by $401 billion. The documents obtained by ProPublica show that these same individuals collectively paid $13.6 billion in federal income taxes over the same time period, for a true tax rate of only 3.4 percent. By contrast, ProPublica found that between 2014 and 2018, a typical US worker in his or her 40s experienced a net wealth expansion of about $65,000. That same worker’s tax bills “were almost as much, nearly $62,000, over that five-year period.” Over that same period, according to ProPublica, Warren Buffett’s wealth increased by $24.3 billion, but the Berkshire Hathaway mogul paid only $23.7 million in taxes, resulting in a true tax rate of 0.10 percent. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’ wealth soared by a staggering $99 billion, but he paid just $973 million in taxes, yielding a true tax rate of less than 1 percent. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is another “pandemic profiteer.” He saw his wealth skyrocket this past year, in part by violating a state-ordered shutdown and illegally restarting production at the Fremont, California, Tesla factory, leading to hundreds of coronavirus infections. Between 2014 and 2018 his wealth grew by $13.9 billion, while he paid $455 million in taxes, resulting in a true tax rate of 3.27 percent.
Warren Buffett, Who Advocates Higher Taxes, Defends Paying the Least Among America's Richest - Billionaire Warren Buffett has offered his defense for reportedly paying the least taxes out of the 25 richest people in America. Buffett's wealth grew by $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018 but he only paid $23.7 million in taxes, a rate of 0.1 percent, after reporting taxable income of $125 million, according to an article published Tuesday by ProPublica. He defended his practices while insisting that he is in favor of tax reforms in a lengthy statement to the nonprofit news outlet. "I continue to believe that the tax code should be changed substantially," wrote Buffett. "I hope that the earned-income tax credit is increased substantially and additionally believe that huge dynastic wealth is not desirable for our society." "Perhaps annual payout requirements should be increased for foundations," he added. "Some time ago, I testified before Senator Baucus in favor of increasing and tightening estate taxes. (My persuasive powers proved to be limited.)." Buffett has frequently advocated that higher tax rates be imposed on the wealthy, including backing former President Barack Obama's so-called "Buffett Rule" a decade ago. The rule would require the wealthiest Americans to pay a tax rate that is no lower than that paid by the middle class. The billionaire has managed to pay a very low rate of taxes by minimizing his income while retaining most of shares he holds in his company Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett said that his stock in his company constituted around 99 percent of his overall personal wealth. Berkshire Hathaway stock also does not bear dividends, further reducing taxable income for Buffett and other investors in the company. Buffett said that Berkshire shareholders had expressed "enthusiasm" for the "save-and-build philosophy." "I can't think of any large public company with investors so united in their reinvestment beliefs," Buffett wrote. "A 50 to 1 vote against dividends is simply unheard of." Although the tax period covered in the ProPublica article only went as far as 2018, Buffett said that Berkshire Hathaway had paid a significant amount of income taxes for the year 2019 and 2020, accounting for around 1.5 percent of the U.S. government's entire corporate tax receipts.
IRS Is Investigating Release of Tax Information of Wealthy Americans – WSJ —Federal authorities are investigating the release of wealthy Americans’ tax information, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig said Tuesday. ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, published details about the reported income and tax payments of some of the richest Americans, including Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett. Taxpayer information is confidential, and there are potential criminal penalties for IRS employees or others who release such information. Mr. Rettig told lawmakers that there were internal and external investigations beginning, with potential prosecutions to follow.“I share the concerns of every American for the sensitive and private nature and confidential nature of the information the IRS receives,” he said during a Senate Finance Committee hearing that had been scheduled before the information was released. “Trust and confidence in the Internal Revenue Service is sort of the bedrock of asking people and requiring people to provide financial information.”The ProPublica article said the news organization didn’t know the identity of its source and described the information it received as IRS data on thousands of people covering more than 15 years. It isn’t certain that the information—a highly unusual airing of private tax data—came directly from within the IRS or whether the agency was hacked in some way. The article highlighted years in which Mr. Bezos and others paid little or no federal income tax.
Vaccine Billionaires - The Real Winners in the COVID-19 Pandemic --Since the COVID-19 pandemic began 15 months ago, those of us that are paying attention realize that the pandemic has made many of society's wealthiest human beings even wealthier than they were before governments took it upon themselves to shutter many businesses, leaving major physical and online stores to pickup business that formerly was key to the health of Main Street Americans who owned small retail outlets. One thing that we haven't heard very little about is the impact that the pandemic has had on a handful of vaccine company insiders, the subject of this posting. Thanks to research by the People's Vaccine Alliance, we know that the creation and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines has created at least nine new billionaires since the beginning of the pandemic and has added significant wealth to other individuals who were already billionaires with substantial pharmaceutical holdings. In large part, this is thanks to the monopolies that Big Pharma has on its experimental vaccines and the rapid purchasing and rolling out of these incompletely tested vaccines by some of the worlds largest economies. Thanks to substantial stock holdings by company insiders, the rise in share prices has resulted in substantial personal gain for highly placed executives. First, thanks to the pandemic, here is a table showing the nine newly minted vaccine billionaires and their net worth in order from highest to lowest: Now, again with great thanks to the pandemic, here is a table showing the increase in wealth of the 8 individuals/families which have substantial investments in companies that are part of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout that were already pharmaceutical billionaires noting that the Struengmann family holds investments in BioNTech and Mega Pharma, Pankaj Patel controls Cadila Healthcare which manufactures drugs to treat COVID-19 and Immunity Bio was one of the companies selected by Washington to develop a COVID-19 vaccine: Let's summarize. The combined wealth of the nine newly minted vaccine billionaires totals $19.3 billion which, according to calculations by the People's Vaccine Alliance, would be sufficient to vaccinate all of the people living in the world's low-income nations 1.3 times. The increase in wealth of the eight existing Big Pharma individuals totals $32.2 billion, sufficient to vaccinate the entire population of India.
From London to Los Angeles, News Outlets Go Dark Around the World this Morning; Fastly Takes Blame -If you’re an early riser and like a cup of coffee with online news before officially starting your day, you got your coffee sans the news at numerous websites this morning. From approximately 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. ET this morning, major news sites like the New York Times, CNN, Financial Times and Guardian U.K. were dark or had error messages.The sites were not just dark in the U.S. but around the world. According to Fastly,which took the blame for the outages, the disruption impacted major cities across the U.S. and around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, London, Paris, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Stockholm, Munich, Amsterdam, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro and dozens more.According to the Guardian news outlet in the U.K., Fastly is “a cloud computing services provider” that is supposed to “speed up loading times for websites, protect them from denial-of-service attacks, and help them deal with bursts of traffic.” Unfortunately, continues the Guardian “…that technology requires Fastly to sit between most of its clients and their users. That means that if the service suffers a catastrophic failure, it can prevent those companies from operating on the net at all.”It was not just news outlets that went dark. The U.K. government’s websites were impacted as was Reddit and Amazon and dozens of other sites.According to Downdetector, the outages began at CNN at 5:28 a.m. and peaked at 6:23 a.m. ET. Outages at the New York Times, according to reports at Downdetector, began at around 5:22 am. and peaked at around 6:17 a.m. with 2,068 people reporting an outage. By 7:32 a.m. only 49 people were reporting problems at the New York Times.Reddit users thronged to Downdetector to report outages and post comments. One commenter, Erika Horvat, wrote that “Everything is down. App, browsers, everything.” The outage at Reddit, which hosts the popular WallStreetBets message board, where users pump meme stocks like GameStop and AMC, began around 5:28 a.m. and had 20,283 people reporting outages at the peak at 5:58 a.m. ET. By 7:58 a.m., few people were reporting any problems. These are the Downdetector outage reports for three of the websites impacted:
How A Fastly Customer "Triggered" Yesterday's "Broad And Severe" Global Internet Outage - Fastly, a major content delivery network, triggered a major internet blackout on Tuesday morning has blamed a software bug. We first noticed the problem a little after 0600 ET Tuesday when countless websites, including Reddit, Financial Times, PayPal, and other websites, went down. "We experienced a global outage due to an undiscovered software bug that surfaced on June 8 when it was triggered by a valid customer configuration change," Nick Rockwell, Fastly's senior vice president of engineering and infrastructure, wrote in a blog post late Tuesday. Rockwell said, "the outage was broad and severe, and we're truly sorry for the impact to our customers and everyone who relies on them." He said the company "detected the disruption within one minute, then identified and isolated the cause, and disabled the configuration," adding that "within 49 minutes, 95% of our network was operating as normal." "Even though there were specific conditions that triggered this outage, we should have anticipated it," Rockwell said.The company operates servers at strategic points worldwide to support customers moving and storing content.But when a customer switched their settings, they had accidentally exposed a bug in a software update issued in May, which triggered widespread outages. Here's a timeline of yesterday's disruption (all times are in UTC):
Biden Justice Department Seeks to Defend Trump in Suit Over Rape Denial -During the presidential campaign, Joseph R. Biden Jr., then the Democratic candidate, slammed his opponent, Donald J. Trump, for a highly unusual legal move: bringing in the Justice Department to represent him in a defamation lawsuit stemming from a decades-old rape allegation. At one of their debates, Mr. Biden accused Mr. Trump of treating the Justice Department like his “own law firm” in the suit, filed against him by the writer E. Jean Carroll. “What’s that all about?” he sarcastically asked. But on Monday night, nearly eight months after Mr. Biden’s attack, his own Justice Department essentially adopted Mr. Trump’s position, arguing that he could not be sued for defamation because he had made the supposedly offending statements as part of his official duties as president. In a brief filed with a federal appeals court in New York, the Justice Department acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s remarks about Ms. Carroll were “crude and disrespectful,” but the department also claimed that the Trump administration’s arguments were correct — a position that could lead to Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit being dismissed. Mr. Biden has repeatedly said he wants to restore the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House — a stance that has been echoed by several of his top picks for the department’s leadership. Early Tuesday morning, a spokesman said in an emailed statement that the White House “was not consulted by D.O.J. on the decision to file this brief or its contents.” The White House declined to comment on the lawsuit. But the spokesman, Andrew Bates, added that “President Biden and his team have utterly different standards from their predecessors for what qualify as acceptable statements.” Even so, the late-night filing caught many, including Ms. Carroll’s lawyers, by surprise and marked another twist in a protracted legal battle.That dispute began in November 2019 when Ms. Carroll, a longtime columnist for Elle magazine, sued Mr. Trump, claiming he had lied by publicly denying he had ever met her, after she had accused him of rape months earlier. In a book excerpt published in New York magazine that June, Ms. Carroll wrote that Mr. Trump had thrown her up against the wall of a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, an upscale department store in Manhattan, in late 1995 or early 1996. Then, she claimed, Mr. Trump pulled down her tights, opened his pants and forced himself on her.
Washington Post Publisher Says Biden DOJ ‘Intensified’ Trump-Era Attacks on Press Freedom -In an opinion piece, the Washington Post‘s publisher on Sunday accused President Joe Biden’s Justice Department of exacerbating the Trump administration’s assault on press freedom and called for a “full accounting” of the Biden DOJ’s recent practices in order to prevent such a “brazen infringement of the First Amendment rights of all Americans” from happening again.Recent reporting revealed that during the last days of then-President Donald Trump’s term, DOJ officials authorized subpoenas to secretly obtain the phone and email records of reporters at thePost, CNN, and the New York Times. In the wake of the revelations, Biden last month condemned the unconstitutional actions taken by his predecessor’s Justice Department and vowed that his administration would protect the rights of journalists and, by extension, those of the public.“Unfortunately,” Post publisher Fred Ryan wrote Sunday, “new revelations suggest that the Biden Justice Department not only allowed these disturbing intrusions to continue—it intensified the government’s attack on First Amendment rights before finally backing down in the face of reporting about its conduct.”According to Ryan:After Biden took office, the department continued to pursue subpoenas for reporters’ email logs issued to Google, which operates the New York Times‘ email systems, and it obtained a gag order compelling a Times attorney to keep silent about the fact that federal authorities were seeking to seize his colleagues’ records.Later, when the Justice Department broadened the number of those permitted to know about the effort, it barred Times executives from discussing the legal battle with theTimes newsroom, including the paper’s top editor. Ryan argued that “this escalation, on Biden’s watch, represents an unprecedented assault on American news organizations and their efforts to inform the public about government wrongdoing.”
The FBI Secretly Ran a Messaging Platform, Yielding Hundreds of Arrests --Hundreds of suspected members of criminal networks have been arrested by authorities around the world after being duped into using an encrypted communications platform secretly run by the FBI to hatch their plans for alleged crimes including drug smuggling and money laundering.In the global sting operation dubbed “Operation Trojan Shield,” an international coalition of law-enforcement agencies led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation covertly monitored the encrypted communications service Anom, which purported to offer a feature cherished in the criminal underworld: total secrecy.The sting was revealed this week in a series of news conferences by authorities in the U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Alleged members of international criminal organizations adopted the platform as a means to communicate securely, unaware that authorities were covertly monitoring 27 million messages from more than 12,000 users across more than 100 countries, officials said.The takedown involved more than 9,000 law-enforcement offices around the world that had searched 700 locations in the previous 48 hours alone, U.S. and European officials said early Tuesday. Police forces had in recent days carried out more than 800 arrests in 16 countries and seized more than 8 tons of cocaine, 22 tons of cannabis and 2 tons of synthetic drugs, as well as 250 firearms, 55 luxury vehicles and over $48 million in various currencies. More than 150 threats to human life were also disrupted, officials said.In the U.S., the FBI charged 17 foreign nationals operating in places including Australia, the Netherlands and Spain with distributing encrypted Anom communications devices, saying they violated federal racketeering laws typically used to target organized-crime groups, officials said. Eight of those individuals are in custody and nine remain at large, they said.
Oregon House Speaker wants GOP lawmaker expelled over video showing him helping protesters get into state Capitol --A slate of Oregon lawmakers, including Republican officials, are calling for the removal of a state GOP representative seen in bombshell footage apparently telling demonstrators how to enter the state Capitol. The video, first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting last week, appears to show state Rep. Mike Nearman (R) talking to activists about how to enter the building, mentioning contacting him through a phone number he gave them. After the video was taken last year, Oregon lawmakers met in an emergency session on Dec. 21 to address the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. During the meeting, far-right rioters entered the building and sprayed chemical irritants at law enforcement and more. Surveillance footage from Dec. 21 shows Nearman leaving the state building through a locked door, through which he allowed demonstrators to enter the building. Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (D) on Monday announced a special committee to consider expelling Nearman from the state’s House of Representatives. The bipartisan committee, made up six members, is set to meet later this week to take up a resolution introduced by Kotek that would expel Nearman if approved by two-thirds of the state House. “The severity of Representative Nearman’s actions and last week’s revelation that they were premeditated require a special committee to immediately consider expelling him from the House of Representatives,” Kotek said in a Monday statement. “He knowingly put the physical safety of everyone in the Capitol — lawmakers, staff and law enforcement — in jeopardy. As we saw in January at the U.S. Capitol, the ramifications could have been dire if law enforcement had not stepped in so quickly. This is an unprecedented situation facing the Legislature. It is beyond a workplace conduct issue and must be treated as such,” she added.
QAnon? The ‘big lie’? What might it take to get Latter-day Saints to stop believing in them? --If almost half of U.S. members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe the “big lie” about the 2020 presidential election and almost a quarter of them subscribe to the QAnon conspiracy theory, what does that say about their ability to discern truth?In these cases, it may be about nothing more than allegiance to partisan politics or agenda-driven sources.“Latter-day Saints have been Republicans for a long time,” says Brigham Young University political scientist Quin Monson, “and that’s the identity that is at work here. Party identification is a strong drug.”There was a “steady diet of messaging coming out of Republican Party elites and members of Congress about election fraud,” Monson says, while countermessages from the Utah-based church “were few and far between.”It was tough for Latter-day Saint leaders “to push back with the same level of volume and intensity as the Republican Party,” says Monson, since “their mission is religious, not political.”The BYU professor’s own surveys echoed the findings of PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute), which showed that 46% of Latter-day Saints believe the “big lie” — that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump — ranking behind only white evangelical Protestants (61%) and ahead of white mainline Protestants (37%) and white Catholics (35%).
US recovers millions in cryptocurrency paid to Colonial Pipeline hackers - U.S. investigators have recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency that Colonial Pipeline paid hackers last month to end a ransomware attack on its systems. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced Monday afternoon that the Department of Justice “found and recaptured the majority of the ransom” paid to the DarkSide network, the group responsible for the attack. Paul Abbate, the deputy director of the FBI, said the bureau successfully seized the ransom funds from a bitcoin wallet that DarkSide used to collect Colonial Pipeline’s payment. Monaco, however, would not reveal how much money was taken from the account. Colonial Pipeline, a network that provides around 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel, was the target of a crippling cyberattack last month that forced it to shut down operations for several days. Joseph Blount, the company’s CEO, later revealed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he authorized the company to pay the cyber criminals behind the attack the equivalent of $4.4 million in bitcoin on the day of the breach in exchange for the keys to decrypt the network. The FBI recommends against paying the ransom, as it may encourage the hackers to go after another group, and the payment may be used for criminal operations. The Biden administration has reiterated this stance in recent weeks. Blount on Monday applauded the FBI for their "swift work and professionalism in responding to this event," and stressed in a statement that "the private sector also has an equally important role to play" in defending against cyber threats.
Ransomware attacks are closing schools, delaying chemotherapy and derailing everyday life— It can feel abstract: A group of organized but faceless criminals hijacking corporate computer systems and demanding millions of dollars in exchange for their safe return. But the impact of these ransomware attacks is increasingly, unavoidably, real for everyday people. These crimes have resulted in missed chemotherapy appointments and delayed ambulances, lost school days, and transportation problems. A ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in May led to gas shortages and even dangerous situations caused by panic buying. This past week, hackers compromised the JBS meat processing company, leading to worries about meat shortages or other key food providers being at risk. Last fall, the Baltimore County Public Schools system was hit with ransomware and forced to halt classes for two days, which were being held virtually. As recently as Wednesday, ransomware attacks were causing problems across the country. In Martha’s Vineyard, the ferry service transporting people to and from the Massachusetts island said it had been hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted its ticketing and reservation process. Ferries continued operating all week, but the ticketing system was still affected, causing delays, on Friday.The recent spate of high-profile ransomware incidents is exactly what cybersecurity professionals have been warning about for years. But it’s partially the impact on everyday people — far from the executive suites, cybersecurity companies, or government agencies that regularly fret about the criminal enterprise — that has made the risk more visible. The ripple effects of ransomware can result in everything from mild inconvenience to people losing their lives, and it’s only increased in frequency during the pandemic. Ransomware attacks could reach ‘pandemic’ proportions. What to know after the pipeline hack. “It’s not only that it’s getting worse, but it’s the worst possible time for it to happen,” He says on average, there are likely 20 to 30 big ransomware cases happening behind the scenes in addition to the ones making headlines. Ransomware attacks are not new. The money at stake has changed drastically, however, inflating from thousands to millions of dollars, and the targets are more sophisticated as well. The increasing number of companies connecting their systems and adding more remote access points, along with things like the widespread use of bitcoin, have widened the pool of targets. Cybercriminals once focused on small companies and individuals but have made headlines this year for attacks on higher-profile victims.“Now you’ve got ransomware affecting whole corporate networks, interrupting critical national function, causing disruption in people’s lives. It’s really become a national security, public health and safety threat,”
Gorsuch, Thomas join liberal justices in siding with criminal defendant -- The Supreme Court split along unusual lines Thursday to rule in favor of a criminal defendant in a case that saw two of the most conservative justices form a bare majority with the court’s three liberals.The 5-4 court sided with a defendant who argued he should not be subject to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), a 1984 law that imposes a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence on certain repeat offenders who are caught illegally possessing a gun.Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s more liberal members, wrote the majority opinion, which ruled that defendant Charles Borden Jr.’s prior convictions did not rise to a level that required enhanced sentencing.The ACCA applies only to career criminals with three or more prior convictions for violent felonies. But because one of Borden’s prior convictions was for aggravated assault that he committed recklessly, rather than with a greater degree of purpose in mind, his rap sheet did not require mandatory heightened sentencing, the court ruled. “The question here is whether a criminal offense can count as a ‘violent felony’ if it requires only a mens rea of recklessness — a less culpable mental state than purpose or knowledge,” Kagan wrote. “We hold that a reckless offense cannot so qualify.”Joining Kagan were fellow liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, as well as conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch. Clarence Thomas, the court’s staunchest conservative, also joined the majority's judgment but wrote separately to express his reluctance with the outcome.In dissent was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by fellow conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett.“Today’s decision overrides Congress’s policy judgment about the risk posed by serial violent felons who unlawfully possess firearms,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And today’s decision will have significant real-world consequences.”The case arose after prosecutors sought to apply the ACCA’s sentencing guidelines to Borden after he pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a gun. A lower federal court and Cincinnati-based appeals court rejected Borden’s argument for leniency, which prompted his ultimately successful appeal to the Supreme Court.
Have banks dodged corporate tax bullet under Biden? — After bankers feared how Democratic control of Congress and the White House would affect their bottom lines, the industry could escape a dramatic hike in corporate taxes thanks to infrastructure talks.President Joe Biden had campaigned on a proposal to raise the corporate tax rate to 28%, threatening to undo much of the tax reforms pushed by former President Donald Trump.But the Biden administration has appeared to backtrack somewhat as a result of the intense negotiations over an infrastructure plan, suggesting he was open to a lower rate, 25%. That 3-percentage-point difference could cushion the blow of any tax plan for banks, which are more sensitive to fluctuations in the corporate tax rate than other industries.
Fed announces date for 2021 stress test results | American Banker — The Federal Reserve announced Monday it will publish the results for both of its annual stress tests on June 24. Nineteen of the biggest banks will be subjected to the Dodd-Frank Act Stress Tests and the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review examinations, plus four smaller firms that have chosen to opt in: BMO Financial Corp., MUFG Americas Holdings Corp., RBC U.S. Group Holdings and Regions Financial Corporation. Under rules the Fed finalized in 2019, banks with assets of between $100 billion and $250 billion are only required to undergo stress tests every other year. However, those banks can choose to opt in to a stress tests in an “off year” if they wish to make changes to their capital distribution plans.
Pandemic drove up costs of complying with anti-fraud rules: Report — Financial institutions saw an 18% jump in the cost of complying with anti-financial crime rules last year, as firms hurried to deal with an uptick in fraud stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report. Compliance costs rose $33 billion from 2019, totaling $213.9 billion last year, LexisNexis Risk Solutions found in its annual True Cost of Financial Crime Compliance Study, published Wednesday. Companies in the U.S. and western Europe accounted for more than 82% of those costs. Firms in Germany and the U.S. alone spent, respectively, $9.6 billion and $8.8 billion more on compliance costs in 2020 than in 2019.
House Democrats launch bid to overturn OCC's CRA rule — House Democrats introduced a resolution to throw out a rule by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reforming the Community Reinvestment Act, escalating their fight with the agency over the anti-redlining law. “The Community Reinvestment Act is an essential law that was put in place to prevent redlining and to require banks to invest and lend responsibly in the communities where they are chartered,” House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters said in a press release. Yet the resolution announced late Thursday is a largely symbolic gesture in the current political environment. Lawmakers have the ability to overturn recent regulations under the Congressional Review Act, but any measure blocking a rule requires a majority vote from both chambers of Congress as well as a presidential signature. The Trump administration and GOP-run Senate are unlikely to back the resolution.
What it means that ex-Fed officials are leading OCC - — Under the Trump administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency at times butted heads with other regulators over issues like reforming the Community Reinvestment Act and offering bank charter access to fintech firms. But new leadership could strengthen the OCC’s focus on coordinating with other agencies, observers say. The OCC, for example, had diverged from the Federal Reserve on CRA reform. Yet now, a former official at the central bank, Michael Hsu, is the interim Biden-appointed comptroller. The agency’s general counsel, Benjamin McDonough, also came from the Fed. Other former Fed officials have a further role in financial policy at the Treasury Department, most notably Secretary Janet Yellen.Some experts say a new perspective at the OCC will promote constructive dialogue between the agencies, in contrast to the agency’s go-it-alone approach during the Trump era. But others worry about former Fed officials having too much influence.
Digital banking's explosive growth compounds cyber risks, FBI warns -- A new FBI reminder about an old cyber threat should be a code red for bankers: With so many newcomers to mobile banking, financial institutions need to protect customers from unwittingly downloading malicious apps. To be sure, hackers have long tried to trick consumers into downloading trojans hidden in fake banking or gaming apps in order to steal their usernames and passwords to online banking services. But the FBI, in issuing a warning to the public about such attacks this week, argued they could skyrocket along with what it says has been a 50% increase in mobile banking since the coronavirus pandemic began.
FHFA seeks comment on salary caps at Fannie and Freddie — Amid concerns about the difficulty in attracting executive talent at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the regulator for the government-sponsored enterprises said it is reviewing their compensation policies.The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Thursday that it was seeking public comment about executive compensation practices at the GSEs and in the Federal Home Loan Bank System, including whether the current compensation scheme is appropriate.The agency will weigh compensation practices while the GSEs are currently conservatorship, as well as any pay structure for whenever they are released into the private sector.
HUD restores Obama-era fair housing rule while pledging to improve it - — The Department of Housing and Urban Development moved to reinstate a key fair housing rule rolled back under the Trump administration, and pledged to undertake a separate rulemaking to improve equal housing opportunities in local communities.The “affirmatively furthering fair housing rule” was drafted by the Obama administration in 2015. It was meant to encourage local governments and communities to meet obligations under the Fair Housing Act to provide affordable housing options and avoid housing discrimination. But the Trump administration suspended the implementation of the rule before it could go into effect, and then-President Donald Trump officially walked back the rule last year via executive order. His administration had argued that the rule was ineffective and overly prescriptive.
Supreme Court asked to keep eviction pause in place --The Biden administration, backed by nearly two dozen Democratic state attorneys general, asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to leave intact a temporary nationwide pause on evictions.The request comes after a group of landlords asked the court last week to effectively end the eviction moratorium put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help financially distressed renters remain in their homes amid the pandemic.In a 38-page filing, the Biden administration argued that the CDC policy is a lawful and necessary step to prevent the spread of COVID-19 across state lines, which would result from evicted tenants being forced into homeless shelters or other crowded living arrangements.Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and Washington, D.C., backed the administration’s position Thursday in a friend of the court brief submitted to Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles D.C.-based emergency matters.“Recognizing that the ability to stay home and quarantine is an essential part of the pandemic response, the CDC Order ... has been critical in helping states limit the spread of COVID-19,” the attorneys general wrote.The case concerns a challenge to the CDC moratorium brought by the Alabama Association of Realtors and several co-plaintiffs in federal court in D.C. That litigation has produced mixed results over the past several weeks.The landlord group secured a legal victory last month when U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in D.C. struck down the moratorium as a government overreach. But Friedrich, a Trump appointee, agreed to stay her ruling, preventing it from taking effect while the Biden administration appeals.The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last week declined the landlords' request to lift the stay, prompting the group's emergency request to the Supreme Court.The property owners told the court in their brief that landlords have been losing $13 billion every month under the moratorium.“[T]he total effect of the CDC’s overreach may reach up to $200 billion if it remains in effect for a year,” they wrote. Numerous court battles have been waged over the policy’s lawfulness, creating a patchwork of interpretations across the country as property owners have sought to evict tens of thousands of cash-strapped renters. The CDC order, which was enacted in September under former President Trump and subsequently extended by Congress and President Biden, is set to expire at the end of the month, though it’s unclear if the administration will seek to prolong it as billions in federal rental aid continues to make its way to needy tenants.
MBA Survey: "Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Slightly Decreases to 4.16%" - Note: This is as of May 30th. From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Slightly Decreases to 4.18%: The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 2 basis points from 4.18% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 4.16% as of May 30, 2021. According to MBA’s estimate, 2.1 million homeowners are in forbearance plans.The share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance decreased 1 basis point to 2.18%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance decreased 1 basis points to 5.54%, while the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 6 basis points to 8.31%. The percentage of loans in forbearance for independent mortgage bank (IMB) servicers decreased 2 basis points to 4.34%, and the percentage of loans in forbearance for depository servicers decreased 1 basis point to 4.33%.“The share of loans in forbearance declined for the 14th straight week, with small drops across most investor types and all servicer types,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “Forbearance exits dropped to 6 basis points, the lowest weekly level since mid-February, but new forbearance requests, at 4 basis points, matched the recent weekly low from early May.” “Although the headline employment growth number for May was lower than many had anticipated, other data show evidence of a strengthening job market. That is good news for homeowners who have been struggling and are looking for work, as more families can regain their incomes and start making their mortgage payments again.” This graph shows the percent of portfolio in forbearance by investor type over time. Most of the increase was in late March and early April 2020, and has trended down since then.The MBA notes: "Total weekly forbearance requests as a percent of servicing portfolio volume (#) decreased relative to the prior week: from 0.05% to 0.04%."
Black Knight: Number of Homeowners in COVID-19-Related Forbearance Plans Decreased -Note: Both Black Knight and the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) are putting out weekly estimates of mortgages in forbearance. This data is as of June 8th. From Andy Walden at Black Knight: Share of Borrowers in Forbearance Falls Below 4%, Lowest Since Onset of Pandemic Forbearance volumes fell by 61,000 (-2.9%) from last week to this week, continuing the trend of early month declines in forbearance volumes. Declines were seen across all investor classes, with portfolio/PLS loans seeing the largest improvement (-33K), while FHA/VA (-19K) and GSE (-9k) forbearances also saw meaningful declines.Plan starts did rise this week, following the Memorial Day-shortened week, but remain relatively low, considering. For the second week in a row, more than 100,000 homeowners left their forbearance plans, with roughly one-third of loan reviews for extension or removal resulting in removals.Some 530,000 plans are still scheduled for quarterly reviews for extension/removal over the next three weeks, which could lead to additional plan exits as we near the July 4 holiday. Fewer than 4% of all mortgage-holders are now in forbearance, the first time since the onset of the pandemic this number has fallen so low.As of June 8, 2.06 million (3.9% of) homeowners remain in COVID-19-related forbearance plans, including 2.3% of GSE, 6.9% of FHA/VA and 4.4% of portfolio/PLS
Black Knight Mortgage Monitor for April; Highest Annual Home Price Increase on Record --Black Knight released their Mortgage Monitor report for April today. According to Black Knight, 4.66% of mortgage were delinquent in April, down from 5.02% of mortgages in March, and down from 6.45% in April 2020. Black Knight also reported that 0.29% of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down from 0.40% a year ago.This gives a total of 4.95% delinquent or in foreclosure.Press Release: Black Knight: Persistent Constraints in For-Sale Inventory Drive Home Prices Up a Record-Breaking 14.8% Annually in April, Making Housing Least Affordable Since Late 2018: As constraints in residential for-sale inventory persist, this month’s Mortgage Monitor Report looks at how recent and aggressive home price gains are impacting housing affordability. “Home prices grew at 14.8% on an annual basis in April,” said Graboske. “That’s the highest annual home price growth rate we’ve ever seen – and Black Knight’s been tracking the metric for almost 30 years now. Single-family homes saw the greatest gains, with prices up 15.6% from last April, also an all-time high, while condo prices are up 10%. Driving this growth are two key elements: historically low interest rates and – more acutely – the lack of available for-sale inventory. The total number of active listings was down 60% from the 2017 to 2019 average for April. It’s not getting any better, either. Data from our Collateral Analytics group showed there was two months’ worth of single-family inventory nationwide in March, the lowest share on record and trending downward. In fact, there were 26% fewer newly listed properties in April as compared to pre-pandemic seasonal levels. Here is a graph on delinquencies from Black Knight:
• The national delinquency rate fell to 4.66% in April, just 0.5% above its pre-Great Recession average and 1.5% above its pre-pandemic level
• That said, the overall delinquency rate has been improving at a much faster rate than later stage delinquencies
• At their respective current rates of improvement, overall delinquencies would normalize by the end of 2021, but 90+ day delinquencies would take roughly three years to normalize
• That scenario is unlikely, however – 90-day delinquencies will reach an inflection point later this year as forbearance plans expire and many homeowners return to making mortgage payments
• As of the end of April, there are still 1.8M such serious delinquencies, 1.3M more than prior to the pandemic
CoreLogic: 1.4 Million Homes with Negative Equity in Q1 2021 --From CoreLogic: Nationwide Homeowner Equity Gains Hit $1.9 Trillion in Q1 2021, CoreLogic Reports CoreLogic® ... today released the Homeowner Equity Report for the first quarter of 2021. The report shows U.S. homeowners with mortgages (which account for roughly 62% of all properties) have seen their equity increase by 19.6% year over year, representing a collective equity gain of over $1.9 trillion, and an average gain of $33,400 per borrower, since the first quarter of 2020. While the coronavirus pandemic created economic uncertainty for many, the continued acceleration in home prices over the last year has meant existing homeowners saw a notable boost in home equity. In contrast to the financial crisis, when many borrowers were underwater, borrowers today who are behind on mortgage payments can tap into their equity and sell their home rather than lose it through foreclosure. These conditions are reflected in a recent CoreLogic survey, with 74% of current homeowners with mortgages noting they are not concerned with owing more on their home than it is worth within the next five years.“Homeowner equity has more than doubled over the past decade and become a crucial buffer for many weathering the challenges of the pandemic,” “These gains have become an important financial tool and boosted consumer confidence in the U.S. housing market, especially for older homeowners and baby boomers who've experienced years of price appreciation." “Double-digit home price growth in the past year has bolstered home equity to a record amount. The national CoreLogic Home Price Index recorded an 11.4% rise in the year through March 2021, leading to a $216,000 increase in the average amount of equity held by homeowners with a mortgage,” “This reduces the likelihood for a large numbers of distressed sales of homeowners to emerge from forbearance later in the year.”As of the first quarter of 2021, negative equity share, and the quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year changes, were as follows:
• Quarterly change: From the fourth quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021, the total number of mortgaged homes in negative equity decreased by 7% to 1.4 million homes, or 2.6% of all mortgaged properties.
• Annual change: In the fourth quarter of 2020, 1.8 million homes, or 3.4% of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity. This number decreased by 24%, or 450,000 properties, in the first quarter of 2021.
• The national aggregate value of negative equity was approximately $273 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2021. This is down quarter over quarter by approximately $8.1 billion, or 2.9%, from $281.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020, and down year over year by approximately $13.3 billion, or 4.6%, from $286.3 billion in the first quarter of 2020.
This graph from CoreLogic compares Q1 to Q4 2020 equity distribution by LTV. There are still quite a few properties with LTV over 125%. But most homeowners have a significant amount of equity. This is a very different picture than at the start of the housing bust when many homeowners had little equity.
On a year-over-year basis, the number of homeowners with negative equity has declined from 1.8 million to 1.4 million.
Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey – MBA - Mortgage applications decreased 3.1 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending June 4, 2021. This week’s results include an adjustment for the Memorial Day holiday. .. The Refinance Index decreased 5 percent from the previous week and was 27 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.3 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 11 percent compared with the previous week and was 24 percent lower than the same week one year ago. “Most of the decline in mortgage rates came late last week, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage declining to 3.15 percent. This likely impacted refinance applications, which fell 5 percent for both conventional and government loans. With fewer homeowners able to take advantage of lower rates, the refinance share dipped to the lowest level since April,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “Purchase applications were up slightly last week, and the large annual decline was the result of Memorial Day 2021 being compared to a non-holiday week, as well as the big upswing in applications seen last May once pandemic-induced lockdowns started to lift.” Added Kan, “The average loan size on a purchase application edged down to $407,000, below the record $418,000 set in February, but still far above 2020’s average of $353,900. Home-price growth continues to accelerate, driven by favorable demographics, the recovering job market and economy, and housing demand far outpacing supply.”...The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with jumbo loan balances (greater than $548,250) decreased to 3.29 percent from 3.34 percent, with points decreasing to 0.32 from 0.38 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
If You Sell a House These Days, the Buyer Might Be a Pension Fund – WSJ - A bidding war broke out this winter at a new subdivision north of Houston. But the prize this time was the entire subdivision, not just a single suburban house, illustrating the rise of big investors as a potent new force in the U.S. housing market. D.R. Horton Inc. DHI -0.13% built 124 houses in Conroe, Texas, rented them out and then put the whole community, Amber Pines at Fosters Ridge, on the block. A Who’s Who of investors and home-rental firms flocked to the December sale. The winning $32 million bid came from an online property-investing platform, Fundrise LLC, which manages more than $1 billion on behalf of about 150,000 individuals. The country’s most prolific home builder booked roughly twice what it typically makes selling houses to the middle class—an encouraging debut in the business of selling entire neighborhoods to investors. “We certainly wouldn’t expect every single-family community we sell to sell at a 50% gross margin,” the builder’s finance chief, Bill Wheat, said at a recent investor conference. From individuals with smartphones and a few thousand dollars to pensions and private-equity firms with billions, yield-chasing investors are snapping up single-family houses to rent out or flip. They are competing for houses with ordinary Americans, who are armed with the cheapest mortgage financing ever, and driving up home prices. “You now have permanent capital competing with a young couple trying to buy a house,” said John Burns, whose eponymous real estate consulting firm estimates that in many of the nation’s top markets, roughly one in every five houses sold is bought by someone who never moves in. “That’s going to make U.S. housing permanently more expensive,” he said. The consulting firm found Houston to be a favorite haunt of investors who have lately accounted for 24% of home purchases there. Investors’ slice of the housing market grows—as it does in other boomtowns, such as Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas—among properties priced below $300,000 and in decent school districts. “Limited housing supply, low rates, a global reach for yield, and what we’re calling the institutionalization of real-estate investors has set the stage for another speculative investor-driven home price bubble,” the firm concluded.
Who’s Consumer Price Index? --Menzie Chinn - This post (an update of this) focuses on issue separate from the mathematics of the index formulation, and has to do with what the typical weights at any given instant in time should pertain to. Should one use the expenditure weights that pertain to all the households aggregated in the economy? Or should one use the expenditure weights that pertain to the “typical” household? Kokoski (2003) [updated link] summarizes the distinction thus:In the democratic index, the expenditure pattern of each household counts in equal measure in determining the population index; in essence, it is a case of “one household–one vote”. In the plutocratic case, the contribution of each household’s expenditure pattern is positively related to the total expenditure of that household relative to other households–in essence, “one dollar, one vote”.Clearly, there’s no “right” answer to this question. Just like when asking for the average household income, does one take the income earned in a year, and divide by all the households in the US? Or does one identify all the households in the US, rank them by income from top to bottom, and pick the one in the middle. The former yields the mean, the latter yields the median. Both are measures of central tendency. Understanding that distinction can be helpful in understanding why any given observer does not feel the CPI represents his or her experiences. Literally, unless the income distribution is concentrated at one level, or all households have the same expenditure patterns regardless of income levels, then almost nobody will feel the CPI is representative of the changing prices facing them. The more unequally income is distributed, or the more expenditure shares vary by income level, the more strongly this perception will held.
BLS: CPI increased 0.6% in May, Core CPI increased 0.7% ---From the BLS: - The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent in May on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.8 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 5.0 percent before seasonal adjustment; this was the largest 12-month increase since a 5.4-percent increase for the period ending August 2008.The index for used cars and trucks continued to rise sharply, increasing 7.3 percent in May. This increase accounted for about one-third of the seasonally adjusted all items increase. The food index increased 0.4 percent in May, the same increase as in April. The energy index was unchanged in May, with a decline in the gasoline index again offsetting increases in the electricity and natural gas indexes. The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.7 percent in May after increasing 0.9 percent in April. Many of the same indexes continued to increase, including used cars and trucks, household furnishings and operations, new vehicles, airline fares, and apparel. The index for medical care fell slightly, one of the few major component indexes to decline in May.The all items index rose 5.0 percent for the 12 months ending May; it has been trending up every month since January, when the 12-month change was 1.4 percent. The index for all items less food and energy rose 3.8 percent over the last 12-months, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending June 1992. The energy index rose 28.5 percent over the last 12-months, and the food index increased 2.2 percent. CPI and core CPI were well above expectations. I'll post a graph later today after the Cleveland Fed releases the median and trimmed-mean CPI.
Consumer Price Index: May Headline at 5% - The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the May Consumer Price Index data this morning. The year-over-year non-seasonally adjusted Headline CPI came in at 4.99%, up from 4.16% the previous month. Year-over-year Core CPI (ex Food and Energy) came in at 3.80%, up from 2.96% the previous month and above the Fed's 2% PCE target.Here is the introduction from the BLS summary, which leads with the seasonally adjusted monthly data:The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent in May on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.8 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 5.0 percent before seasonal adjustment; this was the largest 12-month increase since a 5.4-percent increase for the period ending August 2008.The index for used cars and trucks continued to rise sharply, increasing 7.3 percent in May. This increase accounted for about one-third of the seasonally adjusted all items increase. The food index increased 0.4 percent in May, the same increase as in April. The energy index was unchanged in May, with a decline in the gasoline index again offsetting increases in the electricity and natural gas indexes.The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.7 percent in May after increasing 0.9 percent in April. Many of the same indexes continued to increase, including used cars and trucks, household furnishings and operations, new vehicles, airline fares, and apparel. The index for medical care fell slightly, one of the few major component indexes to decline in May.The all items index rose 5.0 percent for the 12 months ending May; it has been trending up every month since January, when the 12-month change was 1.4 percent. The index for all items less food and energy rose 3.8 percent over the last 12-months, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending June 1992. The energy index rose 28.5 percent over the last 12-months, and the food index increased 2.2 percent. Read moreInvesting.com was looking for a 0.4% MoM change in seasonally adjusted Headline CPI and a 0.4% in Core CPI. Year-over-year forecasts were 4.7% for Headline and 3.4% for Core. The first chart is an overlay of Headline CPI and Core CPI (the latter excludes Food and Energy) since the turn of the century. The highlighted two percent level is the Federal Reserve's Core inflation target for the CPI's cousin index, the BEA's Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index.
U.S. Heavy Truck Sales Near Record High in May - The following graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the May 2021 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR).Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand SAAR in May 2009. Then heavy truck sales increased to a new all time high of 563 thousand SAAR in September 2019. However heavy truck sales started declining in late 2019 due to lower oil prices. Note: "Heavy trucks - trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight." Heavy truck sales really declined at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 299 thousand SAAR in May 2020. Since then, sales have rebounded to near record highs. Heavy truck sales were at 553 thousand SAAR in May, up from 473 thousand SAAR in April, and up 85% from 299 thousand SAAR in May 2020.
Vehicle Sales Per Capita as of May 2021 - Note: The charts below have been updated to include the latest report on U.S. Vehicle sales from the BEA. For the past few years, we've been following a couple of transportation metrics: Vehicle Miles Traveled and Gasoline Volume Sales. For both series, we focus on the population-adjusted data. Let's now do something similar with the Vehicle Sales report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This data series stretches back to January 1976 and for heavy trucks, since 1967. Since that first data point, the Civilian Noninstitutional Population Age 16 and Over (i.e., driving age, not in the military, or an inmate) has risen about 57%.Here is a chart, courtesy of the FRED repository, of the raw data for the seasonally adjusted annualized number of new vehicles sold domestically in the reported month. This is a quite noisy series - the absolute average month-over-month change is 4.3%. The latest data point is the April count published by the BEA in their monthly Auto and Truck Seasonal Adjustment report, which shows a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17 million units, which is a 9.5% decrease from the previous month's figure from the BEA.The first chart shows the series since 2007, which illustrates the dramatic impact of the Great Recession. The blue line smooths the volatility with a nine-month exponential moving average suggested by our friend Bob Bronson of Bronson Capital Markets Research. The moving average reduces the distortion of seasonal sales events (e.g., Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend) and thus helps us visualize the trend.
Trade Deficit Decreased to $68.9 Billion in April --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 $68.9 billion in April, down $6.1 billion from $75.0 billion in March, revised.April exports were $205.0 billion, $2.3 billion more than March exports. April imports were $273.9 billion, $3.8 billion less than March imports. Exports increased and imports decreased in April.Exports are up 36.6% compared to April 2020; imports are up 34.9% compared to April 2020. Both imports and exports decreased sharply due to COVID-19, and have now bounced back (imports much more than exports),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.Note that net, imports and exports of petroleum products are close to zero.The trade deficit with China increased to $25.8 billion in April, from $22.3 billion in April 2020.
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decrease to 376,000 --The DOL reported: In the week ending June 5, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 376,000, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 385,000. This is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020 when it was 256,000. The 4-week moving average was 402,500, a decrease of 25,500 from the previous week's unrevised average of 428,000. This is the lowest level for this average since March 14, 2020 when it was 225,500. This does not include the 71,292 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) that was down from 73,249 the previous week. The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.The dashed line on the graph is the current 4-week average. The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims decreased to 402,500.The previous week was unrevised.Regular state continued claims decreased to 3,499,000 (SA) from 3,757,000 (SA) the previous week.Note: There are an additional 6,347,472 receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) that decreased from 6,360,202 the previous week (there are questions about these numbers). This is a special program for business owners, self-employed, independent contractors or gig workers not receiving other unemployment insurance. And an additional 5,231,952 receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) down from 5,301,821.Weekly claims were at the consensus forecast.
Half of all unemployment money was stolen by criminals during pandemic, experts say - Unemployment fraud surged during the coronavirus pandemic, with billions of dollars likely ending up in the hands of foreign crime syndicates based in China, Russia and other countries, experts say. As much as $400 billion in unemployment benefits may have been fraudulent, according to one estimate by ID.me, FOX Business confirmed. That amounts to about 50% of unemployment money, according to the company, which uses facial recognition software to verify identities. The news was first reported by Axios. "Fraud is being perpetrated by domestic and foreign actors," Blake Hall, CEO and founder of ID.ME, told FOX Business. "We are successfully disrupting attempted fraud from international organized crime rings, including Russia, China, Nigeria and Ghana, as well as U.S. street gangs." Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solution, suggested the bulk of the money – about $250 billion – went to international criminal groups, most of which are backed by the state. The money is essentially being used as their slush fund for "nefarious purposes," such as terrorism, illegal drugs and child trafficking, Talcove said. The criminals have been able to access the money by stealing personal information and using it to impersonate claimants or buying it on the dark web. The groups also use an army of internet thieves to submit fraudulent claims. States, which administer the aid, may be prepared to combat fraud from individuals who are trying double-dip or cash in on benefits they don't need, but not international criminals using the dark web to exploit the system. "What they need to understand is post-Covid, the world has changed," he told FOX Business. "They are the target. And right now they haven't put the defenses up that will secure those resources and make sure that they get into the hands of the right people, not transnational criminal groups." Unemployment insurance became one of the federal government's primary methods of keeping the economy afloat during the pandemic, with Congress repeatedly passing legislation to sweeten jobless aid. But state unemployment systems, many of which rely on Eisenhower-era systems, were overwhelmed by the deluge of claims during the pandemic and were ill-equipped to deal with the criminal attacks, the experts said.
BLS: Job Openings Increased to Record 9.3 Million in April --From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary; The number of job openings reached a series high of 9.3 million on the last business day of April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires were little changed at 6.1 million. Total separations increased to 5.8 million. Within separations, the quits rate reached a series high of 2.7 percent while the layoffs and discharges rate decreased to a series low of 1.0 percent. The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.This series started in December 2000.Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers
Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are usually pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs.The huge spikes in layoffs and discharges in March and April 2020 are labeled, but off the chart to better show the usual data.Jobs openings increased in April to 9.286 million from 8.288 million in March. This is a new record high for this series.The number of job openings (yellow) were up 100% year-over-year. This is a comparison to the worst of the pandemic. Quits were up 88% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits"). This is a record high for Quits too.
Holy JOLTS! - Just when you thought post-Covid economic data couldn’t get any odder, along comes another US econ numberwang to, errr, jolt you out of your senses. (Sorry, we’ll stop now).An hour or so ago the Bureau for Labour Statistics released its monthly Job Opening and Labour Turnover (read: JOLTS) report, and the headline numbers are quite something.The number of open job vacancies reached an all-time high of 9.3m, and perhaps perplexingly, the number of people who quit their jobs also reached a series high of 2.7 per cent of total employment.Now, much has ink has been spilled by the commentariat of late about how the Biden administration’s generous support packages for those affected by the Covid crisis might have delayed their appetite to work. Particularly in low-wage, high Covid risk sectors like food service, entertainment and leisure. And, on the surface, the data certainly speaks to this. Here’s three neat Bloomberg charts that FT Alphaville friend George Pearkestweeted showing how the JOLTS data broke down across those particular sectors: Cast your eyes to the top chart — the quits rate for leisure and hospitality was a staggering 5.3 per cent of all workers. There are really two ways to interpret this. Either you think workers are quitting because they don’t need to work thanks to government benefits (and are perhaps trading crypto on the side) or they’re getting better offers elsewhere which the second chart — the job opening rate — speaks to. In other words, it’s a sign of confidence in the labour market.Stepping back, it’s worth mulling the headline job openings number in the context of US unemployment. According to Nick Bunker, head of research at employment site Indeed, there’s now roughly one job opening for every unemployed individual in the US. So, in theory, workers are potentially now in a position where they can pick their next gig, rather than plump for the first one that makes them an offer.A few other data points from earlier today back this up. Data from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found that 48 per cent of businesses were struggling to fill jobs, with just over a third of firms saying they’ve raised compensation to deal with this issue. Thanks to Yahoo Finance’s Sam Ro for sharing this chart on the Twittersphere, as for some reason CloudFlare has blocked us from the NFIB website (we’re nice, honest!): Inflationista or not, it’s fair to say that we’re entering a pretty unique moment in US labour markets where, for the first time in many moons, business is on the back foot when it comes to hiring. Whether firms will deal with it via passing higher labour costs onto consumers (the NFIB report suggests as much), or attempting to raise productivity, remains to be seen. But, either way, it’s likely to be good news for the American worker.
April JOLTS report: evidence of a huge disconnect in the jobs market -- This morning’s JOLTS report for April confirmed anecdotal evidence that there have been a huge amount of unfilled job openings, and a comparatively weak level of actual hiring. Job openings soared to a level over 20% higher than at any point in the series before March. Meanwhile actual hires are less than 1% above their pre-pandemic high. Voluntary quits increased to an all-time high, while layoffs declined to a new all-time low. Total separations also increased. This report has only a 20 year history, and so includes only two prior recoveries. In those recoveries: first, layoffs declined, second, hiring rose, third, job openings rose and voluntary quits increased, close to simultaneously. The recovery from the worst of the pandemic almost one year ago at first followed this script, but the winter surge, which led to a few month of flat, or worse, jobs reports, disrupted that trend, and now there is yet another new pattern. Let’s start out with layoffs and discharges (red) and total separations (blue), showing that these have followed their past patterns, as layoffs rapidly declined to a normal rate after last March and April. As noted above, this month’s report made yet another new series low: Next, here is the series-long record of hiring (blue), quits (green, *1.75 for scale), and job openings (red): Here is the zoomed-in look at the past several years: What has been different this time around is that, after rapidly improving, hires declined again until bottoming in December and January, and have risen only tepidly since. Two months ago I flagged the issue of whether “hires reassert themselves, as in the past two recoveries, or whether openings without actual hiring continue to soar as they did starting in 2015.” In March both happened, but in April, as I anticipated given the relatively subpar April employment report, the increase in actual hires is definitely lackluster. Yesterday I read a news article (sorry, didn’t bookmark it) that appeared to anticipate all of the trends we saw in this report. Of people who lost jobs early in the pandemic, many of the older workers have chosen simply to retire (hence the record in voluntary quits). Others cited, in roughly equal percentages, (1) problems with child care, (2) job offers unattractive compared with continued enhanced unemployment benefits, and (3) that the jobs on offer paid significantly less than the jobs they had before the pandemic. It is pretty obvious there is a disconnect in the jobs market, and all 3 of the above items are going to have to be addressed in some fashion.
NFIB Small Business Survey: "Nearly Half of Small Businesses Unable to Fill Job Openings" --The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends came out this morning. The headline number for May came in at 99.6, down 0.2 from the previous month. The index is at the 49th percentile in this series. Here is an excerpt from the opening summary of the news release. “Small business owners are struggling at record levels trying to get workers back in open positions,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “Owners are offering higher wages to try to remedy the labor shortage problem. Ultimately, higher labor costs are being passed on to customers in higher selling prices.” The first chart below highlights the 1986 baseline level of 100 and includes some labels to help us visualize that dramatic change in small-business sentiment that accompanied the Great Financial Crisis and now the COVID-19 pandemic. Compare, for example, the relative resilience of the index during the 2000-2003 collapse of the Tech Bubble with the far weaker readings following the Great Recession that ended in June 2009 and today's figures.
Child care is holding workers back in this recovery --The May jobs report showed overall growth. Women gained about 381,000 jobs, while men lost around 4,000. These numbers provide fodder for the take that child care is not holding back workers from returning to work. Dominant voices arguing that women with small children make up only 12 percent of the U.S. workforce and, with many of them already back to work, focusing on their needs won’t do much to move the dial. But child care is essential for reaching the Federal Reserve’s full employment mandate. Regardless, wonks have moved on from child care to other hot ticket solutions to getting workers back to work such as reducing pandemic unemployment support. Like scrooges from “A Christmas Carol,” about half of state governors have fallen in line stripping away a last lifeline by closing the federal assistance tap early. Driven by arationale from some sectors struggling to find employees that there is a need to force individuals out of their homes and into low paying jobs. In doing so, these state governments are giving up millions of dollars in federal aid funneling into consumer spending within their states. More optimistic voices have argued for a balanced approach to getting workers back to work in an economy where they have increased bargaining power. Actions like more stable work schedules, increased wages and child care can go a long way towards incentivizing workers to come back. As a principal economist in the federal government and with two decades of independently led research under my belt, I am not surprised this male-dominated field has largely written women off, again. Child care is believed to be a private issue. As such, women disproportionately take up the slack for unpaid care, silently managing the care economy — with little to no pay. This has, on average, given men more advantage in the paid labor market. It has allowed men with children and elder parents to prosper at work while their female counterparts have floundered. Census Bureau researchers have shown that having children reduces labor force participation and earnings for women. This belief has allowed dominating perspectives to write off child care as not helpful in moving this recovery forward. This short-sided view is the same perspective that, in younger generations, has driven women to want less-and-less to start a family as increased education levels, desires to contribute to the more formal sectors of society, and barriers to simultaneously having a career and family have overwhelmed their desire to have children and invest in the next generation.
The C.D.C. eased travel recommendations to more than 100 countries, but not because they’re faring better with the virus. - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eased travel recommendations to over 100 countries and territories, mainly by reclassifying the intensity of outbreaks in many countries. The new rankings do not necessarily reflect improvements in efforts to contain the virus, but rather changes the agency has made to its criteria for determining the scope of the pandemic in each country.The changes in effect made it easier to deem a nation to have a lower level of Covid-19; the agency now requires more cases for a country to be classified as having a “very high” level.As the summer travel season gets underway, the new advisory listlowers barriers to travel to 61 countries and territories that had been said to have the most extensive outbreaks, called Level 4. These countries are now ranked at Level 3, for a “high” level of Covid-19.The reclassified countries include Japan, which is hosting the Olympics but has banned foreign spectators, as well as France, Germany, Greece, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Italy.While the C.D.C. urges Americans to avoid travel to Level 4 countries, the agency says fully vaccinated people may travel to countries at Level 3. Americans who are not vaccinated, however, are urged to avoid unnecessary travel to regions at Level 3. Among the 56 countries deemed to be the safest for travel, because they have the lowest levels of Covid-19 (Level 1), are Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Vietnam, China, Rwanda, Liberia and Laos. The C.D.C. still urges travelers to be fully vaccinated before traveling to these countries. For travel to countries at Level 2, with “moderate” levels of Covid-19, the agency also says Americans should be fully vaccinated. Those who are unvaccinated are at increased risk for severe illness and should avoid nonessential travel to Level 2 countries. Sixty-one countries are still deemed to have “very high” levels of disease, and the agency says travel to these parts of the word should be avoided. India and Nepal are on this list, as well as Brazil, Sweden and Slovenia. The new classifications stem from updates made to the criteria the agency uses to determine the risk of travel, part of an attempt to “better differentiate countries with severe outbreak situations from countries with sustained, but controlled, Covid-19 spread,” according to the C.D.C. website.
Cruise lines want to sail out of Florida, but a vaccine passport ban stands in the way.- Cruise lines are starting to make plans to sail this summer out of Florida, which one company called “the cruise capital of the world.” But the state’s ban on vaccine passports complicates how ships can navigate its ports.Some cruise lines, such as Norwegian Cruise Line, plan to sail with fully vaccinated crews and ensure that guests are also fully vaccinated. But while the federal government says employers can make on-site employees get vaccinated, a Florida state law prohibits businesses from requiring a vaccine passport, or proof of Covid-19 vaccination, in exchange for services.The law has local officials concerned that their cities lose out if cruise lines decide to skip Florida ports, as Frank Del Rio, chief executive of Norwegian Cruise Line, recently threatened to do as a last resort.On Monday, the company announced that it planned to set sail this summer from New York, Los Angeles and two Florida cities, Port Canaveral and Miami. The cruise line, however, did not specify how it planned to sail out of Florida.Mr. Del Rio said the company was in contact with Gov. Ron DeSantis’s staff and legal team to “ensure that we can offer the safest cruise experience for our passengers departing from the cruise capital of the world.”Other cruise lines, such as Royal Caribbean International, might bow to the state’s vaccine passport ban. Announcing its voyage plans out of Miami this summer, the cruise line said that its crews would be fully vaccinated, while guests were “strongly recommended to set sail fully vaccinated, if they are eligible.”Royal Caribbean guests who are not vaccinated — or unable to prove that they are — will have to be tested for the virus, and could be subject to other protocols to be announced later, the cruise line said.Last week, the mayors of Broward County, Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood sent a letter to Governor DeSantis urging him to reconsider the state’s position on vaccine passports. They argued that the cruise lines “are ready to set sail” based on U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, but that the ban on vaccine passports prevented them from doing so.
A cruise ship required all aboard to be vaccinated. Then two passengers tested positive for the virus. -Just as cruises resume after more than a year on pause, the industry is facing an immediate setback.Two passengers sharing a stateroom aboard the Celebrity Millennium, operated by Royal Caribbean’s Celebrity Cruises from the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday. The ship, billed as the first fully-vaccinated cruise in North America, has one more day at sea on Friday before returning to St. Maarten to disembark.All guests will take an antigen test as part of their disembarkation process, said Susan Lomax, the company’s associate vice president for global public relations.In a statement, the cruise line said that the passengers tested positive during required testing before leaving the ship. The travelers are asymptomatic and are in isolation under observation by a medical team. Testing and contact tracing is in place for close contacts.The ship’s 650 crew members and 600 or so passengers (including a New York Times reporter) were required to be vaccinated before boarding, and had to show proof of a negative coronavirus test taken within 72 hours before sailing from St. Maarten last Saturday.Two passengers on a Mediterranean cruise operated by MSC Cruises also tested positive. Both passengers on the MSC Seaside were asymptomatic when they tested positive during routine testing two days ago, the communications manager Paige Rosenthal said. Immediately after testing positive, the two passengers, who were not traveling together, were isolated along with their parties. They all disembarked in Syracuse, Sicily.All passengers on the vessel were required to take two coronavirus tests before boarding; vaccines were not required. The major cruise lines are preparing to restart operations from U.S. ports this summer. Celebrity Edge is poised to be the first, sailing out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on June 26, with all crew and at least 95 percent of passengers fully vaccinated, in accordance with guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, cruise ships were sites of some of the largest concentrations of coronavirus cases. The return of cruises and large gatherings such as conferences is a sign that the pandemic is ending in the United States, as the steady pace of vaccinations — 43 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and 52 percent have received at least one dose, according to a New York Times database — gives some event organizers the confidence to resume business.
New York state permits children and adults to be unmasked in K-12 schools - On Friday, New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker informed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that masks would no longer be required for K-12 educators, students, or youth at summer camps in the state. This move by the Democratic Cuomo administration follows the recent dropping of other COVID-19 safety standards across the state. Zucker’s letter told CDC Director Rochelle Walensky that it would go forward with these measures unless the CDC objected. He wrote, “If there is any data or science that you are aware of that contradicts moving forward with this approach, please let me know as soon as possible.” As of Sunday, no official guidance has been sent to school districts, causing confusion statewide about whether the mask mandate has been dropped for this Monday. One superintendent of a school district in the Hudson Valley said that his email was “blowing up” with questions about the dropping of the masking mandate. The Cuomo administration, of course, knows full well that the CDC will supply no evidence that contradicts this reckless action. Last week, Cuomo remarked that the CDC’s advice that children wear masks outdoors “seems a little extreme.” The CDC, acting in concert with the Biden Administration, has in fact led the effort in the US to systematically dismantle mitigation measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, under conditions in which the majority of Americans, including children, remain unvaccinated. On May 13, the CDC dropped the requirement that unvaccinated people wear masks in public venues, absurdly relying on an honor system, and stopped tracking COVID-19 infections among those who have been inoculated. Cuomo has fully embraced the CDC’s lifting of mask requirements for unvaccinated people. He recently stated at a press conference, “If you are vaccinated, you are safe,” adding, “No masks. No social distancing.”
Chicago charter school teachers begin strike after unanimous authorization vote - On Monday, 34 teachers at three Urban Prep Academies in Chicago began a strike against the charter schools after three years of negotiations that have failed to produce a contract. Urban Prep manages two all boys’ schools located in the Bronzeville and Englewood neighborhoods on Chicago’s south side and one campus in the downtown loop area, serving a combined total of roughly 1,500 students. At the end of May, the teachers unanimously voted to authorize a strike against the charter school operator, animated by a desire for higher wages and improved benefits. In addition, teachers are demanding that the Urban Prep management provide the federally mandated resources for special education students. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) officially represents the Urban Prep teachers, but the middle-class bureaucrats that run the CTU are thoroughly hostile to the interests of rank-and-file teachers. The union has not publicly listed its demands for the contract, instead issuing a press release that simply states, “Management continues to reject language protecting special education students, classroom needs, student resources.” Despite the fact that the starting salary for Urban Prep teachers is an estimated $11,000 less than the average Chicago Public Schools (CPS) teacher represented by the CTU, the union is not publicly making any demands for pay parity with other CPS teachers. The CTU’s press release notes that in the past year Urban Prep received a $3 million Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan funded by the CARES Act, which was not utilized for its express purpose of funding teachers’ salaries, but makes no demand that this siphoning of teachers’ pay be reversed.
Teacher who wouldn’t use preferred pronouns gets outpouring of support - A gym teacher in a progressive Virginia school district, who was suspended and then reinstatedafter refusing to use transgender students’ preferred pronouns, received an outpouring of support during a raucous school board meeting Tuesday.Byron “Tanner” Cross was suspended after he said at a recent Loudoun County Public Schools meeting that he wouldn’t recognize that “a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa” because of his Christian faith.“I am speaking out of love for those who are suffering from gender dysphoria,” the Leesburg Elementary teacher last month told the school board, which has already bitterly divided parents and educators by pushing critical race theory.Judge James Plowman of Virginia’s 20th Judicial Circuit of granted Cross a temporary injunction, criticizing the district for the suspension three weeks before the end of the school year.During Tuesday’s meeting, many commenters either backed Cross or slammed the school board, Fox News reported.“Where is your regard for our freedom of speech?” said mother of three Rachel Pisani. “When I saw a teacher express an opinion and suspended for expressing his religious beliefs, I could no longer stay silent. When did it become acceptable to be tolerant only when someone expresses a view that we agree with?”
Colorado principal resigns after photo of reenactment of George Floyd's murder A Colorado high school principal has resigned after a photo of three students at her school reenacting the death of George Floyd was shared online. The Denver Post reported that Mead High School Principal Rachael Ayers announced her resignation in a letter Monday to St. Vrain Valley School District Superintendent Don Haddad. In a photo posted online last month, three Mead High School students were seen reenacting Floyd's murder at the hands of former police officer Derek Chauvin. The student meant to represent Floyd was wearing blackface. Hadad later called the photo "disturbing and disgusting." "We in the St. Vrain Valley Schools strongly condemn, and have no tolerance for, racism in any form and will be addressing this extremely serious matter immediately and accordingly," she wrote in a letter. A Twitter user identifying as an alumnus of the school brought attention to the photo and shared a Change.org petition calling on the students to be held accountable and for Ayers to bring attention to the photo. "I'm truly embarrassed to have graduated from here and these students don't represent what Mead stands for," the Twitter user wrote.
The Importance of Funding Public Colleges -In the United States over the last 10 years, our university system has been thrown into great peril. This is for a wide variety of reasons. On the one hand, the cost of tuition for students has gone up, while the quality of education provided by universities has remained the same. In many ways, the quality of such education has actually decreased during such tuition hikes. There are two fundamental reasons for the above-mentioned state of affairs. The first pertains to rises in tuition costs. Tuition has gone up as a result of the rising costs of administrators in universities. There is surely a debate to be had as to the utility of hiring more administrators in universities, but it's undeniable that hiring them is driving tuition prices up. The second pertains to decreases in educational quality, and this is generally seen in the humanities. On the one hand, there has been a growing perception that the humanities lack value—that majors in the humanities have no utility. Despite my personal experience of the humanities as having profound practical and intellectual utility, there are good reasons to believe the humanities are diminishing in their value. Not only are resources being stripped from departments in the humanities, but there is a growing bias present in these departments. This bias is essentially the left-wing version of something similar to the One American News Network (OANN). Which is to say, there is a pressure on campuses—both socially, and in curriculums—to adhere to a progressive narrative—even if verifiable facts point in a different direction. If you are a conservative on campus, you generally learn to keep your mouth shut when politics or cultural issues arise, as the likelihood of being scolded for speaking your mind is pretty high. Universities needs to be a place of open discussion, with a good admixture of pluralism and skepticism, regardless of one's personal political disposition. Philosophy departments do a good job of continuing to facilitate such pluralism and skepticism on campus, and I believe more departments ought to take a few notes from their philosophically-disposed colleagues. Despite the prevalence of these issues, the university system should not be done away with. When it works correctly, it produces responsible citizens who are well-educated, practically informed, articulate and ambitious—the sort of citizens which are necessary for the advancement of civilization. Where the university system fails, is precisely on this matter. Half of our young population are enrolling in universities at record lows, and are performing poorly in universities in record lows. The result of this entails young men who are more likely to spend most of their time playing video games, abdicating responsibility and struggling to find purpose in life. There is nothing sustainable about this, especially in a world that strictly encourages going to college, over equally valid paths such as taking up a trade.
My New Study Proves It: Cancel Culture Is Much Worse on the Left --Stories of mob-style cancel culture and violent protests at American universities like Yale, Evergreen State, and Middlebury are no longer the exception. Professors are now being regularly threatened with cancelation nationwide. Hardly a week goes by, it seems, without a new incident.A music theory professor at the University of North Texas published a critique of another scholar's critical-race argument about music theory and his dean opened an investigation in the name of reaffirming "our dedication to combatting racism on campus and across all academic disciplines." A Princeton professor of Classics came under firefor a dissenting letter against his colleagues' racial justice demands and faced professional consequences as a result. A professor at University of North Carolina was accused of creating an "unsafe learning environment" for a pedagogical role-play exercise on social and economic justice.Even at the at the University of Chicago, a school that has been on the forefront of free speech and civil debate and discourse with its Chicago Principles, a professor of geophysical sciences was attacked as "unsafe" for explaining his concerns about how his department was implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; he rejected the idea that in order to hire more women in science, the university needed to lower its standards. And attempted cancelation has ensued.Mobs coming for professors have become so commonplace that this phenomenon has petrified and silenced many students as well, students who regularly report wanting to hear a diverse set of ideas but are afraid to speak up, as well as the handful who challenge woke, intolerant ideas and make national news. A tribal mentality on college campuses built around progressive calls for reform has emerged, and students and professors who push back against these leftist ideas are essentially cancelled, leaving them at risk of ostracism, intimidation and facing threats of significant consequence. Worse, these tactics have spread from our nation's cloistered campuses to infect the nation at large. Many Americans report having censored themselves on salient socio-political issues out of fear of reputational consequences. This new dynamic is dangerous for democracy and threatens the societal progress that stems from healthy debate.Of course, it's true that cancelation happens on the right, too. But our recent study, which sought to quantify cancel culture, found that it is far more prevalent on the left.
Over 10,000 University of California researchers petition for United Auto Workers union membership -On May 24th, University of California (UC) student researchers submitted more than 10,000 signed authorization cards from all ten UC campuses and the UC-operated Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to the state’s Public Employee Relations Board in order to establish Student Researchers United-United Auto Workers (UAW). If approved, the union will represent more than 17,000 higher education workers across the University of California campuses and LBNL. Graduate students, like workers in other industries, face increasingly desperate conditions. Colleges and universities across the country have cut a total of 650,000 jobs since February 2020, a 13 percent reduction of all higher education workers. Graduate workers, teaching assistants and research assistants have also come under fierce attack. Like many educators in California, UC graduate students face stagnating wages and soaring rents, struggling to make ends meet in one of the most expensive states in the country. In many cases, the average monthly pay of student workers is less than the average price of a one-bedroom rental unit in the area. A report by Center for the Transformation of Schools at UCLA revealed that 1 in 20 UC students experience homelessness. Amid rising housing and food costs, the cost of living is increasing rapidly. At UC San Diego, housing costs for incoming graduate students are expected to increase by between 35 to 85 percent. Like countless other universities across the nation, UC is aggressively pushing for a full reopening plan for the 2021 fall quarter despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, endangering students, staff and faculty. There is no doubt that under such conditions, the student workers in the UC system cast their vote in favor of the unionization effort under the impression that the UAW—with all of its vast financial resources and hundreds of thousands of members—will be an ally in their fight for better living conditions. In reality, assuming the union drive is ratified by the state government, student researchers will find themselves conducting a fight on two fronts, against both the university administration and the UAW. UAW is not a “union” in the traditional sense but a cheap labor contractor and industrial police force, whose institutional interests are inextricably hostile to the workers it claims to represent. It has collaborated for decades with the auto companies in enforcing plant closures and wage cuts, while integrating itself financially with the auto companies through its control of corporate stock, and participation in joint labor-management committees. The UAW controls more than $1.2 billion in assets, including a nearly $800 million strike fund which it uses as a slush fund for the bureaucracy, hundreds of whom earn “earn” 6-figure salaries. Top union officials supplement their incomes with direct corporate bribes of the type revealed in the recent federal corruption probe which brought down more than a dozen UAW officials, including Dennis Williams and Gary Jones, the last two presidents of the union.
Local leaders build pressure on Biden to cancel student loans -Local leaders are stepping up the pressure on President Biden to tackle the issue of student debt by taking official action in their own jurisdictions that they hope will urge him to forgive some college loans. The District of Columbia and several other city governments have passed resolutions that call on the federal government to act on student loan cancellations. The moves come as Biden laid out new measures toward economic equity this week, an issue that student loan advocates say could be tackled in part by canceling student loans. The resolution D.C. passed on Tuesday unanimously urges immediate attention from the federal government and to “begin the transition to education as a public good,” outlining how student loans impact the District’s residents. “Student debt is a contradiction in terms. Students should not have to accrue debt to be educated, and education should be a public good. The student debt crisis hits communities of color, women, and low-income families hardest — both in the District and across the United States,” said D.C. Councilwoman Janeese Lewis George, who introduced the resolution. The Boston City Council passed a resolution in April that calls on the federal government to cancel all student loan debt, saying it's a “burden” that disproportionately impacts communities of color. A resolution passed by Philadelphia’s City Council in March specifically called for Biden to cancel student debt within his first 100 days in office, which elapsed in April. Cambridge, Mass.; Somerville, Mass.; and Watsonville, Calif., have taken similar steps. Biden’s speech on Tuesday to mark the Tulsa Race Massacre centennial unveiled a plan to drive racial equity throughout the country by expanding and targeting federal purchasing power to benefit more minority-owned businesses. He didn’t discuss student loan forgiveness during his remarks, which the NAACP has criticized the president for. NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement that student loan debt suppresses Black Americans. “You cannot begin to address the racial wealth gap without addressing the student loan debt crisis. You just can’t address one without the other. Plain and simple,” Johnson said. When questioned about Biden’s interest in tackling student debt, the White House has pointed to Biden’s budget proposal, unveiled on Friday, which includes two years of free community college and an increase in Pell grants. The American Families Plan, the second part of Biden’s sweeping infrastructure package, includes $46 billion in investments for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as tribal colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions — another point the White House has touted.
Medical Journal Describes "Whiteness" As A Parasitic Pathology That Has No Cure --A research study published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association describes “whiteness” as a parasitic pathology that has no cure. Yes, really. The article, which is entitled ‘On Having Whiteness’, was written by Dr. Donald Moss (who is white), a faculty member of both the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. Moss asserts that white people have a “particular susceptibility” to the “parasitic” condition, which he says “renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse” and leads them to “terrorize” non-whites. The nutty academic then frames “whiteness” as a malignant disease that can only be prevented via massive programs of re-education. “Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites—to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation,” he writes. Even then, Moss laments that there “is no guarantee against regression” and “[t]here is not yet a permanent cure.” This kind unhinged rhetoric is also being spewed by Moss’ teaching colleagues in schools and universities across American under the guise of Critical Race Theory. The article once again underscores how the only form of allowed “systemic racism” and discrimination that exists in the west is against white people.
Biogen CEO says $56K a year for new Alzheimer's drug is a 'fair' price -Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos on Monday said in an interview that he believed charging $56,000 per year for his company’s newly approved Alzheimer's medication was “fair,” citing years of “no innovation” in the marketplace.Appearing on CNBC’s “Power Lunch,” Vounatsos said the price of the drug, sold as Aduhelm, was a reflection of “two decades of no innovation,” and said it would allow Biogen to fund medications for other diseases.He also vowed that his company would not raise the price of Aduhelm for at least the next four years.Vounatsos added that it was time to “invest” in Alzheimer’s treatment when asked if he expected pushback from patients for the high price of his company’s drug.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Monday that ithad approved the Biogen drug, also known as aducanumab. This is the first Alzheimer’s medication approved by the FDA since 2003.Though it was approved, the drug is controversial as some Alzheimer’s experts and committees have said there is not enough evidence to suggest that it is effective in treating the neurologic disorder.
A Dangerous Precedent - 3rd FDA Advisor Quits After Controversial Alzheimer's Drug Approval --While the mainstream media focused on the hope-filled headlines that, for the first time since 2003, the FDA approved Biogen's Aduhelm treatment for Alzheimer's Disease; few, if any, were fully aware of the levels of controversy behind the scenes. Aside from the scientific uncertainty over whether amyloid plaque treatments are an approach worth continuing...Despite the dominance of the amyloid hypothesis over the past few decades, evidence that links reductions in plaque levels to improvements in cognition is “thin, at best”, says Jason Karlawish, a geriatrician and co-director of the Penn Memory Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.“Desperation should drive the funding of science, not drive the way we interpret the science,” he says.It turns out that despite the fact that not one member of the FDA Advisory Committee voted to approve Aduhelm, the FDA recently approved this Alzheimer therapy anyway, relying on an alternative measure of activity. As Statnews reports, since the FDA's decision, three members of that FDA Advisory Panel have quit.
- 1. Neurologist J.Perlmutter, a member of the FDA’s expert panel said he quit the committee “due to this ruling by FDA without further discuss with our advisory committee.”
- 2. Neurologist David Knopman of the Mayo Clinic.
- 3. Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, director of Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law, said Aduhelm’s approval didn’t just set “a dangerous precedent” for what kind of evidence an Alzheimer’s therapy would need to show to get the green light, “but even more broadly for the idea that a company can turn around and at the last minute seek [accelerated approval] when their primary clinical endpoints in their trials don’t reach the level needed for FDA approval,” he told STAT in an email.
In his letter of resignation to the FDA, Kesselheim said Biogen’s Aduhelm “was probably the worst drug approval decision in recent U.S. history.”Both Perlmutter and Kesselheim voted against the drug, while Knopman was recused from the November hearing as he had already staked out a public position critical of the drug’s trial results.
The C.D.C. urges parents to get childhood vaccinations up to date following a steep decline last year. - Pediatricians are urging U.S. parents to get their children caught up on routine vaccinations, following a decline in the number of inoculations for diseases like measles as the pandemic forced restrictions, including shelter-at-home orders, last year.New data from 10 jurisdictions that closely monitor immunizations confirm that the number of administered vaccine doses plunged between March and May of last year, especially among older children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.Though vaccinations rebounded between June 2020 and September 2020, approaching pre-pandemic levels, the increase was not enough to make up for the earlier drop, the study found.Vaccinations are required for attendance at most schools, camps and day care centers, but the authors of the C.D.C. study warned that the lag nonetheless “might pose a serious public health threat that would result in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.”They expressed concern that the transition to remote learning during the pandemic may have hobbled enforcement of vaccination requirements, noting that even temporary declines in immunization can compromise herd immunity.In 2018-2019, a measles outbreak occurred in Rockland County, N.Y., and nearby counties after measles vaccination coverage in area schools dropped to 77 percent, below the 93 percent to 95 percent figure needed to sustain herd immunity. “Pediatric outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases have the potential to derail efforts to reopen schools” in the fall, the researchers added.Parents should plan ahead and schedule appointments now so that their children can be protected, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, who chairs the committee on infectious diseases at the American Academy of Pediatrics.“We should start thinking about it,” Dr. Maldonado said in a phone interview. “People forget. We have regular pertussis outbreaks every four or five years, and are just waiting to see another one.”“We’re probably going to start seeing more infections, because kids are going to get back together and there’s going to be less masking and social distancing,” she added. The number of administered doses of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines (DTaP) dropped 15.7 percent among children under age 2, and 60 percent among those aged 2 to 6 in the spring of last year, compared with the same period in 2018 and 2019. Doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) declined by 22.4 percent among 1-year-olds, and 63 percent among those aged 2 to 8. HPV vaccine administration declined by more than 63 percent among youngsters aged 9 to 17, compared with the same period in 2018 and 2019; and doses of Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis) decreased by over 60 percent.
Covid Was a Tipping Point for Telehealth. If Some Have Their Way, Virtual Visits Are Here to Stay. - As the covid crisis wanes and life approaches normal across the U.S., health industry leaders and many patient advocates are pushing Congress and the Biden administration to preserve the pandemic-fueled expansion of telehealth that has transformed how millions of Americans see the doctor.The broad effort reaches across the nation’s diverse health care system, bringing together consumer groups with health insurers, state Medicaid officials, physician organizations and telehealth vendors.And it represents an emerging consensus that many services that once required an office visit can be provided easily and safely — and often more effectively — through a video chat, a phone call or even an email.“We’ve seen that telehealth is an extraordinary tool,” said David Holmberg, chief executive of Pittsburgh-based Highmark, a multistate insurer that also operates a major medical system. “It’s convenient for the patient, and it’s convenient for the doctor. … Now we need to make it sustainable and enduring.”Last fall, a coalition of leading patient groups — including the American Heart Association, the Arthritis Foundation, Susan G. Komen and the advocacy arm of the American Cancer Society — hailed the expansion of telehealth, noting the technology “can and should be used to increase patient access to care.”But the widespread embrace of telemedicine — arguably the most significant health care shift wrought by the pandemic — is not without skeptics. Even supporters acknowledge the need for safeguards to prevent fraud, preserve quality and ensure that the digital health revolution doesn’t leave behind low-income patients and communities of color with less access to technology — or leave some with only virtual options in place of real physicians.Some worry that telehealth, like previous medical innovations, may become another billing tool that simply drives up costs, a fear exacerbated by the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the burgeoning digital health industry.
The Proposed Hospital Mega-Merger in Rhode Island Shouldn’t Happen --The two largest hospital systems in Rhode Island, Lifespan and Care New England (CNE), submitted an application to the state in April to form a new health system in partnership with Brown University.* In spite of proponents’ claims to the contrary, this mega-merger would likely raise health care costs, wouldn’t meaningfully affect care quality, and would do nothing to keep care local.A robust body of evidence supports the idea that hospital mergers, regardless of the tax-exempt status of merging parties, generally raise commercial prices. This happens because hospitals with more market powerhave more leverage to charge health plans higher prices. Since a merged Lifespan-CNE system would control 68% of the acute care beds in the state if approved, its hospitals could (and would) demand ever-higher reimbursement from commercial payers.To reassure policymakers, Lifespan, CNE, and Brown have pointed to state regulations that limit hospitals’ ability to increase the rates they charge commercial health insurers. These rate caps are undeniably a potent tool for containing health care costs. However, they do not prevent hospitals from driving up prices for services rendered to health plans regulated exclusively by the federal government under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Since ERISA-covered plans account for about 43% of the commercial insurance market in the state, the new hospital system could extract enormous profits using this loophole, which would raise premiums for thousands of Rhode Islanders.A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year found that hospital consolidation was not associated with significant differences in rates of mortality or hospital readmission. Worse, the study authors observed a statistically significant association between hospital mergers and lower-quality patient care experiences.To be taken seriously, hospital systems hoping to consolidate should demonstrate what Harvard professors Leemore Dafny and Thomas Lee have called cognizable efficiencies. This means that promised gains in care quality or patient experiences need to be empirically measurable and likely to emerge. It also means that the onus is on hospital systems to explain why a merger is their only means of achieving better quality. Until Lifespan, CNE, and Brown University do just that (to date, they have not), Rhode Island policymakers should have little faith that quality improvements will materialize.
WSJ - The Science Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak - The Covid-19 pathogen has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus. The possibility that the pandemic began with an escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is attracting fresh attention. President Biden has asked the national intelligence community to redouble efforts to investigate.Much of the public discussion has focused on circumstantial evidence: mysterious illnesses in late 2019; the lab’s work intentionally supercharging viruses to increase lethality (known as “gain of function” research). The Chinese Communist Party has been reluctant to release relevant information. Reports based on U.S. intelligence have suggested the lab collaborated on projects with the Chinese military.But the most compelling reason to favor the lab leak hypothesis is firmly based in science. In particular, consider the genetic fingerprint of CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the disease Covid-19. In gain-of-function research, a microbiologist can increase the lethality of a coronavirus enormously by splicing a special sequence into its genome at a prime location. Doing this leaves no trace of manipulation. But it alters the virus spike protein, rendering it easier for the virus to inject genetic material into the victim cell. Since 1992 there have been at least 11 separate experiments adding a special sequence to the same location. The end result has always been supercharged viruses. A genome is a blueprint for the factory of a cell to make proteins. The language is made up of three-letter “words,” 64 in total, that represent the 20 different amino acids. For example, there are six different words for the amino acid arginine, the one that is often used in supercharging viruses. Every cell has a different preference for which word it likes to use most.In the case of the gain-of-function supercharge, other sequences could have been spliced into this same site. Instead of a CGG-CGG (known as “double CGG”) that tells the protein factory to make two arginine amino acids in a row, you’ll obtain equal lethality by splicing any one of 35 of the other two-word combinations for double arginine. If the insertion takes place naturally, say through recombination, then one of those 35 other sequences is far more likely to appear; CGG is rarely used in the class of coronaviruses that can recombine with CoV-2. In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus.Although the double CGG is suppressed naturally, the opposite is true in laboratory work. The insertion sequence of choice is the double CGG. That’s because it is readily available and convenient, and scientists have a great deal of experience inserting it. An additional advantage of the double CGG sequence compared with the other 35 possible choices: It creates a useful beacon that permits the scientists to track the insertion in the laboratory.Now the damning fact. It was this exact sequence that appears in CoV-2. Proponents of zoonotic origin must explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favorite combination, the double CGG. Why did it replicate the choice the lab’s gain-of-function researchers would have made?
Yet Another Scientific Study Concludes COVID Is Likely Lab-Engineered -- Dr. Stephen Quay and Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller revealed the findings in The Wall Street Journal Sunday, noting that “The most compelling reason to favor the lab leak hypothesis is firmly based in science.”The scientists added that “COVID-19 has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus.”The research points to the genome sequencing of the virus ‘CGG-CGG’, which is one of 36 sequencing patterns observed, but does not occur in nature. “The CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here,” the scientists assert.“A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus,” they add, while also noting that the CGG-CGG combination IS commonly used in ‘gain of function’ research, which is known to have been used with coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.The scientists urge that those who believe COVID-19 jumped from animals to humans “must explain why it happened to pick its least favorite combination: CGG-CGG.”They further ask for an explanation as to “Why did it replicate the choice the lab’s gain-of-function researchers would have made?”“Yes, it could have happened randomly, through mutations. But do you believe that?” the authors of the study ask, adding “At the minimum, this fact—that the coronavirus, with all its random possibilities, took the rare and unnatural combination used by human researchers—implies that the leading theory for the origin of the coronavirus must be laboratory escape.”This latest study comes on the heels of a revitalised focus on scientific research by Professor Angus Dalgleish of St George’s Hospital, University of London and Norwegian virologist Birger Sorensen which presents compelling evidence suggesting the virus was manufactured in a laboratory.As the scientists noted, they were ostracised and ignored until recently when intelligence findings revealed that workers at the Wuhan lab fell sick with COVID-19 symptoms in November 2019. As the global pandemic unfolded, scores of scientists came forward suggesting the genome sequencing of the virus was unnatural, and should be further investigated. The lab leak theory was effectively shut down, however, when scientists led by Dr Peter Daszak “orchestrated a ‘bullying’ campaign and coerced top scientists into signing off on a letter to The Lancet journal aimed at removing blame for Covid-19 from the Wuhan lab he was funding with US money.”
Examining America's Culpability for COVID --Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who defected from Hong Kong, argues that COVID-19 was developed by China for biowarfare purposes and that the source of the virus was not guano in a bat cave in a copper mine in Yunnan, as Chinese authorities have asserted. Instead, she claims what she terms the Zhoushan virus, either ZC45 or ZXC21, was manipulated in a number of Chinese laboratories, including Wuhan. The Zhoushan variant was identified by the People's Liberation Army and scientists across China were put to work on adapting it for biowarfare. The virus from Wuhan appears synthetic—that is, it does not resemble anything in nature. And it is a killer, as proven by what the world has experienced since late 2019. In the U.S., 597,000 people have died from COVID and 33 million have been infected; worldwide, a staggering 3.7 million have died (so far) and 173 million infected. In fact, these numbers may be an undercount of the ravages caused by the virus.The evidence points to the uncomfortable conclusion that elements of the U.S. government were working on and supporting a human killer virus.But there's one more question investigators need to ask: Could COVID-19 have been developed as a biowarfare agent?Widespread COVID infections could provide China with strategic advantages. For example, early in 2020, sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Rooseveltvisited Vietnam. At least 1,200 of them got COVID and the vital aircraft carrier was laid up in Guam for weeks. If China were preparing an invasion of Taiwan, it would make sense to do everything possible to paralyze the U.S. fleet, which China regards as its nemesis.Although China signed the Biological Warfare Convention in 1984 and claims that it complies, there is significant evidence that it maintains and supports a strongbiowarfare capability.The U.S. has a vested interest in supporting the lab leak thesis and the argument that the Yunnan Copper Mine was the initial source for COVID-19. The theory that important research was going on, but the leak was an unfortunate accident, absolves American politicians and elite institutions. But if the virus was part of a biowarfare program, the U.S. has a big problem—because it would mean we spent years and millions of dollarssupporting a Chinese military program in the Wuhan lab. Honest scientists and journalists have to consider American culpability.
Plant-based eaters are less likely to get severe COVID: study says - .Researchers have revealed a link between diet and COVID-19 which showed plant-based eaters were 73% less likely to come down with the viruscompared to those who include animals in their diet. Meanwhile, pescatarians, whose primary protein source is fish, were at a 59% lower risk.The new study, published in the BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health, based these findings on a self-reported questionnaire submitted by a total of 2,884 individuals, all health-care workers, from six European countries, 568 of which had had confirmed cases of the coronavirus during the previous year.Among those cases, 138 said they suffered moderate to severe symptoms, while the remaining 430 experienced mild effects of the respiratory illness. Details regarding participants’ eating habits were also included in the survey, which had 10 diet categories: “whole food” diet, keto diet, Mediterranean diet, Paleolithic diet, low fat diet, low carbohydrate diet and high protein diet, all of which include red and white meats, plus plant-based/vegan diet, vegetarian diet, and pescatarian diet, which omit red and white meats. “Other” was also made an option.Of those who had reported illness, only 41 had claimed to be on a plant-based diet while another 46 were pescatarian. The remaining 481 had all been on some form of meal regimen which included livestock and poultry.“Our results suggest that a healthy diet rich in nutrient dense foods may be considered for protection against severe COVID-19,” study authors posited in their press release. It is unclear why seafood and plant-based eaters have potentially fared better during the pandemic as “limited” study can only show an association between the groups and severe COVID-19 illness, “so caution is needed in the interpretation of the findings,” said the deputy chair of the UK’s NNEdPro Nutrition and COVID-19 Taskforce, Shane McAuliffe, in a separate statement attached to the press release.
COVID-19 creates hearing, balance disorders, aggravates tinnitus symptoms The physiological impacts of COVID-19 seem almost limitless. Complications can range from loss of taste to respiratory distress, with many effects lasting for months. Evidence suggests auditory and vestibular effects should be added to the growing list of symptoms. During the 180th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which will be held virtually June 8-10, Colleen Le Prell, from the University of Texas at Dallas, will talk about hearing and balance disorders associated with coronavirus infection and how pandemic-related stress and anxiety may aggravate tinnitus symptoms. Her presentation, "Hearing disorders secondary to infection with SARS-CoV-2," will take place Thursday, June 10, at 1:15 p.m. Eastern U.S. The factors that may play a role in the relationship between COVID-19 and hearing are multifold. COVID-19 is known to have inflammatory effects, including in neurological tissue, which can exacerbate other problems. "Inflammation can damage the auditory and vestibular pathways in the peripheral and central nervous system, just as it damages smell and taste pathways, and other neural systems," said Le Prell. In addition to new injury, there are several studies suggesting the mental anxiety caused by the pandemic, such as lockdown-related stress and concerns about the negative impacts of masks on audibility and communication accessibility, may magnify the auditory impacts of the virus. This is especially so for people who already had tinnitus, prior to the pandemic. "Increases in tinnitus bothersomeness were associated with reports of pandemic-related loneliness, sleep troubles, anxiety, depression, irritability, and financial worries," Le Prell said. "In other words, participants who experienced general increases in stress reported their tinnitus to be more bothersome than before the pandemic."
A secret to the ‘Alpha’ variant’s success is stealth, a new study shows - In December, British researchers discovered that a new variantwas sweeping through their country. When it arrived in other countries, the variant, now known as Alpha, tended to become more common in its new homes as well. By April, it had becomethe dominant variant in the United States, and it has remained soever since.Alpha’s swift success has left scientists wondering how the variant conquered the world. A new study, which was posted online on Monday and has not yet been published in a scientific journal, points to one secret to its success: Alpha disables the first line of immune defense in our bodies, giving the variant more time to multiply.“It’s very impressive,” said Dr. Maudry Laurent-Rolle, a physician and virologist at the Yale School of Medicine who was not involved in the new study. “Any successful virus has to get beyond that first defense system. The more successful it is at doing that, the better off the virus is.”Gregory Towers, a virologist at the University College London, and his colleagues grew coronaviruses in human lung cells for the study, comparing Alpha-infected cells with those infected with earlier variants of the coronavirus.They found that lung cells with Alpha made drastically less interferon, a protein that switches on a host of immune defenses. They also found that in the Alpha cells, the defensive genes normally switched on by interferon were quieter than in cells infected with other variants.Somehow, the immune system’s most important alarm bells were barely ringing in the presence of the Alpha variant. “It’s making itself more invisible,” Dr. Towers said.
The Dangerous Delta Variant - The New York Times -- Britain has had one of the world’s most successful Covid-19 responses in recent months.Unlike the European Union, the British government understood that quickly obtaining vaccine doses mattered more than negotiating the lowest price. Unlike the United States, Britain was willing to impose nationwide restrictions again late last year to reduce caseloads. British officials also chose to maximize first vaccine shots and delay second shots, recognizing that the strategy could more quickly reduce Covid cases.Thanks to these moves, Covid has retreated more quickly in Britain than in almost any other country. Fewer than 10 Britons per day have been dying in recent weeks, down from 1,200 a day in late January. On a per-capita basis, Britain’s death rate last month wasless than one-tenth the U.S. rate.Despite this success, Britain is now coping with a rise in Covid cases. The main cause appears to be the highly infectious virus variant known as Delta, which was first detected in India. Britain’s recent moves to reopen society also probably play a role.The increase is a reminder that progress against the pandemic — even extreme progress — does not equal ultimate victory. Britain’s experience also suggests that cases may soon rise in the U.S. “What we’re seeing in U.K. is very likely to show up in other Western countries soon,” The Financial Times’s John Burn-Murdoch wrote.But there is still cause for concern. As small as it may look on that chart, new Covid cases have more than doubled over the past month, to more than 4,000 a day from about 2,000 a day.Pandemics feed on themselves, in both directions. When new caseloads are falling, it increases the chances that they will continue to fall, because fewer newly infected people are able to spread the virus to others. When caseloads are rising, the opposite occurs. With about 40 percent of Britons still having not received a vaccine shot, the recent increase has the potential to get significantly worse. The country is at a “pivotal moment,” as Dr. Chaand Nagpaul of the British Medical Association told the BBC. For now, deaths have barely risen, and it’s possible that they will not rise much; the Covid death rate for people under 40 has been very low. But it is too soon to know. Covid death trends typically trail case trends by a few weeks. If the Delta variant ends up being significantly more severe, it could cause an increase in deaths.
Fauci warns dangerous Indian COVID variant could become dominant in US - Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Tuesday that thedangerous Indian COVID-19 variant could become the most dominant strain in the US — as the mutation has rapidly spread among younger people in the UK.The White House chief medical adviser said he feared that the so-called Delta variant, B1.617.2, could overtake the highly contagious UK variant, known as B117, in the country — an alarming prospect we should prevent.“We cannot let that happen in the United States, which is such a powerful argument … to get vaccinated,” Fauci said Tuesday at the White House COVID-19 task force briefing.The infectious diseases expert pointed out that the exact situation is already playing out across the pond. “In the UK, the Delta variant is the rapidly emerging as the dominant variant, [accounting for] greater than 60 percent. It is replacing the B117,” he warned.“When talking to their health authorities, the transmission is peaking in the younger group of 12- to 20-year-olds — mainly that group that we’re concerned about here, about making sure they get vaccinated,” he added.Currently, the Delta variant accounts for about 6 percent of cases in the US, Fauci said. His warning comes as the Biden administration faces criticism about there being millions of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 shots at risk of expiring by the end of the month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
When will you need a Covid-19 booster shot? --As the United States edges closer to President Biden’s goal of a 70 percent vaccination rate, many people are beginning to wonder how long their protection will last.Although many scientists estimate that the vaccines authorized in the United States will last at least a year, no one knows for sure. It’s also unclear whether emerging variants of the coronavirus will change our vaccination needs.. Early signs are encouraging. Researchers have been drawing blood from volunteers in vaccine trials and measuring their levels of antibodies and immune cells that target the coronavirus. The levels are dropping, but gradually. It’s possible that with this slow rate of decline, vaccine protection will remain strong for a long time. People who were previously infected and then received the vaccine may enjoy even more durable protection.Scientists have already found that vaccines using different technologies can vary in their effectiveness. The strongest vaccines include Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, both of which are based on RNA molecules. Vaccines relying on inactivated viruses, such as those made by Sinopharm in China and Bharat Biotech in India, have proved somewhat less effective.Scientists are searching for biological markers that could reveal when the protection from a vaccine is no longer enough to hold back the coronavirus. It’s possible that a certain level of antibodies marks a threshold: If your blood measures above that level, you’re in good shape, but if you’re below it, you’re at greater risk of infection. The emergence of variants in recent months has accelerated research on boosters. Some variants have mutations that led them to spread swiftly. Others carry mutations that might blunt the effectiveness of authorized vaccines. But at this point, scientists still have only a smattering of clues about how existing vaccines work against different variants.
In the U.S., vaccines for the youngest are expected this fall. - Coronavirus vaccines may be available in the fall for U.S. children as young as 6 months, drugmakers say. Pfizer and Moderna are testing their vaccines in children under 12 years, and are expected to have results in hand for children aged 5 through 11 by September.Compared with adults, children are much less likely to develop severe illness following infection with the coronavirus. But nearly four million children in the United States have tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic, according to theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics.Doctors continue to see rare cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a condition linked to Covid-19 that can affect multiple organs, including the heart. Vaccinating children should further contribute to containment of the virus by decreasing its spread in communities.Pfizer announced on Tuesday that it was moving to test its vaccine in children aged 5 through 12 years. It will begin testing the vaccine in infants as young as six months in the next few weeks.The company hopes to apply to the Food and Drug Administration in September for emergency authorization of the vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. Results for children aged 2 through 5 could be available soon after that, according to Kit Longley, a spokesman for Pfizer.Data from the trial for children between 6 months old and 2 years old could arrive in October or November, followed by a potential submission to the F.D.A. shortly thereafter, Mr. Longley added.The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized last month for use in children 12 through 15. Based on data from an earlier study that assessed safety, Pfizer will give two doses of 10 micrograms each — a third of the dose given to adolescents and adults — to children ages 5 to 11 years, and two doses of three micrograms each to children 6 months to 5 years.
Israel finds ‘likely’ link between Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine and cases of heart inflammation in young males - A specially appointed epidemiological team has found “a likelihood of a link” between receiving the second dose of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine and the onset of myocarditis in young men, Israel’s Health Ministry said in a statement. The ministry says the team was set up following reports of cases of heart inflammation, known as myocarditis, among males aged 16 to 30 shortly after the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine was administered. The link was found to be stronger in people aged 16-19 relative to other age groups, and weakens as the age of the recipients increases. Most patients who experienced the problem spent up to four days in the hospital, and 95% of the cases were classified as mild, according to the ministry. The Health Ministry commissioned the study after 275 cases of myocarditis were reported in Israel between December 2020 and May 2021. Nearly 150 cases were recorded after the vaccine was administered. The number of cases reported after the second shot was four times greater than those recorded after the first, the ministry said. Myocarditis is a condition characterized by chest pain, shortness of breath, or palpitations, and can be caused by Covid-19, according to the ministry. While the type of vaccine in question is not directly mentioned in the statement, Israel relies almost exclusively on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and it’s the only product mentioned on the vaccination information page of the Health Ministry website. Pfizer said in a statement cited by Reuters that it has not recorded a higher rate of myocarditis than would normally be expected in the general population. The pharma giant added that it was aware of the Israeli observations of myocarditis but has not established a causal link to its vaccine.
The C.D.C. is investigating nearly 800 cases of rare heart problems following immunization. -- Federal officials are reviewing nearly 800 cases of rare heart problems following immunization with the coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, according to data presented at a vaccine safety meeting on Thursday.Not all of the cases are likely to be verified or related to vaccines, and experts believe the benefits of immunization far outweigh the risk of these rare complications. But the reports have worried some researchers. More than half of the heart problems were reported in people ages 12 to 24, while the same age group accounted for only 9 percent of the millions of doses administered.“We clearly have an imbalance there,” said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a vaccine expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who presented the data. Advisers to the agency will meet on June 18 to explore the potential links to the complications: myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart.About two-thirds of the cases were in young males, with a median age of 30 years. The numbers are higher than would be expected for that age group, officials said, but have not yet been definitively linked to the vaccines.As of May 31, 216 people had experienced myocarditis or pericarditis after one dose of either vaccine, and 573 after the second dose. Most cases have been mild, but 15 patients remain in hospitals. The second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was linked to about twice as many cases as the second dose of the vaccine made by Moderna.There were 79 reported cases of the heart problems among those 16 or 17 years old, compared with a maximum of 19 cases expected for that group. And in the group of young people ages 18 to 24, there were 196 cases, compared with an expected maximum of 83.But the true incidence may be lower, Dr. Shimabukuro said. Immunizations of younger teenagers began only last month, and data from that age group in particular are limited.
Woman fails to prove the COVID-19 vaccine made her magnetic during Ohio House hearing -- A nurse during an Ohio House hearing on Thursday tried to prove a debunked theory that taking the COVID-19 vaccine makes a person "magnetic."Joanna Overholt tried to place a key and bobby pin against her body in an effort to prove that both would stick to her skin, though the attempt ultimately failed. Overholt was trying to attest to a conspiracy theory that's been widely circulated by a Cleveland-area physician and anti-vaccine activist, Sherri Tenpenny, who also testified in front of Ohio lawmakers.“Explain why the key sticks to me,” Overholt said during the hearing. In video of her testimony, the key sticks to her for approximately three seconds before she removes it.“It sticks to my neck too,” she added, though she failed to get it to stay. She also attempted to make a bobby pin stick, though that failed as well. Overholt testified in favor of the proposed Enact Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act, which the Ohio Capital Journal reports would prohibit anyone from mandating or asking people to take a vaccine, including the COVID-19 vaccine. Tenpenny has also circulated false claims that the vaccine could "interface" with 5G cellular towers, The Washington Post reported.
Those reports of severe Covid and deaths among the vaccinated? They’re rare, and not unexpected. - Over the last few months, a drumbeat of headlines has highlighted the astounding effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines, especially the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The vaccines, study after study has shown, are more than 90 percent effective at preventing the worst outcomes, including hospitalization and death.But alongside this good news have been rare reports of severe Covid in people who had been fully vaccinated.On June 3, for instance, Napa County, Calif., announced that a fully vaccinated woman, who was more than a month past her second Moderna shot, had died after being hospitalized with Covid. The woman, who was over 65 and had underlying medical conditions, had tested positive for the Alpha variant, which was first identified in Britain.Although these cases are tragic, they are uncommon — and not unexpected.“I’m very sad that she had a sufficiently severe illness that it actually led to her death,” said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University. But, he noted, “we expected to have the occasional breakthrough infection.”Such cases should not dissuade people from getting vaccinated, scientists said. “There is not a vaccine in history that has ever been 100 percent effective,” said Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This is your best chance of avoiding severe, critical disease. But as is true of everything in medicine, it’s not perfect.” Severe Covid is rare in people who have been fully vaccinated. In a paper published last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it had received reports of 10,262 breakthrough infections by April 30. That is just a tiny fraction of the 101 million Americans who had been vaccinated by that date, though the agency noted that it likely represented “a substantial undercount” of breakthrough infections.Of those breakthrough cases, 10 percent of patients were hospitalized and 2 percent died — and in some of those cases, patients were hospitalized or died from something unrelated to Covid-19. The median age of those who died was 82.Older adults, who are at greater risk for Covid complications, may also be more likely to develop breakthrough infections because they are known to mount weaker immune responses to vaccines. People who are immunocompromised or have other chronic health conditions may also be at increased risk.Some of the variants — particularly Beta, which was first identified in South Africa — may be more likely to evade the protection induced by vaccines. But Beta is not currently common in the United States, Dr. Schaffner noted.
In Missouri and Other States, Flawed Data Makes It Hard to Track Vaccine Equity -Throughout the covid-19 vaccination effort, public health officials and politicians have insisted that providing shots equitably across racial and ethnic groups is a top priority. But it’s been left up to states to decide how to do that and to collect racial and ethnic data on vaccinated individuals so states can track how well they’re doing reaching all groups. The gaps and inconsistencies in the data have made it difficult to understand who’s actually getting shots. Just as an uneven approach to containing the coronavirus led to a greater toll for Black and Latino communities, the inconsistent data guiding vaccination efforts may be leaving the same groups out on vaccines, said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, an epidemiologist at the University of California-San Francisco. “At the very least, we need the same uniform standards that every state is using, and every location that administers vaccine is using, so that we can have some comparisons and design better strategies to reach the populations we’re trying to reach,” Bibbins-Domingo said. Now that federal, state and local governments are easing mask requirements and ending other measures to prevent the spread of the virus, efforts to boost vaccination rates in underserved communities are even more urgent. At St. James United Methodist Church, a cornerstone for many in the Black community in Kansas City, Missouri, in-person services recently resumed after being online for more than a year. St. James has also been hosting vaccination events designed to reach people in the neighborhood. “People are really grieving not only the loss of their loved ones, but the loss of a whole year, a loss of being lonely, a loss being at home, not being able to come to church. Not being able to go out into the community,” said Yvette Richards, St. James’ director of community connection. Missouri’s population is 11% African American, but covid cases among African Americans accounted for 25% of the total cases for the state, according to an analysis by KFF. Richards said St. James has lost many congregants to the coronavirus, and the empty pews where they once sat on Sundays serve as stark reminders of all this community has been through during the pandemic. Missouri’s public covid data appears to show robust data on vaccination rates broken down by race and ethnicity. But several groups are seen lagging far behind on vaccinations, including African Americans, who appear to have a vaccination rate of just 17.6%, nearly half of the 33% rate for the state as a whole.
Steven Brandenburg sentenced to three years in prison for tampering with COVID-19 vaccine doses - A former pharmacist in Wisconsin who intentionally tampered with more than 500 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday. Steven Brandenburg, 46, pleaded guilty in February to two felony counts of attempting to tamper with a consumer product. He had admitted to intentionally removing the doses manufactured by Moderna from a refrigerator for hours at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, located just north of Milwaukee. In a statement before receiving his sentence, Brandenburg said he felt "great shame" and accepted responsibility for his actions. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported he apologized to his co-workers, family and the community. "I did not have the right to make this decision for them," he said, according to the newspaper. "I'm tormented by it daily." Aurora destroyed most of the tampered doses, but not before 57 people received inoculations from the supply. Those doses are believed to have still been effective, but weeks of uncertainty created a storm of anger, anxiety and anguish among the recipients, according to court documents. Prosecutors asked for a sentence of four years and three months. Brandenburg faced a maximum penalty of 10 years of imprisonment and $250,000 in fines for each felony count. Brandenburg is an admitted conspiracy theorist who believes he is a prophet and vaccines are a product of the devil. He also professed a belief that the Earth is flat and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were faked. Brandenburg also secretly substituted saline for flu vaccine that he was mandated to receive and persuaded several co-workers to secretly swap saline for their flu vaccine as well, according to court filings.
States warn J.&J. doses could expire soon and the White House urges them to consult the F.D.A. -- State health officials are growing increasingly concerned about whether doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine may expire this month, warning they could go to waste if they go unused in the coming weeks or are not sent elsewhere.Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio has pleaded with health providers in his state to use about 200,000 doses of the vaccine that he said on Monday were set to expire on June 23. The state’s health department directed providers to adopt a “first-in, first-out” process for the shot to ensure doses with earlier expiration dates were used first. Arkansas’ state epidemiologist said last week that as many as 60,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson may not be used there in time.Dr. Marcus Plescia, who represents state health agencies as the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said he believed the expiration risk for Johnson & Johnson was a problem in every state. Over 10 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered to states but not administered,according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Andy Slavitt, a White House pandemic adviser, said on Tuesday at a news conference that the federal government was encouraging governors to consult with the Food and Drug Administration on storage procedures as the agency examines how to possibly extend the shelf life of the vaccine. He said the agency was “looking at opportunities for continued storage.”An F.D.A. spokeswoman on Tuesday referred questions about the vaccine’s shelf life to Johnson & Johnson.“We continue to work with the U.S. government and health authorities to support the use of our vaccine, which continues to play an important role, including among those who wish to be fully vaccinated with one shot,” the company said in a statement. “We also continue to conduct stability testing with the goal of extending the amount of time our Covid-19 vaccine can be stored before expiry.”The single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures for three months, conditions that have allowed states to reach more isolated communities that may find it more difficult to manage the two-dose vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have stricter storage requirements. Pfizer’s vaccine expires six months from its manufacture date. Concerns among state health officials about the Johnson & Johnson doses have dovetailed with a significant drop in vaccination rates across the nation. As of Monday, providers were administering about 1.13 million doses per day on average, a 67 percent decrease from the peak of 3.38 million reported on April 13. About 64 percent of adults have received at least one shot, according to federal data.
West Virginia To Give Away Guns As Covid-19 Vaccine Incentive - As states throughout the U.S. launch campaigns to try and convince residents to get the Covid-19 vaccine— with million dollar lotteries, college scholarships, free beer, and amusement park tickets topping the list — West Virginia has come up with a lottery scheme all its own: giving the newly-vaccinated the chance to win not just money, but rifles and shotguns. The state will give away five custom hunting rifles and five custom shotguns through its lottery, with the drawings taking place on June 20 for Fathers Day. There will be a series of lottery drawings taking place weekly from June 20 through August 4, for which any West Virginian who’s received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine will be eligible to register. The lottery will also give one resident $1 million—as other states have done—along with prizes like full-ride scholarships, custom trucks and lifetime hunting and fishing licenses. In addition to its lottery, West Virginia is also giving away $100 in savings bonds or gift cards to everyone ages 16-35 in the state who is fully vaccinated. 51.1%. That’s the percentage of West Virginians who have so far received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to the state’s health department—or approximately 915,000 people—with 41.2% fully vaccinated. The New York Times’ ranking of state vaccination data finds the state has among the lower vaccination rates in the country, and polling shows there are high rates of vaccine hesitancyamong its residents. A Morning Consult poll conducted between March 20 and April 19 found 28% of West Virginians were unwilling to get the Covid-19 vaccine, among the highest share of any state in the country. West Virginia’s giveaway isn’t the only vaccine incentive related to guns: Illinois has also set up a mobile vaccination site at a shooting range in the state and is giving away 100 free targets to anyone who gets the vaccine there.
Washington state to allow free pot with vaccines --The Washington state agency charged with overseeing the legal recreational cannabis market will allow licensed retailers to give free marijuana to those who receive a coronavirus vaccine at in-store vaccination clinics.In a statement Monday, the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board said it would temporarily waive rules to allow legal pot retailers to trade a jab for one pre-rolled joint to anyone receiving a first or second dose of the coronavirus vaccine.The board said it had received several requests from licensed cannabis dealers to hand out free marijuana in an effort to bolster Washington’s vaccination program. The retailers can advertise the giveaways, though they must still abide by strict advertising requirements that limits the way they can hawk their products.States have dramatically stepped up incentive programs in an effort to speed the acceptance of coronavirus vaccines, even as demand has slowed.About half a dozen states are offering lotteries with cash prizes, following the lead of Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine (R) implemented the first such program with a $1 million top prize. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said last week his state would hand out $116 million in total prizes, including 15 $50,000 awards doled out on Friday. West Virginia is handing out $100 savings bonds to those under the age of 35 who get a vaccine. Arkansas will give away free hunting and fishing licenses, Illinois is distributing 50,000 tickets to Six Flags parks, and Indiana officials are doling out Girl Scout cookie boxes. In Delaware, prisoners who accept a coronavirus vaccine can get a special meal or five days’ credit against their sentences.
Florida, Alabama discontinue daily Covid data reporting in shift to 'next phase' of pandemic - Florida and Alabama will no longer report daily Covid cases and fatalities as vaccinations rise and states begin shifting to the "next phase" of the pandemic. On Friday, Florida implemented a weekly reporting schedule for Covid data, the state's Division of Emergency Management said on its website. "Florida is transitioning into the next phase of the COVID-19 response," the Florida Department of Health wrote in an emailed statement Monday. "As vaccinations increase and new case positivity rate decreases, the Florida Department of Health has moved to a weekly reporting schedule." Alabama moved to a new schedule on Monday in which the state will update case and death data three times a week and vaccination data twice a week. "Along with decreases in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) will be updating its dashboard less frequently," wrote Dr. Karen Landers, an Alabama health officer, in a release Friday. The changes signal a shift in attitudes toward the pandemic as the U.S. averages about 16,000 new infections per day over the past week, a low level not seen since the early days of the outbreak. Florida is reporting an average of eight new cases per 100,000 residents over the past week and Alabama about 8.5 cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, far below their pandemic highs of 84 and 87 per 100,000, respectively. Still, public health experts warn that it might be risky to loosen data reporting guidelines given how quickly the nature of the outbreak has changed at various points over the past year. "I think we have to learn from this pandemic that you can't just imagine that change may not happen," said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University, noting that infection levels in her home city of New York were low last summer before surging again over the winter. "If you start to see a trend, even over one week, you can raise a red flag and be vigilant about it," she added. "I think it's a bit premature to let down our guard." Of course, the last major wave of Covid infections in the U.S. over the winter began before vaccines were available. In Alabama, however, only 36% of residents have received at least one shot, one of the lowest rates in the country, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows. At 50%, Florida's numbers are closer to the nationwide rate of 52% of the population at least partially vaccinated, but still lag. Dr. Joseph Kanter, the top medical official in Louisiana, said that his state shifted to reporting Covid data five days a week about a month ago but has no plans to make any changes beyond that. "I think the daily updates, or at least Monday through Friday, are still pertinent and inform the public in a helpful way," he said. "We're not out of the woods by any means yet," Kanter added.
U.S. Hospitalizations Fall; U.K. Reopening Doubts: Virus Update --U.S. hospitalizations fell, with the share of beds filled by Covid-19 patients at the lowest level since March 2020. Utah’s new cases are rising after the Memorial Day holiday but at about two more infections a day, compared with almost 50 a day last year, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The U.K. could start vaccinating children as soon as August, the Telegraph reported, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock warning that children make up a “huge proportion” of the latest cases. Separately, Hancock said it’s too early to say whether a planned easing of restrictions on June 21 can go ahead. Officials from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation said they would work to expedite the distribution and flow of coronavirus vaccines and other essential medical supplies. Key Developments: Cases exceed 173.1 million; deaths pass 3.7 million. Vaccines: More than 2.12 billion doses administered. About 1.6 million doses of vaccine were recorded in the U.S. on Sunday, a day after the total rose to more than 300 million, according to data collected by the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. The number was almost half a million more than the previous day, which contrasts with a decline since vaccinations peaked in mid-April.
India variant exploding in the U.K. now accounts for 6 percent of U.S. infections, White House says - The highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus that was first identified in India now accounts for 6 percent of infections in the United States, the Biden administration said Tuesday, but vaccines appear to be highly effective against the version that has quickly spread in Britain and beyond.Anthony S. Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said the variant was “taking over” in Britain. “We cannot let that happen in the United States, which is such a powerful argument” for vaccination, he said.Vaccinations are tapering off in the United States, with the nationwide average of daily shots dropping below 1 million last week. Cities, states and private organizations are offering an array of incentives to boost the numbers — including a free cannabis campaign promoted by Washington state. Here are some significant developments:
- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is weighing whether to fully reopen society as the new and highly infectious variant surges. British scientists say B.1.617.2, originally discovered in India and known now as the delta variant, is exploding.
- World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called on vaccine manufacturers to give half their doses to Covax, the initiative to distribute them equitably, as part of a push to inoculate 30 percent of the world’s population by Dec. 31.
- Millions of unused doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States are set to expire this month. With vaccination rates plummeting, states are racing to use the doses before they must throw them away.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is refusing to allow cruise ship operators to require proof of passenger vaccinations, a move that reflects a growing willingness by Republicans to demonize and defy corporations that have been among the party’s closest allies.
- The State Department is easing travel advisories for dozens of countries, moving nations like Canada, France and Japan from Level 4 (“Do Not Travel”) to Level 3 (“Reconsider Travel”).
- The United States reported a seven-day rolling average of 15,589 new infections on Monday, down nearly 15 percent from the previous week. The number of hospitalizations, deaths and tests continued to fall.
Twitter censors account of COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones --Twitter has suspended the account of COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones, an act of open censorship against the Florida data scientist who first came to prominence in May 2020 when she refused to alter coronavirus case and death counts on the state’s coronavirus dashboard at the behest of the administration of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Jones is one of the most forthright and well-known opponents of the homicidal policy of herd immunity—dubbed “social murder” by the British medical journal BMJ—promoted by DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. She has consistently spoken out against school reopenings and the immense dangers posed by doing so amid a pandemic that has killed more than 610,000 in the US alone and more than 3.7 million internationally. DeSantis’ office has gloated over Twitter’s decision, calling Jones the “Typhoid Mary of COVID-19 disinformation … with her defamatory conspiracy theories.” Matt Dixon, one of the governor’s aides, called the decision “long overdue.” DeSantis was joined by other publications such as Yahoo! News, which called Jones a “Fraudulent COVID Whistleblower,” as well as ostensibly left-wing figures such as Glenn Greenwald, who declared Jones had the “stench of fraud” and promoted a story from the right-wing National Review claiming that Jones used her Twitter account to scam money from her followers. Twitter’s pretense for the suspension, according to Jones, is that she reportedly posted a recent article in the Miami Herald entitled “What Rebekah Jones saw behind the scenes at the Florida Department of Health” about 50 times. Whatever the immediate technical reason, the underlying cause is that DeSantis, Twitter and the entire political and media establishment are opposed to sharing information that show a fair and accurate record of DeSantis’ right-wing attacks against the whistleblower. In particular, the Herald article in question has a host of new information about the ongoing legal battle involving Jones and the state of Florida regarding her whistleblower complaint she filed last July. At the time, DeSantis claimed she was fired for “insubordination” and not, as Jones put it in her complaint, being part of a “misleading and politically driven narrative that ignored the data and science.”
The American South could see a summer Covid surge as vaccinations lag --Experts are concerned that states across the U.S. South, where vaccination rates are lagging, could face a surge in coronavirus cases over the summer. A dozen states — many of them in the Northeast, including Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut — have already administered at least one vaccine dose to at least 70 percent of adults, a benchmark that President Biden has set for the nation to reach by July 4. In the South, that marker is nowhere in sight for several states. In 15 states — including Arkansas, the Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana — about half of adults or fewer have received a dose, according to a New York Times analysis last week. In two states, Alabama and Mississippi, it would take about a year to get one dose to 70 percent of the population at the current pace of adult administration. Public-health experts and officials in states with lower vaccination rates say the president’s goal will help reduce cases and deaths, but is somewhat arbitrary. Even if 70 percent of adults are vaccinated, they say, the virus and its more contagious variants can spread among those who are not. But they remain concerned that their residents are more susceptible to infection as restrictions ease across the country, the sense of urgency to get vaccinated declines and many Americans in warmer climates avoid the heat by heading indoors, where the virus spreads more efficiently. If there is a surge across the South, experts believe it won’t be as grave as last summer’s because at least some people are vaccinated and treatments have improved. Younger people, who are less likely to be vaccinated, will be the most vulnerable, said Dr. Edward Trapido, an epidemiologist and associate dean for research at the Louisiana State University School of Public Health. While death or severe illness is not as common for young people with Covid-19, it’s still possible, he said. “The surge is not likely to end up tying up hospitals, and causing lots of deaths,” Dr. Trapido said. “There are certain populations that are undervaccinated, and that’s where we will expect to see a rise.” To avoid a summer surge, states across the South need to catch up to those in the Northeast which have already gotten at least one dose to 70 percent of their populations, according to Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at Baylor College of Medicine. “We’re just we’re not even close to that in the Southern states,” Dr. Hotez said. He said he foresees a new wave in the South because “we’re so underachieving in terms of vaccination.”
Mississippi has the country’s lowest vaccination rates. The governor says that’s not a problem. --Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi on Sunday said that despite his state’s relatively low vaccination rates, case numbers showed there was no longer a high risk of contracting or being hospitalized with Covid-19.“I took my first dose in January, as did my wife, on TV, live,” Mr. Reeves said of the shot on the CNN program “State of the Union” on Sunday. “President Biden’s goals for July 4 are otherwise arbitrary, to say the least.”The state is among the country’s slowest in vaccinations, with 34 percent of the population having received at least one shot,according to a Times database. While the state was far from the 70 percent vaccination goal for that date set forth by the White House, Mr. Reeves said that Mississippi would continue focusing on keeping its case and hospitalization numbers stable.“For over a year, we tried to focus our goals on reducing hospitalizations, reducing the number of individuals in I.C.U. beds, because we think the most important thing is that, if you get the virus, if you can get better with good quality care, that you receive that quality care,” he said. The state’s case load is improving. “At our peak, we had 2,400 cases per day over a seven-day period,” Mr. Reeves said. “Over the last seven days, we’ve had barely 800 cases in total over those seven days.”He attributed the change to the vaccinations, as well as the number of people who had recovered from the virus — about 320,000, a number that he said he believes may be up to five times higher. “ And so we’ve got somewhere between one million or so Mississippians that have natural immunity.”
Texas hospital workers suspended over mandatory vaccine policy.- Nearly 200 staff members at a Houston-area hospital were suspended for not following a policy that requires employees to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Their suspensions followed a protest by dozens of workers on Monday night against the policy.The hospital, Houston Methodist, had told employees that they had to be vaccinated by Monday or face suspension. Last month, 117 Houston Methodist employees filed a lawsuit against their employer over the vaccine policy.While the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionrecommends health care workers get a flu shot, and some hospital systems require it, few companies have required Covid-19 shots, despite federal government guidance that says employers can mandate vaccines for on-site workers.Executives, lawyers and consultants who advise companies say that many of them remain hesitant because of a long list of legal considerations the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says must be followed before mandating vaccinations. Some companies say they are wary of setting mandates until the vaccines have received full approval by the Food and Drug Administration, which so far has granted emergency use authorization.Jennifer Bridges, a nurse who led the Houston Methodist protest, has cited the lack of full F.D.A. approval for the shots as a reason she won’t get vaccinated.Vaccine hesitancy has been high among frontline health care workers: Surveys showed that nearly half remained unvaccinated as of mid-March, despite being among the first to become eligible for the shots in December. A March 2021 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that health care workers had concerns about the vaccines’ newness and their possible side effects, both of which are common reasons for waiting to be vaccinated.By Monday evening, dozens of Houston Methodist employees had gathered outside the hospital system’s location in Baytown, Texas, holding signs that read “VAXX IS VENOM” and “Don’t Lose Sight Of Our Rights.”“If we don’t stop this now and do some kind of change, everybody’s just going to topple,” Ms. Bridges told local media covering the protest. “It’s going to create a domino effect. Everybody across the nation is going to be forced to get things into their body that they don’t want and that’s not right.”
Coronavirus deaths this year surpass 2020 total -- The coronavirus pandemic has already killed more people this year than in all of 2020, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data collected by John Hopkins University.The newspaper found that about 1.883 million people have died from the virus in 2021, compared with 1.88 million last year.This year's COVID-19 death toll surpassed the 2020 total on Thursday, according to the Journal.Around 3.7 million people have succumbed to the virus since it first emerged.The figures underscore the divide between countries that have access to the vaccine and those that are struggling to acquire doses. As of Wednesday, around 2 percent of people in Africa had received at least one dose of the vaccine according to Our World In Data. Almost 7 percent of individuals in Asia had received at least one dose, while in North America that figure was closer to 40 percent. President Biden announced on Thursday that the United States woulddonate 500 million doses to countries in need. But an initiative supported by the U.S. to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines — in an effort to help developing countries manufacture the vaccine — is still facing pushback from the European Union.
Biden outlines plan to share 25 mln COVID-19 vaccines with world (Reuters) - The White House laid out a plan for the United States to share 25 million surplus COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world, with the first shots shipping as soon as Thursday, and said it would ease other countries' access to U.S.-made supplies for vaccine production. President Joe Biden said the United States would give the vaccines without expectation of political favors in return. The dose shipments are the first of some 80 million COVID-19 vaccines that Biden has pledged to provide internationally this month as concern grows about the huge disparity in vaccination rates between advanced economies and developing countries. The United States will donate nearly 19 million doses through the COVAX international vaccine-sharing program, Biden said in a statement. Through COVAX, some 6 million doses would go to Latin America and the Caribbean, about 7 million doses to South and Southeast Asia and roughly 5 million to Africa. The remaining doses, amounting to just over 6 million, would go directly from the United States to countries including Canada, Mexico, India and South Korea, he said. "We are sharing these doses not to secure favors or extract concessions," Biden said. "We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and to lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic, with the power of our example and with our values." Although the United States is working through COVAX co-run by the World Health Organization, the White House retains final say in which countries receive U.S. doses and how many, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The White House will base donation decisions on "factors included achieving global coverage, responding to crises ... and helping as many countries as possible," Sullivan said, adding the United States intends to prioritize its neighbors, including Canada, Mexico and countries in Central and South America.
The U.S. will announce plans to send 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to 100 nations over the next year.— President Biden, under pressure to aggressively address the global coronavirus vaccine shortage, will announce as early as Thursday that his administration will buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and donate them among about 100 countries over the next year, according to people familiar with the plan.The White House reached the deal just in time for Mr. Biden’s eight-day European trip, which is his first opportunity to reassert the United States as a world leader and restore relations that were badly frayed by President Donald J. Trump.“We have to end Covid-19, not just at home, which we’re doing, but everywhere,” Mr. Biden told American troops after landing at R.A.F. Mildenhall in Suffolk, England. “There’s no wall high enough to keep us safe from this pandemic or the next biological threat we face, and there will be others. It requires coordinated multilateral action.”People familiar with the Pfizer deal said the United States would pay for the doses at a “not for profit” price. The first 200 million doses will be distributed by the end of this year, followed by 300 million by next June, they said. The doses will be distributed through Covax, the international vaccine-sharing initiative.Mr. Biden is in Europe for a week to attend the NATO and Group of 7 summits and to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Geneva. He is likely to use the trip to call on other nations to step up vaccine distribution.In a statement on Wednesday, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House official in charge of devising a global vaccination strategy, said Mr. Biden would “rally the world’s democracies around solving this crisis globally, with America leading the way to create the arsenal of vaccines that will be critical in our global fight against Covid-19.”The 500 million doses still fall far short of the 11 billion the World Health Organization estimates are needed to vaccinate the world, but significantly exceed what the United States has committed to share so far. Other nations have been pleading with the United States to give up some of its abundant vaccine supplies. Less than 1 percent of people are fully vaccinated in a number of African countries, compared with 42 percent in the United States and the United Kingdom.
A dangerous movement hyping toxic bleach as a 'miracle cure' is more powerful than ever after exploiting the pandemic in Latin America - Last month, the Justice Department announced the indictment of a Florida man, Mark Grenon, and his three adult sons for allegedly marketing a type of toxic bleach, chlorine dioxide, as a COVID-19 cure. For several years, the indictment said, Grenon sold the bleach under the guise of a church called Genesis II. He told prosecutors that the church "has nothing to do with religion," and that he founded it to "legalize the use of MMS" and avoid "going to jail."MMS stands for "Miracle Mineral Solution," the name Grenon's believers use for toxic bleach. The substance is usually used to treat wood products, has no medical value, and can be fatal if consumed in large doses. MMS followers believe it has healing powers. The indictment might have marked the end of Grenon's attempts to falsely market the bleach as a miracle cure. But over in Latin America, the legacy of Grenon's Genesis II church is stronger than ever. It is perhaps one of the most shocking triumphs of a medical misinformation movement to date.The movement has enlisted the support of politicians, army officers, local celebrities, and a group of renegade medics who call themselves the Global Health and Life Coalition, or Coalición Mundial Salud y Vida (COMUSAV) in Spanish. COMUSAV is run by Patricia Callisperis, a Bolivian medic.The movement has prompted warnings from the Pan American Health Organization and Spain's medical watchdog, theOrganización Médica Colegial, that the substance has no proven medical benefits and can be deadly. Several national health ministries in South America, including Bolivia, have also issued warnings about consuming the bleach.Yet the movement has gained ground, activists told Insider, sweeping through parts of the region where access to healthcare is limited, and distrust of authorities is widespread.
Vaccines cannot come too soon for regions like Latin America, the W.H.O. says— Officials at the World Health Organization on Wednesday repeated their calls for the world’s governments to accelerate plans to distribute coronavirus vaccines to hard-hit nations, warning that many countries in Latin America continued to see rising caseloads. “Across our region, this year has been worse than last year,” said Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, which is part of the W.H.O. “In many places, infections are higher now than at any point in this pandemic.” The comments came as President Biden prepared to announce that his administration would buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and donate them among about 100 countries over the next year, according to people familiar with the plan. Mr. Biden could announce the arrangement as early as Thursday, as he begins his first trip abroad as president. It is not yet clear which countries the 500 million vaccine doses would be supplied to, but Latin America is among the regions where the need is urgent. Eight of the 10 countries with the highest rate of Covid deaths per capita are in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. And even as hospitals in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and other nations where the virus continues to spread aggressively have created overflow facilities, health care systems in several nations in the region are struggling to cope, Dr. Etienne said during the W.H.O.’s virtual news conference on Wednesday morning. “Despite the doubling or even the tripling of hospital beds throughout the region, I.C.U. beds are full, oxygen is running low and health workers are overwhelmed,” she said. Most governments in Latin America are struggling to acquire enough doses to quickly inoculate their people, which will delay their ability to fully reopen economies, officials said.
WHO Celebrates As Indian Health Regulator Removes Ivermectin from Its Covid-19 Protocol --After India finally gets somewhat of a grip on its deadly second wave, one of its health regulators just took away one of its main lines of defense. India’s Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has executed a policy reversal that could have massive implications for the battle against covid-19, not only in India but around the world. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives, could be at stake. The health regulator has overhauled its COVID-19 treatment guidelines and removed almost all of the repurposed medicines it had previously recommended for treating asymptomatic and mild cases. They include the antibiotic doxycycline, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, ivermectin and even multivitamins. The only medicines that are still recommended for early treatment are cold medicines, antipyretics such as paracetamol and inhaled budesonide.“No other covid-specific medication [is] required,” say the new guidelines, which also discourage practitioners from prescribing unnecessary tests such as CT scans.“Patients are advised to seek tele consultation; and Covid-19 appropriate behaviour must be observed such as mask, strict hand hygiene and physical distancing… [Patients are also advised to maintain] a healthy diet with proper hydration… [and] to stay connected [with family] and engage in positive talks through phone, video-calls, etc.” The decision to remove ivermectin, multivitamins and zinc from the treatment guidelines is hard to comprehend given the current state of play in India — unless one assumes foul play. After suffering one of the worst covid-19 outbreaks since the pandemic began, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, India is not just flattening the curve, it is crushing it. And the widespread use of ivermectin, a potent anti-viral and anti-inflammatory with an excellent safety profile, appears to have played an instrumental role. As I posited in my recent article, there are three possible explanations for global health regulators’ opposition to the use of a highly promising, well-tolerated off-label medicine such as ivermectin:
- As a generic, ivermectin is cheap and widely available, which means there would be a lot less money to be made by Big Pharma if it became the go-to early-stage treatment against covid.
- Other pharmaceutical companies are developing their own novel treatments for Covid-19 which would have to compete directly with ivermectin.
- If approved as a covid-19 treatment, ivermectin could even threaten the emergency use authorisation granted to covid-19 vaccines.
India's vaccine inequity worsens as countryside languishes (Reuters) - Urban Indians are getting COVID-19 shots much faster than the hundreds of millions of people living in the countryside, government data shows, reflecting rising inequity in the nation's immunisation drive. In 114 of India's least developed districts - collectively home to about 176 million people - authorities have administered just 23 million doses in total. That's the same number of doses as have been administered across nine major cities -- New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Thane and Nagpur -- which combined have half the population of the least developed districts. The disparity was even stronger last month, after the government allowed private sales of vaccines for adults aged under 45 years, an offer which favoured residents of cities with larger private hospital networks. For the first four weeks of May, those nine cities gave 16% more doses than the combined rural districts, data from the government's Co-WIN vaccination portal shows. "My friends from the city were vaccinated at private hospitals," said Atul Pawar, a 38-year-old farmer from Satara, a rural western district of Maharashtra, India's wealthiest state. "I am ready to pay, but doses are not available and district borders are sealed because of the lockdown." The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a statement on Saturday that reports of vaccine inequity in India were "inaccurate and speculative in nature". "Liberalised pricing and accelerated national COVID-19 vaccination strategy ensures vaccine equity," it said, adding that smaller cities were also getting doses like the big ones. The ministry said it had asked states with fewer private hospitals to review the status of their vaccination campaigns and encourage some government-empanelled hospitals to strike deals with vaccine companies if need be. India has administered more than 222 million doses since starting its campaign in mid-January - only China and the United States have administered more - but it has given the required two doses to less than 5% of its 950 million adults. Rural India is home to more than two-thirds of the country's 1.35 billion people. While urban areas account for a disproportionately large share of the confirmed COVID-19 cases, those concerned about the spread of the virus in the countryside say statistics undercount cases in villages, where testing is less comprehensive.
India to give adults free COVID shots amid soaring deaths - Under the earlier policy, the federal government gave free vaccines to the elderly and frontline workers, and left state governments and private hospitals to administer doses for a fee to others (Reuters) - India will provide free COVID-19 vaccines to all adults, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday, in an effort to rein in a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands and led to the world's second-highest tally of infections. Modi's announcement on national television came after weeks of criticism of a bungled vaccine rollout that has covered fewer than 5% of India's estimated adult population of 950 million. Health experts have warned that vaccination is the only way to protect lives from a third wave of infections after a surge in April-May overwhelmed hospitals in the big cities and in the vast hinterland. Modi said the federal government would take over the vaccination programme from the states from June 21, reversing a policy under which states were running a part of it. "Whether it is the poor, the lower middle class, the middle class, or the upper middle class, under the federal government programme, every one will get free vaccines," he said. Under the earlier policy, the federal government gave free vaccines to the elderly and frontline workers, and left state governments and private hospitals to administer doses for a fee to people in the 18-45 age group. State governments were also competing against each other to procure vaccines from local manufacturers as well as foreign firms, with little luck. Grappling with acute shortages, several states imposed strict curbs, including wholesale lockdowns, in recent weeks. Several vaccination centres also shut down within days of the widening of the campaign to include everyone above the age of 18. "We will increase the speed of procuring vaccines and also increase the pace of the vaccination programme," Modi said.
Despite vaccine successes, a new variant is menacing the U.K. - Britain has had one of the world’s most successful Covid-19 responses in recent months.Unlike the European Union, the British government understood that quickly obtaining vaccine doses mattered more than negotiating the lowest price. Unlike the United States, Britain was willing to impose nationwide restrictions again late last year to reduce caseloads. British officials also chose to maximize first vaccine shots and delay second shots, recognizing that the strategy could more quickly reduce Covid cases.Thanks to these moves, Covid has retreated more quickly in Britain than in almost any other country. Fewer than 10 Britons per day have been dying in recent weeks, down from 1,200 a day in late January. On a per-capita basis, Britain’s death rate last month wasless than one-tenth the U.S. rate.Despite this success, Britain is now coping with a rise in Covid cases. The main cause appears to be the highly infectious virus variant known as Delta, which was first detected in India. Britain’s recent moves to reopen society also likely play a role.The increase is a reminder that progress against the pandemic — even extreme progress — does not equal ultimate victory. Britain’s experience also suggests that cases may soon rise in the United States. “What we’re seeing in U.K. is very likely to show up in other Western countries soon,” The Financial Times’s John Burn-Murdoch wrote.
Covid-19 variants and mutations in South Africa: The worst is yet to come, experts warn - South Africa could have as many as 30 coronavirus mutations and now health experts fear patients with advanced HIV could become “a factory of variants for the whole world." This week, the country reported 9,149 new cases and government is urged to step up efforts with experts saying the speed of the rollout could determine how severe the third wave proves to be. To add to the Covid-19 woes, scientists recently detected potentially dangerous coronavirus mutations in a woman with advanced HIV. The 36-year-old woman carried the coronavirus for 216 days, and during the said period, the virus collected more than 30 mutations. The case was published as a preprint in the medical journal medRxiv this month. After the woman tested positive for Covid-19 in September last year, the virus gathered 13 mutations to spike protein and 19 other genetic shifts that might change the behaviour of the virus. But scientists are unclear if the woman passed on these mutations to others. However, they added that it is possibly not a coincidence that most of the new variants have surfaced from areas such as KwaZulu Natal, where one in four adults is HIV positive. Although there is limited evidence to indicate that HIV-infected people are more susceptible to contracting Covid-19 and developing grave medical consequences, researchers are of the opinion that if more such cases come to light, it will not bode well.
The rush to vaccinate the world stalls as funds and doses fall short. - Many of the world’s poorest nations are living through their deadliest outbreaks of the pandemic, with few signs that a significant number of vaccine doses will be available to reverse that tide anytime soon.Billion-dollar pledges to help them buy doses — and last week’s announcement that the United States will distribute an initial supply of 25 million doses around the world this month — will do little to curb the explosive outbreaks in countries including Argentina, Malaysia and Botswana, experts said. India, the world’s largest producer of vaccines, won’t export any for the rest of the year as it confronts a crushing virus wave. And Covax, the global vaccine-sharing program that the poorest nations rely on, is struggling to raise money and find doses to buy.The World Health Organization estimates that 11 billion doses need to be administered worldwide to stamp out the pandemic.Scientists warn that as long as the virus runs rampant in much of the world, virus variants have time to mutate and possibly evolve the ability to evade vaccines.The vaccine shortfall is widest in Africa, where about 3 percent of 1.2 billion people across more than 50 countries have received one shot, and the World Health Organization reported last week that eight countries had seen cases surge 30 percent or more in the previous seven days. Compare that with the United States, where more than 60 percent of people have received one dose, and new cases have dropped 80 percent since mid-April.The efforts to help poorer countries are “a baby step,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “The donations to date are so modest you really won’t have much of an impact,” he said. “I don’t think any of the efforts from the U.S. even come close to recognizing the scope and magnitude of the problem.”
World Bank opposes vaccine intellectual property waiver (Reuters) - World Bank President David Malpass said on Tuesday the bank does not support waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organization out of concern that it would hamper innovation in the pharmaceuticals sector. His comments on the subject, made during a call with reporters on World Bank economic forecasts, came as WTO negotiations over the proposed waiver resumed in Geneva. Asked whether he backs a WTO vaccine IP waiver, which India, South Africa and other emerging market countries argue is needed to expand vaccine access, Malpass said: "We don't support that, for the reason that it would run the risk of reducing the innovation and the R&D in that sector." The comment puts Malpass, a Trump administration nominee, at odds with the Biden administration, which is supporting text-based WTO negotiations for vaccine intellectual property rights, led by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Major vaccine makers and the pharmaceutical industries have opposed the waiver from the WTO's agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), arguing that it would stifle innovation and do little to effectively increase vaccine supplies constrained by trade barriers, shortages of components and a lack of manufacturing capabilities. Malpass on Tuesday reiterated his calls for wealthy countries to quickly donate their excess vaccine doses to the developing world as quickly as possible. The World Bank said its global growth forecasts, raised to 5.6% for 2021 and 4.3% for 2022, could be higher if vaccinations can be accelerated in developing countries. In Geneva, negotiations were proceeding on Tuesday and Wednesday over revised waiver proposals from India and South Africa that remained far broader than the narrow vaccine-only waiver favored by USTR Tai. "It seems to be they are still far apart. Their positions have not fundamentally changed,"
Italy halts the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in those under 60, and other news from around the world. - Italy will stop administering AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine to people under the age of 60, the Italian government announced on Friday, amid a drop in the country’s level of infections that meant the risks of distributing the vaccine to younger people was judged to outweigh the benefits.The AstraZeneca vaccine has been under scrutiny after a smattering of reports of rare and severe blood clots in those who had received the vaccine emerged in Europe.Younger Italians who have already received one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine will get a different shot for their booster dose, said Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, an army general in charge of Italy’s vaccination effort, during a news conference. He added that the change would have minimal impact on the country’s vaccination rollout.The announcement was the latest in a series of reversed decisions about the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was developed with Oxford University. Some doctors worry that the back and forth could further undermine the trust in the vaccine, and hamper Italy’s inoculation campaign.Government regulators and AstraZeneca “communicated very very badly,” Roberto Burioni, one of Italy’s leading virologists, said in an interview. “We are losing the trust of even the most enthusiastic people.”In Italy, as in other European countries, the rollout of AstraZeneca’s vaccine has been rocky. After the European Unionapproved its use in January, Italy recommended its use only for people under the age of 55.The country then raised the threshold to 65 on Feb. 22, and then dropped the age limit March 8. A week later, Italy become one of a number of European countries to suspend using the vaccine altogether over concerns about the reports of rare, severe blood clots that afflicted a small number of recipients,.Italy resumed using the vaccine March 19, but about two weeks later, after the European drug regulator reported a possible link to the rare blood clots, the government recommended reserving the vaccine for those over 60.However, some Italian regions, in a rush to vaccinate as many people as possible, started offering AstraZeneca vaccines to younger people during “open day” and “open night” events that skipped the government’s priority schedule. Tens of thousands of young Italians signed up. In May, the board of scientific advisers to the government gave the reenlight to the “open” initiatives. But some doctors raised objections, and news spread of an 18-year-old girl who had received a dose in the northern region of Liguria, was hospitalized with thrombosis and then died. On Friday, the government said the recommendation to only give the AstraZeneca vaccine to people over 60 had now become “mandatory.”
Inside India’s ‘black fungus’ wards: Delta variant linked to hundreds of deaths from mucormycosis - The Telegraph is given exclusive access to specialist hospitals, where doctors battle to save Covid patients infected with flesh-eating pathogen The ‘black fungus’ killing hundreds across India could be related to the country’s highly infectious coronavirus variant, rather than overuse of steroids, Indian specialists believe. It is thought that the new strain, known as “Delta” or B.1.617, is causing unprecedented damage to the pancreas of otherwise healthy people, triggering sudden onset diabetes and soaring blood glucose levels. This allows the deadly flesh eating fungus to thrive. The warnings from Indian doctors come amid growing concerns about the spread of the variant in the UK, where Delta is now dominant. On Thursday a Public Health England report suggested the strain is more likely to lead to hospitalisations than the Alpha variant first detected in Kent last autumn. Over the last week, the Telegraph visited ten hospitals across the western Indian state of Maharashtra, where doctors are treating thousands of patients struck down by the devastating “black fungus”. Called mucormycosis, the condition is a fast-moving, aggressive infection that attacks a person’s sinuses, lungs and brain and is deadly if not treated. In the Seven Star Hospital in the western city of Nagpur, ward after ward is filled to the brim with patients who had recovered from Covid-19 yet – despite being previously healthy – were hit by surging blood glucose levels and mucormycosis symptoms. Vikram Trivedi is one of those patients. A self-proclaimed fitness fanatic, he now needs help from three nurses just to make it down the crowded hospital corridor. His six-foot-six frame barely fits in his hospital bed. In enormous pain, the 38-year-old lawyer from the western Indian city of Nagpur is helped to his feet – a bandage covers his left eye, his right eyelid stoops open slightly and a fresh blemish of spittle turns white on his cheek. It has been five days since Mr Trivedi had his left eyeball, maxillary sinus and the roof of his mouth urgently removed by doctors in Seven Star Hospital. The unthinkable was a necessary evil, to save his life from the aggressive, deadly flesh eating fungal infection.
Chinese Military Scientist Filed Patent For A Vaccine Soon After China Revealed Covid-19 Details in 2020 - New reports reveal that Zhou Yusen, a military scientist for the People’s Liberation Army who died in May last year, had filed a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine on 24 February 2020. China has been the focus of debates related to the coronavirus pandemic since the beginning of the health crisis. But the country is still struggling to find an escape point as more controversial reports are emerging. According to a new revelation, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) military scientist who received money from the National Institutes of Health submitted a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine in February 2020. This new report is now raising concerns that the unnamed vaccine was being tested even before the Covid-19 pandemic became public. According to documents obtained by The Weekend Australian, Zhou Yusen, a respected military scientist for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who collaborated with the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and American experts, submitted a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine on 24 February last year. The scientist later died under mysterious circumstances in May 2020. Despite Zhou’s status as an award-winning military scientist, there were no reports or tributes, with him only being labelled as “dead” in a Chinese media item from July and a scientific publication from December last year. However, the report revealed that the patent, filed by the PLA’s Institute of Military Medicine, was lodged just five weeks after China acknowledged human-to-human transmission of the novel virus.
China plans to build more bio labs amid scrutiny in Wuhan - China is planning to build dozens of biosafety level three labs and one biosafety level four lab over the next five years as investigators take another look at the possibility that thecoronavirus could have leaked out of a laboratory in Wuhan, China.China's Guangdong province plans to create 25 to 30 biosafety level three labs and one biosafety level four lab, the Financial Times reported.The Wuhan Institute of Virology is home to a biosafety level four lab accused of conducting so-called gain of function research. The director of that lab, Yuan Zhiming, detailed Chinese labs' safety deficiencies in a 2019 review."Several high-level BSLs have insufficient operational funds for routine yet vital processes," Yaun wrote according to Financial Times. "Due to the limited resources, some BSL-3 laboratories run on extremely minimal operational costs or in some cases none at all."China has a "medium" level of biosecurity preparedness compared to the U.S.'s "high" level, according to the Global Health Security Index. The country passed a new law to improve biosafety last year, and in January 2020 biosafety labs working with Sars-Cov-2 samples were ordered not to release information about the virus without government clearance, the Financial Times reported.The lab-leak theory has gained credibility in the U.S. and abroad in the past few weeks after a bombshell Wall Street Journal report revealed that three researchers at a Wuhan virology lab had displayed COVID-19 symptoms in late 2019 – well before the pandemic. But it remains unproven, as do competing hypotheses about how the virus first came to infect a human.
Michigan woman sickened with rare hantavirus after cleaning up after rodents - A Michigan woman was hospitalized aftercontracting a deadly rare virus linked to the excrement of rodents.Health officials announced the state’s first case of the Sin Nombre hantavirus Monday, The Detroit Free Press reported.The disease can be transmitted to people that are in close contact with rodent droppings, urine and saliva, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The CDC has only reported 21 cases of the hantavirus in the US from 1993 through 2018, the last year statistics were made available on its website.The disease kills about 40 percent of people that catch it, and can cause “coughing and shortness of breath, with the sensation of, as one survivor put it, a ‘…tight band around my chest and a pillow over my face’ as the lungs fill with fluid,” according to the government’s website. More manageable symptoms include fever, chills, body aches, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain, according to the CDC It is rarely passed from person to person, officials said.
MERS-Causing Coronavirus Could Trigger Another Pandemic With Just a Few More Mutations: Study -An international team of researchers has found that the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS‐CoV), which causes the Middle East respiratory syndrome, is just a few mutations away from becoming a serious pandemic threat!But before we understand how it could potentially trigger another pandemic, let us first understand what the disease itself is. As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory disease that was first identified in Saudi Arabia back in 2012. It is highly lethal, with approximately 35% of reported patients with MERS-CoV infection having succumbed to the disease.Just like COVID-19, the clinical spectrum of MERS-CoV infection ranges from no symptoms (asymptomatic) or mild respiratory symptoms to severe acute respiratory disease and death. Typical MERS symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath.Most human cases of MERS-CoV infections have been attributed to human-to-human infections in healthcare settings. However, the virus does not seem to pass easily from person to person unless there is close contact—like the kind that occurs when providing unprotected care to a patient. Such healthcare-associated MERS outbreaks have occurred in several countries in the past, with the largest seen in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Republic of Korea. The disease is caused by the coronavirus named MERS-CoV—a zoonotic virus that was transmitted to humans through direct or indirect contact with infected dromedary camels (Arabian camels). MERS-CoV has been identified in dromedaries in several countries in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
Virus Spreads From B.C. Fish Farms to Wild Chinook Salmon, Study Finds --A virus is being transmitted between net-pen salmon farms and wild juvenile Chinook salmon in British Columbia waters, according to new findings published Wednesday in Science Advances. The study traces the origins of piscine orthoreovirus, or PRV, to Atlantic salmon farms in Norway, and found that the virus is now almost ubiquitous in salmon farms in B.C. The virus has been shown to sicken fish. The collaborative, peer-reviewed study was done by the University of British Columbia and the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative — a partnership between Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Genome BC and the Pacific Salmon Foundation. The research also showed that wild Chinook salmon are more likely to be infected with PRV the closer they are to salmon farms, which suggests farms transfer the virus to wild salmon. "Both our genomic and epidemiological methods independently came to the same conclusion, that salmon farms act as a source and amplifier of PRV transmission," said Gideon Mordecai, a viral ecologist and Liber Ero fellow with UBC Science and researcher with UBC Medicine, who led the study. The finding that PRV is transmitted between farmed and wild salmon stops short of showing that it also causes disease in wild salmon, said Ken Warheit, director of fish health for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, who provided some of the data used in the study. Warheit praised the scientists for their research, but said more work is needed to show what the findings mean for wild Pacific Chinook. "This proves transmission. It doesn't prove disease," Warheit said.
Car pollution killed hundreds in Mass. and thousands across 12 states, researchers say - Boston Globe -- Ozone and fine particulate matter from vehicle emissions claimed approximately 7,100 lives in 12 states and Washington, D.C., in 2016, including about 620 in Massachusetts, a new study from Harvard and the University of North Carolina found. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, was led by researchers from the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institute for the Environment, the Chan School said in a statement. The team, the statement said, reviewed 2016 data for ozone and particulate matter formed from on-road vehicle emissions, taken from the most recent national emissions inventory.
EPA to reconsider Trump decision not to tighten soot air quality standards --The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday that it will reconsider air quality standards for soot that the Trump administration declined to tighten. A statement from the agency said that it would take a second look at the standards for the pollution, also known as particulate matter, because “available scientific evidence and technical information indicate that the current standards may not be adequate to protect public health and welfare.” The EPA said that it anticipates proposing a new rule next summer and promulgating a final rule in spring 2023. “The most vulnerable among us are most at risk from exposure to particulate matter, and that’s why it’s so important we take a hard look at these standards that haven’t been updated in nine years,” Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. Exposure to a smaller form of particulate matter called fine particulate matter has been linked to health risks including heart attacks, asthma attacks, and premature death. The EPA in December finalized a decision to retain standards set by the Obama administration in 2012 for both fine and coarse forms of particulate matter. Administrator Andrew Wheeler at the time defended the standard as “protective of public health.” But, a policy assessment from agency staff last year found that long-term exposure to the current maximum standard for fine particulate matter could result in thousands more people being put at risk than if the standard were tightened. It said that scientific evidence and air quality analyses “can reasonably be viewed as calling into question the adequacy of the public health protection afforded by the combination of the current ... standards” for fine particulate matter. “A conclusion that the current ... standards do provide adequate public health protection would place little weight on the broad body of epidemiologic evidence reporting generally positive and statistically significant health effect associations,” it continued.
Residents angered over terms of Flint, Michigan water crisis settlement as concerns over bone scans mount - As more information comes to light about the Flint, Michigan water crisis settlement it is becoming clear that residents are being victimized once again and that any compensation won by residents will be less than a drop in the bucket to what is owed to those impacted by the lead contamination of the city’s water which began in 2014.Last week, Thermo Fisher Scientific, the manufacturer of the device used to test for lead in the bones of Flint residents, explicitly declared that it is unfit for use on humans in a letter sent to the primary law firm Napoli-Shkolnik. It is believed that the Napoli firm bought or rented at least two devices and has been exposing residents to radiation from the device since as early as September 2019—more than a year before the settlement was given preliminary approval by US District Judge Judith Levy. Only the firm’s clients and those who have retained attorneys affiliated with Napoli have access to the device without charge. All other residents are charged a $500 fee.The $641.25 million settlement is less than 1 percent of the State of Michigan’s $67.1 billion annual budget. The present terms of the settlement provide a feeding frenzy for the herd of lawyers involved. The compensation that will actually go to residents will be cut by more than 32 percent after the lawyers are paid, leaving the equivalent of slightly more than one-half of 1 percent of the state’s budget going to the victims of the water poisoning.The situation has further angered residents and medical professionals, particularly because the terms of the settlement—acknowledged by Attorney General Dana Nessel and others—claim the bone lead test is “voluntary” and “optional.” However, subjecting adults and children to the test is the only way within the scope of the present settlement that residents can hope to get compensated for more than $1,000 per household.Jessica, a Flint resident whose children range from 23 years old to two-and-a-half-years-old, told the WSWS, “It appears to me that a lot is going on by all the power players and that they are all in bed together. I’m not sure if the Judge [Judith Levy] is a party to this or not, but they are all fighting for blood money. The judge has marginalized the great concerns of the residents.” Jessica had the bone lead test in March and explained to the WSWS, “I was under the assumption, like many others, that if it wasn’t safe it would not be permitted to be used in the first place.” Referring to the settlement which includes the bone lead test as “optional” she continued, “This is another indication of the judge’s lack of integrity. It comes down to this—those who are interested in the money and those who are interested in the human condition of wounded people. “Many people in Flint are well aware of the BS. Just because we are the ‘little people’ doesn’t mean we are stupid.” Since the bone lead test, Jessica has been given the runaround trying to get her results. She has had several email exchanges. Typical is the May 19 email from Patrick Lanciotti, one of the attorneys with the Napoli law firm, which read, “I understand you are looking for the results of your bone scan performed on March 14, 2021. Please send Dr. Specht a check in the amount of $500 so he can provide the report. ...”
It's Raining 'Forever Chemicals' Around the Great Lakes, Scientists Find --In the Great Lakes region, it is quite literally raining toxic chemicals. "You can actually say it's raining PFAS at this point," said Marta Venier, an environmental chemist at Indiana University, according to Grist.A team of American and Canadian scientists found high levels of PFAS chemicals, also known as "forever chemicals," after studying the rainfall in six different sites across the Great Lakes region.The scientists collected samples of ambient air and rainwater from Cleveland, OH, Chicago, IL, Sturgeon Point, NY, Ontario, Canada, Sleeping Bear Dunes, MI, and Eagle Harbor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, according to Cleveland.com.PFAS are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They were first used in the U.S. in the 1940s. The chemicals don't break down and can accumulate as time goes on — making exposure to them harmful to humans, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).At each testing site, there were more PFAS in the samples than other pollutants like polychlorinated biphenyls and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This finding shows that PFAS are a major contaminant in the region and they're in snow and rain.The samples of rainwater contained PFAS levels of 100 to 400 parts per trillion (ppt). To put these statistics into perspective, the EPA's safe limit for drinking water is 70 ppt. In Cleveland, Ohio, two weeks of rainwater collected contained around 1,000 ppt of PFAS compounds, according to MLive. According to a peer review study conducted by scientists from the Environmental Working Group, PFAS contamination may be in drinking water that supplies 200 million Americans. The study also found that there are 2,337 locations in 49 states that have PFAS contamination. This new research in the Great Lakes area was conducted by the Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network, a program funded by the EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office, and is managed by Indiana University, according to Cleveland.com.PFAS are synonymous with certain man-made substances like fast food containers, microwave popcorn bags, non-stick cookware, cleaning products, and other grease-resistant products. Firefighting foam is another large source of PFAS."All of these products that we use in our everyday life are treated with PFAS," Venier said in a report to Grist. "So every time we use them, there is either dust or air where these chemicals are released."
Environmental Activists Call on Biden Administration to Pursue Ratification of the Basel Convention to Block U.S. Exports of Plastics and e-Waste by Jerri-Lynn Scofield -California lawmakers and environmental activists have launched a campaign to press the Biden administration to pursue congressional ratification of the 1989 Basel Convention, according toWaste Dive.The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was adopted in 1989. Although the United States signed the agreement, it’s one of only eight countries, including East Timor, Grenada, Haiti, San Marino, South Sudan, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands that have not ratified the convention, and the only OECD country to have failed to do so.The parties to the convention recently adopted further amendments to cover shipment of plastics waste. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):Basel plastic scrap and waste amendments were adopted by Parties to the Basel Convention in 2019 to control exports and imports of most plastic scrap and waste. As a result of these changes, transboundary movements of most plastic scrap and waste to countries party to the Convention are allowed only with the prior written consent of the importing country and any transit countries, a process known as prior notice and consent. The amendments take effect on January 1, 2021.California state Assembly member Cristina Garcia has scheduled a hearing on June 14 on (non-binding) Resolution AJR-4,, which calls for U.S.ratification of the Basel Convention. Proponents argue that “[U.S.]ratification would help curb the export of certain types of plastic pollution from U.S. ports, particularly in California, which the Basel Action Network says is responsible for about 27% of “plastic waste,” according to Waste Dive.Kelani River faces threat of being mixed with furnace oil -The Kelani River is facing the threat of being mixed with furnace oil following heavy rain. Separator tanks containing furnace oil at the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery managed by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, has overflowed. The Sri Lanka Navy and Coast Guard have been deployed to skim the furnace oil from the flood waters and prevent a further spread. The Navy said that the Heiyanthuduwa area in Sapugaskanda has been flooded due to heavy rains and there is a risk of the furnace oil mixed with water in the Sapugaskanda area drifting into the Kelani River through the Pattivila canal. Steps are being taken by the Navy and Coast Guard to place a floating boom to prevent a further spread of furnace oil and use an oil skimmer to prevent the oil from reaching the Kelani River. If the oil reaches the river it will have an adverse impact on water distribution from the Ambathale and Biyagama water treatment plants.
Life After Wildlife Trafficking: What Happens to Rescued Animals? --In 2013 authorities at Bangkok's main airport busted a smuggler carrying 54 ploughshare tortoises from Madagascar crammed in a suitcase. The seizure of what amounted to about 10% of the critically endangered species' wild population made news around the world.What happened to those animals later did not generate as many headlines, says Jan Schmidt-Burbach, head of wildlife research and animal welfare at World Animal Protection.Half of the tortoises died soon after their rescue — a surprise, he says, because the animals are tough and should have been able to survive. The rest went to a government rescue center in Thailand, only to end up among a group of animals that later disappeared and were suspected stolen. That second suspected crime was possible, in part, because there was resistance from center managers, he says, to marking the tortoises' shells to make them traceable.Cases like this illustrate two of the biggest problems with the fight against the illegal wildlife trade: the scarcity of regulations for the treatment of animals after they've been rescued, and the lack of data regarding what happens to them."That lack of transparency with confiscated wild animals opens doors to laundering and just inappropriate handling," says Schmidt-Burbach. International pressure to tackle the illegal wildlife trade has increased in recent years. But a resulting increase in successful seizures of live wildlife also means authorities are often overwhelmed with animals, including species that require specialized care or are dangerous.A recent paper published in the journal Animals examines what happens to these creatures, and why. Focusing on Southeast Asia, a wildlife trading hot spot, the researchers found that illegally traded wildlife are often not handled in a way most beneficial to the animals due to a combination of corruption, exploitation, and lack of policy, funding, expertise and capacity."Yes, they were essentially rescued," says conservation scientist Shannon Noelle Rivera, the paper's lead author. "But seizure does not mean rescue by any means, and a lot of times they end up right back in the trade." Handled correctly, some of these animals could be successfully returned to their home habitats and help replenish populations of threatened species. Instead, they are often kept in captivity, in centers that lack the expertise, funding or the will to care for them properly.
Great Apes Could Lose 94% of African Home Due to Climate Crisis and Other Human Actions, Study Finds - A new study published in Diversity and Distributions Sunday warned that Africa's great apes could lose more than 90 percent of their habitat within the next 30 years due to the combined pressures of human population growth, resource extraction and the climate crisis."It's a perfect storm for many of our closest genetic relatives, many of which are flagship species forconservation efforts within Africa and worldwide," study leader and Liverpool John Moores University biologist Joana Carvalho told The Guardian. "If we add climate change to the current causes of territory loss, the picture looks devastating." All of Africa's great apes — chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos — are already listed as either endangered or critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as the Max Planck Society noted. In order to determine how these iconic species would fare in the future, an international team of researchers from almost 50 universities, institutions and conservation groups, including the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, turned to the IUCN's apes database, as The Guardian explained. This database provides information on population, threats and conservation efforts at hundreds of sites over the last 20 years. Building on this data, the researchers then modeled the impacts of climate change, population growth and land-use change through 2050 using both a best and worst-case scenario.In the best case scenario, the apes would still lose 85 percent of their range, 50 percent of this outsidenational parks and other protected areas. In the worst case scenario, they would lose 94 percent of their range, 61 percent outside of national parks.. Part of the problem is that 30 years is simply not enough time for great apes to migrate to more suitable habitats as the climate shifts. Another problem is that higher temperatures will push ideal conditions from the lowlands to the highlands, but not all great apes live in areas that have easy access to higher environments.
To stem nature loss, start by ending harmful subsidies (Thomson Reuters) - Raising huge new sums of "nature" finance to better protect the planet's ailing biodiversity will have no significant impact unless the underlying economic rules now driving environmental losses are shifted, economists warned on Tuesday. Raising and spending the hundreds of billions of dollars needed each year to protect and repair natural systems would have only a "trivial" impact compared to reforming economic incentives - including ditching agricultural and related subsidies, said Cambridge University economist Partha Dasgupta. In an online event, he urged governments and global financial institutions to focus more on eliminating fishing, logging and agricultural incentives that lead to nature loss than on raising vast sums to try to rebalance those impacts. Governments between 2017 and 2019 provided more than $500 billion a year in agricultural subsidies alone, which distorted markets and harmed the environment, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in 2020. Dasgupta, who released a landmark study in February on the economics of biodiversity, said ensuring businesses that profit from nature pay for the full value of the benefits they gain also could create a new source of income to protect the planet. If commercial fishing trawlers or forest-fellers were "charged appropriate rent for using the global commons, we're looking at a massive source of revenue that could be used for all sorts of purposes", he said. One way of doing that could be to expand "fair trade" certification systems that aim to ensure workers get a decent wage, so as to also secure just treatment for nature, he added. Making that work, however, would depend on mandatory disclosures by businesses of their impacts on nature, with tough international monitoring systems, he and others said. Andrea Meza Murillo, Costa Rica's environment minister, agreed that new international funding for nature protection efforts could not be effective as long as governments kept incentives in place that encourage environmental damage. "We cannot be doing one thing with this hand, and destroying it with this other hand," she said during the event on investing in nature. In a report released last year, U.S. environmental groups and Cornell University estimated that protecting the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems, and repairing the damage done by humans, would cost about $700 billion a year in extra funding from governments and business over the next decade. But putting together that kind of money will be hugely difficult, not least as the COVID-19 pandemic hits government and company budgets.
UN Report Assesses Dire State of Global Soil Pollution by Jerri-Lynn Scofield - Two UN entities released a report on Friday, Global Assessment of Soil Pollution: Summary for Policymakers, describing the dire state of soil pollution worldwide. According to the Abstract: Soil pollution is invisible to the human eye, but it compromises the quality of the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe and puts human and environmental health at risk. Most contaminants originate from human activities such as industrial processes and mining, poor waste management, unsustainable farming practices, accidents ranging from small chemical spills to accidents at nuclear power plants, and the many effects of armed conflicts. Pollution knows no borders: contaminants are spread throughout terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and many are distributed globally by atmospheric transport. In addition, they are redistributed through the global economy by way of food and production chains. The hefty summary report makes for gloomy reading, as it describes the many types of pollutants that contaminate soil. I found Figure 4, Main effects of soil contaminants on human health, indicating the organs or systems affected and the contaminants causing them, on p. 6, to be particularly enlightening, but also depressing, as it provides a summary of the damage various pollutants cause, arranged to correspond to the part of the human body where particular damage concentrates.So much comes down to soil health, a subject that it cannot be said is widely understood. And so many modern practices – including but not limited to industrial agriculture, damage rather than support soil health.According to Business Green, ‘Utmost importance’: Worsening soil pollution among planet’s biggest challenges, UN warns: Soil pollution is deteriorating worldwide as a result of unsustainable farming practices and industrial processes, all of which poses a major and growing threat to global food production, human health, and the environment, the United Nations has warned. Industrial and mining activities, poorly managed urban and industrial waste, fossil fuel extraction and processing, as well as unsustainable agricultural practices and transport are the main culprits behind damaging soil pollution identified in a report by the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) released late last week.The joint assessment of the health of the world’s soils underscores the scale of the soil crisis and its myriad impacts, concluding that environmental degradation caused by soil pollution is one of the world’s most pressing challenges.
Severe drought grips western states | Farm Progress Almost three-fourths of the western U.S. is gripped by drought so severe that it’s off the charts of anything recorded in the 20-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor. Mountains across the West have seen little precipitation, robbing reservoirs of dearly needed snowmelt and rain, said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist and Drought Monitor author with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The parched conditions mean the wildfire threat is high and farmers are struggling to irrigate crops. Meanwhile, dropping water levels in Lake Oroville, one of California’s largest reservoirs, forced authorities to remove more than 100 houseboats, according to the Weather Channel. “Water supply is the big story for the West, and we are getting in trouble with all the interests that try to compete for a slice of that water,” Rippey said by telephone. “There is not a lot to go around this year.” Unlike the eastern U.S., in the West most water comes in winter months in the form of rain that gushes into reservoirs or snow that piles up on mountainsides. Last year, drought cost the nation $4.5 billion, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information. This year, what little snow that fell soon melted away and seeped into dusty ground rather than rivers, streams and reservoirs. “We have never seen a drought at the scale and the intensity that we see right now, and it is possible that this may be the baseline for the future,” Elizabeth Klein, senior counselor for the Department of Interior told a Congressional hearing last week. “California is currently experiencing its third-driest year on record; the second two driest years on record, and the driest year since 1977.” Through the end of April, 1.7 million acre-feet of water melted off California’s mountains, down from the normal rate of 8 million, Rippey said. In the last two years, there has only been 4 million. “This is, by far, the worst recharge year in modern history,” Rippey said. In addition to the drought figures, officials are concerned about the Colorado River, which powers hydroelectric plants and provides drinking and irrigation water across much of the Southwest and parts of Mexico. Based on paleohydrology, scientists say the Colorado is experiencing one of its driest periods in 1,200 years, Klein said.
Nevada bans 'non-functional' grass to combat drought --Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) on Saturday signed a law that bans “non-functional” grass in an effort to combat the effects of a drought that is threatening one of the state's primary sources of water: the Colorado River.The ban targets “non-functional turf,” which is defined as grass that no one uses, at office parks, in street medians and at housing development entrances. Single-family homes, parks and golf courses are exempt from the law, The Associated Press reported.According to the AP, the measure will ban about 40 percent of the grass in the Las Vegas area, which gets around 90 percent of its water supply from the Colorado River.The ban will go into effect in 2027 and will apply only to areas under the jurisdiction of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.“It’s incumbent upon us for the next generation to be more conscious of conservation and our natural resources — water being particularly important,” Sisolak said, according to the AP.The governor pointed to the “bathtub ring” that passengers flying into Las Vegas can see around Lake Mead as evidence of badly needed water conservation. The new law will require that about 6 square miles of grass be replaced in the metro Las Vegas area, the AP reported, with officials estimating that the region could conserve 10 percent of its total available Colorado River water supply and save approximately 11 gallons per person per day.Although other local and state governments have enacted temporary grass bans during droughts, Nevada is the first to outright ban certain uses of grass.
Southeast Wisconsin's severe drought could get worse, officials say --Thursday the National Drought Mitigation Center declared the Southeast region of Wisconsin to be under a severe drought. The affected areas included parts of Ozaukee, Washington, Jefferson, and Rock counties, as well as the entire counties of Waukesha and Milwaukee. According to the National Weather Services, we currently are seeing a deficit of 4 to 7 inches of rain and typically we should be seeing 1 inch of rain each week.Meteorologist Mark Gehring from the National Weather Services says farmers without irrigation resources will be impacted directly by the drought this month. "Many farmers don’t have the equipment, I believe it is expensive," says Gehring. Back in 2012, Southeast Wisconsin saw extreme drought conditions leading to conservation water restrictions created by the County. "They were asking you don’t water the lawns and don’t take too many showers," says Gehring. While it's too soon to predict the worst, Gehring believes we must see consistent widespread showers to combat the potential severity."If it hits your farm field that’ll be good for you, but for many people, it will miss or it just won’t be enough." Gehring warns if we do not see more precipitation by the end of July, counties could experience similar extreme water restrictions to that of 2012.
Severe Drought Is Taking a Toll on California and Western U.S. --California, along with much of the rest of the western United States, is once again mired in drought. In fact, California has experienced significant drought conditions in 13 of the 22 years (60%) since the turn of the century.A 2020 study in the journal Science concluded that 2000 through 2018 was the second-driest 19-year period in the U.S. Southwest in at least the past 1,200 years, and a 2014 paper in Geophysical Research Letters found that 2012 through 2014 was the driest three-year period in California over that same timeframe.Nearly the entire state is currently in the 'severe' drought category or worse, and three-quarters is experiencing 'extreme' to 'exceptional' drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The consequences of drought in California are felt well outside the state's borders. California is effectively America's garden – it produces two-thirds of all fruits and nuts grown in the U.S. The state's agricultural industry generates $50 billion each year, which is more than the entire gross domestic products of Vermont and Wyoming, and as large as the economy of Alaska or Montana. California produces nearly all of the almonds, artichokes, avocados, broccoli, carrots, celery, kiwi, figs, garlic, grapes, raisins, raspberries, strawberries, honeydew melons, nectarines, olives, pistachios, plums, tangerines, mandarins, and walnuts grown in the U.S. About 80% of all almonds in the world are grown in California: The state's almonds alone generate $6 billion annually. But nut trees are water-intensive (though notably less so than the alfalfa and pastureland grown for animal agriculture), and unlike seasonal crops, they cannot be fallowed in a dry year. Given the lack of water in 2021, some farmers have been forced to resort to tearing out valuable almond trees and instead planting less thirsty crops. About 80% of the state's developed water use goes to the agriculture industry, so anyone who enjoys eating fruits and nuts should be concerned that climate change is increasing the odds of megadroughts permanently drying California.
U.S. Southwest, Already Parched, Sees ‘Virtual Water’ Drain Abroad -- Driving into southern California’s Palo Verde Valley from the Arizona border, fields of vibrant green appear out of the desert like a mirage. Near the town of Blythe, water from the Colorado River turns the dry earth into verdant farmland, much of it to grow a single crop — alfalfa, a type of plant used mainly to feed dairy cows.For decades, a significant portion of alfalfa grown here and elsewhere in the western United States — as much as 17 percent in 2017 — has been loaded onto trucks, driven hundreds of miles to ports on the west coast, and shipped around the world, mainly to China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. A little over five years ago, one company decided it made more sense to own the land, and the water that came with it, outright.The company, a Saudi Arabian dairy firm called Almarai, purchased 1,790 acres in the Palo Verde Valley to secure a supply of alfalfa for its dairy cows. Soon after, Saudi Arabia began phasing out domestic alfalfa production to preserve its water supplies, which were dwindling after years of overuse for agriculture. The purchase made headlines as critics including local politicians and environmentalists questioned whether it was fair for a foreign entity to use up valuable groundwater resources for products that wouldn’t ultimately benefit Americans.But the company is far from alone. Foreign corporations are increasingly purchasing land in the U.S.; in the Southwest, thanks to longstanding laws on water rights, these purchases often come with unlimited access to the valuable water underneath the soil. Combined with nearly year-round sunshine, this has made the area a magnet for companies looking to grow water-intensive crops and raise livestock. Over the last 20 years, foreign companies have purchased more than 250,000 acres of land in six Southwestern states to raise cattle and pigs, as well as to grow everything from almonds to alfalfa, according to an analysis of purchase data that Undark obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.mCorporate farms, researchers and policymakers warn, drain aquifers and threaten access to water for drinking and future crop production. The export of crops and the water used to grow them, known as virtual water, has been accelerating for decades, despite concerns that in drought-stricken areas such as the Southwest, this system is unsustainable in the long term. Although virtual water itself is not inherently problematic — and can even reduce water usage in some cases — its extraction from water-stressed communities is sounding the alarm as water crises become more urgent. Even as the Colorado River Basin enters its 21st year of sustained drought and climate change threatens to further exacerbate water scarcity, virtual water trading is expected to triple globally by 2100, with a large share moving from the U.S. to other countries.
Northern California under water shortage emergency, farmers warn water is unnecessarily let out to sea - Nearly two million people in Northern California have been placed under a water shortage emergency on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, as a severe drought continues to worsen in much of the western U.S. Mandatory water restrictions have been issued for Santa Clara County, while almost 17 million endangered salmon are being transported to the sea as rivers are drying up. Meanwhile, Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border and the largest in the U.S., has reached historically low levels as the water dropped to 326.61 m (1 071.57 feet) above sea level. Meanwhile, farmers are warning that water from reservoirs is unnecessarily being let out to sea.Much of the western U.S. has been suffering from severe drought, extreme heat, and fire risk this year, with Northern California already declaring a water shortage emergency on Wednesday."Santa Clara County is in extreme drought. We can’t afford to wait to act as our water supplies are being threatened locally and across California," said Tony Estremera, director of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, in a news release."We are in an emergency and Valley Water must do everything we can to protect our groundwater resources and ensure we can provide safe, clean water to Santa Clara County residents and businesses.""Increased conservation is also necessary to protect local water supplies and guard against groundwater overdraft, subsidence, and dry domestic wells, especially if the drought extends into next year."Under the declaration, almost two million Northern California residents are being asked to reduce their water usage by 15 percent as compared to 2019. People are also advised to limit watering their lawns and filling their pools. "These actions are necessary as we face further challenges to our local water supply," added Estremera. "We can’t predict how long this drought will last. But we know now is the time for action to protect our groundwater basins and make sure there is enough water for all our communities."
Hundreds ordered to evacuate as 2 large wildfires rage in Arizona -Two large wildfires are raging in Arizona, U.S., over the past couple of days, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate. The first one, Telegraph Fire, has so far spread through 16 636 ha (41 109 acres) and the other -- Mescal Fire, 20 084 ha (49 631 acres) as of Monday, June 7, 2021.The Telegraph Fire has been raging south of Superior since Friday afternoon, June 4, and is now near the southern edge of Tonto National Forest.An evacuation has been ordered for residents in the area of Top-of-the-World, a community of around 250 inhabitants, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said Sunday, June 6."If you choose to ignore this advisement, you must understand emergency services may not be able to assist you further," it warned.As of Monday, the Telegraph Fire has burned 16 636 ha (41 109 acres), according to InciWeb.The second blaze, Mescal Fire, started on June 1 southeast of Globe and northeast of Drippings Springs.On Saturday, June 5, the fire prompted authorities to evacuate people on the side of State Route 77 near El Capitan, as well as the Soda Canyon near San Carlos Lake. El Capitan is a community of about 4 800 people. It wasn't confirmed how many people were evacuated.Evacuation orders included the area of San Carlos High School, according to the tribal emergency response commission.Mescal has scorched 20 084 ha (49 631 acres).No casualties or injuries have been reported so far, and the causes of both fires are under investigation.Officials noted that winds and dry conditions, including dry grass and shrubs, have helped generated the flames.
Skies open up leaving much of south-central US underwater ---The saturated state of Arkansas will need more than a couple of hours of sunshine to dry up all the rain that fell in recent days, as will other parts of the south-central United States. The intensely heavy rain triggered the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue the rarely used flash flood emergency warning for the southeastern portion of Arkansas on Tuesday. The issuance is reserved for the "exceedingly rare situations when a severe threat to human life and catastrophic damage from a flash flood is happening or will happen soon,” the NWS explained in a graphic. As drivers who attempted to navigate the submerged roads around Pine Bluff, Arkansas, could attest, Tuesday's conditions certainly met that criteria. "A slow-moving storm has been swamping the region for the last few days with rounds of showers and heavy to at times, severe thunderstorms," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Houk said. "Around Pine Bluff, Arkansas, there has been nearly 10 inches of rain in the last three days." That would be near-normal rainfall for the entire summer in the Pine Bluff area, Houk added. Such intense rain forced the closures of dozens of roadways in the state. Many roads that stayed open became traps for stranded drivers. Video shared by motorists showed water levels as high as vehicle doorhandles. The floodwater was deep enough for waves to be created by the cars driving through it. According to the Magnolia Reporter, up to 3 feet of water was reported on some roadways in the area of the flash flood emergency. Farther south, in Mississippi, the city of Selby posted the highest rainfall total with nearly 12 inches over 24 hours.
Severe floods and landslides hit Sri Lanka, leaving at least 17 people dead and more than 210 000 affected (videos) At least 17 people have died and more than 271 000 have been affected after heavy rains hit Sri Lanka over the weekend, officials reported on Monday, June 7, 2021. Tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes as days of deluge caused rivers on the island's southern and western plains to overflow, inundating low-lying areas.10 districts on the island have been experiencing heavy rains since Thursday, June 3, including Colombo and suburbs, where many homes and paddy fields have been submerged. A total of 88 divisions have been impacted."Water levels are receding but landslide warnings are still in place in 10 districts," Pradeep Kodippili, assistant director of the National Disaster Management Center, said Monday. More than 270 000 people have been affected and around 100 000 buildings lost electricity, he added.At least 17 fatalities have been reported-- 10 of whom died in floods, while seven lost their lives in mudslides. Among the victims was a family of four who died when a chunk of earth collapsed into their home in Kegalle District. Two others remain missing.The Sri Lanka Navy has deployed 33 teams to the flooded areas and has rescued 66 people so far who were stranded in the waters.Tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes. Around 22 932 persons in 5 700 households are reportedly staying in the homes of their relatives. More than 800 houses have been damaged.
The Front Lines of Climate Change: Cyclone Yaas and the Sundarbans - Jerri-Lynn Scofield - Last month, cyclone Yaas made landfall in the Indian state of Odisha. Due to a full moon tidal surge, the storm’s most severe impact occurred in the Sundarbans, the world largest mangrove forest, spanning parts of eastern India and Bangladesh. Yaas is only the latest cyclone to form in the Bay of Bengal during the last year. According to an article in The Times of India, Rising surface temperature at sea behind frequent cyclones: Experts: In the past 12 months, there have been four cyclonic storms in Bay of Bengal — severe cyclone Amphan (May 16-21), severe cyclone Nivar (Nov 22-26), cyclonic storm Burevi (Nov 30-Dec 5) and Yaas (May 23-27). Climate scientists say the cyclogenesis or triggering of very severe cyclonic storms in Bay of Bengal is a result of climate change. The water around the Indian sub-continent is warmer than usual. The threshold value forsea surface temperatures (SSTs) for formation of cyclones is 28°C, but SST over the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean 30°C-32°C. These storms haven’t caused many deaths – nothing approaching the half million that died when cyclone Bhola struck Bengal in 1970. Both the Indian and Bangladeshi governments have developed a system for warning people and evacuating them safely to shelters. So far, this system has continued to function well, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.Deaths aren’t the only devastation the storms cause. The homes and livelihoods of people in the low-lying Sundarbans have been particularly hard-hit. According to an article In photos: In the Sundarbans, Cyclone Yaas leaves flooded farmland and devastated lives in Scroll:Islands in the Sundarbans are a protected by embankments, which run around 3,500 km. More than 134 embankments were breached, the state government said, devastating many villages. As the embankments were damaged, previous farmland was destroyed as saline water flooded in. Tens of thousands of homes in the region were damaged, as were livestock and poultry farms. The West Bengal government estimated by the cost of damages caused by Cyclone Yaas at Rs 20,000 crore.Rising sea-surface temperatures may be the cause of the more frequent, intense cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, scientists say. Since 2007, there have been 16 major cyclones in the Bay of Bengal. Many islands in the Sundarbans, such as Mousuni, were already facing the threat due to the rapid sea-level rise.I encourage readers to click on the Scroll link above, to see pictures of the devastation Yaas has caused.
Heavy monsoon rains leave 11 people dead in Mumbai, India - At least 11 people have died while seven others were injured as heavy monsoon rains hit Mumbai, India on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, authorities reported on Thursday. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow alert for the city for the next four days, forecasting heavy to very heavy rainfall to continue.The southwest monsoon arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday, June 9, dropping very heavy rains, flooding homes, and causing a residential building to collapse in a Mumbai slum. At least 11 people were killed, of which 8 were children, seven were injured and several more are feared missing."Three persons are still suspected to be trapped and the search operation is on to find them," Prabhat Rahangdale from the Mumbai city authority told the Indian Express. "It's an unfortunate incident. It was a G+2 building that fell on another building. Eighteen people have been rescued, of whom 11 died. Police will carry out a proper investigation and take further action," added officer Dilip Sawant.Residents from nearby buildings have been evacuated, considering the situation to be dangerous. Of the injured, one is in critical condition, while the six others were stable and recovering.Mumbai registered 222 mm (9 inches) of rain in a 12-hour period, while tidal waves reached up to 4.6 m (13 feet). Water-logging was reported in various parts of the city, disrupting travel and suburban train services. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport also witnessed a total of four aborted landings. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) had deployed 15 teams across Maharashtra state in anticipation of heavy rains. Building collapses are common in the country during the monsoon season, which spans June to September. Heavy rains weaken the foundations of poorly built structures. The IMD has issued an orange alert for the city until June 13 and a red alert for the district of Raigad until June 12, as heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected.
Heavy rains trigger landslides and worst river flooding since record-keeping began, Brazil -(videos) Several tributaries of the Amazon River in Brazil are registering the biggest floods ever recorded as heavy rains continued lashing parts of the country. On June 5, 2021, the Negro River in Manaus reached 30 m (98 feet), becoming the city's largest flood since record-keeping began in 1902. In Santa Catarina, flooding and landslides prompted more than a hundred people to evacuate since June 8.In the Amazonas state, the Solimoes River is currently at 20.8 m (68 feet), the highest levelsince its water volume began to be measured in 1972.In Anama, local media reported that the situation is even more critical, where 9 670 people have been affected. Medical crews had to use boats to reach people as the Solimoes River flooded the Francisco Salles de Moura Hospital.The Amazon River, measured in Itacoatiara, is at its second-highest level ever recorded having reached 15.2 m (49.9 feet). The record of 16.04 m (52.6 feet) was observed in 2009.Several neighborhoods in the city have been inundated since March, leaving families and businesses severely affected.The Negro River reached 30 m (98 feet), surpassing the record level in 2012 by 3 cm (1.2 inches). With this, Manaus registers its largest flood in history, since records began in 1902. More than 24 000 families have been affected by floods that have hit at least 15 neighborhoods, according to the Civil Defense.
Record-setting blob of 'sea snot' has environmentalists concerned -- Thick layers of unsightly brown foam, nicknamed "sea snot," have developed along the coast of Turkey, and officials warn the phenomenon could have major impacts on the environment and is in danger of lasting all summer. The slimy substance that ranges in color from off-white to brown that is collecting along the shores of the Marmara coast of northern Turkey is called marine mucilage. The mucilage blooms can also be seen developing along the coast of the adjoining Black and Aegean seas during the spring and summer as water temperatures rise. The mucilage is an organic material that is produced by algae that thrive in warm and nutrient-dense waters. Most of the nutrients come from pollution and wastewater that is dumped into the sea. Sea snot was first documented along the coasts of Turkey and Greece in 2007, but this year's bloom is the largest on record, according to The Guardian. Cevahir Efe Akcelik, an environment engineer and secretary-general of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, told the Guardian that the foam could cover the sea all summer unless urgent measures are taken. “Studies show the mucilage is not only on the surface now but also goes 25 to 30 [meters] (80-100 feet) deep,” he added. The mucilage can have devastating effects on marine life in the area. Muharrem Balci, a biology professor at Istanbul University, said that when algae grow out of control in the springtime they can block out the sunlight, which depletes oxygen in the water, suffocating fish and other marine life. Balci added that when the mucilage drops to the sea floor it can impact that ecosystem and poison shellfish, such as crabs. The fishing industry has been affected by the sea snot outbreak, said Mahsum Daga, a local fisherman, adding that the sludge prevents shellfish from closing again once they open up.
Large cloud of Saharan dust reaches the Caribbean and South America - (video, satellite) A large cloud of Saharan dust moving across the Atlantic Ocean over the past week has reached the Caribbean and South America.The dust will remain over the region for the next couple of days, limiting visibility and lowering air quality. After that, it's expected to head toward the southeastern United States.The largest Saharan dust cloud in 50 years -- dubbed the "Godzilla dust cloud -- engulfed the Caribbean in June 2020, causing record hazardous air quality levels. Saharan Air Layer (SAL) is a mass of very dry, dusty air that forms over the Sahara Desert during the late spring, summer, and early fall. "SAL activity typically ramps up in mid-June and peaks from late June to mid-August, with new outbreaks occurring every three to five days. During this peak period, it is common for individual SAL outbreaks to reach farther to the west—as far west as Florida, Central America, and even Texas—and cover extensive areas of the Atlantic (sometimes as large as the lower 48 United States)," said Dr. Jason Dunion, a University of Miami hurricane researcher working with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.The SAL has unique properties of warmth, dry air and strong winds that can act to suppress hurricane formation and intensification.Additionally, its iron-rich particles reflect sunlight and reduce the heating of the ocean surface while the cloud is passing over.
Massive sinkhole in Puebla continues to expand, now at 110 m (360 feet), Mexico -- (videos) The enormous sinkhole in Puebla State, southeastern Mexico, has grown to 110 m (360 feet) in diameter as of Monday, June 7, 2021, prompting authorities to widen the security perimeter. The hole has already destroyed a nearby house's bedroom and part of a wall and is threatening to swallow the entire structure as continues to expand.The sinkhole appeared in Santa MarÃa Zacatepec, in the town of Juan C. Bonilla, and is confirmed to be 9 m (30 feet) deep. It measured 80 m (262 feet) in diameter on May 29 and has grown rapidly ever since.As of Monday, the sinkhole has grown another 13 m (43 feet), now measuring 110 m (360 feet) across at its widest point. The Sánchez Xalamihua family, who owns the home near the sinkhole, said they heard a loud boom the day the sinkhole appeared."We heard something like a rumbling," Magdalena Xalamihua, the matriarch, told the media. "We thought it was fireworks, but we looked outside and saw the earth moving and water coming up, like waves. We ran."She and her husband, along with their two children, had only just moved into the house in 2020. According to local media, Puebla State Governor Miguel Barbosa had not visited Zacatepec but admitted that the situation is a "matter of enormous risk," assuring that the government will remain vigilant to prevent further tragedy. A team of geologists from the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla is working on a report to study the event, which authorities hope could be ready by the end of June. "These faults are already present within the soil. They may have existed for 5 000 to 10 000 years before being reactivated," he said. "It just needs nature to provide the impact so that they appear on the surface. This phenomenon, as far as I can see, was going to happen sooner or later."
Intense earthquake swarm near Salton Sea, Southern California --An intense earthquake swarm is taking place near the Salton Sea in Southern California, U.S. on June 5, 2021, starting with M2.2 at 08:05 UTC (01:05 LT). The USGS has registered 285 earthquakes by 21:24 UTC. The swarm is still in progress and new earthquakes are being registered every few minutes, sometimes 2 or 3 within 1 minute. (Update: 805 earthquakes were registered by 21:29 UTC on June 6)The strongest so far was M5.3 at 17:55 UTC (10:55 LT). The quake struck 11 km (7 miles) W of Calipatria and 11 km N of Westmorland at a depth of 5.8 km (4.6 miles). 3 000 people are estimated to have felt strong shaking, 9 000 moderate, and 201 000 light. More than 1 050 people submitted 'I felt it' reports.
Earthquake swarm under Mount Hood volcano, Oregon - The Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) has detected an earthquake swarm in the Mount Hood area, Oregon on June 5, 2021. The swarm continued into June 6 when the activity started to quiet down. The last known eruption of this volcano took place in 1865 and 1866 (VEI 2). The last major eruptive period began in 1781 and lasted to ~1801. A magnitude 3.9 earthquake was registered at 03:51 UTC on June 6 (20:51 PDT on June 5) approximately 4 km (2.5 miles) south of the summit of Mount Hood at a depth of 4.3 km (2.7 miles) below sea level that was felt in the vicinity around Mount Hood. It was preceded by several earthquakes in the hour prior to the M3.9, and tens of aftershocks have occurred so far with event rates declining in a manner typical of mainshock-aftershock sequences, CVO said in a statement issued at 04:38 UTC on June 6.
Significant eruption, pyroclastic flow at Sinabung volcano, Indonesia - A significant eruption took place at the Indonesian Sinabung volcano at 16:35 UTC on June 6, 2021, producing a pyroclastic flow and ejecting volcanic ash up to 9.1 km (30 000 feet) above sea level. The eruption lasted for 421 seconds and was not clearly observable due to fog and clouds.Three volcanic ash levels were observed at 21:40 UTC -- to 9.1 km (30 000 feet) a.s.l. moving WSW, 7.3 km (24 000 feet) a.s.l. moving W and to 4.2 km (14 000 feet) a.s.l. moving N.The Aviation Color Code was raised to Red at 17:53 UTC and lowered back to Orange at 06:25 on June 7. The Alert Level remained at 3 (on a scale of 1 - 4), with a general exclusion zone of 3 km (1.8 miles) and extensions to 5 km (3.1 miles) in the SE sector and 4 km (2.5 miles) in the NE sector.In the event of ashfall, people are advised to wear masks when leaving the house to reduce the health impact of volcanic ash. Secure drinking water facilities and clean roofs of houses from heavy volcanic ash so that they do not collapse.People who live near rivers that originate at Mount Sinabung are advised to stay alert to the dangers of lahars.
Lava cuts off famous viewing hill of eruption near Fagradalsfjall in Geldingadalur, Iceland -The famous viewing hill providing a glimpse of the ongoing volcanic eruption site near Fagradalsfjall in Geldingadalur, Iceland, has been cut off as lava has made its way through the hiking trail on Monday, June 7, 2021. The spectacular sight of a volcano spewing lava at great heights has been attracting thousands of visitors to the area.On Monday morning, responders were notified that lava has started flowing through the hiking trail that led up to the viewing hill where many tourists go to witness the erupting volcano in Geldingadalur. The area was previously closed by authorities for safety purposes, due to the possibility of visitors being trapped on the hill if lava were to flow through the path. Hjálmar HallgrÃmsson, the site manager, told local media that lava had made its way over the trail very quickly. Fortunately, there were very few people at the eruption site.Hikers will still be able to have a view of the volcano despite losing access to the viewing hill, renowned for its glimpse into the volcano's interior.The historic volcanic eruption near Fagradalsfjall began on March 19, 2021, after more than 50 000 earthquakes registered since February 24. The last eruption in the area occurred in 1340 (VEI 1) - 681 years ago.As the eruption continued, it produced a spectacular view of flowing lava, attracting many visitors to the site despite the hazard.Powerful jets of lava have been observed, with some reaching unusual heights beyond 460 m (1 500 feet). The volcanic eruption has also brought mesmerizing red skies over the area during cloudy days, leaving witnesses in awe, many of whom have taken to social media to share their photos and videos of the amazing scenery.
Longest underwater avalanche monitored in action continuously self-accelerated for over 1 000 km In a new paper, scientists have reported what they say is the longest sediment avalanche measured so far in action and the only monitored flow to continuously self-accelerate for over 1 000 km (620 miles). The event occurred off the coast of West Africa, in a deep canyon leading from the mouth of the Congo River. The event was triggered by severe flooding and unusually large spring tides. The underwater avalanche kept moving for two whole days and ran out for more than 1 100 km (684 miles) across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The event would have gone undocumented if not for the fact that the slide broke two submarine telecommunication cables, causing slow internet and data traffic between Nigeria and South Africa in the process. Researchers were also able to line the length of the Congo Canyon with instruments that can measure current and sediment velocities. "We had a series of oceanographic moorings that were hit by the event, which broke them from their seafloor anchors so that they popped up to send us an email," said study author Peter Talling from Durham University in the UK. "This thing gradually got faster and faster. Because it erodes the seabed as it goes, it picks up sand and mud, which makes the flow denser and even quicker. So, it has this positive feedback where it can build and build and build." The event, more properly called a turbidity current, was initiated on January 14, 2020. Scientists only reported the underwater avalanche as they needed time to recover the sensors and fully study their data. According to the team, two factors combined to prime and then trigger the prodigious flow. The first was an exceptionally large flood along the Congo River in December 2019, which was a one-in-50-year occurrence. It delivered large quantities of sand and mud to the head of the underwater canyon two weeks before the slide. Then some unusually big spring tides followed in January 2020. "The turbidity current we think was triggered at low water, at low tide," said author Dan Parsons from the Hull University. "As the loading of the ocean above declines, so you get a change in the pore water pressure within the sediment - and that's what allows it to fail." "But first you have to load the dice by delivering the sediment. Then the tidal signature can kick everything off."
A slowing current system in the Atlantic Ocean spells trouble for Earth - When it comes to the motion of the ocean, what is called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or "AMOC" for short, is essentially a complex system of conveyor belts. The first belt contains warm water that flows north, where it cools, evaporates and increases the salinity of the ocean water. That water then cools, sinks and flows south, creating a second major belt. These currents are connected to each other by regions in the Nordic Sea, Labrador Sea and Southern Ocean, keeping sea levels down on the United States' eastern seaboard and warming up the weather in Europe.This current system connects many different pieces of life on Earth: tides, hurricanes, sea levels, ocean life, salinity, fisheries, water pollution, temperatures, weather — all are affected by this current system. A sudden shift in how the Atlantic current system works would drastically change life on Earth.Yet the more we learn about ocean currents, the more we have cause for alarm. AFebruary study published in the journal Nature Geoscience reconstructed the history of the current going back 1,600 years and found that circulation is weaker now than at any other point in that span. They identified the most likely culprit as global warming. With the Greenland Ice Sheet and Arctic ice melting as the planet heats up, and rain and snow levels increasing, the water flowing north loses much of its salinity and density. This causes the water to flow south more slowly and weakens AMOC overall. More recently, another study in the journal Nature Geoscience that identified the important role played by winds in causing changes in ocean circulation. As lead author Dr. Yavor Kostov of the University of Exeter said in a press release, scientists have struggled to understand the variability in AMOC because there are so many variables that have an effect on it. He noted that after learning that winds influenced circulation in both sub-tropical and sub-polar locations, scientists concluded that "as the climate continues to change, more efforts should be concentrated on monitoring those winds — especially in key regions on continental boundaries and the eastern coast of Greenland — and understanding what drives changes in them.""This won't lead to another ice age (like 'The Day After Tomorrow,' which is a caricature of the science), but it may well threaten fish populations and lead to accelerated sea level rise along the U.S. east coast," Mann told Salon. "This is furthermore a reminder that there are surprises in the greenhouse, and often they are unwelcome ones. If we want to avoid more and more of these unwelcome surprises, we need to bring carbon emissions down dramatically in the years ahead."Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished senior scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, told Salon by email that if AMOC stopped moving heat northwards, the topical Atlantic would get much warmer. That in turn would lead to more frequent and devastating hurricanes, even as Iceland and parts of Europe cool immensely.
Despite pandemic, level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hits historic levels - Economies worldwide nearly ground to a halt over the 15 months of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to a startling drop in global greenhouse gas emissions.But the idle airplanes, boarded-up stores and quiet highways barely made a dent in the steady accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday had reached the highest levels since accurate measurements began 63 years ago.The new figures serve as a sober reminder that even as President Biden and other world leaders make unprecedented promises about curtailing greenhouse gas emissions, turning the tide of climate change will take even more massive efforts over a much longer period of time.The report of a climb in atmospheric carbon dioxide was also published on the eve of a meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized countries, where climate change is expected to be at center stage. The G-7 meeting is intended to prod major emitting countries toward more ambitious actions ahead of a major international climate conference in Glasgow in November.“Fossil fuel burning is really at the heart of this. If we don’t tackle fossil fuel burning, the problem is not going to go away,” Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at Scripps , said in an interview, adding that the world ultimately will have to make emissions cuts that are “much larger and sustained” than anything that happened during the pandemic.Scientists from Scripps and the NOAA said on Monday that levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide peaked in May, reaching a monthly average of nearly 419 parts per million.That represents an increase from the May 2020 mean of 417 parts per million, and it marks the highest level since measurements began 63 years ago at the NOAA observatory in Mauna Loa, Hawaii. Twice in 2021, daily levels recorded at the observatory have exceeded 420 parts per million, researchers said.
CO2 concentration levels hit record high, show no impact from pandemic --The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere reached historic levels in May after emissions plunged in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, according to data released Monday by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).The annual peak reached 419 parts per million (PPM) in May, according to the research, with “no discernible signal in the data” from the reduced industrial activity in 2020. This is the highest level recorded in the 63 years concentration levels have been tracked, with researchers saying daily levels have surpassed 420 PPM on several occasions. It also represents an increase from 417 PPM in May 2020.Annual carbon dioxide concentration values peak in May, the end of the period when plants in the northern hemisphere begin taking in large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. This trend is known as the Keeling Curve, after Charles David Keeling, the scientist who first observed the phenomenon."The ultimate control knob on atmospheric CO2 is fossil-fuel emissions,” Keeling’s son Ralph Keeling, who runs the Scripps program at the NOAA’s Mauna Loa observatory, said in a statement. “But we still have a long way to go to halt the rise, as each year more CO2 piles up in the atmosphere. We ultimately need cuts that are much larger and sustained longer than the COVID-related shutdowns of 2020." Ralph Keeling told Axios the concentration will likely exceed 420 PPM in 2021, adding ,“We’re moving deeper and deeper into a territory we almost certainly never would have wanted to get to."Although carbon emissions fell 17 percent globally in spring 2020, they were on the rise again by September, with research from the World Meteorological Organization indicating they fell only a net 6.4 percent last year.Experts have said emissions will likely rebound as more people return to their daily automobile commutes and that reduced ridership for public transportation also has worrisome implications for emissions.
Carbon dioxide levels hit 50 percent higher than preindustrial times -The annual peak of global heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air has reached another dangerous milestone: 50 percent higher than when the industrial age began. And the average rate of increase is faster than ever, scientists reported Monday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the average carbon dioxide level for May was 419.13 parts per million. That’s 1.82 parts per million higher than May 2020 and 50 percent higher than the stable pre-industrial levels of 280 parts per million, said NOAA climate scientist Pieter Tans. Carbon dioxide levels peak every May just before plant life in the Northern Hemisphere blossoms, sucking some of that carbon out of the atmosphere and into flowers, leaves, seeds and stems. The reprieve is temporary, though, because emissions of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas for transportation and electricity far exceed what plants can take in, pushing greenhouse gas levels to new records every year. “Reaching 50 percent higher carbon dioxide than preindustrial is really setting a new benchmark and not in a good way,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the research. “If we want to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we need to work much harder to cut carbon dioxide emissions and right away.” Climate change does more than increase temperatures. It makes extreme weather — storms, wildfires, floods and droughts — worse and more frequent and causes oceans to rise and get more acidic, studies show. There are also health effects, including heat deaths and increased pollen. In 2015, countries signed the Paris agreement to try to keep climate change to below what’s considered dangerous levels.
Atmospheric CO2 Reaches Its Highest Level in Human History --Last month, EcoWatch reported that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels this year were expected to climb to beyond 2019 levels, despite falling during the pandemic. Now we know just how much. Two separate reports published Monday detailed that CO2 levels have indeed spiked, and that the annual peak reached 419 parts per million (PPM) in May, the highest level in human history, Axios reported.Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who published the new reports, have been tracking atmospheric CO2 for more than 60 years, according to The Hill. But using other data, researchers were able to estimate that CO2 levels haven't been this high on Earth in more than 4 million years, NPR reported"We are adding roughly 40 billion metric tons of CO2 pollution to the atmosphere per year," Peter Tans, a senior scientist with NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory, said in a statement. "That is a mountain of carbon that we dig up out of the Earth, burn, and release into the atmosphere as CO2 – year after year. If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change, the highest priority must be to reduce CO2 pollution to zero at the earliest possible date."Carbon-based fossil fuels used for electricity production and transportation, including oil, gas and coal, cement manufacturing, deforestation and agriculture are all main drivers of CO2 pollution, the statementnoted.May is the month with the highest mean atmospheric CO2 because plants in the northern hemisphere are just beginning to enter the growing season when they suck large amounts of CO2 from Earth's air, according toNOAA. Levels will likely drop from here, but the data is alarming.While the year-to-year increase in the May 2021 CO2 peak was slightly smaller than previous years, "CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa [Observatory, in Hawaii] for the first five months of 2021 showed a 2.3 ppm increase over the same five months of 2020, close to the average annual increase from 2010 to 2019," the statement read. The brief dip in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 did not make a difference in bringing down current numbers, according to the report. "The data provides yet another warning that countries are still very far from getting their planet-warming greenhouse gases under control," The New York Times reported.
Climate tipping points could topple like dominoes, warn scientists - Ice sheets and ocean currents at risk of climate tipping points can destabilise each other as the world heats up, leading to a domino effect with severe consequences for humanity, according to a risk analysis.Tipping points occur when global heating pushes temperatures beyond a critical threshold, leading to accelerated and irreversible impacts. Some large ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to already have passed their tipping points, meaning large sea-level rises in coming centuries.The new research examined the interactions between ice sheets in West Antarctica, Greenland, the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream and the Amazon rainforest. The scientists carried out 3m computer simulations and found domino effects in a third of them, even when temperature rises were below 2C, the upper limit of the Paris agreement.The study showed that the interactions between these climate systems can lower the critical temperature thresholds at which each tipping point is passed. It found that ice sheets are potential starting points for tipping cascades, with the Atlantic currents acting as a transmitter and eventually affecting the Amazon.“We provide a risk analysis, not a prediction, but our findings still raise concern,” said Prof Ricarda Winkelmann, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany. “[Our findings] might mean we have less time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and still prevent tipping processes.”The level of CO2 in the atmosphere required to push temperatures beyond the thresholds could be reached in the very near future, she said. “In the next years or decades, we might be committing future generations to really severe consequences.” These could include many metres of sea-level rise from ice melting, affecting scores of coastal cities.“We’re shifting the odds, and not in our favour – the risk clearly is increasing the more we heat our planet,”
Doctors, healthcare workers sound alarm over health risks of climate change - A growing number of doctors and front-line healthcare workers are turning to climate activism to urge global leaders to declare climate change a public health emergency.Doctors and health workers, some clad in white coats and brandishing placards, marched to the headquarters of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva on Saturday to demand that health authorities and governments prioritise climate change to avert a global health crisis.Their demands for immediate action included a focus on preventative healthcare with education programmes in schools and the wider community, more equitable distribution and access to medical care, reducing the carbon impact of health care, and stricter control of industries to ensure clean water and air. Underscoring the progressive nature of their platform, the protesters also called for the creation of citizen assemblies to steer strategic health decisions. Their demands were listed in a petition, signed by more than 1,200 prominent doctors and healthcare workers from around the world. WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who welcomed the protesters, said that while “the pandemic will end, there is no vaccine for climate change”. He later tweeted that health and climate change were “inextricably intertwined" and that the WHO would be “standing in solidarity and urging global action” with the demonstrators. Indeed, the WHO and the prestigious Lancet medical journal have declared climate change the biggest threat to global health in the 21st century – a declaration made even before the Covid-19 crisis.Front-line health workers and researchers may have been sounding the alarm on climate change for years, but it is only recently that more voices have stepped up to lead rallies, sign petitions and publish studies with the same fierce urgency as grassroots activists.
Climate Inaction Will Cost G7 Countries Billions of Dollars - The world's richest countries face billions of dollars in economic losses if they fail to take stringent measures to curb climate change, Oxfam said on Monday, citing research by the Swiss Re Institute.According to the report, the G7 (Group of Seven) economies — Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, the UK and the US — could see annual average losses of up to 8.5% by 2050 if CO2 emissions continue unabated.Total losses could amount to $4.8 trillion (€3.95 trillion) a year, double the GDP losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.The Swiss Re report looked out how different aspects of changing climate, including heatwaves, rising sea levels and degradation of agricultural land, may impact economic activities in 48 countries.Although the report concluded that the richest countries would be badly hit by the consequences of runaway climate change, poorer countries would fare much worse.It predicted that up to 35% of the Philippines' economy could be wiped away while India, home to over 1.3 billion people, may see its economic activity shrink by 27%.Oxfam added that between 32 and 132 billion people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030 due to climate change, citing a recent report by the World Bank. Oxfam called on the leaders of the G7 countries to immediately increase the pledges to cut carbon emissions, pointing out that most were falling short of necessary reductions to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. The charity also demanded that the G7 countries — who represent some of the world's worst emitters of CO2 historically — stick to their pledge to provide $100 billion annually to help poorer countries deal with the impacts of climate change.
International Energy Agency report underscores inadequacy of US government response to climate change - The International Energy Agency (IEA), a Paris-based affiliate of the Organisation for Economic Co-ordination and Development (OECD), has released a special report outlining various pathways to ensure a world with a net zero carbon emissions rate by 2050. The report, which is titled Net Zero by 2050, states that in order to achieve a carbon neutral world by that year producers will need to immediately stop any new fossil fuel production. This is only one of 400 “milestones” along the road to 2050, and its implausibility only underscores the difficulties of combining a rational, science-based response to the danger of climate change with the maintenance of global capitalism, driven by private profits and the interests of rival nation-states. Countries will need to increase solar and wind production by roughly 400 percent more than the current rate. This would occur with a phasing out of coal and gas plants, in favor of solar and nuclear plants, as well as the retrofitting of coal and gas plants with carbon capture devices, where the carbon will later be injected underground. According to the special report, this transition must finalize before 2040. As it stands, roughly 80 percent of the world’s energy grids are powered by fossil fuels. By 2040, a significant amount of air travel would have to be done with renewable fuels like hydrogen. By 2030, the majority of cars sold would need to be electric. By 2035 most vehicles involved in the transportation of goods would also need to make this transition. The pathways described by the IEA also include enabling access to clean electricity and cooking to everyone in the world and making the world’s electric grid completely carbon neutral by 2040. “The sheer magnitude of changes needed to get to net zero emissions by 2050 is still not fully understood by many governments and investors,” stated IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. Typifying such inadequate responses was US President Joe Biden’s climate initiative announced on international Earth Day in April. The president unveiled his plan at a climate summit at the White House that was attended by numerous world leaders. A fact sheet presented by the White House declared that it has set “ambitious goals,” which put “the United States on an irreversible path to a net-zero economy by 2050.” Biden revealed that the United States would cut carbon emissions in half by 50 percent by 2030. The emissions the Biden administration has pledged to cut in half are based on levels from 2005, a year with especially high pollution. Since 2005, the US has achieved a 14-15 percent decrease in overall emissions. This means that Biden, who will be long gone by 2050, can take credit for decreases that happened before he was even elected. While the IEA’s report called for an immediate stop to any new fossil fuel production within the US, the Biden administration has, within its first few days of power, issued 31 drilling permits on federal land. The Biden administration has also approved 22 offshore drilling permits to companies, such as Shell and British Petroleum. Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) recently contested a lawsuit brought forth by environmental groups to stop a Trump-approved oil extraction operation in northern Alaska. The project, dubbed “Willow,” is expected to extract roughly 100,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 30 years.
GM asks for flexibility in meeting emissions target -- General Motors (GM) has asked the Biden administration for leeway on the carbon reduction targets for automakers. In a Wednesday letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, CEO Mary Barra said the company backs the emissions reductions goals in a 2019 deal between industry and the state of California, according to Reuters. However, Barra also asked the federal government for incentives to hasten the transition to electrified vehicles. "We believe an electric vehicle compliance pathway is a key component to setting the industry on an irreversible path towards a zero-emissions future, which can only be achieved with a tailpipe-free light duty fleet," she wrote. An EPA spokesperson told The Hill in a statement Thursday that "Regan spoke this week with leaders from auto manufacturers to discuss EPA’s priorities to reduce climate pollution from the transportation sector." "These conversations have been constructive as the agency moves forward on actions to address emissions from cars and light duty trucks," the spokesperson added. GM had earlier supported the Trump administration in its litigation against California's tougher emissions standards, but withdrew from the lawsuit in late November shortly after President Biden’s electoral victory. “We believe the ambitious electrification goals of the President-elect, California, and General Motors are aligned to address climate change by drastically reducing automobile emissions. We are confident that the Biden administration, California, and the U.S. auto industry, which supports 10.3 million jobs, can collaboratively find the pathway that will deliver an all-electric future,” the company wrote in the November letter.
The 'Big Con' Revealed: Report Details Fossil Fuel Industry's Deceptive 'Net Zero' Strategy --A new report published Wednesday by a trio of progressive advocacy groups lifts the veil on so-called "net zero" climate pledges, which are often touted by corporations and governments as solutions to the climate emergency, but which the paper's authors argue are merely a dangerous form of greenwashing that should be eschewed in favor of Real Zero policies based on meaningful, near-term commitments to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.The report, The Big Con: How Big Polluters Are Advancing a "Net Zero" Climate Agenda to Delay, Deceive, and Deny, was published by Corporate Accountability, the Global Forest Coalition, and Friends of the Earth International, and is endorsed by more than 60 environmental organizations. The paper comes ahead of this November's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland and amid proliferating pledges from polluting corporations and governments to achieve what they claim is carbon neutrality — increasingly via dubious offsets — by some distant date, often the year 2050.However, the report asserts that "instead of offering meaningful real solutions to justly address the crisis they knowingly created and owning up to their responsibility to act beginning with drastically reducing emissions at source, polluting corporations and governments are advancing 'net zero' plans that require little or nothing in the way of real solutions or real effective emissions cuts.""Furthermore... they see the potential for a 'net zero' global pathway to provide new business opportunities for them, rather than curtailing production and consumption of their polluting products," it says.According to the report:After decades of inaction, corporations are suddenly racing to pledge to achieve "net zero" emissions. These include fossil fuel giants like BP, Shell, and Total; tech giants like Microsoft and Apple; retailers like Amazon and Walmart; financers like HSBC, Bank of America, and BlackRock; airlines like United and Delta; and food, livestock, and meat producing and agriculture corporations like JBS, Nestlé, and Cargill. Polluting corporations are in a race to be the loudest and proudest to pledge "net zero" emissions by 2050 or some other date in the distant future. Over recent years, more than 1,500 corporations have made "net zero" commitments, an accomplishment applauded by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the U.N. Secretary General. “Increasingly, the concept of 'net zero' is being misconstrued in political spaces as well as by individual actors to evade action and avoid responsibility," the report states. "The idea behind big polluters' use of 'net zero' is that an entity can continue to pollute as usual — or even increase its emissions — and seek to compensate for those emissions in a number of ways. Emissions are nothing more than a math equation in these plans; they can be added one place and subtracted from another place."
Electric power sector CO2 emissions drop as generation mix shifts from coal to natural gas --Over the past 15 years, the U.S. electricity generation mix has shifted away from coal and toward natural gas and renewables, resulting in lower CO2 emissions from electricity generation. In 2019, the U.S. electric power sector produced 1,724 million metric tons (MMmt) of CO2, 32% less than the 2,544 MMmt produced in 2005.Lower CO2 emissions have largely been a result of a shift from coal to natural gas in the electricity generation mix. In 2005, coal made up 50% of U.S. electricity generation; that share declined to 23% in 2019. Conversely, natural gas increased from 19% of total generation in 2005 to 38% in 2019. For the next few years, this trend may be changing. In the recent releases of our Short-Term Energy Outlook, we forecast that higher natural gas prices will lead to less natural gas-fired generation and more coal-fired generation in 2021. However, in 2022, we expect both coal and natural gas to lose a portion of their shares to renewables. When generating electricity, coal emits significantly more CO2 than natural gas. In 2019, coal-fired generation produced 2,257 pounds of CO2 per megawatthour (MWh) of electricity. Natural gas-fired generation produced less than half that amount at 976 pounds of CO2/MWh. CO2 emissions associated with generating electricity from coal and natural gas differ because of differences in the fuels themselves—coal has more carbon content per unit of energy. In addition, coal-fired plants and natural gas-fired plants differ in how efficiently they convert their respective fuels to electricity. The amount of CO2 produced when a fuel is burned depends on a fuel’s carbon content. Coal produces more CO2 per unit of energy than natural gas does when burned. Coal consumption for electricity generation produces 209 pounds of CO2 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), compared with 117 pounds of CO2/MMBtu for natural gas.
US power grid: Energy secretary says adversaries have capability of shutting it down - Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Sunday warned in stark terms that the US power grid is vulnerable to attacks.Asked By CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" whether the nation's adversaries have the capability of shutting it down, Granholm said: "Yeah, they do.""There are thousands of attacks on all aspects of the energy sector and the private sector generally," she said, adding, "It's happening all the time. This is why the private sector and the public sector have to work together."The secretary's warning comes amid a rise in ransomware attacks in America's public and private sectors in the recent weeks, creating a sense of urgency in the Biden administration on how to confront cyber vulnerabilities. The issue will take an outsized role during President Joe Biden's first foreign trip this week, during which he is set to talk with European leaders and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland.Last week, the White House issued a letter to companies calling on them to take the threat of ransomware attacks more seriously, following back-to-back attacks by Russian hackers against the Colonial Pipeline Company last month and the JBS meatpacking plant. Asked Sunday on NBC if the US government is better prepared to deal with another potential ransomware attack on a gasoline pipeline, Granholm said new regulations from the Transportation Security Administration, which regulates pipelines, now require companies to report when attacks are happening in real time. "The TSA actually just put out a series of regulations requiring pipelines to let us know if they have been the victim, and whenever in the real-time... where are these attacks happening, so that we know and we can coordinate with our intelligence community to determine not just how to respond in the long-term, but how to respond immediately. So to that extent, yes," Granholm saidon "Meet The Press."
Reducing the burp burden: Cargill will soon sell high-tech, methane-mitigating masks for cows - In a bid to teach uncultured bovines a thing or two about manners, Cargill will soon start selling masks to cover up those unseemly cow burps. Technically it’s less about “etiquette” and more about “mitigating methane emissions,” but please allow us to pretend this development was made in service of haute heifer dinner parties. Jokes aside, the last decade has seen an increasing focus on the role that reducing livestock emissions could play in climate change. And contrary to long-held myths about these emissions coming from flatulence, 95 percent of the methane cows release is from burps and through the nose. The Cargill masks, which are somewhat elaborate in construction, utilize “a set of fans powered by solar-charged batteries” and that “sucks up the burps and traps them in a chamber with a methane-absorbing filter.” Once the filter is saturated, a chemical reaction converts the methane to CO₂ and releases it. The masks, which were initially developed by U.K. startup Zelp, will go on sale to farmers in 2022. Bloomberg has more.
Factory farm biogas is bad for Iowa - Iowans deserve vibrant communities that protect the people and places we care about, both now and for future generations. Instead, we’re getting factory farm biogas.Factory farm biogas originates from the potent greenhouse gas methane that is generated by the massive cesspools of animal manure generated by industrialized livestock systems. The gas is added to regional pipelines and the energy grid, and the residual manure waste products are land-applied to agricultural fields. None of this process is renewable or clean — despite the industry’s greenwashed branding of it as “renewable natural gas” — nor does it reduce the manure applied to fields that can ultimately run off into Iowa’s waterways.Factory farm biogas in Iowa means more pipelines, more factory farms and more pollution. And for what? Iowa is fast becoming a sacrifice zone, destroyed for the benefit of out-of-state investors. As The Gazette recently reported, biogas won’t make progress on reducing climate-destroying greenhouse gas emissions.The same industrial powerhouses that littered our rural areas with factory farms (Big Ag) and incited a yearslong battle over the Bakken pipeline (Big Gas) have teamed up to feed Iowa their latest scheme.These industries are working to entrench the dirty practice in our state, starting with the Gevo-funded facility that broke ground last month in northwest Iowa. The massive factory farm biogas operation is financed by venture capitalists and contracted to provide gas to California. While it is projected to rake in $9-16 million a year for Gevo investors, the project is a nightmare for people living in rural Iowa. First, there are the environmental hazards associated with the installation of pipelines and the certainty that, at some point, every pipeline leaks. Critically, for rural landowners, many factory farm biogas projects will likely require the use of eminent domain to secure pipeline pathways. As the Sioux County Supervisors discussed the Gevo project, they recommended eminent domain be utilized as a last choice — but a last choice still is a choice. With the passage of HF 522 this month, Iowans can be assured that Gevo is only the first of many such facilities — and we can expect our tax dollars to finance their construction too. Without public money, these facilities wouldn’t be financially viable in the first place.
Granholm launches 'Earthshot' goal of reducing hydrogen energy cost to $1 -The Energy Department announced on Monday that it was starting an “Earthshots” initiative to reduce the costs of clean energy within a decade — starting with its first goal of reducing the cost of clean hydrogen to $1 per kilogram. The Energy Earthshots Initiative will seek to, within a decade, speed up breakthroughs in affordable and reliable clean energy, according to a department statement. “The Energy Earthshots are an all-hands-on-deck call for innovation, collaboration and acceleration of our clean energy economy by tackling the toughest remaining barriers to quickly deploy emerging clean energy technologies at scale,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. The goal for hydrogen energy seeks to reduce the fuel’s cost by about 80 percent, as hydrogen produced using renewable energy currently costs about $5 per kilogram, according to the department. Hydrogen fuel cells produce electricity by dividing hydrogen molecules into protons and electrons and moving the electrons through an external circuit. This type of electricity can be produced using various types of energy, but the initiative appears to be focused on cells that run on energy from water, renewables, nuclear or fossil fuels when technology is used to capture their emissions. In her statement, Granholm described clean hydrogen as a “game changer.” “It will help decarbonize high-polluting heavy-duty and industrial sectors, while delivering good-paying clean energy jobs and realizing a net-zero economy by 2050,” she said. As part of the initiative, the department put out a request for information on Monday that asks questions about the potential for emissions reductions, what regions would be best suited for hydrogen projects and possible needs or challenges.Granholm has previously called for slashing the cost of hydrogen by 80 percent, saying in April that this would make it “competitive with natural gas.” At that time, she also called for cutting battery cell prices in half to make electric vehicles more affordable.
Clean Energy Transition Drives Demand For Minerals -- According to a new report put out by the International Energy Agency, the demand for some minerals will skyrocket by 2040 as the world transitions towards clean energy technologies.Lithium was the most affected, with clean energy technologies alone expected to fill up between 74 and 92 percent of global demand by 2040. Cobalt and nickel demand will be bracing for a similar scenario. Between 40 and 70 percent of extracted cobalt could go towards renewable energy goals in 2040, as could between 30 and 60 percent of nickel.Translated into absolute numbers, as Statista's Katharina Buchholz notes, the increased demand for crucial minerals in renewable energy would require deliveries to the sector to double or even quadruple. While demand stood at 7 million tons in the sector in 2020, it is expected to rise to between 15 and 27 million tons depending on the speed of sustainable development. To reach a net-zero energy future by 2050, the sector would even devour 43 million tons of minerals in 2040 – six times the current amount.Minerals in renewable energy are often associated with electric vehicles and battery storage, even though renewable electricity generation currently has a way larger demand, especially for copper, zinc and silicon used in wind turbines and solar panels. Moving closer to clean energy goals, however, EVs and batteries are expected to start taking up an equally large part of demand and even surpass electricity generation in case the world moves towards a net zero future. The subsector is especially hungry for lithium, copper, nickel and graphite.While the market for some of these minerals is bound to diversify in the clean energy revolution, many of them currently rely on very few producers. According to the IEA, almost 70 percent of cobalt came out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019, while around 60 percent of rare earths and graphite originated in China. For nickel, only three countries produced more than half of global output: Indonesia (33 percent), the Philippines (12 percent) and Russia (11 percent).
Energy Secretary says US wants 'responsible' lithium mining (AP) — Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said the Biden administration wants to see lithium needed for electric cars to be mined “in a responsible way” that respects the environment and Native American tribes.Granholm said during a visit to Nevada on Thursday to promote President Joe Biden’s sweeping infrastructure plan that lithium, used for electric vehicle batteries, could become a big source of job creation in the state, in addition to furthering the president’s ambitious climate agenda.Nevada is home to the only large-scale lithium mine currently operating in the U.S. Two proposed lithium mines in Nevada are facing legal challenges and pushback from conservationists.This week, plans for one of the mines appeared in jeopardy after the U.S. government announced it intends to propose protecting an extremely rare wildflower that grows only in Nevada at the mine site under the Endangered Species Act. A third proposed mine near the Nevada-Oregon border has attracted legal challenges and opposition from ranchers, Native Americans and environmentalists.The challenges test the Biden administration’s ability to straddle its promises to protect public lands while pushing aggressive clean energy goals like getting more electric cars on the road.Granholm on Thursday said the administration wants find a way to achieve both aims. “The administration wants to see mining happen in a responsible way in this country to be able to get the lithium, cobalt, the nickel that are necessary for battery production for electric vehicles,” Granholm said. “It can be done in a way that respects Indigenous communities. It can be done in a way that respects the environment.”
Biden Administration Moves to Fix Supply Chain Bottlenecks - — The Biden administration on Tuesday outlined a swath of actions and recommendations meant to address supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and decrease reliance on other countries for crucial goods by increasing domestic production capacity. In a briefing with reporters, White House officials said the administration had created a task force that would tackle near-term bottlenecks in construction, transportation, semiconductor production and agriculture. The group will be led by Mr. Biden’s cabinet secretaries. The officials also outlined steps that had been taken to address an executive order from President Biden that required a review of critical supply chains in four product areas where the United States relies on imports: semiconductors, high-capacity batteries, pharmaceuticals and their active ingredients, and critical minerals and strategic materials, like rare earths. “This is about making sure the United States can meet every challenge we face in the new era,” Mr. Biden said in February, when he signed the order. The review was governmentwide. Cabinet members were ordered to provide reports to the White House within 100 days. The move was intended to address concerns about supply chain resiliency and long-term competition with China. The Department of Health and Human Services, for instance, will use $60 million from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill to develop technologies to increase domestic production of active ingredients in key pharmaceuticals. The Interior Department will work to identify sites where critical minerals could be produced in the United States. And several agencies will work on creating supply chains for new technologies that will reduce reliance on imports of key materials. The Biden administration also signaled that it was prepared to use trade policy to bolster domestic supplies of key minerals and components. As part of that effort, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said it would establish a so-called strike force that could propose actions against overseas companies deemed to be engaged in unfair trade practices. The Commerce Department will evaluate whether to investigate the global trade of neodymium magnets under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The Trump administration wielded that law to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, after concluding that domestic production of those materials was essential for national security. As part of his plans to address climate change, Mr. Biden wants Americans to drive millions of new electric vehicles and get more of their energy from renewable sources like wind and solar power. But experts have long pointed out that the shift to cleaner energy will require vast supplies of critical minerals, many of which are currently produced and processed overseas. Most of the world’s lithium, a key ingredient in the batteries that power electric vehicles, is mined in Australia, China, Chile and Argentina. China dominates global production of rare earth minerals such as neodymium, used to make magnets in wind turbines. It has also largely cornered the market in lithium-ion batteries, accounting for 77 percent of the world’s capacity for producing battery cells and 80 percent of its raw-material refining.
Alaska Native corporation deal with conservation nonprofit complicates planning for massive Pebble mine project - - Sarah Thiele had a childhood defined by sockeye salmon. Her father caught the fish in summer by the net-full as a commercial fisherman while her mother would cure and cold-smoke hundreds of fillets so Thiele and her eight siblings, plus the family’s team of sled dogs, could dine on sockeye year-round. Now 66, Thiele is a board member of the Pedro Bay Corp., an Alaska Native group that owns land near Bristol Bay, the site of the most prolific sockeye fishery in the world. It is also the precise spot where the backers of the Pebble Mine hope to build a road to transport ore. Late last month, Thiele and nearly 90 percent of the corporation’s shareholders voted to let the Conservation Fund, an environmental nonprofit organization, buy conservation easements on more than 44,000 acres and make the land off limits to future development - including the mining road. “I feel like we are doing our mission of preserving our heritage and our pristine lands from any development,” she said. “That is totally our identity, the fish and our land.” In exchange for the surface rights, the corporation would receive nearly $20 million, including $500,000 for education and cultural programs for those in the village. The deal will make it difficult for backers of a massive open-pit gold and copper mine to carry out their project because the new protections cover a portion of a critical route the Pebble Limited Partnership plans to use to transport ore from the mine. n“I would say if it’s not the nail in the coffin, it’s just waiting for the last tap of the hammer,” Tim Troll, executive director of the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, who helped negotiate the easement, said in a phone interview. Given the agreement, he added, “I just don’t see any way that they could do this.”
California tells public to prepare for heatwave; power prices soar (Reuters) -The California power grid operator told the public to prepare to conserve energy next week if needed as homes and businesses crank up their air conditioners to escape what is forecast to be a brutal heatwave. The California ISO, which operates the state's power grid, said in a release that "It is still too early to know the precise impact that next week’s high temperatures will have on the electric grid." But the ISO said it will notify the public if it needs to take steps to reduce electricity use, including a call for public conservation and if the grid becomes seriously stressed, rotating outages. Last summer, a heatwave in August forced California utilities to impose rotating blackouts that left over 400,000 homes and businesses without power for up to 2-1/2 hours when energy supplies ran short. High temperatures next week will reach the low 90s degrees Fahrenheit (about 34 C) in Los Angeles on Monday-Wednesday, which is about 20 degrees higher than the normal high for this time of year, according to AccuWeather forecasts. The group responsible for North American electric reliability has already warned that California is the U.S. region most at risk of power shortages this summer because the state increasingly relies on intermittent energy sources like wind and solar, and as climate change causes more extreme heat events, drought and wildfires across the U.S. West. Power traded on Friday for Monday jumped to $151 per megawatt hour (MWh) at Palo Verde in Arizona and $95 in SP-15 in Southern California, their highest since the February freeze caused prices across the country to soar.
US power grid: Energy secretary says adversaries have capability of shutting it down - Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Sunday warned in stark terms that the US power grid is vulnerable to attacks.Asked By CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" whether the nation's adversaries have the capability of shutting it down, Granholm said: "Yeah, they do.""There are thousands of attacks on all aspects of the energy sector and the private sector generally," she said, adding, "It's happening all the time. This is why the private sector and the public sector have to work together."The secretary's warning comes amid a rise in ransomware attacks in America's public and private sectors in the recent weeks, creating a sense of urgency in the Biden administration on how to confront cyber vulnerabilities. The issue will take an outsized role during President Joe Biden's first foreign trip this week, during which he is set to talk with European leaders and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland.Last week, the White House issued a letter to companies calling on them to take the threat of ransomware attacks more seriously, following back-to-back attacks by Russian hackers against the Colonial Pipeline Company last month and the JBS meatpacking plant. Asked Sunday on NBC if the US government is better prepared to deal with another potential ransomware attack on a gasoline pipeline, Granholm said new regulations from the Transportation Security Administration, which regulates pipelines, now require companies to report when attacks are happening in real time. "The TSA actually just put out a series of regulations requiring pipelines to let us know if they have been the victim, and whenever in the real-time... where are these attacks happening, so that we know and we can coordinate with our intelligence community to determine not just how to respond in the long-term, but how to respond immediately. So to that extent, yes," Granholm saidon "Meet The Press."
Bill to give local control over wind and solar projects making its way through Ohio legislature - cleveland.com – A bill making its way through the Ohio legislature would let local officials ban large wind and solar farms in their communities, usurping the authority than now rests with the Ohio Power Siting Board.If adopted into law, Senate Bill 52 would place a severe damper on renewable energy projects in the state, according to advocates for wind and solar farms, but it would do more than that, says a prominent Republican.It would change the rules midstream and endanger projects already in development, including in some cases after substantial investments have been made, said Sen. Matt Dolan, Republican from Chagrin Falls.And that, he said, would send “a message to everyone that Ohio is not a stable place to invest in.”Dolan was among five Republicans who joined eight Democrats to vote against the bill, which passed the Ohio Senate 20-13 on Wednesday.Several business organizations including the Ohio Chamber of Commerce expressed concerns about the bill as it worked its way through the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee.A letter dated May 20 from the chamber, the Ohio Business Roundtable, Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce and Columbus Partnership, to key Republicans in the legislature acknowledged the desire for more local input, but said the state should not erect barriers to renewable energy investment and the economic opportunity it represents. Steve Stivers, president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber and a former U.S. congressman, said changes to the bill have made it more palatable, but that two primary issues remain. One is concern that the law could be applied retroactively to wind and solar projects already in development. The other is that there could conceivably be 88 different siting standards, one for each county, instead of having a single standard set by the state.The bill, among other things, would allow county commissioners to prohibit the construction of wind and solar farms for whatever reason, said Jason Rafeld, executive director of the Utility Scale Solar Energy Coalition of Ohio.But there’s also a concern that projects substantially in development would have to start the process all over again, subject to the new law, he said.Another element of the legislation would give county commissioners the ability to designate an “energy development district,” thereby preventing wind and solar projects elsewhere in the county, and potentially have residents vote to either approve or reject such designations.
US power grid: Energy secretary says adversaries have capability of shutting it down - Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Sunday warned in stark terms that the US power grid is vulnerable to attacks.Asked By CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" whether the nation's adversaries have the capability of shutting it down, Granholm said: "Yeah, they do.""There are thousands of attacks on all aspects of the energy sector and the private sector generally," she said, adding, "It's happening all the time. This is why the private sector and the public sector have to work together."The secretary's warning comes amid a rise in ransomware attacks in America's public and private sectors in the recent weeks, creating a sense of urgency in the Biden administration on how to confront cyber vulnerabilities. The issue will take an outsized role during President Joe Biden's first foreign trip this week, during which he is set to talk with European leaders and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland.Last week, the White House issued a letter to companies calling on them to take the threat of ransomware attacks more seriously, following back-to-back attacks by Russian hackers against the Colonial Pipeline Company last month and the JBS meatpacking plant. Asked Sunday on NBC if the US government is better prepared to deal with another potential ransomware attack on a gasoline pipeline, Granholm said new regulations from the Transportation Security Administration, which regulates pipelines, now require companies to report when attacks are happening in real time. "The TSA actually just put out a series of regulations requiring pipelines to let us know if they have been the victim, and whenever in the real-time... where are these attacks happening, so that we know and we can coordinate with our intelligence community to determine not just how to respond in the long-term, but how to respond immediately. So to that extent, yes," Granholm saidon "Meet The Press."
Duke Energy Gallagher Station power plant retired— At Louisville’s Shawnee Park, the 129-year-old green space on the city's western edge, two grayish smokestacks stretch high above the expansive green canopy. Down below, on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, sits Duke Energy’s Gallagher Station, a coal-fired power plant that has spewed emissions into a borderless sky for more than a half century. That ended on June 1, when Gallagher Station was officially retired. “This is a really big win for us,” said Arnita Gadson, a Louisville environmental activist who has fought pollution and polluters for decades. Though the plant has operated at reduced capacity in recent years, Gadson said its decommission and eventual demolition is a welcome development after decades of polluting Louisville’s predominantly-Black west end. “I don't think people, even some people in West Louisville, realize the impact of that plant,” said Gadson, the Executive Director of the West Jefferson County Community Task Force and the Environmental Justice Director for the Louisville NAACP. The ramp down at the plant began nearly a decade ago. In 2012, Duke Energy closed two of its four units and outfitted the other two with pollution control devices, including bag houses to reduce particle emissions and technology to drive down sulfur dioxide.Those moves came after the company settled a federal lawsuit over Clean Air Act violations. According to the U.S. Justice Department, Duke Energy made making illegal modifications to the plant that “caused significant increases in sulfur dioxide," a pollutant known to negatively effect those with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
Coal plants in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio to shut down (AP) — The owner of three coal-fired power plants in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio said Thursday that it will shut them down. Houston-based GenOn Holdings LLC said it will shut down a generating unit at both Avon Lake station on Lake Erie near Cleveland and Cheswick station on the Allegheny River outside Pittsburgh by Sept. 15. It said it will shut down two generating units at the much larger Morgantown station on Maryland’s Cobb Neck peninsula by next June 1. Combined, the four coal-fired units can provide up to 2,421 megawatts. In a statement, GenOn blamed “unfavorable economic conditions, higher costs including those associated with environmental compliance, an inability to compete with other generation types and evolving market rules that promote subsidized resources.” Coal power has fallen out of favor in the climate change era amid a push for cleaner power sources that produce less pollution and greenhouse gases. U.S. coal production has been in steady decline, down by about one-third over the past decade. Coal also has been buffeted by a flood of cheaper natural gas from shale formations, including the vast Marcellus Shale reservoir underneath Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Shutdown of the units is subject to a 90-day reliability review period by the regional electric grid operator PJM, GenOn said.
Appalachian Power president says closing Mitchell plant would save ratepayers $27 million annually - Appalachian Power Company President and COO Chris Beam testified during a hearing before the state Public Service Commission Tuesday that it would save ratepayers $27 million a year if the company closes the Mitchell Power Plant in Marshall County. Appalachian Power is before the PSC seeking approval to install environmentally mandated equipment on its coal-fired power plants in West Virginia including Mitchell, Mountaineer in Mason County and John Amos in Putnam County. The company proposes spending between $286 million and $317 million to modify the plants. It would initially seek to recover approximately $23 million through a surcharge that would raise customers’ bills approximately 1.5% Appalachian Power is proposing several options including making the pollution control modifications to all three plants or closing Mitchell by 2028 and making the modifications to John Amos and Mountaineer. Most of the public comments at a hearing last week focused on the Mitchell plant. Congressman David McKinley was among those to testify in favor of keeping the plant open until 2040. Beam would not favor one plan over another Tuesday, the first day of what could be a four-day evidentiary hearing before the PSC. He said he was not making a recommendation of which option would be more prudent. Beam said it’s entirely up to the PSC to decide which option. “Our evaluation looks at it from the customer’s perspective and that’s what we’ve presented in this filing, what is the view from the customer’s perspective,” Beam said. He said taking Mitchell offline in seven years would save $27 million a year. Beam said the company likes to take at least five years to transition to closing of a plant. He said the company would participate in a ‘just transition’ for the community.
Enchant: San Juan to stay traditional coal plant till 2025 » Enchant Energy Corp.’s plan to turn the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station into the world’s largest carbon-capture power plant is facing yearslong delays. When Public Service Company of New Mexico abandons the facility in June 2022, Enchant says it now plans to simply continue running the site as a carbon-emitting coal plant for up to three years until it can fully install the carbon-capture technology, company officials told the Journal this week. Enchant announced in 2019 that it would convert San Juan into a massive carbon-capture facility, in partnership with the city of Farmington, after PNM and other plant co-owners depart from the site next year. Until recently, Enchant said it would begin construction on plant conversion by 2021 and start operating it with carbon capture in place by January 2023. But its plans are now more than two years behind schedule because of difficulties in raising funds to finance the $1.4 billion project, plus delays in completing an engineering and design study it needs to sign a construction contract with industry partners. As a result, the company is now targeting year-end 2024 to have carbon capture partially operational at San Juan, and mid-2025 for it to be fully functioning.
Judge: US can't delay challenge to public land coal sales (AP) — A U.S. judge has rejected the Biden administration’s attempt to delay a lawsuit from several states and environmentalists who are seeking to end lease sales for coal mining on federal lands. The coal leasing program was temporarily shut down under President Barack Obama because of concerns about climate change, and then revived by the Trump administration. There have been few sales in the years since because the use of coal has plummeted as utilities turn to cleaner-burning fuels. Environmentalists want to shut down the program permanently and have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s attempts to delay a legal challenge pending before U.S. District Brian Morris in Montana. Morris issued an order late Thursday denying the administration’s attempt to delay the case for another three months, after already being granted a two-month extension in March. Morris said lease applications are pending for thousands of acres of land holding at least 1 billion tons of coal, and the plaintiffs in the case face potential damage if their challenge to the program is stalled by the administration. Growing concerns over climate change have put a spotlight on the once-obscure coal leasing program, which has gone largely unchanged and not been through a major environmental review since 1979. Companies have mined about 4 billion tons of coal from federal reserves in the past decade. The program brought in more than $500 million for federal and state coffers through royalties and other payments in 2019, the most recent data available. California, New Mexico, Washington state and New York sued after then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke revived coal lease sales in 2017. The Northern Cheyenne Tribe joined by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups also filed a legal challenge, while state officials from Wyoming and Montana have argued against reviving the moratorium. In April, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland canceled Zinke’s order. But officials said that did not automatically reinstate the coal moratorium and Haaland said her agency needed to further review the issue. Attorneys for the tribe and environmental groups said in court documents that the Haaland order was not enough, and asked Morris to intervene so that a moratorium on coal sales is restored. “Although the Biden administration has identified the critical need to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, Federal Defendants have not yet signaled any change from the prior administration’s coal-leasing policy that is a major source of such emissions,” wrote Earthjustice attorney Jenny Harbine, who represents environmental groups and the Northern Cheyenne.
Ship Carrying Coal Ash From Puerto Rico To Georgia Spills ‘Very Nasty Stuff’ Off Jax Coast - On March 14, 2021, a cargo ship called the Bridgeport departed Guayama, Puerto Rico, bound for a private port in Jacksonville. The ship’s cargo was 12,000 tons of coal ash — an industrial byproduct that can contain, among other things, arsenic, lead, boron, and lithium. It was a load equivalent to about 800 standard garbage trucks. On March 22, the Bridgeport ran aground about a mile south of the mouth of the St. Johns River. It listed to the left in about 30 feet of water, its hull submersed in soft sand. In the coming days, maritime diving, salvage and towing companies would assess the damage and develop a plan to transfer the Bridgeport’s cargo and refloat the listing barge. An ocean salvage crane called the Farrell 256 arrived in Jacksonville on April 8, and the shipper brought in a 2,000-ton hopper barge called the JMC 171 to receive the cargo from the Bridgeport and transport it to land for safe disposal. Between mid-April and early May, more than 4,000 tons of flaky gray ash would be loaded off the Bridgeport and onto the JMC 171 and carted back to shore. But on May 16, official Bridgeport response communications showed that rough weather conditions had shifted the barge. “While current conditions do not allow personnel to board the Bridgeport at this time to do a full physical inspection, it appears that the barge has now settled in twenty feet of water,” wrote Jim Lawrence, the spokesman for the recovery effort. “Cargo may have also washed out of the hopper.” Even before Lawrence’s notice that coal ash may have spilled into the coastal waterway, a newspaper editor in Puerto Rico was sounding the alarm. “‘Catastrophic’ risk,” wrote Omar Alfonso; “If an ash discharge occurs in the area where the Bridgeport remains stranded, the environmental consequences could be disastrous.”
The true price of coal --Real News Network (video report)-It’s been over two months since 1,100 union coal miners in Brookwood, Alabama, hit the picket line, citing unfair labor practices against Warrior Met Coal. The strike itself has gained more national attention, which has also put a spotlight on the harsh tolls that coal mining takes on workers, their bodies, and their families. From work-related diseases like black lung and silicosis to methane explosions and roof cave-ins, coal mining has always been a dangerous job, and coal miners today still face many hazards. In the latest installment of “Battleground Brookwood,” TRNN contributor Kim Kelly continues her coverage of the strike at Warrior Met Coal by investigating the true price of coal production.
The United Mine Workers Strike at Warrior Met Coal -- Lambert Strether --Thank goodness Teen Vogue has a labor reporter, because without Kim Kelly, we might not be hearing anything about the United Mine Workers of American (UMWA) strike at Warrior Met Coal in Brockwood, Alabama, where over 1,000 miners have been on strike for over two months. Here is the UMWA strike page (which permits donations by check, but not online, which seems a little old school). Warrior Met coal isn’t used for power; it’s a premium product, metallurgical coal. It’s possible to reverse engineer the high-level economics behind the strike from the Warrior Met company page: Warrior is a large-scale, low-cost producer and exporter of premium met coal, also known as hard coking coal (HCC), operating highly efficient longwall operations in its underground mines based in Alabama. The HCC that Warrior produces from the Blue Creek, AL, coal seam contains very low sulfur and has strong coking properties and is of a similar quality to coal referred to as the premium HCC produced in Australia. The premium nature of Warrior’s HCC makes it ideally suited as a base feed coal for steel makers and results in price realizations near the Platts Index price. So, high prices and low costs. And why are the costs so low? Well, Warrior Met has a history. Coal barons gotta coal baron, and it’s been that way for some time. From the Montgomery Herald, “Recovery includes humane priorities“:Warrior Met was once known as Jim Walter Resources, . In Alabama, the firm had North America’s deepest coal mines at 2,000 feet that produced methane gas and high-quality metallurgical coal. On Sept. 23, 2001, a cave-in caused a release of methane gas that sparked two major explosions, killing 13 UMWA members. Then U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, spouse of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., cited Jim Walter for 27 violations and $435,000 in fines. In the fulness of time, Jim Walter Resources went bankrupt — and emerged in 2016 as Warrior Met. The UMWA offered contract concessions: over five years Warrior Met become profitable. Now it’s payback time, except not. From WHBM, “Alabama Coal Workers Strike For Better Wages, Fair Treatment“: Warrior Met Coal took over and workers agreed to cut their wages and benefits to keep the mines open. Employees said the company promised to restore some benefits after five years. Warrior’s latest offer is about a 10% pay increase, but that doesn’t cover what they lost.“Oh it’s a slap in the face,” [miner Courtney Finklea] said. “All we wanted was a piece of the pie, and I guess the pie was never given to us.” Sadly, the company’s initial offer was insultingly low: Shortly after the strike was launched and more than three-quarters of the workers walked out, the company came up with a tentative agreement with UMWA negotiators, which only offered a wage hike of [$1.50] per hour increase, over the next five years. This deal was overwhelmingly voted against by union members with over 91 percent voting ‘no’. On April 12, union members voted along similarly large numbers to continue their strike. It’s also about working conditions. From AL.com, “Striking Alabama coal miners endure arrests, see little progress: ‘We’re just standing together’”:
Georgia monitors predict more Vogtle nuclear delays (AP) — Already years behind schedule, Georgia Power Co.’s nuclear expansion of Plant Vogtle is even further behind than the company recently acknowledged, independent state monitors and state regulators said. The first of two new reactors likely won’t be in operation until at least the summer of 2022, and the project’s total costs are likely to rise at least another $2 billion, according to one key monitor’s report Monday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. had in recent years been aiming to complete the first unit in November, but officials told investors last month that it would probably be finished in December. The project, located south of Augusta, is now projected to cost more than $26 billion for all its owners, including Georgia Power, electric cooperatives and municipal utilities. Ultimately, most electric customers in Georgia — except those in the northwest corner of the state served by affiliates of the Tennessee Valley Authority — will have to pay for the plant. Florida’s Jacksonville Electric Authority is also obligated to buy power from Vogtle. The further delay was disclosed in testimony from independent monitors and state regulators. “Many of the problems encountered by SNC should have been resolved long before” the current testing, PSC staffer Steven Roetger and monitor William Jacobs wrote. Monitor Donald Grace added that the reactor “is in a worse condition than past U.S. new construction nuclear plants were at this same stage of construction/testing.” The second new reactor is slated to be fully running no later than November 2022. But in the latest testimony, Grace said the second reactor is unlikely to be up and running until at least June 2023.
Vogtle Nuclear Plant in Georgia Faces More Construction Delays – WSJ - The only nuclear-power plant under construction in the U.S. is facing delays and additional costs. Again. Earlier this week, an engineering expert working for the Georgia Public Service Commission testified that the startup of the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant would likely be delayed until the summer of 2022 and could cost $2 billion more than expected. Southern Co., the Atlanta-based utility building the nuclear-power plant, said it expects the first reactor to be completed during the first quarter of 2022. A spokesman for the company said its judgment was based on current information and that “risks remain on the project and it is possible that the cost estimate could increase in the future.” Any delays after November 2021 would result in a reduction in the regulated profit that Southern subsidiary Georgia Power receives for building the nuclear reactor. Vogtle has been beset by numerous delays and cost overruns. It was originally scheduled to open in 2016, and the total cost of the two planned Vogtle reactors tops $27 billion—more than double the initial estimates approved by state regulators in 2008. The problems finishing Vogtle have lessened enthusiasm for what was hailed a decade ago as a possible nuclear renaissance in the U.S. Today, the facility located near Augusta, Ga., highlights the financial and industrial difficulty of building a nuclear-power plant in a country that hasn’t completed a new one in three decades. Georgia almost gave up on the project amid cost overruns and delays. In 2017, state officials voted to continue building the reactors, but limited Southern’s future returns on the project if further postponements occurred. At the time, Southern promised that a new contractor would resolve construction delays. The utility later took a charge to its earnings and promised to have the first of two new reactors completed and generating electricity by November 2021. “They will be late and they will pay a penalty,” said Tim Echols, vice chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission. “They were willing to negotiate then because they thought they would be on time. I think they are regretting it today.”
Low prices in PJM’s capacity auction spell trouble for Exelon’s Illinois nuclear fleet -Mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM reported dramatically lower prices for its first capacity auction in three years, with little indication of a strong effect from the Trump-era regulation that many feared would restrict state-subsidized carbon-free generators from participating. In fact, nuclear, wind and solar power — the same resources subject to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s “minimum offer price rule” that led to a three-year delay for the country’s biggest capacity market — increased their share of the 144,500 megawatts of capacity to supply the transmission network serving about 65 million people from Chicago to the Eastern seaboard. But the roster of nuclear plants that cleared the auction didn’t include the two in Illinois that utility Exelon has said it will close by year’s end unless they receive state subsidies. And other nuclear power plants struggling to remain economically competitive in PJM’s 13-state footprint could face serious trouble if capacity prices remain this low in years to come, industry analysts said. PJM on Wednesday reported average prices of $50 per megawatt-day for 144,477 MW of capacity resources, well below the $140 per megawatt-day reached in its 2018 auction. Prices in the more congested regions of PJM are higher than that average, but still well below 2018 levels: $97.86 for its eastern region including New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, well below the $166 in 2018, and $68.96 for the northern Illinois region served by utility ComEd, compared to $196 in 2018. “We were expecting the MOPR to have more teeth to put an upward pressure on prices by filtering out state-subsidized resources,” George Katsigiannakis, VP of energy power markets at ICF, said in a Thursday interview. That “filtering” of clean energy resources supported by state decarbonization policies is the reason why environmental and clean energy groups, as well as states with clean energy mandates including New Jersey, Maryland and Illinois, have fought the MOPR rule. FERC Chair Richard Glick, appointed by President Joe Biden in January, voted against the rule and has made it clear he hopes to see it replacedsoon, whether through legal challenges or action by PJM and its stakeholders to craft a successor market structure. It’s quite likely that this week’s auction could be the last to impose the MOPR on state-subsidized resources. In its latest plan to revamp its capacity market rules for next year’s auction, PJM stated it intends to presume that “state policies are done in good faith” and not pursue attempts to ban state-subsidized resources from its capacity market unless instructed to do so by FERC.
Fate of Illinois nuclear plants in balance after 3 fail to clear PJM auction and subsidy plan stalls -Exelon Corp. reports that three of its nuclear plants in Illinois failed to clear the PJM Interconnection's capacity auction last week. Exelon, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, revealed that its Bryon, Dresden and Quad Cities nuclear plants in Illinois all failed to sell their power at the PJM auction, losing out to other power plants and energy resources. Bryon and Dresden are currently slated to be retired this fall, with Quad Cities remaining open thanks to previously awarded subsidies from the state of Illinois. The fate of Illinois' nuclear power sector, meanwhile, remains in the balance, as an impasse drags on in the state legislature over an energy bill that would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to the sector. PJM, the regional grid operator which supplies power to 65 million people in thirteen states, made news earlier this week when it held its semi-annual capacity auction. The grid operator said it secured commitments for power for 2022-2023 at $50/MW-day, compared to the $140/MW-day at the last auction three years ago. That represents a 64% decline. It also comes on the heels of a study commissioned by the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Council that was critical of the PJM capacity auction. The study by Wilson Energy Economics, argued the previous capacity auction in 2018 resulted in PJM buying too much power at inflated prices. Susan Buehler, a spokesperson for PJM, declined to comment on the study, but noted, in an email, the auction resulted in significantly lower prices due to "a lower load forecast and reserve requirement," which in turn, "decreases the amount of capacity PJM needs to procure." There was also a 19% decline in the Cost of New Entry (CONE) or the cost to build a new generator and bring it online, as well as lower bids offered by the various power providers who took part in the auction, the company said. Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has thrown his support behind a sweeping energy bill that includes as much as $540 million in subsidies for Exelon's nuclear plants, according to WBEZ in Chicago. But with the bill in limbo, state lawmakers earlier this week left the state capitol with the end of the legislative session, WBEZ reported, though legislative leaders have indicated they may call lawmakers back to finish work on key bills. In its filing with the SEC, Exelon warned that even two nuclear plants that successfully bid to provide power in the PJM auction remain in danger of "premature retirement." The culprit, the company states, are "unfavorable market rules that favor (carbon) emitting generation."
New Energy Bill Pushed By Gov. JB Pritzker Would Save Nuclear Plants — But Cost Customers Nearly $700 Million - Exelon customers would be on the hook for $694 million in higher subsidies to keep three Illinois nuclear plants afloat under a sprawling, revised green-energy package that surfaced late Thursday and could be voted on by state lawmakers next week. The 866-page omnibus pushed by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker could move one of the major unresolved issues from the spring legislative session closer to fruition and would fulfill a Pritzker campaign pledge to reduce the state’s reliance on fossil fuels if it prevails. But equally significant, the measure, if it passes, could hand the state’s most powerful utility company a financial boost even as its corporate subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, remains at the center of a still active federal criminal investigation that cost former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan his job earlier this year. The plan would phase out coal use in Illinois by 2035 and natural gas by 2045 and authorize $4,000 rebates for purchasers of electric vehicles as part of a strategy aimed at getting 1 million of those vehicles on Illinois roads by 2030. The legislation also would end a controversial ratemaking formula that delivered windfall profits to ComEd, which last year acknowledged engaging in a long-running bribery scheme to curry favor with Madigan by showering no-work jobs and contracts on his close associates. Madigan has not been charged. And the package would require state utility regulators to open an investigation into ComEd’s illegal lobbying that potentially could lead to some form of restitution for utility customers, though how much is not spelled out in the legislation.
Nuclear Subsidies May Be Slowing Transition to Clean Energy, Advocates Say - The fight to define what counts as clean energy has grown more contentious as the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill takes shape. Many activists, scientists and lawmakers agree that nuclear energy — which provides one fifth of power in the U.S — is by definition not “clean” or renewable, given that spent fuel remains radioactive and dangerous for thousands of years. But a rift remains around the role that nuclear power, and state support for it, should play in phasing out fossil fuels, given that it does not directly produce climate-altering carbon dioxide but is more expensive than cleaner alternatives. A group of staunch advocates say billions in state and federal subsidies that prop up the nuclear industry — payments that the Biden administration has signaled it may continue to support — may be slowing the transition to a truly clean energy economy. On April 30, New York State’s last downstate reactor — the Indian Point Energy Center Unit 3 — went dark, a closure that was much celebratedby environmentalists who have been pushing to close the plant for decades on account of a slew of safety concerns: groups like Waterkeeperand the Natural Resources Defense Council had long noted that a potential accident could have delivered a fatal blow to 25 million people living within a 50 mile radius of the reactor. Additional ongoing concerns included a 2015 transformer fire that led to the release ofthousands of gallons of oil into the Hudson River and the subsequentimpact on local fisheries. But the fate of other nuclear power plants is far from certain. Four days after Indian Point shuttered, on May 4, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved a 20-year license renewal for two Dominion Energy reactors in Virginia, now slated to run until May 25, 2052. Half of the United States’ nuclear fleet of 93 remaining reactorswill similarly be required to seek license extensions by 2040, or retire. California is similarly projected to burn more natural gas when its last nuclear plant closes mid-decade, which would cumulatively raise global warming and air pollution emissions over the next 10 years. But, Clemmer added, it doesn’t have to be that way. “With sufficient planning and strong policies, existing nuclear plants like Diablo Canyon can be replaced with renewables and energy efficiency without allowing natural gas generation and heat-trapping emissions to increase,” he said. In the case of California, a February 2021 UCS analysiscalled for more rigorous emissions standards, and accelerating wind build-outs while slightly slowing solar and battery storage build-outs. Elizabeth Moran, environmental policy director for the New York Public Interest Research Group characterized New York’s failure to replace Indian Point’s energy output with clean energy as “a total lack of planning.” Moran is among a group of clean energy advocates who have deemed New York’s ongoing reliance on both nuclear energy and natural gas as unnecessarily postponing the work required to achieve what’s laid out in the state’s climate law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. “These are bridges to nowhere,” Moran said. “They delay investment in what we truly need to be putting money towards, which is safe, clean, green renewable energy like solar, wind and geothermal.”
Bill to expel Householder advancing - The Vindicator - A resolution to remove former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, under federal indictment, from office by Democratic state Reps. Michele Lepore-Hagan and Jeffrey A. Crossman has been assigned to a committee. “Our resolution sends a forceful message that corruption has no place in the Ohio General Assembly and that alleged criminal misconduct of this magnitude will not be tolerated,” Lepore-Hagan, D-Youngstown, said. She added: “Its swift consideration and passage will represent a critical step in restoring the public’s trust and confidence in their government, both of which have been battered” by this “scandal.” The resolution was introduced May 26. It was referred Tuesday to the House Rules and Reference Committee. “I’m glad to see the speaker (Bob Cupp, R-Lima) has finally referred the Householder expulsion resolution to committee, but time for action is long overdue,” Crossman, D-Parma, said. “We intend to continue pushing until an expulsion resolution receives a vote on the House floor.”
Ohio utility gets SEC subpoena regarding tainted energy bill (AP) — The electric utility AEP Ohio said Tuesday that the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has subpoenaed documents related to subsidies it has received from a now-tainted energy bill for two aging coal plants partly owned by the company. A document on the company’s website says the SEC is seeking various documents, including those regarding the energy bill passed in July 2019 and those “relating to our financial processes and controls.” “As we have previously stated, we continue to have no reason to believe that AEP was involved in any wrongful conduct,” the company said, adding that it is cooperating with the SEC. Federal authorities last July accused Akron-based First Energy Corp. of secretly funding a $60 million bribery scheme to win legislative passage of a $1 billion subsidy for two Ohio nuclear power plants operated at the time by a wholly-owned FirstEnergy subsidiary. A subsidy for the coal plants, which AEP has a 43% ownership stake in, was later added to the energy bill. Two other Ohio investor-owned electric utilities, AES Ohio, formerly Dayton Power & Light, and Duke Energy have smaller ownership shares of the plants, one of which is in Indiana. The energy bill required nearly all electric customers in the state to subsidize the coal plants. Previously, only Ohio customers of the AEP, Duke and AES paid the subsidy, which amounted to $114 million last year. The plants owned by a consortium called the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation were built in the 1950s to provide power to a uranium enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio. Government contracts with OVEC ended in 2003 but the plants continue to operate, typically selling electricity to the regional grid at a price less than what it costs to produce. Critics have pointed out that AEP initially opposed the nuclear bailout but later gave its support when the coal plant subsidy was added to the legislation. A spokesperson for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Duke Energy said on Tuesday the company has not been subpoenaed by the SEC. A request for comment was left Tuesday with AES officials. FirstEnergy officials have said the company is cooperating with investigations by the SEC, the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regarding its role in the bribery scandal. The company has been accused by federal prosecutors of secretly funding a $60 million scheme to win legislative passage of the energy bill. In a recent answer to a shareholder lawsuit filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, attorneys for FirstEnergy acknowledged the company paid large sums of money to a dark money group controlled by then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder.
Ohio public corruption case delayed to give time to review material -Federal prosecutors have forked over 1.2 million pages of documents to the defense in Ohio's state-level public corruption case. And there is more coming.U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Black on Thursday agreed to give defense attorneys representing Rep. Larry Householder and Matt Borges more time to review the "extraordinary volume" of materials. Black set the next status conference for Sept. 2.Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Glatfelter, the lead federal prosecutor on the case, told the court that 1.2 million pages of documents have been shared with the defense so far. That tally doesn't include images or material pulled from devices, such as hard drives or phones.While the bulk of material has been shared, more records are expected to be turned over by August, Glatfelter said.Householder and Borges, the former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, have pleaded not guilty in the case that experts say is the biggest public corruption case in the nation.They are accused of running a criminal enterprise that allegedly took $60 million in bribes from Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. and affiliated companies through dark money groups to put Householder in power, pass a bailout bill to help the utility, and defend the law against a referendum attempt.Political operative Jeff Longstreth and lobbyist Juan Cespedes agreed to plead guilty. Lobbyist Neil Clark died by suicide. As expected, the court dismissed the case against Clark on Thursday.FirstEnergy Corp. disclosed it is in talks with federal prosecutors to get a deferred prosecution agreement. The company has fired key executives, including chief executive Chuck Jones.FirstEnergy distributes electricity to 6 million customers and employs 12,000. It owns 10 electric companies that distribute power across five states. It was listed at No. 294 on the Fortune 500 list in 2020. Meanwhile, the Ohio House on Thursday began debate on two resolutions that seek to expel Householder from his seat in the Legislature.
Gas waste dangers to be discussed - The Vindicator — Silverio Caggiano, newly retired Youngstown Fire Department battalion chief, will discuss hazards involved in the transport and disposal of waste products from the oil and gas industry. The Wednesday program is titled, “The Oil and Gas Industry: A Dangerous Game of Hide and Seek.” Caggiano, a retired Youngstown Fire Department Battalion Chief with 40 years of experience, graduated from the Canton Aultman paramedic program in 1985 and attended many other classes, including the Ohio Fire Academy for firefighter training, fire instructor and hazardous materials technician and instructor. He has taken classes on subjects such as incident command, terrorism, threat credibility assessment, nuclear, explosives, rail car incidents, bioterrorism, evidence collection and forensic epidemiology — to name a few. Caggiano said he got into HazMat in 1991. HazMat teams started in 1986 as a result of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act, also known as the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know law. He went on to become a specialist and consultant in hazardous materials, serving as an active member of the Ohio HazMat Weapons of Mass Destruction Advisory Committee.With a lifetime of knowledge under his belt, Caggiano is able to address several issues of concern, such as the oil and gas waste products that come into the area.“Since Pennsylvania and New York have restricted their waste sites, Ohio has become the dumping ground for well drilling done in those states as well as our own,” he said. “The injection wells and above-ground dumps seem to pop up in low-income areas — places that can ill afford lawyers to fight the companies … ”He said most of the waste travels by truck, which brings on its own problems.“These trucks have drivers that are not HazMat trained and have no idea what they are hauling,” Caggiano said. “If you or I owned a trucking company and we had a 55-gallon drum of what is inside their trucks, we would have to have certifications and drivers trained to HAZWOPER standards. Free pass to the oil and gas industry on all that.” Looking at the issue from the fire department’s perspective, there are even more problems. “That’s the kicker, you cannot prepare for what you don’t know about,” he said. “I would say the major concern with the frack waste is nuclear, but there is also a chemical contamination issue. And if you don’t know what the 11 secret herbs and spices are in the recipe, you’re flying blind.”He said he got into learning about fracking while attending an informational meeting at YSU on legislation working its way through Ohio in 2012. “My HazMat chief and I wanted to attend that meeting to show a presence for the community and to find out if it was true that first responders and local area planning committees were not entitled to material safety data sheets on what chemicals were at the well sites,” Caggiano said. “That was a huge departure from the norm. Unfortunately the rumors were true. “That’s when I jumped down the rabbit hole and the learning began as I met all the characters … hidden reports, untrained truck drivers, secret chemicals, bought and paid for Ohio legislators and much, much more.”
Columbiana County, OH Sees Uptick in Utica Drilling Interest - Columbiana County, Ohio, located in the northern part of the Utica Shale play in the state, was an early target for Aubrey McClendon (then-CEO of Chesapeake Energy). Aubrey was right about the Utica being “the biggest thing to hit Ohio since the plow.” But he was wrong about where the most productive wells would be located, which is further south in the play. Still, there’s money to be made in the northern Utica, and companies like Encino Energy (which now owns Chesapeake’s Ohio assets) and Hilcorp continue to drill in Columbiana.MDN did a quick check and found that since January 1 of this year, 14 permits to drill new shale wells in Columbiana have been issued. Two permits were issued to Encino for the same well pad in February, and 12 permits were issued to Hilcorp, also in February, all for the same well pad. And that’s been it for this year.We spotted a story appearing in the Youngstown Business Journal which says Encino has applied for (not yet awarded) permits to drill another four wells in Columbiana County. Hilcorp has been awarded a permit to “drill deeper” for one of its previously-drilled wells. We take this recent uptick in activity as a good sign that there’s a spark of life for Utica drilling in Columbiana. EAP Ohio LLC, a division of Encino Acquisition Partners, Houston, has submitted permit applications to drill four new horizontal wells in Washington Township in Columbiana County, according to data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.According to ODNR, the company plans to drill four new horizontal wells at its Sevek-18 pad. The permit applications are pending before the agency.Meanwhile, Houston-based Hilcorp Energy Co. was awarded a permit to drill deeper and build out a horizontal leg at its 10H well at the Tarka pad in Fairfield Township in Columbiana County, according to ODNR.Since January, ODNR has awarded 14 permits to the two oil and gas companies, which target the natural-gas rich Utica-Point Pleasant shale formation.So far this year, EAP has been awarded two permits to drill wells in Washington Township, while Hilcorp has been awarded 12 permits for new horizontal wells in Fairfield Township, according to ODNR.Natural gas production across the Utica-Point Pleasant and the Marcellus shale formation in Appalachia is expected to be lower in June compared to May, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest drilling productivity report.According to EIA, natural gas production across Appalachia is projected to decline in June by 52 million cubic feet per day. Oil production, however, is expected to increase by 1,000 barrels per day, EIA reported.*
While we languish, the General Assembly's biased energy agenda flourishes: Tracy Freeman, Nature Conservancy-- While most Ohioans are reeling from the damaging effects of the pandemic — a mental state that The New York Times has recently labeled as languishing — our very own General Assembly has wasted no time in moving forward merciless personal agendas that favor fossil fuels. Specifically, there are several energy bills and provisions in the state budget bill that encourage the expansion of fossil fuels while decreasing opportunities for renewable energy.For example:
- · Senate Bill 52 creates yet another obstacle for wind energy and solar development in Ohio by burdening counties, the Ohio Power Siting Board and renewable energy developers with unprecedented requirements to approve and site wind and solar projects. These new steps in the siting process do not apply to any other energy source. As of yesterday afternoon, SB 52 had passed the Senate and is being considered by the House.
- · House Bill 201, House Bill 192, and Senate Bill 127: In stark contrast to SB 52, these bills would disallow local decision-making by prohibiting municipalities from limiting the use of fossil fuels and gas pipelines. This further adds to the regulatory bias toward fossil fuels. As of yesterday afternoon, HB 201 had passed the House and is pending in the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee.
- · Change in language for Ohio Oil & Gas Leasing Commission in budget bill: In keeping with this trend, a provision added by the Ohio House to House Bill 110, the biennial budget bill, makes it the state policy to “promote” oil and gas drilling, but, notably, no other sources of energy on state lands. This provision also reduces the transparency in this process and authorizes every state agency to bypass the Oil & Gas Leasing Commission to lease state land for exploration, development and production of oil and gas at terms established by the oil and gas companies. As of yesterday afternoon, HB 110 had passed the Senate and was before the House-Senate conference committee before being sent back to each legislative chamber for concurrence on changes and then to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature.
In conflict with these regulatory trends is the will of the people. Polling over the last four years has increasingly shown that Ohioans want more renewable energy — an outcome that most believe would benefit the state economy, improve health, and reduce our reliance on foreign oil. These energy policies being considered and passed by our state legislature promote the opposite. This chasm should alarm us all.
Ascent Resources Floats $400M in New IOUs to Pay Down Older Debt - Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company announced yesterday it is floating new “senior notes” (we call them IOUs) to retire or pay off other notes coming due. This business of issuing new notes to pay off old notes is routine. We’ve seen it dozens (maybe hundreds) of times over the years. This latest note swapping by Ascent follows a typical pattern. The company issues a press release announcing new notes will be floated for $X amount of money. Shortly after the first press release, the company issues a second release announcing the offering has been “upsized” for even more money. In the case of Ascent, the original announcement was an offering of $350 million in new notes. Soon after the number was upsized to $400 million.The first press release from yesterday: Ascent Resources Utica Holdings, LLC (together with its subsidiaries, “Ascent”) announced today that it, with its wholly-owned subsidiary, ARU Finance Corporation, intends to offer $350 million in aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured notes due 2029 (the “2029 Notes”) in a private placement to eligible purchasers under Rule 144A and Regulation S of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”). Ascent intends to use the proceeds of the 2029 Notes offering to pay down a portion of the outstanding borrowings under its revolving credit facility. The second press release issued a short time later: Ascent Resources Utica Holdings, LLC (together with its subsidiaries, “Ascent”) announced today that it, with its wholly-owned subsidiary, ARU Finance Corporation, has priced an upsized private offering of $400 million in aggregate principal amount of 5.875% senior unsecured notes due 2029 (the “2029 Notes”) at par. Ascent will use the proceeds of the 2029 Notes offering to pay down a portion of the outstanding borrowings under its revolving credit facility.Debt financing like this is a fact of business life, at least in the upstream oil and gas business.
Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: May 31-Jun 6 - Two of three Marcellus/Utica states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits, almost all of them in the dry gas northeastern part of the state. Ohio issued 11 new permits, in the center of the Utica play. West Virginia’s shale industry got skunked last week–no new permits. It’s been quite a while since that’s happened in WV. PA table: https://marcellusdrilling.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Weekly-Permits-Report-PA-0531-0606.pdf Ohio table: https://marcellusdrilling.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Weekly-Permits-Report-OH-0531-0606.pdf
Tioga County Landowners Appeal UGI Takings Case to PA Supremes -- Just coming to light for us now is a long-running lawsuit in Tioga County, PA by landowners who claim that UGI has taken their mineral rights as part of operating the Meeker Storage Field, an underground natural gas storage facility. The landowners lost the lawsuit in the Court of Common Pleas of Tioga County (trial court) in March 2019 (although the case began in 2016). The landowners appealed to Commonwealth Court and lost there too, in November 2020. The landowners appealed again, to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Supremes have just accepted the case.
Philadelphia Gas Works to Reduce Methane Emissions 80% by 2050 – Philadelphia Gas Works announced a plan to replace decades-old pipes buried across the city to stop harmful methane gas from bleeding into the air. PGW, the nation's largest municipally-owned gas utility, plans to cut methane emissions 80% by 2050 by modernizing infrastructure and implementing new technology, according to a news release. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming at a rate more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the City of Philadelphia have committed to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 to keep warming below 1.5 degrees centigrade.This will require PGW to offset their remaining emissions through planting trees or other measures, "Eighty percent is certainly better than nothing, but that remaining 20% of emissions is going to fall on somebody else to get rid of," The company plans to replace 30 miles of natural gas mains with new, modern pipes, bringing emissions along the new mains to near zero.The Methane Reduction Program will also include accelerating the company's leak reduction program to track, monitor, repair and reduce the amount of methane leaks. Since Philadelphia is an old city, he predicts that there are currently a high number of leaks in the old, cast iron pipes.The old distribution system, much of which is buried underground, could make it difficult to control the leaks, Altenburg said. It likely will require shutting down streets and tearing up sidewalks to perform the necessary updates.A 2015 report by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission found 7,600 total leaks across PGW's system with more than half being classified as hazardous. PGW has the highest percentage of at-risk pipe statewide, the report said.Scientists have found that emissions are significantly higher in urban areas, such as Philadelphia, although there is little information available about the local effects of greenhouse gases,
Natural gas flaring in Veazie --If you see flames shooting into the air in Veazie this week, don’t be alarmed. M & N Operating Company operates interstate natural gas pipeline facilities. Officials say they will be cleaning and inspecting a segment of a pipeline that runs from Eddington to Veazie. It requires a a safe and routine procedure called natural gas flaring. That will take place near the Shore Road in Veazie next to the power plant... They say personnel will be there during the entire operation. A smell of natural gas and a noticeable rushing sound may be present but they say there will be no danger to anyone in the area.
Supply disruptions and rising demand boosted East Coast petroleum product imports in March -Imports of petroleum products—gasoline, distillate, and other products—into the East Coast region of the United States increased in March 2021. Rising imports resulted from lower domestic supply, higher demand, and higher domestic petroleum product prices compared with prices in Europe. In March, East Coast petroleum product imports averaged 1.4 million barrels per day (b/d). In addition, East Coast gasoline imports averaged 737,000 b/d, the highest March level since 2009, and East Coast distillate imports averaged 421,000 b/d, the highest March level since 2003.Petroleum product imports into the East Coast region increased primarily for three reasons.First, domestic supply was reduced, due in part to the extreme winter weather in February 2021, which disrupted operations at several refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast region, where more than half of U.S. refinery capacity is located. Because significantly more petroleum products are consumed in the East Coast region than its regional refineries produce, the region relies on imports and pipeline supplies from the U.S. Gulf Coast region.When production is disrupted in the U.S. Gulf Coast region (as was the case in February and March 2021), the East Coast region relies more on imports to meet its petroleum product demand. Lower supply, particularly in the East Coast region, has also been due, in part, to lower East Coast refining capacity after the 335,000 b/d Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery closed in June 2019. We estimate that closing the Philadelphia refinery reduced East Coast gasoline supplies by approximately 160,000 b/d and distillate supplies by approximately 100,000 b/d.Second, domestic demand for petroleum products increased. U.S. gasoline consumption increased to 8.6 million b/d in March, the highest level since February 2020, and distillate consumption increased to 4.0 million b/d, the highest level since November 2019.Third, the prices of U.S. petroleum products have been higher than in Europe. In March, the New York Harbor gasoline spot price averaged 30 cents per gallon (gal) more than gasoline in Europe, the widest spot price spread between these markets in the past 10 years (2012–2021).
Foes of Line 5 debut ads with Jeff Daniels saying pipeline needs to go - Environmental opponents of Line 5 on Tuesday unveiled ads on TV and radio featuring actor and Michigan native Jeff Daniels lambasting it as "an aging, dangerous pipeline" that needs to be shut down for good. The six-figure statewide ads, sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation, are a direct response to the numerous ads run for months by Line 5 owner Enbridge warning of the public of dire consequences if the pipeline is shut down at the behest of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. In a Zoom call with reporters, National Wildlife Federation officials said Enbridge is flouting the law, given that the governor has revoked the easement, and the misinformation campaign waged by the company has to be answered. "Jeff Daniels is a strong believer in our Pure Michigan way of life ... we know our Pure Michigan way of life is at risk because of the threat Line 5 poses to the Great Lakes," said Mike Shriberg, Great Lakes regional executive director for the federation. "NWF has been at the forefront of exposing the risks of Line 5 right from the very beginning." Federation officials said the first run of the ads would be two weeks but more time and other ads are expected. "This is part of a comprehensive effort to set the record straight on this so it's not just paid media and advertising," Shriberg said. "We know we won't match Enbridge dollar for dollar, but we also know that we've got the truth on our side." Shriberg said the 68-year-old dual pipeline along the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac is a "ticking time bomb." "It is possible, perhaps even probable, that we'd have catastrophic consequences for our drinking water, our wildlife and our economy if it were to happen," he said. "The pipeline is decades past its original lifespan."
Nicor natural gas pipeline in Black farming community in Kankakee County approved by Illinois Legislature, awaits Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s signature - With a big push from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Nicor natural gas pipeline proposed for a Black farming community in Kankakee County has moved a step closer even as some who live in the area and environmentalists continue to fight the project. In the final hours of the legislative session that ended early on June 1, Illinois legislators approved a package to help fund Nicor’s proposed gas line to the village of Hopkins Park in Pembroke Township. If Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s signs the measure into law — he hasn’t said whether he will — it would move the community into a decades-long fossil fuel commitment at the same time Illinois political leaders promise they’re working toward a clean energy future. The pipeline is opposed by a small group of farmers who say they are worried about the environmental impacts and have safety concerns. The farmers found support from environmentalists in opposing the $10 million plan, which needed legislative approval for taxpayer and gas customer subsidies. But the bill was passed with overwhelming support by lawmakers, many who say they were swayed by the argument that natural gas will spur economic development in the poor, rural community. “There’s been gross misrepresentation here,” Dr. Jifunza Wright-Carter, a farmer and pipeline opponent, told state legislators at a hearing in May.
Coast Guard, partner agencies, finish cleanup of oil spill in Norfolk creek – It took two weeks for crews to complete the cleanup of an oil spill in Norfolk.The cleanup efforts started after an on-shore waste oil tank overflowed into Steamboat Creek on Monday, May 24.The unnamed property owner is facing charges, Virginia Department of Health officials confirmed a couple days after the spill.Coast Guard Sector Virginia pollution responders, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Virginia Department of Emergency Management, and the Norfolk Fire Marshal’s Office worked with additional federal, state, and local agencies to coordinate cleanup operations and assess impacts, which concluded on June 7.Pollution teams removed approximately 250 bags of oiled debris and approximately 200 gallons of oil from the water. In total, teams used approximately 10,000 feet of sorbent material during the 14-day cleanup effort. This incident remains under investigation.
State lawmakers cut big oil a big break – Two weeks after the formal close of the Tennessee legislative season, a committee of lawmakers agreed to give the state’s petroleum companies a big break. The Joint Government Operations Committee approved new rules that shift the financial burden of cleaning up toxic spills at gas stations and truck stops from business owners to taxpayers for the next five years. The new rules will save Pilot Flying J, Chevron, Exxon and other companies, large and small, $2 million each year by eliminating environmental fees, while taxpayers will remain on the hook for roughly $14 million annually through a four-tenths-of-a-cent, per-gallon gas tax. The fees and gas tax, for decades, have been earmarked for a state fund used to pay for the clean-up of toxic spills from company-owned underground storage tanks used for petroleum reserves. When those tanks leak, they can spill dangerous levels of hazardous waste into soil and groundwater. A pin-prick sized hole in an underground storage tank can leak 400 gallons of fuel containing carcinogens and heavy metals that can contaminate a community’s drinking water, according to the Sierra Club. Cleaning up those leaks is an expensive undertaking that — up till now —has been shared by taxpayers and industry. The new rules, for the first time, also give company owners with a history of environmental violations access to the state’s clean-up fund for leaking tanks. Previously, companies who failed to comply with state environmental rules were barred from accessing state funding.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Memphis pipeline rekindles eminent domain fight -- Monday, June 7, 2021 --— It's four words that Wyatt Price probably wishes he could take back.Explaining why a planned oil pipeline was taking a roundabout path around Memphis through a Black neighborhood, Price, a land agent for the Byhalia Connection pipeline, last year told a gathering it was the "point of least resistance."To those fighting the Byhalia project, it was a moment of unguarded candor that revealed a strategy to bulldoze the project through a low-income Black community with little clout.That's a natural consequence of handing over condemnation powers to a private company with next to no regulatory scrutiny, property rights advocates say. The oil and gas industry says condemnation powers are essential to building needed pipelines. But its critics say "blank check" powers in the hands of private interests are ripe for abuse."They go right where the land is cheapest, and that's the poorest neighborhoods," said David Bookbinder, chief counsel at the Niskanen Center, a think tank that takes a libertarian approach to eminent domain and environmental issues. "That's absolutely ridiculous."The companies behind the Byhalia project, Plains All American Pipeline LP and Valero Energy Corp., have used eminent domain, or the threat of it, to get about 97% of the land they need to lay 50 miles of pipe from one side of Memphis to the other. That includes land in predominantly white, wealthy areas in Mississippi."The route was not driven by race, class, gender or any other demographic type — it wasn't a choice to affect one group of people over another," Brad Leone, Plains' director of communications and public affairs, told E&E News in a statement.The company has disowned the remarks of Price, a Byhalia contractor who could not be reached for comment. At a meeting in the southwest Memphis community last fall, Plains spokesperson Katie Martin said he should have explained that the company had picked a path with the "least community impacts."Private companies have used the power of eminent domain to get land for many of the pipes moving the products of the fracking-driven oil and gas boom to markets and refineries.Such authority, industry advocates say, is vital to building pipelines, which are in turn vital for the economy. Without eminent domain, a few landowners — or even just one — could block a project."The benefit to the many outweighs the objections of a small minority," said John Stoody, vice president of government and public relations at the Association of Oil Pipe Lines. "Everyone depends on energy."What's ridiculous, he said, is to think that pipeline planners would go out of their way to find cheap land. Changing a pipeline's path might save thousands of dollars upfront, he said. But if it makes the line longer, construction could cost millions more.The route Plains and Valero chose cuts through 7 miles of predominantly Black southwest Memphis, heading south from a Valero refinery. It then sweeps 43 miles around the edges of the Memphis suburbs in northern Mississippi to a point near Byhalia, Miss., where it would connect to an existing north-south pipeline called Capline.Construction has not yet started on the project, but it's under siege by community activists who say it would dump more industrial activity and pollution on the city's Black community. They've joined with environmentalists who say it would jeopardize the aquifer that supplies the city's drinking water (Energywire, May 3).
Colonial Pipeline CEO: 'One of the toughest decisions I have had to make' to pay a $4.4M ransom - — The CEO of Colonial Pipeline, which underwent a ransomware attack in early May that led to massive shutdowns of gas stations across the Southeast, said during a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday that it was his decision to pay a ransom to restore the company’s operations. “It was one of the toughest decisions I have had to make in my life,” Joseph A. Blount Jr. said in his opening statement. “But I believe that restoring critical infrastructure as quickly as possible, in this situation, was the right thing to do for the country.” Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline paid the $4.4 million ransom to hackers, part of a cyber criminal group called DarkSide, in order to obtain a key to unlock their pipelines. Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters said in his opening statement that the “federal government must develop a comprehensive, all-of-government approach to not only defend against cyberattacks, but punish foreign adversaries who continue to perpetuate them or harbor criminal organizations that target American systems.” Peters, a Michigan Democrat, then asked Blount how the federal government could help companies defend themselves from cyberattacks. Blount said that the federal government should designate a person of contact to help private companies that are experiencing cyberattacks. Blount testified before the committee about his company’s coordination with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also known as CISA, and what role the federal government should play in helping protect private companies from cyberattacks. Blount said that Colonial Pipeline did not reach out to CISA, but first asked for assistance from the FBI on May 7, the day of the attack, and that the FBI coordinated a meeting that included CISA. CISA is a standalone federal agency that operates under Department of Homeland Security oversight. It works with various agencies and private partners to evaluate cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities and provides assessments to help safeguard those networks. “Private industry alone can’t do everything on their own,” Blount, who was the only witness, said during his testimony.
How bankruptcy lets oil and gas companies evade cleanup rules - A battle over who is responsible for cleaning up hundreds of oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico is quietly playing out in a bankruptcy court in southern Texas. The contestants in this game of fossil fuel infrastructure hot potato: Fieldwood Energy, an offshore drilling company attempting to offload more than $7 billion in environmental cleanup responsibilities; a group of oil majors including Chevron, Marathon Oil, and BP; and the Department of the Interior.* Fieldwood has declared bankruptcy, and a court is considering the company’s plan to split its assets, moving older legacy wells and drilling rigs that are expensive to clean up into two entities while creating a new company — appropriately named NewCo — to purchase the more profitable assets. The company proposes outright abandoning a fourth bucket of assets consisting of more than 1,170 wells, 280 pipelines, and 270 drilling platforms. Aging wells and drilling platforms pose multiple risks to the environment and human safety, including oil and gas leaks and explosions. A quirk in the regulations that govern offshore drilling allows the Interior Department to hold companies that previously operated on Fieldwood leases accountable for the cleanup. The department is charged with protecting public lands — both on land and offshore — and issues leases to more than 12 million acres of seabed, including in the Gulf. A single lease can contain multiple wells, and many of the leases that Fieldwood is proposing to abandon or “return” to predecessor companies could end up the responsibility of oil majors, such as Chevron and BP. Unsurprisingly, both companies have zealously objected to the company’s bankruptcy plan. While the oil companies attempt to dodge responsibility for cleanup, the Interior Department, has been filing objections to Fieldwood’s plan to transfer leases to other companies and abandon wells, stating that its environmental obligations are “nondischargeable” and that leases cannot be sold or transferred without sign-off from the federal government. Fieldwood is one of more than 260 oil and gas companies that has filed for bankruptcy in the last six years. With low prices and suppressed demand for oil and gas over the last year, operators have struggled to stay afloat. Many have been turning to bankruptcy in an attempt to shed their debts, reorganize their assets, and, in some cases, offload their environmental obligations. Utilizing limitations and loopholes in bankruptcy law, these companies are employing a playbook perfected by coal companies to shed their environmental and labor liabilities.
Why Plastic Pollution Is Even Worse Than You Think --- Why Plastic Pollution Is Even Worse Than You Think – YouTube Along the banks of the Mississippi River, right before it spills out past New Orleans into the sea lies Cancer Alley. An 85 mile strip of shoreline where residents are contracting cancer at astronomical rates. But this isn't a phenomenon based in genetics or some cruel twist of fate. Cancer Alley is the product of environmental pollution. And today we're going to figure out exactly where this pollution is coming from. This is the story of plastics, the harm they cause, the industries that create them, and how that 85 mile strip of Mississippi shoreline and other areas like it are suffering because of them.If you walk into your kitchen, pretty much everything, in some way or another, has encountered plastic. The plastic bags you stuff into a drawer, your favorite cup and even the package keeping those blueberries fresh. But despite plastic's ubiquity, we often forget where it comes from. Indeed, when it comes to plastic our efforts seem to be much more focused on what happens after we use it than before we use it. So first, let's understand how plastic gets made. It all starts in an oil refinery or a fracking site. That's right, plastics are basically just fossil fuels in solid form. In fact, 99% of plastics are made from chemicals rooted in fossil fuels. The plastic creation process begins with crude oil, coal, or natural gas, which is then refined and distilled or "cracked" into usable chemical compounds such as Ethylene or Benzene. Of course there are certain plastics that are the product of recycled goods, but I'll get into that much more in the video above. The key thing here is that the plastic that we use so heavily is really the same as the petroleum we put in our cars or the natural gas we use to heat our homes. Which is one of the reasons why the fossil fuel industry loves plastics.
U.S. natgas futures slip on less hot forecasts, rising output (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures slipped on Monday on forecasts for less hot weather and a reduction in the amount of gas power generators will burn to keep air conditioners humming next week than previously expected. Traders also noted prices were down on rising output and lower liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports despite near-record pipeline deliveries to Mexico. Front-month gas futures
Natural Gas Futures Rally as Euro Model Posts Large CDD Increase -- Rising cooling demand expectations in recent weather model runs had natural gas futures rebounding sharply in early trading Tuesday. The July Nymex contract was up 9.2 cents to $3.162/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET. After settling 2.7 cents lower at $3.070 in Monday’s session, the July contract “quickly rebounded” in after hours trading following a run of the European weather model that showed a large increase in projected cooling degree days (CDD), analysts at EBW Analytics Group said. The CDD increase resulted from projections for weaker cooling in the Midwest and East next week, according to the firm. “Overnight, the European model kept its late-day gains, and the American, while still cooler, posted its own large gain,” the EBW analysts said. “With both models now warmer than during the regular trading session yesterday, the July contract is poised to rise further this morning.” According to NatGasWeather, the American weather model added 7 CDD in its overnight run. However, the model showed a pattern that “still wasn’t quite hot enough June 15-20 due to a barrage of weather systems tracking across the Great Lakes and East,” the firm said. “…It’s this rather comfortable pattern over the Great Lakes and eastern third of the U.S. June 15-20 that makes the pattern not as impressive as needed to be considered solidly bullish. But it’s apparently hot enough to satisfy, with prices at multi-week highs.” Production and liquefied natural gas feed gas demand levels are “the most bearish they’ve been in more than a month,” NatGasWeather said. After this week’s heat it’s “debatable” whether the temperature outlook is “hot enough” given the cooler projections from the American model starting around mid-June.
US working natural gas volumes in underground storage increase by 98 Bcf: EIA | S&P Global Platts -Storage inventories increased 98 Bcf to 2.411 Tcf for the week-ended June 4 the US Energy Information Administration reported June 10. The build was more than the 95 Bcf addition expected by an S&P Global Platts' survey of analysts, as well as the five-year average build of 92 Bcf, according to EIA data. Storage volumes now stand 383 Bcf, or 13.7%, less than the year-ago level of 2.794 Tcf and 55 Bcf, or 2.2%, less than the five-year average of 2.466 Tcf. The injection matched the 98 Bcf added to inventories for the week prior. Month-to-date total feedgas deliveries have averaged 10.1 Bcf/d, slightly below the June forecast of 10.4 Bcf/d, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. When available, US LNG export facilities are expected to run at full utilization, about 11 Bcf/d, as netbacks into JKM and TTF remain wide open at $5/MMBtu and $4/MMBtu, respectively, through the end of the year. The NYMEX Henry Hub July contract added 2 cents to $3.147/MMBtu in trading following the release of the weekly storage report on June 10. The balance-of-summer contract strip was trading higher by roughly 3 cents/MMBtu for an average of $3.175/MMBtu, while the winter 2021-22 strip was up 2 cents on the day, trading at $3.323/MMBtu. Platts Analytics' supply and demand model currently forecasts a 56 Bcf injection for the week ending June 11, which would measure 31 Bcf less than the five-year average as gas-fired power generation draws on supply. Summer appears to be fully underway during the week in progress, with power burn demand rising by more than 7 Bcf/d on the week. The effects of that were dulled by a 2.4 Bcf/d drop in residential and commercial demand, and a 1.7 Bcf/d drop in LNG feedgas demand thought to be linked to annual maintenance taking place at certain liquefaction plants on the Gulf Coast. Amid fairly substantial changes in the various demand sectors, total US demand has seen a net increase of about 2.6 Bcf/d week over week. Supply, on the other hand, has been mostly stagnant, with nearly all of the week's 900 MMcf/d increase in total US supplies the result of an increase in imports from Canada. Sample storage fields across the Lower 48 injected 20% less gas into storage for the week ending June 11, falling from an injection of 47 to 37 Bcf. Temperatures in the East and Midwest climbed by more than 13 degrees degrees week over week, pushing up local power burn demand and cutting into the volumes available for storage. The tighter injections in major demand regions were partially offset by small gains in the West, which saw a bit of a reprieve from the ongoing heat wave
Temps, Appalachian Supply Worries Keep Heat on Natural Gas Forwards - Big basis moves in Appalachia and on the West Coast highlighted natural gas forwards trading during the June 3-9 period, while a sufficiently hot forecast helped propel a broader move higher for the Lower 48 overall, according to NGI’s Forward Look. Fixed prices for July delivery were higher week/week by around 10-15 cents at numerous locations, with benchmark Henry Hub gaining 8.8 cents to average $3.130/MMBtu. Forecasts teasing June heat, along with the prospect of Appalachian supply disruptions, helped stoke the fire that saw July Nymex futures rise during the period. On Thursday, the front month continued to nudge higher, going on to settle at $3.149, up 2.0 cents day/day. The potential duration of a pressure reduction on the Texas Eastern Transmission Co. (Tetco) system required by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration (aka PHMSA) remained unclear, EBW Analytics Group analysts told clients in a research note earlier in the week. According to the firm, the Tetco restrictions stood to constrain regional exports out of Appalachia by as much as 1.0 Bcf/d. “If new information suggests it is likely that outages may last for several months, natural gas could quickly move higher,” the EBW analysts said. Energy Aspects in a recent note said rerouting options for Northeast-to-Gulf Coast volumes implied “minimal impact to production” from the Tetco constraints. However, maintaining 0.9-1.0 Bcf/d of capacity between the Tetco M-2 and M-1 zones, compared to 2.1 Bcf/d design capacity, will be “critical to prevent any future production curtailments.” This presents “a real risk of Appalachia production curtailments this month if M-2 to M-1 capacity falls below this critical level,” Energy Aspects said. Meanwhile, Wood Mackenzie observed a “significant” 1.2 Bcf/d decline in Northeast production from Monday (June 7) to Tuesday (June 8) in its daily pipe estimates, attributable to pigging on the Columbia Gas Transmission system and compressor station maintenance on Equitrans Gas Transmission.
Natural Gas Futures Prices Go ‘Bonkers’ as Tetco Restrictions Seen Lasting Through Summer - After a week of only modest changes along the Nymex futures curve, price action on Friday was anything but, as a major natural gas pipeline warned that restrictions it has in place could last through the end of September. The July Nymex gas futures contract started climbing overnight and continued to surge throughout the day, closing the week at $3.296, up 14.7 cents from Thursday’s close. August prices rose 14.5 cents to $3.311. Spot gas action was just as significant. Stout gains across much of the country overshadowed losses in the Northeast amid a return of cool weather. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. climbed 16.0 cents to $3.060. Nymex gas prices had maintained the $3.00 handle for more than a week even as summer heat failed thus far to be sustained across the country for more than a few days. However, market observers said prices would struggle to gain much ground without more hot weather, or some other supportive factor like a recovery in liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand. Instead, Texas Eastern Transmission Co. (Tetco) delivered the bullish catalyst. In a posting to its electronic bulletin board shortly before 6 p.m. ET Thursday, Tetco said a 20% pressure reduction that began this month on part of its 30-inch diameter system — required by a Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) order — could last until late in the third quarter. The restrictions were put in place after Tetco reported an anomaly that was identified during recent inspections. PHMSA is working to further evaluate the findings of inspections and how they could impact other Line 10 and Line 15 segments along the system. Tetco said it is continuing to meet regularly with PHMSA and is in the process of conducting an engineering analysis to support a return to service. The pipeline said it “understands the importance of returning its system back to full service as soon as possible, and endeavors to provide a more exact timeframe and potential scope of work by the end of the month.” In a Friday note to clients, Bespoke Weather Services said as soon as the Tetco news was issued, things went “bonkers in the natural gas market.” Based on market chatter that some of the gas may be rerouted, Bespoke questioned whether the rally was an “overreaction, especially in light of supply/demand balances not being impressive of late.” The market was shrugging off the looseness, even before the Tetco issues first surfaced, “but it is honestly difficult to have much of an edge here, given that this issue is not clear cut yet,” according to Bespoke. “Weather remains generally hot,” with some risk of cooler weather for a brief period in the next few days. However, the market is “definitely pricing in a lot of bullish news up here,” Bespoke said. “Obviously, if the Tetco issue winds up less significant than what the market currently expects, we will fall.”
New infrastructure connects West Texas natural gas-producing areas to demand markets - (EIA) Recently completed pipeline projects in Texas and Mexico have increased natural gas transportation capacity from the Waha Hub—located near Permian Basin production activities in West Texas—to the U.S. Gulf Coast and Mexico. Since October 2020, two completed projects in Texas and two completed projects in Mexico have increased the Waha Hub’s connectivity to demand markets and, in turn, reduced the price difference between natural gas at the Waha Hub and the Henry Hub.Recently completed projects include:
- Kinder Morgan’s 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) Permian Highway Pipeline (PHP) entered service in January. It delivers natural gas from the Waha Hub to Katy, Texas, located near the Texas Gulf Coast, and also connects to Mexico.
- Whitewater/MPLX’s Agua Blanca Expansion Project entered service in late January. It connects to nearly 20 natural gas processing sites in the Delaware Basin and can move 1.8 Bcf/d of natural gas to the Waha Hub. By the third quarter of 2021, the project will likely expand to connect with the Whistler Pipeline to move an additional 2.0 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Permian Basin to the Texas Gulf Coast.
- Fermaca’s 0.9 Bcf/d Villa de Reyes-Aguascalientes-Guadalajara pipeline began commercial operations in October 2020. The pipeline, located in Central Mexico, is the final segment of the Wahalajara system, which connects the Waha Hub to Guadalajara and other population centers in west-central Mexico.
- Carso Energy’s 0.5 Bcf/d Samalayuca-Sásabe pipeline began commercial flows of natural gas in late January. The pipeline provides a more direct route for natural gas from the Permian Basin to northwest Mexico.
The additional takeaway capacity from these recently completed projects has contributed to a nearly 10% increase in U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico since last March. According to the latest Natural Gas Monthly, exports to Mexico totaled 5.9 Bcf/d in March 2021. Additional takeaway capacity has also helped increase the natural gas price at the Waha Hub, narrowing its price difference (also known as the basis) to the Henry Hub. Over the past few years, constrained takeaway capacity in the Permian Basin kept Waha prices consistently at $1 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) or more below the Henry Hub price. The Waha-Henry Hub basis began narrowing in late October 2020. From March through May of this year, the Waha Hub price averaged $0.22/MMBtu less than the Henry Hub price, following a February cold snap in Texas that temporarily sent Waha prices to a record high.
Small Number of Permian Oil and Gas Sites Are Releasing Large Amounts of Methane A relatively tiny number of Permian oil and gas sites are responsible for a wildly disproportionate amount of methane pollution, a new study from Methane Source Finder found.The research, a joint project of NASA, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, revealed just 123 of the 60,000 sites (0.205%) surveyed in the month-long study accounted for 29% of the region's methane pollution — largely from leaks that are typically easy to repair.Methane traps 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a 20 year period, and the research echoes an analysis of EPA data released last week that found the 195 smallest U.S. oil and gas extractors were responsible for 22% of total emissions, despite only accounting for 9% of production.The Trump administration weakened methane leak detection and repair requirements in its final months and the Senate, though not the House, has taken action to reinstate the Obama-era protections.
U.S. regulator tells pipeline operators to prepare methane curbs (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Transportation's pipeline regulator on Monday sent an advisory to oil and gas pipeline operators directing them to update their inspection and maintenance plans for curbing the release of potent greenhouse gas methane, as part of the Biden administration's broader effort to combat climate change. The DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) submitted the advisory bulletin to prod companies to begin to comply with the PIPES Act, a law signed at the end of 2020, that created dozens of new regulatory mandates for the agency including the oversight of methane leaks by natural gas pipelines and transmission systems. “Minimizing methane emissions from pipelines will help improve safety and combat climate change, while creating jobs for pipeline workers,” said PHMSA Acting Administrator Tristan Brown. “Pipeline operators have an obligation to protect the public and the environment by identifying and addressing methane leaks.” Methane has a much higher heat-trapping potential than carbon dioxide and its concentrations in the atmosphere have been rising rapidly in recent years, alarming world governments seeking to cap global warming under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.Since the requirements enshrined in the PIPES Act are new and will not be enforced until the end of the year, the bulletin takes the first step of delineating what is expected of the operators, a Biden administration official said. The bulletin tells operators that they must have inspection and maintenance plans in place by the Dec. 27 to minimize methane emission releases and repair or replace outdated leaking pipes, and makes clear that the agency will enforce these requirements in January 2022.
El Paso Electric’s Newman 6 project to go before judge – An administrative law judge ruled Thursday that the Sierra Club and a citizen group from Chaparral, N.M., can move forward to challenge the state of Texas’ pending approval of a permit for El Paso Electric’s proposed gas plant. The Chaparral Community Coalition For Helping the Environment includes people who live within two miles of the proposed plant in New Mexico and oppose the expansion of the power plant, citing health concerns for an area that’s already under scrutiny for air pollution. The contested hearing has not been scheduled yet, but is required by state law to occur before a 180-day deadline on Nov. 30. The hearing before the State Office of Administrative Hearings stems from the Texas Commision on Environmental Quality’s decision to approve the application by El Paso Electric to build the natural gas plant in Northeast El Paso. On Thursday, Administrative Law Judge Rebecca Smith ruled that the Chaparral Community Coalition For Helping the Environment and the Sierra Club had standing to continue as parties, while local environmental nonprofit Eco El Paso did not. She allowed all the attorneys for all parties to work on negotiating a schedule for the upcoming hearings.
Oil commission approves rule change forbidding spills --The Oil Conservation Commission approved a rule change Thursday that will forbid drillers from spilling oil and toxic liquids — an amendment that activists and affected residents said would help prevent the pollution from occurring. The rule will be adopted July 8. The state Oil Conservation Division, which regulates oil and gas activity, partnered with the environmental group WildEarth Guardians to propose the rule change. Conservationists, community activists, regulators and industry groups all backed it. New Mexico had no rule barring operators from spilling oil or “produced water,” the toxic liquid byproduct from hydraulic fracturing. Instead, companies were required to report a spill and then work with regulators to clean it up. Critics called the system grossly inadequate — especially in a state with one of the nation’s largest fossil fuel industries — saying it was reactive rather than preventive. “This is a big, big deal,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardian’s climate and energy program director. “We want to make sure there’s an incentive for industry to keep these releases from happening in the first place.” The new rule will give the division more authority to impose penalties on violators. “We hope the Oil Conservation Division will use this new authority to benefit the citizens and environment of New Mexico,” said Joe Zupan, executive director of Amigos Bravos, a Taos-based water advocacy group. But during a public hearing Wednesday, some people called for adding language that explicitly gives the agency enforcement power and specifies fines and other punishments for spills. Some expressed concern the rule says the agency may take enforcement action rather than it shall. “Prohibiting something without enforcing that rule is meaningless,” said Gail Evans, an attorney at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. But Nichols said how the agency will penalize polluters is a question for another day.
Oil Patch Lifts US Rig Count Once Again as Natural Gas Activity Eases Lower More rigs flocked to the oil patch during the week ended Friday (June 11), offsetting a small decrease in natural gas-directed drilling to lift the combined U.S. count five units to 461, according to the latest data published by Baker Hughes Co. (BKR). Oil-directed drilling increased by six units in the United States for the week, while the total number of domestic natural gas rigs decreased by one. The combined 461 U.S. rigs active as of Friday compares with 279 rigs running in the year-ago period, according to the BKR numbers, which are based partly on data from Enverus. Land drilling increased by five rigs domestically for the week, while the Gulf of Mexico remained unchanged with 13 rigs. Horizontal drilling increased by five units for the week; vertical units increased by one, while directional rigs declined by one overall. The Canadian rig count increased by 16 rigs week/week — all oil-directed — to reach 93 as of Friday. That’s up sharply from 21 active rigs at this time last year. Broken down by play, the Permian Basin saw the largest net increase for the week, adding four rigs to raise its total to 236, up from 137 in the year-ago period. Elsewhere, the Haynesville Shale added one rig. The Utica Shale saw two rigs exit. Broken down by state, Texas and Wyoming each added three rigs, while New Mexico picked up two rigs during the period. One rig was added in West Virginia. Meanwhile, two rigs departed Ohio for the week, while Alaska and Pennsylvania each saw one rig exit overall, according to the BKR numbers.
Activists Protest Against Line 3 as Enbridge Accelerates Pipeline Construction -Thousands of people from across the nation traveled to northern Minnesota this past weekend to join Indigenous leaders in what organizers described as the "largest resistance yet" to Line 3, an Enbridge-owned tar sands pipeline whose construction has accelerated in recent days as opponents warn the project poses a threat to waterways and the climate.The Treaty People Gathering kicked off Saturday, the first of several expected days of action against Enbridge's multi-billion-dollar project, which aims to replace and expand the Canadian company's existing pipeline along a route that crosses more than 200 bodies of water and 800 wetlands.If completed, the pipeline would have the capacity to carry more than 750,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Alberta, Canada to Wisconsin.Indigenous leaders have decried the pipeline expansion as a brazen violation of treaty rights that endangers sacred land. Attempts to block the pipeline in court have yet to succeed, leading Line 3 opponents to turn their focus to large-scale protests and civil disobedience."We need to protect all that we have left of the sacred gifts and land," said Dawn Goodwin of the Indigenous-led RISE Coalition. "I said that I would do all that I could. And I have done all that I could in the legal system, thus far following that process. Now, they have failed us through regulatory capture and corporate financing. So now we need you."The latest major demonstrations against Line 3 are expected to begin on Monday, with prominent environmentalists such as Jane Fonda and Bill McKibben slated to join Winona LaDuke, Tara Houska, and other Indigenous activists in protesting the spill-prone pipeline."Our Mother needs us to be brave, to give voice to the sacred and future generations," Houska, founder of the Giniw Collective, said in a statement. "We've elevated the national profile of Line 3 through people power. [President Joe] Biden hears our voices, but the wetlands and wild rice need action.""We cannot mitigate the climate crisis and we cannot stand idly by as DAPL and Line 5 fossil fuels flow illegally, as young people chain themselves to the Mountain Valley pipeline and Line 3," Houska continued. "Stand up for what is right, stand up for those not yet born."
Oil pipeline foes protest Enbridge's Line 3 in Minnesota (AP) — Hundreds of protesters vowing to do whatever it takes to stop a Canadian-based company’s push to replace an aging pipeline blocked a pump station Monday in northern Minnesota, with some people chaining themselves to construction equipment before police began making arrests. Environmental and tribal groups say Enbridge Energy’s plan to rebuild Line 3, which would carry Canadian tar sands oil and regular crude from Alberta to Wisconsin, would worsen climate change and risk spills in sensitive areas where Native Americans harvest wild rice, hunt, fish, gather medicinal plants, and claim treaty rights. By evening, at least 30 people were arrested by state police and sheriff’s officers, but the number “is growing rapidly,” Ashley Fairbanks, a spokeswoman for Treaty People Gathering, told The Associated Press. None of them appeared to resist as allies chanted “We love you.” Protesters said the Treaty People Gathering was the largest show of resistance yet to the project. The crowd showed no signs of leaving hours after an earlier protest at the headwaters of the Mississippi River, roughly 20 minutes away, where they chanted “Stop Line 3!” and “Water is life!” “This is important. This is what we need,” actress Jane Fonda told the AP at the rally, motioning toward the crowd as she held signs with President Joe Biden’s image that said, “Which side are you on?” She urged protesters to keep pressuring Biden to halt construction so his administration can study any harm to the environment and indigenous people. The Mississippi River is one of the water crossings for the pipeline. Fonda said Line 3 protesters “are going to Standing Rock this place,” referring to the Dakota Access pipeline, which is owned by a different company and was the subject of major protests near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the Dakotas in 2016 and 2017. Activists said they were pitching tents at the pump station site Monday night, and an AP reporter saw people rolling a large wooden spool that holds wire into a pile of trees and twigs. Police were directing traffic. Elizabeth Claggett-Borne, 55, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, sat in a beach chair perched in front of a boat blocking the entrance to the work site. She was equipped with a homemade device made of rebar, PVC pipe and handcuffs, in order to make it more difficult for authorities to remove her from the site. “We’re just foot soldiers,” she said. “But we’re here to stay.” Minnesota Public Radio News reported that a Border Patrol helicopter at one point hovered about 20 feet (6 meters) off the ground, blowing up sand and dirt, to try to get protesters to leave. Enbridge said that 44 workers were evacuated from the site in an effort to de-escalate the situation. In a written statement, the company said it “hoped all parties would come to accept the outcome of the thorough, science-based review and multiple approvals of the project.” Spokeswoman Juli Kellner said the company will assess potential damage once it can safely reenter the site.
Dawn Goodwin and 300 Environmental Groups Consider the new Line 3 Pipeline a Danger to All Forms of Life --Leeches love Northern Minnesota. The “Land of 10,000 Lakes” (technically, the state sports more than 11,000, plus bogs, creeks, marshes and the headwaters of the Mississippi River) in early summer is a freshwater paradise for the shiny, black species of the unnerving worm. And that’s exactly the kind local fisherman buy to bait walleye. People who trap and sell the shallow-water suckers are called “leechers.” It’s a way to make something of a living while staying in close relationship to this water-world. Towards the end of the summer, the bigger economic opportunity is wild rice, which is still traditionally harvested from canoes by “ricers.” When Dawn Goodwin, an Anishinaabe woman who comes from many generations of ricers (and whose current partner is a leecher), was a young girl, her parents let her play in a canoe safely stationed in a puddle in the yard. She remembers watching her father and uncles spread wild rice out on a tarp and turn the kernels as they dried in the sun. She grew up intimate with the pine forests and waterways around Bagley, Minnesota, an area which was already intersected by a crude oil pipeline called “Line 3” that had been built a few years before she was born. Goodwin is 50 now, and that pipeline, currently owned and operated by the Canadian energy company Enbridge, is in disrepair. Enbridge has spent years gathering the necessary permits to build a new Line 3 (they call it a “replacement project”) with a larger diameter that will transport a different type of oil—tar sands crude—from Edmonton, Aberta, through North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, terminating at the Western edge of Lake Superior where the thick, petroleum-laced sludge will be shipped for further refining. Despite lawsuits and pushback from Native people in Northern Minnesota and a variety of environmental groups, Enbridge secured permission to begin construction on Line 3 across 337 miles of Minnesota last December. The region is now crisscrossed with new access roads, excavated piles of dirt, and segments of pipe sitting on top of the land, waiting to be buried. Enbridge has mapped the new Line 3 to cross more than 200 bodies of water as it winds through Minnesota. Goodwin wants the entire project stopped before a single wild rice habitat is crossed. “Our elders tell us that every water is wild rice water,” Goodwin said on Saturday, as she filled up her water bottle from an artesian spring next to Lower Rice Lake. “Tar sands sticks to everything and is impossible to clean up. If there is a rupture or a spill, the rice isn’t going to live.”
Opponents take stand against Enbridge Line 3 - Indian Country Today — The Mississippi River, or Great River in the Ojibwe language, is barely three feet in width near its headwaters in northern Minnesota. Tender and vulnerable, it meanders across the landscape with no hint at its greatness farther south. It’s here near the river’s headwaters that Enbridge is completing construction on the Line 3 pipeline and its numerous crossings under the river. And it’s here that hundreds of water protectors and supporters are making a stand Monday opposing the project. Numerous environmental, faith and Indigenous groups organized the Treaty People Gathering this weekend, describing it as the largest act of resistance so far to the pipeline. Attendees are encouraged to “put their bodies on the line to stop construction and tell the world that the days of tar sands are over,” according to the Treaty People Gathering website, Organizers and participants met all weekend on the White Earth Reservation learning about the importance of treaties and the Ojibwe connection to the area, hearing speeches from faith leaders and water protectors and preparing and planning acts of civil disobedience. During a brief visit to the Treaty People Gathering camp that was closed to the media, Indian Country Today counted about 600 people; it’s unclear how many will participate in actions opposing the pipeline Monday. Water protectors have expressed concern over local law enforcement’s use of “kettling” tactics to arrest people participating in civil disobedience during past actions. According to one of the gathering’s organizers who spoke on condition of anonymity, the U.S. Department of Justice sent two liaisons to meet with pipeline opponents to hear their concerns about use of the controversial law enforcement tactic. The Department of Justice public affairs office did not respond to Indian Country Today’s telephone calls or email seeking comment. Often used during the Black Lives Matter protests, “kettling” involves police corralling protesters and preventing them from leaving before making arrests or issuing citations. Several opponents including the Minnesota Department of Commerce, several of the state’s Ojibwe tribes and environmentalists have argued in court that a need for the pipeline has not been proven and that it poses significant environmental risks to sensitive areas.
Line 3 opponents occupy Enbridge pump station as protest ramps up - For several years now, environmental and tribal groups battling the Line 3 oil pipeline have fought the project in front of state regulators, in the courts and on the streets.They've dotted the route with resistance camps, and they've chained themselves to branches of banks with ties to the project.Their opposition so far hasn't stopped the pipeline. Enbridge Energy says it is more than halfway through building the $4 billion project across northern Minnesota.So now activists are taking their protest to the next level.On Monday morning, hundreds of people trespassed onto the Two Inlets pump station site a few miles south of Itasca State Park to protest the ongoing construction of the new pipeline, which will replace a line that's been carrying Canadian tar sands oil across northern Minnesota since the 1960s. Dozens locked themselves to bulldozers, excavators and other construction equipment using devices known as sleeping dragons, so law enforcement wouldn't be able to easily cut them free.“To see people engaging in personal risk like this, and to see so many young people and folks of all walks of life, it's so beautiful and powerful,” said Tara Houska, founder of the Giniw Collective, one of dozens of groups that organized the week’s actions. “It's an incredible moment.” The Indigenous-led, multiday event, called the Treaty People Gathering, began over the weekend and is expected to reach into the week, with prayer, marches and direct action. Organizers say they hope to draw attention to the fight against the pipeline that they argue will exacerbate climate change and threaten the waters of treaty lands in northern Minnesota.Their goal is to push the Biden administration to stop the Line 3 project, as it did the Keystone XL pipeline. “Without direct action, and people engaging in personal risk,” Houska said, “the pressure just isn't there.” One of the activists, a young woman who didn't want to give her name because she was risking arrest, lay flat on her back, locked together with another person to a hydraulic construction lift.This type of protest has several goals, she said. "One is to to shut it down to shut down work, which we've successfully done,” the woman said, “and to cost Enbridge time and money and to raise a lot of awareness about the urgency of stopping this pipeline and get as much attention drawn to it as we can." But company spokesperson Juli Kellner said stopping work at one pump station for a day won’t have a huge impact on the overall project."We have five active construction zones with multiple construction sites in each zone, and having one shut down is not necessarily impactful in the large view of the project,”
Pipeline protesters seize Minnesota construction site in bid to stop $4 billion project - – The young climate activists met at the windmill shortly after sunrise. There were several missions underway on Monday morning but “marmalade” and “peanut butter” were particularly high risk. Protesters using those code names planned to descend on an undisclosed location along a pipeline route known as Line 3. They were ready for arrests. Dozens of cars were soon caravanning down dusty dirt roads amid corn and soybean fields in the largest salvo yet in an ongoing civil disobedience campaign to try to stop a border-crossing oil pipeline running from Canada across the wetlands and forests of northern Minnesota. By midmorning, hundreds of protesters, led by Native American women and joined by celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener, had marched into a construction site operated by Enbridge, the Canadian company behind the pipeline, and strapped themselves to bulldozers and other heavy machinery. “Good morning water protectors!” Tara Houska, a Native American lawyer and a leader of the Line 3 protests, shouted to the group as she banged a drum and crossed into a pump station that organizers said is used to electrify the pipeline. The intensifying conflict over Line 3 has been driven in part by Indigenous activists who see a double-barreled threat in the pipeline: a carbon-producing fossil fuel project at a time of worsening climate change and one that also risks polluting tribal lands in the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Emboldened by some victories – such as the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, and the gatherings at Standing Rock – protesters hope to intensify pressure on the Biden administration to suspend the pipeline permit before the project is completed. “[President Joe] Biden has taken a very clear and very beautiful position on the climate crisis,” Fonda, who was making her second trip to protest Line 3, said in an interview. “But we are really facing a potential catastrophe, and the science is very clear: it’s not enough to do something good here – like shutdown Keystone XL, shut down drilling on the Arctic national refuge – and then allow Line 3 to go through.” “We can’t do this in bits and pieces,” she said. So far, the activism has done little to impede the $4 billion project, which is a replacement of a decades-old pipeline, although portions of it travel a new route. About 60% of the 350-mile Minnesota portion of the new Line 3 has been built and some 4,000 construction workers – and growing – are at work on five different areas of the project, according to Enbridge officials. The ongoing protests haven’t “had a significant impact on construction,” said Paul Eberth, Enbridge’s director of tribal engagement in the United States. “Obviously it’s stressful when people are out protesting or if they’re doing damage to equipment or being disrespectful for the workforce.” “Construction largely has proceeded as planned,” he said. The Line 3 pipeline is about 1,000 miles long and runs from Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wis., one of a network of pipelines the company operates in the Midwest. There have been disputes over other Enbridge pipelines: In November, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered a nearly 70-year old pipeline called Line 5 in Michigan to be shut down over concern about impacts to the Great Lakes. Enbridge said Line 3 has “passed every test” in six years of regulatory and permitting review including 70 public comment meetings. Company officials also say they have taken extensive input from tribal nations – including some directly impacted tribes who support the pipeline – and about 500 Native Americans have worked on the project.
Thousands Came to Minnesota to Protest New Construction on the Line 3 Pipeline. Hundreds Left in Handcuffs but More Vowed to Fight on. - Inside Climate News—The trickle of activists began on Thursday but it quickly grew into a stream that filled northern Minnesota campgrounds surrounding the Mississippi River headwaters over the weekend. By Monday night, some 200 protesters had been arrested as they attempted to stop the construction of Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement project. Many had chained themselves to pipeline construction equipment hoping to delay a project that they say would lock Minnesota—and the nation—into decades of continued burning of some of the world’s dirtiest oil and threatens the pristine waterways that many Indigenous people depend on for their livelihoods.“This is just the beginning,” said Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabe woman and longtime Indigenous activist who has been fighting the project since it was first proposed in 2014, according to the Star Tribune.The Treaty People Gathering was organized by a coalition of Native rights groups and environmental organizations that intended “to put our bodies on the line, to stop construction and tell the world that the days of tar sands pipelines are over.”In a written statement Monday, the company said that it was “disheartened” by the protest’s disruption and “destruction” at its worksite. But as the four-day event wound down on Tuesday and skirmishes between police and activists quieted, Indigenous leaders vowed to continue their protests.Enbridge is now moving to revive construction after being delayed by a muddy spring. And as protesters redouble their efforts to stop Line 3, they are being met with equally intensifying resistance from police who are carrying out the will of state policymakers who have long resisted calls to transition the U.S. economy to clean energy.Over the last four years, 15 states have adopted new laws that increase the penalty for trespassing on critical infrastructure like oil pipelines. Five other states, including Minnesota, are considering similar measures, which have become growing points of political tension between progressives and conservatives in the country’s cultural wars. Those tensions played out Monday as encounters between police and protesters became increasingly hostile. Federal officials are reportedly investigating the use of a low flying helicopter that activists said was meant to intimidate them, according to media reports. The New York Times reported that authorities also appeared to use a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, to drive protesters away with noise. The hostilities were reminiscent of the 2016 Standing Rock protests, where police were filmed using attack dogs, spraying water cannons and firing rubber bullets on Indigenous and environmental activists who attempted to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. But for some of the protesters in northern Minnesota this week, the aggressive police tactics only compounded the sting of failing to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. “People forget that we lost that fight,”
Low-Flying DHS Helicopter Showers Line 3 Protests With Debris -- The largest civil disobedience yet against new pipeline construction in Minnesota was met by a furious response — and a cloud of debris. A Department of Homeland Security Border Patrol helicopter descended on the protest against the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline, kicking up dust and showering demonstrators with sand, in an unusual attempt to disperse “I perceive this to be a tactic they utilized to deter people from arriving in large masses. That’s not safe.” the crowd. “I couldn’t see because it got in my eyes,” said Big Wind, a 28-year-old Northern Arapaho organizer with the anti-pipeline Giniw Collective, who was there when the helicopter swooped over the civil disobedience action. “After it pulled up there were a lot of people who were ducking, who were in the fetal position, just because they didn’t know what was going to happen and were trying to protect themselves from the sand.” The low-flying federal helicopter is an early signal of how law enforcement in Minnesota will deploy more than a year’s worth of training and preparations against what pipeline opponents have promised will be a summer of resistance. The tactic — which was criticized because of the extremely low flyover — suggests that the multiagency law enforcement coalition overseeing the police response is willing to bend safety standards in order to break up demonstrations. Pipeline opponents, who identify as water protectors, say the point of the helicopter’s activity seemed to be to use the dust to intimidate and scatter the crowd. Big Wind said they heard no dispersal order coming from the helicopter. “I perceive this to be a tactic they utilized to deter people from arriving in large masses,” they said. “That’s not safe.” Authorities later claimed that the helicopter was being used to make an announcement for demonstrators to disperse, but the announcement was inaudible to many demonstration participants. “There were rumors that it was saying something, but I couldn’t hear anything,” said Kate Sugarman, a 60-year-old pipeline opponent who was standing on the public road when the helicopter arrived. “To those of us on the ground it felt like a scary encounter, and it was not a way to easily send a message.”
Officials: More than 200 arrested in northern Minnesota Line 3 protests | MPR News -- Hundreds of people blocked access to an Enbridge pipeline pumping station being built a few miles south of Itasca State Park during a day of protests Monday.Some locked themselves to construction equipment on the Two Inlets pump station site or to a boat that protesters were using to block a road that leads to the station.A total of 247 people were arrested, according to a release from the Northern Lights Task Force, a coalition of northern Minnesota law enforcement agencies created to address pipeline-related protests. The task force said 179 people were arrested and booked into area detention centers. An additional 68 people were cited and released.The statement said most were charged with gross misdemeanor trespass on critical infrastructure, or public nuisance and unlawful assembly.A few dozen protesters have continued to camp along the Mississippi River about 20 miles east of the pump station site. The location marks a spot where Line 3 is slated to cross the river, a few miles from the headwaters.A forklift sits with flat tires after activists let air out of the tires inside of an Enbridge Line 3 pump station near Park Rapids, Minn., on Monday.Since Monday, the protesters, who call themselves water protectors, have erected tents along the pipeline’s path. The camp was erected as part of a multi-day, Indigenous-led protest against the Line 3 project called the Treaty People Gathering. The event included prayers, marches and direct action to protest the pipeline.
A Biden Climate Test on the Banks of the Mississippi -–Bill McKibben -The backstory is that a big Canadian company, Enbridge, has been trying to expand and replace a pipeline, called Line 3, that runs across northern Minnesota. It would be about the same size as the now vanquished Keystone XL pipeline, and carry seven hundred and sixty thousand barrels of regular crude and tar-sands oil from Canada each day. (Enbridge characterizes the project as a “replacement” of the existing pipeline, but it will double the current capacity.) Most of the activists are Indigenous, led by groups such as Honor the Earth and the Giniw Collective, and many of those are led by remarkable women—Winona LaDuke, Tara Houska, and Dawn Goodwin, among many others. They have waged a stout campaign through a bitter Midwestern winter, but it has been hampered by the pandemic. Now vaccines have freed others to join them, and Monday was the first big mobilization. . In 2015, the Obama Administration, with Joe Biden as Vice-President, pulled the permits for Keystone XL, because it failed the White House’s climate test. “America’s now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” President Obama said. “And, frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership. And that’s the biggest risk we face—not acting.” So why would the Biden Administration let a pipeline of almost the same size, carrying tar-sands oil, proceed? Since 2015, the United States has joined (and rejoined) the Paris climate accord, promising to hold temperature increases to as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible, and the world’s climate scientists have explained that this means cutting emissions forty-five per cent by 2030. And we’ve seen the hottest year, the worst wildfire season in the American West, the biggest Atlantic storm season, and the highest temperature ever reliably recorded in America. Meanwhile, the price of solar power has dropped by half in the past decade. So, if the KXL failed the climate test six years ago, how could Line 3 pass it today? Enbridge told the Times that it has “passed six years of regulatory and permitting review.” But this most basic climate question has never been answered: How does increasing the flow of tar-sands oil not make progress in cutting emissions more difficult?
Native American contractors' letter seeks end to protests over Line 3 pipeline -– Native American contractors working on the controversial Enbridge Line 3 pipeline across Minnesota say the Indigenous-led protests that escalated Monday do not speak for them. "Protests that disrupt work, damage property and threaten our employees while claiming to be on behalf of our Native people is creating additional tension and consequences within our tribal communities," six contractors wrote in a letter being sent to Minnesota tribal leaders this week. "They also intentionally create a false narrative that there is no Native American support for this project and the economic impacts and opportunities it brings to our people." Thousands of people gathered near the Mississippi River headwaters over the weekend, culminating in both a peaceful march and an occupation at a pump station construction site that resulted in hundreds of arrests and citations. As protesters locked themselves to equipment and blocked the access road with debris, Enbridge said it evacuated 44 employees, 10 of whom work for White Earth Reservation-based Gordon Construction. Owner Matt Gordon was one of those who signed the letter calling for "leaders of tribal communities across Minnesota to renounce these actions and call on these groups to stop future destructive and unlawful protests that endanger our Native workers and divide the communities in which we work and live." The White Earth, Red Lake and Mille Lacs bands have steadfastly opposed Line 3, which will cost Enbridge well more than $3 billion. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa did as well until regulators approved the pipeline and the band opted for a deal with Enbridge to allow the new Line 3 on its land. The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe supported the new Line 3 in order to get the 50-year-old, deteriorating Line 3 extracted from its land. (The new pipeline runs partly on a new route outside of the Leech Lake reservation.) Two smaller Ojibwe bands have not taken a stance on the pipeline.
ENERGY TRANSITIONS: What pipeline protests reveal about Biden's oil plan -- Wednesday, June 9, 2021 -- A major pipeline protest in the Midwest wound down yesterday as White House climate envoy John Kerry endorsed pipelines. What do the moves reveal about the Biden administration?
Biden’s Climate Chief Plans Oil-CEO Talk on Carbon Crackdown - Chief executives of some of the largest U.S. oil companies are set to meet with White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy on Wednesday as the Biden administration nears pivotal decisions on drilling and auto emissions.The session will be at least the second meeting this year between top oil executives and McCarthy, who is coordinating the Biden administration’s efforts to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions from burning the industry’s core products. The meeting is set to involve McCarthy and members of theAmerican Petroleum Institute’s executive committee, according to two people familiar with the matter.The White House said in an emailed statement that it meets “with a wide-range of sectors that all play an important role moving us towards a clean energy future that tackles the climate crisis, creates good-paying union jobs and secures environmental justice.”Representatives of API did not have an immediate comment.The session comes as the Biden administration weighs a number of new regulations that will directly affect the oil industry. The administration is also asking Congress to impose a clean electricity mandate as part of a goal for a carbon-free grid by 2035, which could edge natural gas out of the nation’s power system.The Interior Department is preparing to send a reportto the White House this month on whether, and how, it can restart the U.S. government’s oil and gas leasing programs. The agency paused selling new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters in January so it could conduct the broad review. The interim report is set to outline potential changes -- from narrowed acreage and more stringent climate considerations to higher royalty payments -- that could accompany the restart of leasing. Some oil and gas industry advocates have criticized the pause, saying a long-lasting moratorium threatens jobs and essential American energy production. The Western Energy Alliance and the state of Wyoming have challenged the pause in federal court. The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, is honing a proposal for new standards governing greenhouse gas emissions from automobile tailpipes. And the Energy Department is advancing programs to spur development of hydrogen that dovetail with oil industry efforts to produce hydrogen using natural gas.During a previous meeting with McCarthy in March, executives pledged to collaborate with the administration on the reduction of methane releases from oil wells and equipment.
Interior proposes withdrawal of Trump rule that would allow drillers to pay less --The Interior Department has proposed a rule to withdraw a Trump-era regulation that was expected to lessen the amount of money that companies pay the government to drill on public lands and waters. The Biden administration in a swipe at Trump's said the rule would "shortchange" taxpayers, in light of findings that it would benefit oil and gas companies by millions of dollars. After thoughtful consideration, the Department of the Interior is proposing to withdraw an attempt by the previous administration to shortchange American taxpayers for the resources that oil and gas companies extract from public lands,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement. “The Department’s ongoing review of the 2020 rule ensures that communities receive a fair return from onshore and offshore energy development,” the spokesperson added. The Trump rule in question changed the way that royalties are calculated that companies pay to the government for drilling on federal property.A new economic analysis justifying the proposed withdrawal said that getting rid of the Trump rule will allow the federal government to collect an additional $64.6 million in fees annually. The Trump administration had billed it as a way to give regulatory certainty and free companies from burdensome regulations. It came after a request from the American Petroleum Institute industry group for changes to how these royalties are calculated. The proposed withdrawal comes after a series of delays the Biden administration put on the rule to prevent it from taking effect. It’s currently halted until November. In its proposal, the Biden administration argued that the Trump rule had “defects” including an inadequate justification, consideration of alternatives and public comment period.
Governor using CARES funds to re-launch Energy Rebound Program -— Governor Mark Gordon has announced that up to $12 million of remaining CARES Act funds will be used to fund the Energy Rebound Program, which is designed to get more people working in the energy industry.In 2020 the Energy Rebound Program provided badly needed capital for specified oil and gas projects, including drilled but uncompleted ventures, workovers, and reclamation of oil and gas wells through the plugging and abandonment process, according to a press release.“The Energy Rebound Program successfully provided opportunities for oil and gas industry employees who lost jobs when drilling ceased last year,” Governor Gordon said. “This program will continue to provide economic benefits to this important industry, their workforce and the entire state of Wyoming.”
Judge blocks drilling plans in 2 states, citing bird habitat (AP) — A judge has halted plans for oil and gas drilling on vast areas of Wyoming and Montana, citing concerns about a sagebrush-dwelling bird. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management didn’t adequately consider how the drilling would affect the greater sage grouse, nor an option to defer drilling in the bird’s prime habitat, Idaho U.S. District Judge Ronald E. Bush ruled Wednesday. Bush ordered more study of potential effects on the bird before drilling may proceed. The drilling would occur on over 600 square miles (1,500 square kilometers) of federal land scattered across the energy-rich states. The Bureau of Land Management auctioned off hundreds of leases in sage grouse habitat in four sales in 2017. Sage grouse are a chicken-sized, primarily ground-dwelling bird whose numbers have fallen significantly from the millions that inhabited the U.S. West in frontier times. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 2010 that the bird deserved special protection but said in 2015 that conservation efforts led by Wyoming made that unnecessary. The environmental group that sued over the leases praised Bush’s ruling. “This ruling sends a very strong message that the BLM can no longer lease public lands for fossil fuel development without weighing the outcomes for sensitive lands and wildlife,” Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, said in a statement Thursday. BLM spokesman Brad Purdy declined to comment, citing agency policy not to discuss ongoing litigation. The agency’s allies in the case included the Western Energy Alliance industry group and the state of Wyoming, where Republican Gov. Mark Gordon was weighing whether to appeal. “The governor is dismayed by Judge Bush’s ruling but is pleased that the leases have not been vacated,” Gordon spokesman Michael Pearlman said by email. The ruling comes amid a federal oil and gas leasing moratorium imposed by President Joe Biden’s administration while it studies the effects on climate change.
Navy says more than two-thirds of oil spilled in Port Townsend Bay has been recovered - Approximately 100 gallons of oil was spilled from the Navy destroyer USS Gridley after the ship left Naval Magazine Indian Island Thursday morning, the Navy announced late Friday. Officials said Friday the clean-up effort had reached its end, and approximately 70 gallons of oil was recovered from the waters of Port Townsend Bay. The remaining oil in the area dissipated, the Navy said. The spill was discovered around 10:30 a.m. Thursday, and the Navy earlier estimated 20 gallons of oil had spilled from the warship. “As soon we were aware of this spill, Indian Island’s emergency response personnel immediately sprang into action to contain it, assess the situation and begin clean-up efforts,” said Naval Magazine Indian Island Commanding Officer Cmdr. Donald Emerson. The cleanup and containment effort included the deployment of 200 feet of oil spill containment boom. The spill was contained by 1 p.m. Thursday, and oil recovery efforts continued until 5:30 p.m. Thursday before being restarted Friday morning. The cleanup effort ended about 10 a.m. June 4. The Navy is still investigating the cause of the spill. Navy officials said the spill will have a minimal impact to the local environment, including Port Townsend Bay’s shorelines and nearshore habitat. The spill happened just beyond the installation’s port security barrier in open water, during a slack tide with a very light breeze. Officials said the weather and ocean conditions were optimal and supported the Navy’s response efforts to effectively contain the spill and clean it up.
Rail union says 'sabotage' caused 2020 oil train derailment in Washington --A rail union representative has blamed an oil car disaster that took place last year in Washington state on “sabotage.” Last year, two tanker cars lost their hold on one another, drifted apart and caused a crash that derailed 10 cars, with three cars bursting into flames. A detachment would normally trigger an emergency brake, forcing them to stop. KUOW reports that Korey McDaniel, a member of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), told railway investigators that the Dec. 22 crash last year was “without a doubt” caused by sabotage. “We know from the FBI investigation, from how trains operate, how trains work, how the couplers work, how the pin lifters work, that this incident was caused without a doubt by sabotage,” McDaniel said during a hearing, according to KUOW who obtained a transcript. KUOW notes that two young men were reported to have emerged from the tracks before the crash, though no suspects have been revealed by the FBI so far. National Transportation Safety Board investigator Russell Quimby told KUOW, "Whoever did this had enough knowledge of railroad equipment to know what he's doing and enough knowledge of an air-brake system to know what to do." No one has claimed responsibility for the train crash, KUOW notes, with the rail company so far blaming the rail crew for failing to detect the compromised train brakes.
EPA fines Sand Island fuel storage facility for oil spill prevention violations - — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a settlement with the owner and the operator of the bulk fuel storage facility at Sand Island on Tuesday, June 8. Hawaii Fueling Facilities Corporation (HFFC) owns the facility and Signature Flight Support Corporation (SFSC) operates it. About 1,944 gallons of fuel were recovered outside of the boundaries of the facility in January 2015 after a former operator noticed an inventory discrepancy in one of the tanks. The facility houses 16 bulk aboveground storage tanks and the former operator estimated 42,000 gallons of jet fuel had been released from the bottom of a tank. Crews continue Sand Island-area jet fuel cleanup, expand to off-site contamination Information gathered by EPA inspectors and the 2015 release revealed non-compliance with the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) Rule, a regulation under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, according to the EPA. “It is paramount that facilities properly prepare and implement a Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure Plan to prevent discharges of oil to Hawaii’s waterways. Companies that do not comply can face significant penalties.” HFFC and SFSC must take the following actions under the terms of the settlement:
- Install a double bottom tank floor on all remaining single bottom tanks by December 31, 2028.
- Conduct more frequent physical tank inspections until all tanks are retrofitted with a double bottom.
- Implement additional monitoring to detect leaks.
- Install an impervious liner within three years, or alternatively, implement an improved sub-surface slurry wall and revise the facility’s SPCC plan within 90 days of installation.
- Pay a civil penalty of $150,000.
U.S. Oil Exports Surged in 2020, Imperiling Climate - The United States became a net oil exporter in 2020 — marking the first time in the 70 years the government has tracked the trade in petroleum that America shipped more oil abroad than it imported. This sea change,highlighted this week by the Department of Energy, marks America’s emergence as a petroleum superpower at just the moment when new leadership in the White House is attempting to convince the world to transition away from fossil fuels to curb runaway global warming.For decades, America’s car-centric culture was powered by foreign oil, including imports from the volatile Middle East, as well as countries like Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela. Accordingly our foreign policy — including two wars with Iraq and an unwavering devotion to Saudi Arabia — was driven by the imperative to secure the steady crude flow of crude. In 2005, American net oil imports peaked at 12.5 million barrels a day. But with the advent of fracking, unlocking massive domestic petroleum reserves in shale deposits in places like West Texas and North Dakota, America’s net imports of oil have been in sharp decline. As a matter of national security, U.S. crude oil exports had been blocked since the oil shocks of 1970s. But that changed in 2015 when a Republican-led congress passed, and President Barrack Obama signed, an omnibus spending bill with a provision that let oil giants — much to their collective delight — begin shipping American oil abroad again. At the time, the U.S. was still importing, on net, more than 4 million barrels a day. But by last year, exports slightly overtook imports, by about 650,000 barrels a day. (See the data here.)The Biden White House has put tackling climate change near the top of its priorities, rejoining the Paris climate accord, hosting a Climate Summit in April and staking out 50 percent emissions reduction for the United States by 2030, measured against a 2005 baseline. And even as the president and his team seek to reestablish American climate leadership, the surge in U.S. oil exports underscores how challenging fighting global warming in a globalized economy will be. If American consumers finally begin to tame our fossil fuel gluttony, only to have American companies flooding the global market with cheap, fracked-in-the-USA crude — delaying a transition from fossil fuels abroad — is that truly progress?
Keystone XL Pipeline Project Is Canceled - NYTimes --The Canadian pipeline company that had long sought to build the Keystone XL pipeline announced Wednesday that it had terminated the embattled project, which would have carried petroleum from Canadian tar sands to Nebraska.The announcement was the death knell for a project that had been on life support since President Biden’s first day in office and had been stalled by legal battles for years before that, despite support from the Trump administration.On the day he was inaugurated, Mr. Biden, who has vowed to make tackling climate change a centerpiece of his administration,rescinded the construction permit for the pipeline, which developers had sought to build for over a decade. That same day, TC Energy, the company behind the project, said it was suspending work on the line.On Wednesday, the company wrote in a statement that it “will continue to coordinate with regulators, stakeholders and Indigenous groups to meet its environmental and regulatory commitments and ensure a safe termination of and exit from the project.”Environmental activists cheered the move and used the moment to urge Mr. Biden to rescind the Trump-era permits granted to another pipeline, the Enbridge Line 3, which would carry Canadian oil across Minnesota. Hundreds of protesters were arrested earlier this week in protests against that project.“The termination of this zombie pipeline sets precedent for President Biden and polluters to stop Line 3, Dakota Access, and all fossil fuel projects,” said Kendall Mackey, a campaign manager with 350.org, a climate advocacy group. “This victory puts polluters and their financiers on notice: Terminate your fossil fuel projects now — or a relentless mass movement will stop them for you.”On Capitol Hill, Republicans slammed Mr. Biden. “President Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline and with it, thousands of good-paying American jobs,” said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy committee. “On Inauguration Day, the president signed an executive order that ended pipeline construction and handed one thousand workers pink slips. Now, ten times that number of jobs will never be created. At a time when gasoline prices are spiking, the White House is celebrating the death of a pipeline that would have helped bring Americans relief.”The 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of petroleum from Canada to the Gulf Coast, had become a lightning rod in broader political battles over energy, the environment and climate change.
Keystone XL Developer Abandons Pipeline Project by Jerri-Lynn Scofield - TheCanadian developer of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, TC Energy and the government of the province of Alberta, has abandoned the project, which would have transported 800,000 barrels of petroleum per day from Canadian tar sands to Nebraska, and then onward through existing pipelines to to the Gulf Coast.Cancellation was expected after Biden on his first day in office revoked a construction permit for the pipeline. As the New York Times reported in The Keystone XL pipeline project has been terminated.:On the day he was inaugurated, Mr. Biden, who has vowed to make tackling climate change a centerpiece of his administration, rescinded the construction permit for the pipeline, which developers had sought to build for over a decade. That same day, TC Energy, the company behind the project, said it was suspending work on the line.On Wednesday, the company wrote in a statement that it “will continue to coordinate with regulators, stakeholders and Indigenous groups to meet its environmental and regulatory commitments and ensure a safe termination of and exit from the project.”Keystone XL would have expanded the original Keystone pipeline. Planning for the extension commenced at a time when oil market conditions were very different from those that prevail today. According to the WSJ in What Is the Keystone XL Pipeline and Why Did President Biden Issue an Executive Order to Block It?:The expansion was originally conceived when oil prices were at historic highs—just before the 2008 financial crisis and American shale oil boom—as an artery that would pump 500,000 barrels of Canadian crude more than 1,700 miles from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The line, which is now partially built but not operating, was eventually expected to transport 830,000 barrels of oil 1,210 miles from the Canadian oil sands to Steele City, Neb., where it would link to existing pipelines heading to Gulf Coast refineries. Solid opposition and protest from environmental groups has in recent years hindered construction of pipelines. In 2015, Trump’s predecessor declined to approve a construction permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. Trump made good on campaign promises to support the Keystone XL project and other fossil fuel pipelines, via executive orders and other policies, as I discussed inTrump Approves Keystone XL Pipeline, Making Good on Campaign Promise:
North Dakota industry leaders react to sponsor of Keystone pipeline terminating project - The Keystone XL pipeline was effectively shut down when President Joe Biden revoked the permit on his first day in office, but now the sponsor of the project, TC Energy, seems to have nailed the coffin shut by stepping away. Industry leaders worry the announcement may cost North Dakota. “It certainly just adds a cloud to all new pipeline projects, and certainly any international crossings between the US and Canada,” said Justin Kringstad, director of North Dakota Pipeline Authority. The Keystone XL pipeline was set to transport roughly 800,000 barrels of heavy crude oil a day through Canada to Nebraska but was not scheduled to pass through North Dakota. While industry leaders say they aren’t losing existing transportation capacity or planned capacity but say development in the future could be limited. “Your companies are going to lose that incentive or desire to invest or plan these projects just because they become so difficult to complete,” said Kristen Hamman, director of regulatory and public affairs for the North Dakota Petroleum Council. The other concern for industry leaders is what this means for the Dakota Access Pipeline. DAPL is still operating while the Army Corps of Engineers conduct an environmental review. Industry leaders say DAPL puts North Dakota in a good position, but in the long-term they may have to look to other options and rely more heavily on rail.
De Beers fine could exceed £100k for oil spill breaching environmental protection act -- Global diamond mining company De Beers is facing a fine of at least CDN$100,000 (£58,000) for an oil spill that took place at its Snap Lake mine in Canada in 2017. The fine is under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and could total as much as CDN$200,000 (£116,000), depending on the outcome of a court hearing in Canada. Canada’s Cabin Radio reported that the case is the first instance of a company being charged under the act which was brought in late last year. De Beers published a spill report in December 2017 but initially underestimated the volume of the spillage, Cabin Radio revealed. While their initial report put the spillage at around 500 litres of diesel, the cleanup process put the number at almost 12 times that amount. The company will next appear in court in September.
Keystone XL is dead, but oil sands are waking up -- Friday, June 11, 2021 ---Climate activists celebrating the death of the Keystone XL pipeline might be in for a disappointment. While the high-profile project is not moving forward, the outlook for Canadian oil sands production is improving. Output of crude bitumen surged to record levels in December. Production has since tapered off slightly, but energy forecasters expect oil sands to scale new heights in 2021 and 2022. At the same time, two other pipeline projects with the potential to ship nearly 1 million barrels a day of oil are moving forward. The result is a split screen. Climate activists are celebrating a major political victory on one side, and companies are gradually scaling up production of Alberta's emissions-intensive brand of oil are on the other. "Keystone is almost larger than life, and I don't think it's fair to say that level of attention or political heat and light can be sustained on enough projects to meaningfully move the needle on climate change," said Andrew Leach, an environmental economist who tracks the oil sands at the University of Alberta. The dynamic illustrates the pipeline's complex legacy. On the one hand, opposition to the pipeline and the type of oil it would ship reflects the growing climate consciousness of investors, governments and even oil companies. Majors like Royal Dutch Shell PLC, TotalEnergies SE and Equinor ASA have all divested their oil sands assets in recent years, partially to green their production portfolios and partially in an attempt to demonstrate a new commitment to financial discipline. The latter represents a response to investors' growing calls for capital discipline, which has pushed companies away from expensive ventures like the oil sands, and toward less capital-intensive projects in America's shale basins. But the oil sands are hardly dead. While the COVID-19 pandemic pummeled Canadian companies and drove capital expenditures on oil sands development to their lowest level since 2005, production has risen steadily since May of 2020. Balance sheets are improving. Shares in Suncor Energy Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., two of the largest oil sands producers, have doubled since October. Two other pipeline projects, meanwhile, still hold the potential to carry more oil sands crude to market, though both face opposition. Construction began last year on the Trans Mountain pipeline, which would carry an additional 535,000 barrels a day from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia. Upgrades to Enbridge Inc.'s Line 3 would add another 390,000 barrels a day of capacity to a pipeline terminating in the U.S. Midwest. TPH estimates oil sands production will hit a record 3.2 million barrels a day this year, and rise to 3.25 million barrels a day in 2022. When Canadian regulators modeled the country's evolving energy future last year, they concluded that oil sands production will peak in 2039.
Biden Admin Official Calls Nord Stream 2 Done Deal-- Secretary of State Antony Blinken called completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany a “fait accompli” and said the U.S. is now working with Germany to limit how dependent Europe’s energy system will be on Russia after it is finished. “The physical completion of the pipeline was, I think, a fait accompli,” Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday, saying that about 90% of the pipeline was completed during the Trump administration. “I think we have an opportunity to make something positive out of a bad hand that we inherited when we came into office.” Blinken said that sanctioning the chief executive officer of the project’s parent company, as opponents of the pipeline urged, would have led to a deterioration in U.S.-German relations. Now, he said, Germany has “come to the table” to try to prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from using the pipeline to threaten Europe’s energy security. Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the committee’s top Republican, said in a tweet as Blinken testified that “it’s unacceptable that our strategic partner #Ukraine found out about the shameful decision to waive critical #NordStream2 sanctions through the press & not the Biden Admin directly.” He said President Joe Biden should use “the mandatory authorities Congress provided to stop the pipeline” and that Biden should meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy before his coming summit with Putin because allowing the pipeline to become operational “will render Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian aggression.” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, announced that the president had spoken with Zelenskiy on Monday and invited him to visit the White House this summer. Biden assured Zelenskiy during the call that in his meeting with Putin, “he will stand up firmly for Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and aspirations.” More than 60 House Republicans sent a letter to Biden on Monday saying that completion of Nord Stream 2 “will be a gift to Putin and his efforts to increase geopolitical influence in Europe.” “Waiving sanctions for Nord Stream 2 ‘because it’s almost completely finished’ is the wrong message to our allies and partners and undermines our credibility and global leadership,” they said.
North Sea Oil Floating Off Europe Could Signal Weak Asian Demand -Around 6 million barrels of crude of North Sea’s key grades have been kept in tankers offshore Europe for up to three weeks, which could be a sign that demand in the world’s top oil importing region, Asia, could be softer than the paper market suggests, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing ship tracking data it had compiled. Five oil tankers with 6 million barrels of North Sea crude are sitting off the shores of Europe, including two supertankers chartered by the world’s largest independent crude oil trader, Vitol Group, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg. Considering that the current crude oil futures structure is in backwardation, the state where the prices of the nearer futures contracts are higher than those further out in time, this sure isn’t an incentive for traders to keep oil in floating storage. Therefore, Bloomberg notes, the possible reason for tankers sitting loaded with North Sea crude off Europe could be a sign of weaker demand from Asia. Independent Chinese refiners, the so-called “teapots” and typically eager buyers of the Forties crude grade, have scaled down purchases in recent weeks, waiting for the government to issue its second batch of allowed crude oil import quotas for this year, according to Bloomberg. Another reason for potentially weaker demand for North Sea crude in Asia could be the low refining margins in the region amid a fuel glut, as the COVID resurgence have resulted in restrictions not only in India, but also in Malaysia. Rallying oil prices could also be a reason for price-sensitive buyers to stay away from purchases. In March this year, traders and market sources told Bloomberg that the rising premium of North Sea’s benchmark Brent over Dubai crude was making shipment of Brent-linked oil to Asia more expensive and likely to reduce in the coming months.
Sri Lanka sued over ship disaster as oil spill looms - Environmentalists yesterday sued the Sri Lankan government and operators of a container ship loaded with chemicals and plastic that burned offshore for almost two weeks, as international experts prepared to deal with a possible oil spill. The private Centre for Environment Justice (CEJ) petitioned the Supreme Court alleging that local authorities should have been able to prevent what they called the ''worst marine disaster” in Sri Lanka’s history. The Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl has been slowly sinking into the Indian Ocean since Wednesday after a fire that raged for 13 days within sight of the coast. Tonnes of microplastic granules from the ship have swamped an 80-km stretch of beach which has been declared off limits for residents. Fishing in the area was also banned. The CEJ said government inaction was ''against the concepts and principles of environmental law”. A hearing is yet to be fixed. It said the crew knew of an acid leak on May 11, long before entering Sri Lankan waters, and local authorities should not have allowed the vessel in. The legal challenge seeking unspecified damages came as foreign experts were deployed to help Sri Lanka contain a potential oil leak from the burnt-out wreckage. Representatives from the International Tankers Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF) and Oil Spill Response (OSR) were onshore monitoring the ship, the operators of the vessel, X-Press Feeders, said. ''They continue to co-ordinate with MEPA (the Marine Environment Protection Authority) and the Sri Lankan navy on an established plan to deal with any possible spill of oil and other pollutants,” the Singaporean company said. Choppy seas and poor visibility prevented navy divers from checking the hull for a second day Friday, Sri Lanka navy spokesperson Indika de Silva told AFP. He said a team reached the sinking vessel and made a cursory inspection on Thursday, but could not carry out their mission because of poor visibility.
Data recovered as a ship sunk by chemicals off the coast of Sri Lanka. (AP)-Experts have recovered a data recorder for a ship carrying fire-damaged chemicals. Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl began to sink on Wednesday, the day after authorities extinguished the burning fire on board for 12 days. Attempts to tow the ship into the deep sea away from Colombo’s port failed after the stern was submerged and sank to the seabed. The Sri Lankan Port Authority said on Saturday that experts with the Navy had recovered the ship’s voyage data recorder (VDR, commonly known as a black box). Authorities said on their website that the VDR, which contains important information related to the operation of the vessel, will be handed over to local law enforcement agencies investigating the fire. Both authorities and ship operators say that the rear of the ship remains on the seabed at a depth of about 21 meters (70 feet), and the front continues to sink slowly. Operator X-Press Feeders said rescuers remained on the scene to address the potential spill. We apologize for the disaster. Port officials and operators said there were no signs of oil or chemical spills. They said the Sri Lankan Navy, Indian Coast Guard, rescue teams and local governments were able to respond to signs of oil pollution and debris and are monitoring the situation 24 hours a day. The fire destroyed most of the ship’s cargo, which contained 25 tons of nitric acid and other chemicals. However, chemicals left over from the fuel tank and hundreds of tons of oil can leak into the sea. Such disasters can devastate marine life and further pollute the island’s famous beaches. The disaster has already washed away debris containing tons of plastic pellets used to make plastic bags to the shore. The government has banned fishing on the coastline for about 80 kilometers (50 miles). According to officials, the ship is loaded with about 300 tonnes of oil, and experts believe it may have burned out in a fire. The Associated Press’s inventory of ships explains that X-Press Pearls carry just under 1,500 containers, 81 of which are described as “dangerous goods.” Environmentalists warn that dangerous goods, plastics, chemicals and oil can be released into the water and destroy marine ecosystems, which could be a “terrible environmental disaster.”
Sri Lanka still waiting for compensation over last year’s oil slick from MT New Diamond - Sri Lanka is yet to receive compensation amounting to over Rs 3.7 billion owed due to environmental damage caused by an oil slick that occurred due to the fire aboard the container vessel MT New Diamond, which caught fire off the Eastern coast of Sri Lanka in September last year. A final report on a technical assessment regarding the environmental damage caused by the disaster was handed over to the local insurer of MT New Diamond’s shipping company in April. The exhaustive report compiled by a team of experts took four months to complete and the damage was calculated at USD 19 million (Over Rs 3.76 billion), Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) Chairperson Dharshani Lahandapura told the Sunday Times. The insurer has told MEPA that it needs time to study the report, Ms Lahandapura noted, adding that they were hopeful of a positive response soon. The Greek owners of the Panama flagged New Diamond was given a bill of Rs 442 million in costs incurred by various Government agencies when fighting the fire aboard the vessel. Legal action was also instituted against the ship’s captain after investigators found that his actions contributed to the incident. He was fined Rs 12 million after pleading guilty to the charges. The vessel was allowed to leave Sri Lankan waters only after both the Rs 442 million damage costs and the Rs 12 million fine were deposited, authorities stressed.
Container ship fire produces ecological catastrophe in Sri Lanka - In the second major container ship accident in Sri Lankan waters in the past year, the X-Press Pearl, which was awaiting entry to Colombo port, caught fire on May 20 after a chemical leak. All attempts to douse the fire failed and the ship sank about 10 nautical miles off the west coast of Sri Lanka, creating major problems for the environment, fisheries and the health of coastal communities. Fire damaged X-Press Pearl just before it sank (Credit: Sri Lankan Air Force) Last September, a super tanker—the MV Diamond—caught fire off Sri Lanka’s southeast coast. The blaze raged for days, discharging contaminated water and oil into the sea, before the ship was towed away. The two incidents demonstrate major safety failures in the global shipping industry and the criminal disregard of the corporations that dominate it, and national governments, for people’s lives and the marine environment. According to reports, the crew of X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-flagged ship, discovered nitric acid leaking from a container while the vessel was still in the Arabian Sea. They sought permission from Hamad Port in Qatar and Hariza Port in India to offload the problematic container. Both ports rejected the request, saying they lacked the capacity to handle the problem. The ship’s captain, now in Sri Lankan police custody, claims that Colombo port authorities were informed about the leaking container. Colombo Harbour Master Nirmal Silva said he did not receive any such information, until after the vessel caught fire. The leaking container had within it 25 tons of nitric acid and other flammable material. It is apparent that the port authorities and the Sri Lankan government were either unable to assess the risk on board or recklessly underestimated it. Port authorities and the Sri Lankan Navy spent two days trying to douse the fire with sea water and chemical powder during which 23 X-Press Pearl crew members, including two suffering injuries, were rescued. It was clear from the beginning, however, that Sri Lankan authorities had no capacity to deal with the disaster and international assistance took days to arrive. Several containers of small plastic pellets, called nurdles, broke open during the fire, spilling tons of nurdles into the sea and washing up along five kilometres of beaches and tidal areas along the country’s western coast. Thousands of dead fish, disfigured turtle and seabird carcases have been washed ashore, some with visible acid burn marks and nurdles in their respiratory and digestive tracts. The ship, which had over 1,400 containers on board, has now sunk, along with more than 6,000 tons of nurdles, 500 tons of fuel and lubricant and 6,000 tons of miscellaneous cargo. While photographs show murky plumes leaking from the sinking vessel, it is impossible to determine the exact chemical composition without thoroughgoing analysis.
International oil spill response team on standby in Sri Lanka - An international oil spill response team is remaining on standby in Sri Lanka in the event of an oil spill from the ship, MV X-Press Pearl. Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) said that it has been mobilised in Sri Lanka in response to the incident relating to the container ship, the MV X-Press Pearl. Meanwhile, the Voyage Data Recorder of the ship has been recovered by the Navy. The vessel is currently 10km offshore, approximately 12 km north of the capital city, Colombo. OSRL said that it is working closely with the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Ltd (ITOPF), and a team of response specialists. ITOPF has been mobilised to Sri Lanka to provide technical advice on the loss of chemicals, plastics and other cargo from the containership X-Press Pear. X-Press Pearl caught fire on Thursday 20th May whilst at Colombo anchorage, Sri Lanka, approximately 10km offshore. The vessel had travelled from the port of Hazira, India and was carrying 1,486 containers, including dangerous goods (nitric acid, methanol, sodium hydroxide and other chemicals) and nurdles (small plastic pellets). It is understood that approximately 320 m2 of low sulphur heavy fuel oil was also on board as bunkers. Despite the best efforts of salvors supported by the Sri Lankan Navy and Indian Coast Guard, attempts to control the fire were unsuccessful. All crew members were evacuated from the vessel. As the fire took hold and spread, the container stacks collapsed and multiple containers, as well as burning liquids and debris, had fallen overboard. Four containers had washed ashore, and many more had sunk. As at 2nd June, an estimated 150 km of shoreline is reported to have been impacted to varying degrees by assorted debris from the vessel.
Rig Remains Submerged After Incident - The Naga 7 rig remains submerged off the coast of Sarawak after an incident that took place on May 3, Velesto Energy revealed in its latest quarterly report, which was published last week. In the report, the company noted that the incident area was secured while the group works with insurance underwriters and the Protection & Indemnity (P&I) Club on “the way forward”. Velesto Energy said the rig and other related liabilities are adequately covered under the Hull & Machinery (H&M) insurance and the P&I Club, respectively. Progressing on the insurance claims, on May 31, Velesto Drilling Sdn. Bhd, as the insured under the H&M policy, issued a notice of abandonment of the submerged rig to the H&M insurers, pursuant to the H&M policy, Velesto Energy outlined. The company said it was currently awaiting its response. Velesto Energy did not immediately respond to an email from Rigzone asking when it expected to receive a response. In its latest quarterly report, Velesto Energy confirmed that the incident involving the Naga 7 rig occurred due to the penetration of one of its legs into a soil formation while jacking up at the Salam-3 well off the coast of Sarawak for ConocoPhillips Sarawak. The rig is said to have tilted and subsequently submerged at the location on May 4. All 101 personnel on board were safely transferred to shore and all the relevant authorities were duly informed, Velesto Energy confirmed. In its annual report posted on May 28, Velesto Energy highlighted that the Naga 7 incident location was being monitored for security and any potential adverse impact. The company’s president, Rohaizad Darus, referenced the incident in the annual filing. “While I am proud of the achievements in 2020, I wish to reference the unfortunate incident involving Naga 7 on 3 May 2021 causing the rig to be fully submerged,” he stated in the report. “We believe our HSE drills and preparation have contributed to the safety of our crew … The group is investigating the incident and evaluating recovery options,” he added.
Shocking ship collision in China produced a huge oil spill in the Yellow Sea - A tanker that transported around one million barrels of bitumen mixture collided with another boat while traversing a thick fog upon arriving at Qingdao port, in China. The incident led to a massive oil spill in the Yellow Sea, Chinese maritime officials and representatives of the vessels involved confirmed. The ship crash involving the tanker A Symphony with the Liberian flag and the bulk carrier Sea Justice occurred at 08.50. “The force of the impact on the forward port side caused a breach in the cargo tanks and ballast tanks, with an amount of oil being lost to the ocean,” said A Symphony executive Goodwood Ship Management, adding that the entire crew was counted and there were no injuries. // The story behind the man who saved 412 people on the bridge that holds the world record for suicides The extent of the spill was unclear so far, as operations to contain it were hampered by fog. “The oil spill occurred after a collision between two vessels,” said an official with China’s Shandong Maritime Security Administration, on condition of anonymity, confirming that no one was injured. “The dense fog, which has hampered navigation off the coast of Qingdao since yesterday, it caused low visibility at the time of the collision, “Goodwood said. In turn, he maintained that emergency procedures were put in place on board the vessel to limit any spill and the vessel’s oil spill response team was mobilized.
China Ban on Aussie LNG Should Have Limited Impact - Beijing in May verbally ordered several of its smaller liquefied natural gas (LNG) importers to no longer buy the super-cooled fuel from Australia for at least the rest of the year. The unofficial ban only extends to so-called second-tier LNG importers, not the country’s three state run oil and gas majors that account for nearly 90% of China’s LNG imports, according to a Bloomberg news report. These secondary buyers make up the remaining 10% of China’s LNG procurement and include both state-run and private companies that usually import cargoes utilizing terminals owned and operated by China’s three majors, or PipeChina. China’s unofficial LNG ban came just a week after the National Development and Reform Commission, its top economic planning agency, suspended all activities under the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue. Beijing’s decision to pull out of the forum appears to be a tit-for-tat response to Canberra’s decision in April to end infrastructure agreements between the state government in Victoria and Beijing. These developments come amid a more than year-long diplomatic stand-off between the two sides that has seen Beijing increasingly target numerous Aussie imports, with both official and unofficial bans, including coal, barley, copper, wine, lobster, several meat products, and timber. Beijing initiated the import bans last year after Canberra’s insistence that a formal investigation be launched over the origins of the coronavirus, an implication that still angers Beijing. Until earlier this month, most analysts thought that Aussie LNG imports would remain untouched – and with good reason. Australian producers make up as much as 40% of China’s LNG imports, with the remainder of that supply divided between Qatar, the U.S., Russia, Malaysia, and others, according to China’s General Administration of Customs. In addition, China is in the midst of a major LNG infrastructure build-out that will help propel it to the top global LNG importer slot ahead of Japan as early as next year. Beijing also mandated that gas make up at least 10% of the country’s energy mix by 2020, 15% by 2030, with further earmarks after that. In light of its recent net-zero carbon emissions 2060 goal, gas as a percentage of its energy mix could increase even more. Moreover, it’s unlikely China will directly target Aussie LNG any further since it would involve violating long-term offtake agreements. To do so on a large scale would be unprecedented in global LNG markets, while also forcing Chinese buyers to scramble to replace that supply – at least over the mid-term.
IEA Says Oil Demand to Hit Pre-Virus Level in 2022- -- Global oil demand will recover to pre-pandemic levels late next year, the International Energy Agency predicted, urging OPEC and its allies to keep markets balanced by tapping their plentiful spare production capacity. World consumption will once again reach 100 million barrels a day in the second half of 2022 as developed economies bring the virus under control, the agency said, in its first detailed outlook for the year ahead. At some point before the end of the year, demand will surpass pre-Covid levels, it said. The forecast counters speculation that oil use -- and the resulting planet-warming emissions -- may have already peaked as a result of social changes in the wake of the pandemic. The IEA itself sees consumption reaching a plateau in the 2030s, but hasn’t predicted a peak in demand. Oil prices have rebounded to a two-year high above $70 a barrel as motorists take to the roads and economic activity picks up with the easing of lockdowns. The report -- which paints a slightly more bullish picture than the agency’s last outlook -- underscores that the market’s next move is in the hands of Russia and Saudi Arabia. The Paris-based IEA made a direct plea to the OPEC+ alliance, which is led by those two countries, to continue restoring the output it cut when demand collapsed last year. “OPEC+ needs to open the taps to keep the world oil markets adequately supplied,” said the agency, which advises most major economies. Satisfying demand growth is “unlikely to be a problem” if the 23-nation coalition acts because only a fifth of its spare capacity is needed to keep the market in balance, it said. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol has warned of a further price surge if extra supplies aren’t forthcoming. However, Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has said he’ll wait until consumption is tangible before responding. Goal Achieved The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners have already achieved their primary market goal, having cleared the enormous inventory glut that amassed during the pandemic, the report showed. The group’s next step ought to be straightforward, according to the IEA. OPEC+ will need to add about 1.4 million barrels a day -- or less if fellow member Iran clinches a deal to remove U.S. sanctions -- leaving it with another 5.5 million a day off-line, according to IEA estimates. Bloomberg calculations suggest the buffer isn’t quite as generous. Tehran could add 1.4 million barrels of exports if it concludes a nuclear agreement with Washington that removes U.S. barriers on its oil trade, the IEA estimates -- equivalent to the amount the entire OPEC+ coalition needs to add. The group will meet on July 1 to consider its next move.
Oil prices retreat as investors await Iran nuclear talks this week (Reuters) -Oil pulled back after hitting fresh multi-year highs on Monday, as investors awaited the outcome of this week's talks between Iran and world powers over a nuclear deal that is expected to boost crude supplies. Brent crude futures for August fell 38 cents, or 0.5%, to $71.51 a barrel by 0519 GMT, after earlier hitting $72.27, their highest since May 2019. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for July touched $70 for the first time since October 2018 but reversed course to be at $69.32 a barrel, down 30 cents, or 0.4%. Investors may have sold off some contracts to take profit when WTI hit $70, "The primary concern is about Iranian barrels coming back into the market but I don't think there will be a deal before the Iranian presidential election," Data showing a 14.6% year-on-year drop in China's crude oil imports in May also weighed on prices. Both contracts have risen for the past two weeks as fuel demand is rebounding in the United States and Europe after governments loosened COVID-19 restrictions ahead of summer travel. Global oil demand is expected to exceed supplies in the second half despite a gradual easing of supply cuts by OPEC+ producers, analysts say. A slowdown in talks between Iran and global powers in reviving a 2015 nuclear deal and a drop in U.S. rig count also supported oil prices. Iran and global powers will enter a fifth round of talks on June 10 in Vienna that could include Washington lifting economic sanctions on Iranian oil exports. While the European Union envoy coordinating the negotiations had said he believed a deal would be struck at this week's talks, other senior diplomats have said the most difficult decisions still lie ahead. Analysts expect Iran, which is having its presidential election on June 18, to increase its production by 500,000 to 1 million barrels per day once sanctions are lifted. In the United States, the number of oil and natural gas rigs operating fell for the first time in six weeks as growth in drilling slowed. This "suggests that U.S. oil drillers are less enthusiastic in adding more U.S. oil production and hence reduces the risk of a supply glut in the global oil market in H2 2021,"
Oil futures pulled back from two-year highs on Monday - Oil futures pulled back from two-year highs on Monday, pressured by the prospect of higher Iranian exports and lower Chinese demand. However, increased demand expectations for both Europe and the U.S. placed a floor under the market, as these locations commence the reopening process after COVID-19 lockdowns. While the demand side continues to drive this market, the Chinese trade data cooled things off a bit. July WTI slipped 39 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $69.23 a barrel, while August Brent lost 40 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $71.49 a barrel. July RBOB fell 1.84 cents, or 0.83%, to settle at $2.1931 a gallon, the largest one day dollar and percentage decline since Thursday, May 20, 2021 and the end to a four session winning streak. July heating oil shed 0.2%, to nearly $2.12 a gallon. Technical Analysis: WTI retreated from the psychological resistance level of $70, putting a temporary stop on the uptrend of this market. OPEC's Secretary General, Mohammad Barkindo, said OPEC and its allies expect oil inventories to fall further in the coming months, suggesting efforts by the producers to support the market are succeeding. He said oil stocks in the developed world nations fell by 6.9 million barrels in April, 160 million barrels lower than the same time one year ago. He said OPEC+ compliance was 114% in April. According to BP’s Chief Executive Officer, Bernard Looney, the company sees a strong recovery in global crude demand and expects it to last for some time, with U.S. shale production being kept in check. Bank of America analysts said refining margins are expected to increase as oil demand recovers but added that abundant processing capacity will continue to weigh on the market, with more than 3 million bpd of planned additions during 2021-22. They stated that while they are bullish on refined product cracks from here, the upside is seen limited.
WTI crude closes above $70 for the first time since Oct. 2018 --Oil broke through a months-long trading range as expectations of tightening supplies in the U.S. compounded signs the world’s largest oil-consuming country is in the midst of a robust recovery. West Texas Intermediate futures surpassed the $70 mark to close at its highest since Oct. 2018 after briefly touching the key psychological level earlier this week. Investors focused on the health of the U.S. market ahead of inventory data on Wednesday. Confidence in the outlook for oil demand continues to grow as accelerating vaccinations allow people to travel more. The Middle Eastern Dubai benchmark is trading in its steepest backwardation -- a market structure that indicates supply tightness -- in almost a year after the region’s physical market had a strong start to the month. “We’re looking for a pretty sizable drawdown in U.S. crude oil inventories, while the demand thesis keeps improving,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC. “This atmosphere remains bullish, as we’re heading into a structural deficit in terms of supply versus demand.” Crude’s advance from 2020’s collapse has stalled a handful of times this year, but prices have usually returned to an upward track as overall global demand keeps improving. The Covid-19 comeback in part of Asia and Latin America, however, is a reminder that the rebound will be bumpy. WTI for July delivery gained 82 cents to $70.05 a barrel in New York. Brent for August settlement rose 80 cents to $72.29 a barrel at 2:51 p.m. in New York. WTI’s discount against Brent is on the move again after surging to the narrowest since November last month. With the narrowness in the spread persisting, U.S. exports may see a dip as WTI loses competitiveness.
Light Crude Settles Above $70 a Barrel-- Oil broke through a months-long trading range as expectations of tightening supplies in the U.S. compounded signs the world’s largest oil-consuming country is in the midst of a robust recovery. West Texas Intermediate futures surpassed the $70 mark to close at its highest since Oct. 2018 after briefly touching the key psychological level earlier this week. Investors focused on the health of the U.S. market ahead of inventory data on Wednesday. Confidence in the outlook for oil demand continues to grow as accelerating vaccinations allow people to travel more. The Middle Eastern Dubai benchmark is trading in its steepest backwardation -- a market structure that indicates supply tightness -- in almost a year after the region’s physical market had a strong start to the month. “There’s all sorts of technical models that work off closing prices,” “Any time you have a close above a number divisible by 5, it tends to be pretty significant” i Crude’s advance from 2020’s collapse has stalled a handful of times this year, but prices have usually returned to an upward track as overall global demand keeps improving. The Covid-19 comeback in part of Asia and Latin America, however, is a reminder that the rebound will be bumpy. “We’re looking for a pretty sizable drawdown in U.S. crude oil inventories, while the demand thesis keeps improving,” “This atmosphere remains bullish, as we’re heading into a structural deficit in terms of supply versus demand.” WTI for July delivery gained 82 cents to settle at $70.05 a barrel in New York. Brent for August settlement rose 73 cents to end the session at $72.22 a barrel. WTI’s discount against Brent is on the move again after surging to the narrowest since November last month. With the narrowness in the spread persisting, U.S. exports may see a dip as WTI loses competitiveness.
Oil Climbs As Blinken Says "Hundreds Of Sanctions" On Iran To Remain After earlier this week US Secretary of State Antony Blinken somewhat pessimistically portrayed that it remains "unclear" whether Iran is actually willing to restore the nuclear deal, prompting angry words from Foreign Minister Javad Zarif who again pointed out that it's only Washington not in compliance due to Trump-era sanctions which the Biden White House refused to "bury" in order to make a renewed deal possible, Blinken's newest statements are pouring more cold water on all the recent speculation that prematurely hailed a Vienna agreement as imminent. During a Tuesday hearing before a US Senate committee the US top diplomat was asked about his assessment of progress at Vienna, to which he frankly replied that hundreds of sanctions targeting Iran are likely to remain in place even if Iran and the United States return to compliance. "He said he would anticipate some sanctions would remain in place, including ones imposed by the Trump administration," according to his words in RFE/RL."If they are not inconsistent with the JCPOA, they will remain unless and until Iran's behavior changes," Blinken testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee.Lately the more enthusiastic and optimistic accounts of how things are going in Vienna have tended to come only from the Iranian side, as well as in some instances Russia. For example Iranian chief negotiator Abbas Araqchi indicated last week that this current round of talks could be "conclusive" and lead to a final agreement. Yet at the same time State Department spokesman Ned Price had said, "There are some hurdles that remain that we haven't been able to overcome in those five rounds." At sixth round is expected to start Thursday.Upon Blinken's Tuesday comments, and with the Iran deal now looking more elusive, oil prices have continued to climb this week, after at the start of the month US crude futures had reached their highest in over two-and-a-half years after the OPEC+ alliance forecast a tightening global market, coupled with the increasingly cautious statements out of US negotiators in Vienna over reaching a deal.
WTI Dips After Big Builds In Gasoline, Distillates Inventories- Oil prices are holding yesterday's gains this morning after US Secretary of State said that Iran will remain under significant sanctions, lowering traders' odds of a sudden rush of supply back into the markets, although we note thatLibya’s oil output is picking up again after a pipeline leak that caused a brief reduction was fixed."The widespread faith that oil demand growth will trend significantly higher in the second half of the year is paving the way forward for the price rally," PVM analysts said.For now, the next leg may depend on if US production can remain disciplined as stocks of crude continue to slide. API
- Crude -2.108mm (-3.5mm exp)
- Cushing -420k
- Gasoline +2.405mm
- Distillates +3.752mm
DOE
- Crude -5.241mm (-2.9mm exp)
- Cushing +165k
- Gasoline +7.046mm
- Distillates +4.412mm
Crude stocks fell more than expected last week but product inventories rose significantly... Overall crude stocks are now below their 5-year average...The four-week rolling average on gasoline demand ticked lower for the first time in four weeks. That’s not a great sign for a week that included the U.S. Memorial Day holiday.US crude production remains rather notably flat (rebounding from the prior week's maintenance drop) in the face of higher prices and rising rig counts...
Oil steadies amid weak summer kickoff for U.S. fuel demand -- Oil prices were steady on Wednesday after U.S. inventory data showed a surge in gasoline inventories due to weak fuel demand following U.S. Memorial Day weekend, traditionally the beginning of the peak summer driving season. Brent crude futures remained unchanged to settle at $72.22 a barrel, having earlier touched $72.83, their highest since May 20, 2019. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed 9 cents, or 0.1%, lower at $69.96 a barrel, after reaching $70.62, its highest since Oct. 17, 2018. Despite a 5 million-barrel draw in crude oil last week, stocks of gasoline and other fuels rose sharply due to weak demand, according to Energy Information Administration data for the week that included the long Memorial Day holiday weekend. Product supplied fell to 17.7 million barrels per day, versus 19.1 million the week before. Other analysts noted, however, that the poor weather up and down the U.S. East Coast may have reduced consumption, following a period of gasoline hoarding that artificially boosted demand during the Colonial Pipeline outage last month from a ransomware attack. On Tuesday, the EIA forecast U.S. fuel consumption would grow by 1.48 million bpd this year, up from a previous forecast of 1.39 million bpd. Oil rallied earlier in the session on signs of strong fuel demand in western economies, while the prospect of Iranian supplies returning faded after the U.S. Secretary of State said sanctions against Tehran were unlikely to be lifted. Investors had assumed that sanctions against Iranian exports would be lifted and oil supply would increase this year as Iran's talks with western powers on a nuclear deal progressed. However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that even if Iran and the United States returned to compliance with a nuclear deal, hundreds of U.S. sanctions on Tehran would remain in place.
Oil Prices Get Boost from Inflation Data -- Oil rose to the highest settle in over two years, drawing support from higher-than-forecast U.S. inflation data and a strong demand outlook. Futures in New York rebounded from a plunge of as much as 1.8% earlier on Thursday that followed reporting of U.S. removing sanctions on a former Iranian oil official. Crude found support with U.S. consumer prices in May topping forecasts, extending a months-long buildup in inflation that is seen helping spur more interest in alternative assets like commodities to find yield. At the same time, oil’s market structure strengthened amid recovering demand and signs global supplies may be less than expected. “The outlook for oil demand is staying strong and getting stronger,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC. Meanwhile, “there’s an inflation pulse rippling through the commodity sector, and crude oil is a big participant as a base hedge element against inflation.” Prices remain over 40% higher this year. Even as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries expects the global demand recovery to gather steam in the second half of the year, the spare capacity buffer of the group and its allies have is seen being less than 80% than what it is on paper. OilX analysts also flagged “several signs” in their data that oil supplies worldwide are surprising to the downside, reflecting a combination of mature field declines and maintenance that was delayed into this year. The U.S. announced it deleted sanctions on a number of people, including former managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company. “I would not read too much into Treasury’s action today to remove sanctions against an Iranian oil official,” said Hagar Chemali, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. “The fact that no statement was made in connection with this de-listing is Treasury’s way of saying there isn’t much there there.” West Texas Intermediate for July delivery rose 33 cents to settle at $70.29 a barrel, the highest since October 2018. Brent for August settlement rose 30 cents to $72.52 a barrel, the highest since May 2019.
Traders eye $100 oil as EIA sees inventory drop - Investors have set their sights on $100 a barrel for oil as the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecast a decline in global oil inventories in the second half of 2021 in its June Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). Traders have scooped up call options tied to Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude-oil prices reaching $100 by the end of next year. Oil prices haven’t topped that milestone since 2014, when a gush of US crude depressed energy markets. The EIA now sees Brent spot prices averaging $65.19 per barrel this year, which marks a notable rise from the $62.26 per barrel average forecasted in the organisation’s previous STEO released in May. Looking at 2022, the EIA now projects that Brent spot prices will average $60.49, which is a slight decrease compared to the $60.74 per barrel forecast made in its May STEO. The EIA highlighted in its June STEO that Brent crude spot prices averaged $68 in May, which it noted was $4 up from April. Brent prices were said to be higher in May as global oil inventories continued to decline. “In the coming months, we expect that global oil production will increase to match rising levels of global oil consumption,” the EIA said in its latest STEO. Owners of $100 options are making a leveraged bet that oil prices will hurtle higher after already surging more than 40 per cent this year. The roaring rally, on the back of easing worldwide pandemic restrictions, has lifted WTI prices to their highest level since 2018 at almost $70, according to oil market analysts. “In the coming months, we expect that global oil production will increase to match rising levels of global oil consumption,” the EIA said. Both contracts touched multi-year highs on June 4 before settling lower. The ICE Brent contract last settled higher at $71.97 on May 20, 2019, while the NYMEX light sweet crude contract was last higher at $69.49 on July 19, 2018, S&P Global Platts data showed. Prices regained their upward momentum as the EIA's STEO reinforced expectations of a demand-led recovery in the oil markets that would result in a drawdown of global oil inventories. "Brent crude has once again hit its two-year high, with sentiments potentially supported by the EIA's June forecasts which reinforces the narrative of declining global oil inventories and a continued recovery in global oil consumption demand," said Yeap Jun Rong, market strategist at IG, in a note. Global oil production is expected to match the rising levels of global oil consumption, with oil production increasing largely as a result of easing Opec+ production cuts, according to the STEO. "We expect rising production will end the persistent global oil inventory draws that have occurred for much of the past year and lead to relatively balanced global oil markets in the second half of 2021," the EIA said in the report.
Oil Rises Yet Again As Bullish Demand Sentiment Skyrockets - Demand recovery due to the global success of the Covid vaccines was yet again the reason for oil price gains on Friday and the commodity reaching new multi-year highs. The trigger for Friday's trading performance was the International Energy Agency in its monthly report stating that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies would need to boost output to meet demand by the end of 2022, as all indications were the world would recover to pre-pandemic levels far sooner than expected. The Paris-based agency stated, "OPEC+ needs to open the taps to keep the world oil markets adequately supplied," adding that "In 2022 there is scope for the 24-member OPEC+ group, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, to ramp up crude supply by 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) above its July 2021-March 2022 target." Also bolstering bullish sentiment was ANZ Research stating in a note that not only was road traffic returning to pre-Covid levels in North America and most of Europe, but "Even the jet fuel market is showing signs of improvement, with flights in Europe rising 17 percent over the past two weeks, according to Eurocontrol," Accordingly, Brent on Friday settled up 17 cents at $72.69 per barrel (for the week it was up 1 percent); West Texas Intermediate settled up 62 cents at $70.91 per barrel (it was up 1.9 percent on the week). Goldman Sachs contributed to the bullish mood on Friday by saying in a note, “Rising vaccination rates are leading to higher mobility in the U.S. and Europe, with global demand estimated up 1.5 million bpd in the last month to 96.5 million bpd." K Yet another sign of a robust market: five sources with knowledge of the matter told media on Friday that Saudi Arabia will supply full volumes of July-loading crude to its Asia customers. And while it may be inevitable that the world is headed towards clean energy generation, Norway's petroleum and energy minister on Friday presented the government a white paper outlining how the country will meet its energy needs and reach climate goals; but instead of following the IEA's insistence that new oil, gas and coal fields need to be scrapped, the paper held firm on fossil fuels, noting that it will "facilitate a future-oriented Norwegian oil and gas industry capable of delivering production with low emissions within the framework of our climate policy.” Ship & Bunker N
Oil Prices Post Gains for the Week -- Oil posted its third straight weekly rise on improving demand, with the International Energy Agency warning the market will need extra supply next year. Futures in New York rose 1.9% this week, extending its rally to the highest settle since October 2018. The IEA said that OPEC and its allies will need to lift output to keep the market adequately supplied, though the agency predicted demand won’t reach pre-virus levels until late 2022. Meanwhile, road traffic in the U.S. and much of Europe is largely back to levels seen before the pandemic. “With nothing budging on U.S. supply and OPEC+ keeping production restrained,” prices should continue to move higher.” Underlining the market’s strength, West Texas Intermediate’s nearest contract closed at its highest premium against the subsequent month since February. Firming in the so-called prompt spread reflects tightening supplies. While U.S. crude futures have held above the key $70-a-barrel level, traders are grappling with the prospects of Iranian supply returning to the market. Talks between the Persian Gulf nation and world powers about a 2015 nuclear deal are set to resume over the weekend. Meanwhile, there are also risks to the demand outlook in parts of Asia and Latin America as many nations continue to grapple with Covid-19 cases. Among the more prominent moves in the oil market this week, the discount of U.S. benchmark crude futures against its global counterpart rallied to the narrowest since November. That’s driven some buyers from abroad to start shying away from Permian crudes with the narrow arbitrage making West Texas oil cargoes less attractive. West Texas Intermediate for July delivery rose 62 cents to settle at $70.91 a barrel. Brent for August settlement advanced 17 cents to $72.69 a barrel, posting a 1.1% weekly gain. The IEA said OPEC+ will need to add about 1.4 million barrels a day -- less if Iran clinches a deal to remove U.S. sanctions. That would leave the group with another 5.5 million barrels a day of capacity offline, it said, though Bloomberg calculations suggest the buffer isn’t quite as high. Separately, gasoline cracks in New York fell to the lowest since March on Friday. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is weighing options to give relief to U.S. oil refiners from biofuel blending mandates, Reuters reported.
IEA Tells OPEC To “Open The Taps” - Oil prices climbed on Friday as the IEA boosted optimism about global oil demand recovery. The U.S. Department of the Treasury said on Thursday it is removing several Iranian officials from its list of designated persons, including three directors of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Oil prices declined on the news. In early trading Friday, oil was back up, on positive economic news in the U.S. and accelerating global vaccination campaigns, according to Rystad Energy. But the firm warned that there is going to be rising pressure on OPEC+ to loosen production constraints in order to avoid the oil market overheating. The IEA said that global oil demand will rebound past pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022. After declining by 8.6 mb/d in 2020, oil demand will rebound by 5.4 mb/d this year, and by another 3.1 mb/d next year. The agency reiterated that OPEC and its allies needed to “open the taps” to boost oil production and keep the world well supplied. Lordstown Motors, a SPAC aimed at manufacturing EV pickups out of an old GE plant in Ohio,disclosed that it does not have sufficient cash to start commercial production and issued a going concern warning through the end of the year. Lordstown was one of several EV SPACs that went public in the last year. The Interior Departmentsaid on Tuesday that it will examine potential areas of the Gulf of Mexico that are suitable for offshore wind. Rising costs for labor, freight, steel, and aluminum are pushing up the cost of solar power, ending more than a decade of steady cost declines, at least temporarily. Contract prices for solar were already up 15% in the United States in the first quarter compared with last year due to higher interconnection and permitting costs. There is uncertainty over how long the cost increase will last.
Fire And Explosion Hit Iran Steel Mill In Third Such Incident In Five Days -Saturday evening a large fire and a strong explosion rocked an Iranian steel mill in Zarand, Kerman Province, in the third such incident in less than a week. Officials said that after hours of battling the fire they were able to extinguish it without loss of human life. Local officials in Zarand reported late Saturday that a blaze and an explosion engulfed one of the furnaces. The director of Zarand Steel Mill said several people were injured but no was was killed. Three days earlier, an explosion and a fire in a refinery ten miles south of the capital Tehran became a spectacle to 9 million residents as it burned for 20 hours. No evacuations took place, and the government did not mention possible health hazards. Reports said that 20 storage tanks where waste fuel was kept completely burned. Another explosion followed by a fire sank Iran’s largest naval vessel in the Sea of Oman, near it shores, on June 2. The government has not issued any official report on the cause of any of the three incidents, as the Islamic Republic is gearing up to choose a president in 12 days. In all three incidents suspicion of sabotage, evident in social-media speculation, was inevitable with continuing Israeli threats against the Islamic Republic, following a series of spectacular attacks against high-value targets since July 2020 that are widely believed to have been the work of Israeli intelligence. Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz experienced two catastrophic attacks in less than10 months, with explosions and fires destroying crucial enrichment machines and inflicting serious damage in July 2020 and April 2021. An interesting twist in the Zarand incident is a report by a local media outlet that said personnel were evacuated as the possibility of an explosion “was predicted hours earlier” and no one was present where the fire broke out. While this cannot be verified, an official of the steel mill said the reason for the incident will be investigated once the fire is completely extinguished. According to local sources the explosion was so strong that people in villages and surrounding regions of Zarand were jolted.
Zaid Jilani: Push to oust Netanyahu won't intice change -Journalist Zaid Jilani says even if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ousted from power, it is unlikely to spark meaningful change in the country. "I think in the United States based on the interests of people here [whoever is in charge] it does not really matter, they'll want to maintain an ironclad relationship with the United States and basically the same policy visa vie Palestinians," Jilani said. Last week, opposition parties in Israel confirmed they had reached an agreement that would establish a ruling coalition that would seek to replace Netanyahu, who has been in power in Israel for over a decade. "Its notable that [Naftali] Bennett who is expected to be the next prime minister, is very vocal that he doesn't agree with the Palestinian state, he does not think its worth it for Israel," Jilani said. "Whereas Netanyahu at least in the past suggested he would be open to it."
China To Build 25-30 More Bio-Labs Like In Wuhan Over Next 5 Years - In the next few years, the world could see almost 60 maximum security Level 4 virology labs in operation. The Guangdong province announced in May that it was planning to build between 25 to 30 biosafety labs in the next five years."What could go wrong?" questioned Human Events senior editor Jack Posobiec:The facilities will be flung all over the globe, spanning 23 countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Gabon, and Côte d’Ivoire.The current Wuhan Institute of Virology is now at the center of an investigation by US authorities into whether COVID-19 could have leaked from its lab.About 75 percent of these facilities are or will be built in urban areas, which has experts around the world worried about the possibility of further "lab leaks.""Reporting is getting better certainly in some countries such as the UK and US where there has been media coverage of this, but we’re not yet where we want to be. The more work that is going on, the more accidents will happen," commented Filippa Lentzos of King's College in London, the Financial Times reported.Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, concurred:"The larger the number of institutions and the larger the number of individuals with access to these dangerous agents, the greater the risk."Ebright said that accidents and leaks have happened in large numbers in places that have weaker biosafety standards."We need to strengthen biosafety and biosecurity rules around the world," the scholar urged.
Did Pakistan Help China Access American Stealth Helicopter Technology? -American Defense publication "The Drive" claims that Pakistan has helped China get access to American stealth aircraft technology. Specifically, the American website alleges that the Pakistanis gave Chinese access to the wreckage of the US stealth helicopter destroyed during the American raid to kill Usama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011. Chinese experts have called the accusation "groundless", according to Global Times. The accusations surfaced when a Chinese helicopter model, believed to be a variant of the Chinese Z-20 helicopter, was displayed in China on May 19, 2021. The model in question was spotted by @HenriKenhmann who posted a picture of it on social media. Here's how "The Drive" website describes it:"The aircraft shown appears to be a stealthy adaptation of China's Z-20 medium-lift helicopter, which itself is something of a clone of the H-60 Black Hawk. The Z-20's story is a unique one in itself, as most don't realize that China was a purchaser of the Black Hawk in the '80s, during a period of time when the United States was exporting some military capabilities to China". The Drive alleges that the Pakistanis retrieved the surviving tail of the US stealth helicopter that crashed and was subsequently blown up by the retreating American Navy Seal Team. The Chinese scientists were allowed to look at the tail. Here's an excerpt of The Drive story: "When the downed stealthy Black Hawk was demolished via an explosive charge at Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, its tail, which was sitting high atop the wall that surrounds the residence, remained intact. We may have never known these helicopters even existed if it was destroyed. Pakistan subsequently carted off the tail, which was of an extremely exotic design, and used it as a geopolitical bargaining chip in the turbulent aftermath of the raid. It is known to have been closely examined by America's adversaries, namely by Pakistan's other top weapons provider, China. The tail was eventually returned to the U.S. after roughly three weeks of fiery diplomacy".
Tragic death of young Sri Lankan woman exposes horrific conditions in Japanese detention centres --Wishma Sandamali Ratnayake, a young Sri Lankan migrant worker, died on March 6 at Nagoya Local Emigrant Service Bureau in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture. She was just 33 years old. Sandamali, a former resident of Imbulgoda in Kadawatha, a Colombo suburb, had passed her Advanced Level exam in Sri Lanka and entered Japan in 2017 on a student visa. Rather than continue on to higher education in Japan, she hoped to find a well-paid job. Those on student visas in Japan, however, are only able to work 28 hours a week, and so she found it difficult to secure permanent employment. Sandamali began learning Japanese at an education institute but dropped out, unable to pay the tuition fees, and then confronted a range of difficulties. Last August she attempted to lodge a complaint with police, because she was being harassed by a young man she was living with. Police ignored Sandamali’s complaint and, instead, arrested and then jailed her at the Nagoya detention camp for overstaying her visa. Unable to pay for her return to Sri Lanka, she was treated like a criminal and held in brutal conditions for seven months, including being confined to a tiny room. According to START official, Yasunori Matsui, she became ill in December and was vomiting blood and unable to walk by January. START is a support group that provides aid to foreign labourers and refugees. Sandamali, who lost about 20 kilograms, became so weakened that she could only be moved by wheelchair and was too unwell to be returned to Sri Lanka. Immigration authorities rejected her application for refugee status and ignored requests by Japanese aid providers that she be given temporary freedom in order to secure medical treatment. Brief notes in Sandamali’s diary make clear that her death was caused by the cruel and unlawful way in which she was treated. She wrote: “I cannot eat. They say it is because of tension. They don’t take me to a hospital, as I am in their custody. Please help me recover.” Sandamali is the 18th migrant to die in custody in Japan since 2007, and the fourth person to perish in a detention centre there in the past 13 months. Official statistics show that less than one percent of applicants are granted refugee- or asylum-status in Japan. Of the 10,375 refugee applications made in Japan in 2019, only 44 were approved.
India’s central government will take over vaccinations amid criticism over its handling of the outbreak - Amid criticism of the government’s handling of one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India said on Monday that the federal government would play a bigger role procuring Covid-19 vaccines on behalf of states. It’s a process that had been mired in confusion because of squabbling between the central and state governments and a lack of vaccine supply.Mr. Modi said in a nationwide address that his government would increase both the pace of inoculations and the purchasing of vaccines. Less than 4 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database.“The government of India will procure 75 percent stock from vaccine manufacturers and provide it to states,” he said. “That means, no state governments will have to spend anything on vaccines.”Many Indian states had earlier vowed to vaccinate their populations for free, particularly those ruled by parties in opposition to Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, but they were forced to close vaccination centers after they ran out of supplies. Mr. Modi also announced free inoculations for all Indians above the age of 18, a policy that was earlier reserved for frontline workers and people older than 45.The prime minister and his government have come under heavy criticism over their handling of the pandemic. Mr. Modi and members of his party appeared at political rallies and allowed mass gatherings to take place before the country experienced a devastating second wave.Mr. Modi has kept a relatively low profile since his political rallies in April, in contrast with his frequent live addresses during the first wave of the pandemic last year, when he announced a nationwide lockdown four hours before it took effect.Last week, the country’s top court asked the government to explain how it planned to achieve its own target of inoculating about 900 million adults by the end of the year. It also called out the government for allowing private health facilities to charge people under 45 for vaccinations, calling the policy “arbitrary and irrational.”Mr. Modi said in his address that private hospitals will still be allowed to procure 25 percent stock of the vaccines. State governments were required to ensure that only 150 rupees, or a little more than $2, could be levied as a “service charge” on top of the usual price, he said.
160 killed in massacre at Solhan in northern Burkina Faso - In the night on Friday and early Saturday morning, the West African nation of Burkina Faso saw one of the bloodiest massacres of the entire French-led war in the Sahel. A raid killed at least 160 people, including 20 children, and wounded over 40, in the village of Solhan in northern Burkina Faso’s Yagha province, bordering Niger. As of this writing, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Hamadi Boubacar, the mayor of the neighboring town of Sebba said, “Many assailants arrived on about 20 motorcycles around 2:00 a.m. They principally attacked the mining site next to the village of Solhan.” The attackers were “pitiless and killed all those they found in their path,” Boubacar added. A gold rush in the area, near both Niger and Mali, has turned Solhan into a crossroads were people of many different ethnicities and tribes meet and live together. Boubacar explained: “Solhan is a big village, many people live there because of gold, more than 30,000 people. The people who were attacked came from all over the province. There are even people from Bouri, the regional capital, from Sebba, and from nearby villages. There are people of many ethnicities.” A local source in Solhan told AFP that the assailants attacked homes and carried out “executions” after striking a position of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Motherland (VDP) militia, which backs the Burkinabè national army. The VDP was created in December 2019 to assist Burkina Faso’s army as ethnic militias and other armed groups have spread across the area amid the war in Mali and across the Sahel. VDP volunteers receive only two weeks of military training before deploying to work alongside the security forces, carrying out surveillance, information-gathering or escort duties. The VDP have suffered more than 200 fatalities, according to an AFP tally. An anonymous local told the Associated Press that as he visited relatives in a medical clinic in Sebba, near Solhan, he saw many wounded arrive at the clinic. “I saw 12 people in one room and about 10 in another. There were many relatives caring for the wounded. There were also many people running from Solhan to enter Sebba … People are very afraid and worried,” he said.
Uganda locks down as a virus wave sickens young people.Uganda’s president has introduced new lockdown measures in an effort to tackle surging coronavirus cases. President Yoweri Museveni announced the closure of all schools and universities for 42 days starting Monday and suspended public gatherings and prayers in mosques and churches. Public transportation between and across districts will also be barred for 42 days, starting Thursday to allow students who are in school to get home. Mr. Museveni also banned house parties and said bars, cinemas and concerts would remain closed. The announcement on Sunday evening came as the country — which imposed tight restrictions early in the pandemic but had eased measures as cases dropped — recorded an upsurge in cases in recent weeks. On June 4, the East African nation recorded 1,259 cases, its highest number in a single day. The authorities reported long lines at hospitals in recent days, with Mr. Museveni saying the wave was mostly affecting people between the ages of 20 and 39 and that there was increased transmission among those ages 10 to 19. “We are concerned that this will exhaust the available bed space and oxygen supply in hospitals, unless we constitute urgent public health measures,” Mr. Museveni said in his speech. Health officials said that the virus is surging because people aren’t washing hands and wearing face masks. Mr. Museveni also pointed to new variants — specifically those first reported in India, South Africa and the United Kingdom — increasing cases. Overcrowding in schools and lack of adequate sanitation facilities has also spread the virus. As part of the new directives, all teachers will have to be fully vaccinated before they are allowed back into schools. With more than 44 million people, Uganda has so far inoculated over 748,000 people, with just over 35,000 of them fully vaccinated. As in much of Africa, its vaccine program has been slowed down by global vaccine shortages, with the crisis in India particularly threatening supplies.
Mexico’s ruling Morena party suffers losses in midterm elections - Mid-term elections held yesterday for the Chamber of Deputies of the Mexican Congress and 15 of 32 state governorships, along with the mayoral posts (alcaldÃas) of the 16 boroughs (delegaciones) of Mexico City, which holds a federal entity status akin to the states. The preliminary results showed significant losses for the ruling party Morena (National Regeneration Movement) and its head, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (popularly known as AMLO), who was elected in a landslide in 2018. Three hundred of the 500 congressional seats were up for direct election of candidates, the remaining 200 being allocated proportionally based on those results. Morena is projected to win about 190 seats in the lower house, a loss of about 60 seats. Morena maintains a majority of upwards of 280 seats, in combination with its “Together We Make History” allies, the pseudo-left Labor Party (PT, Partido de Trabajo), the increasingly right-wing Ecological Green Party (PVEM), which picked up around 30 seats and the socially conservative Solidarity Encounter Party (PES), which will at most win a handful of seats. However, the ruling party has lost its two-thirds supermajority that would empower it to implement changes to the Mexican Constitution without the support of additional parties. AMLO has said he wants to change the constitutional reform opening up the energy sector to private and foreign companies that was adopted at the outset of the term of the prior corrupt president, Enrique Peña Nieto. That energy program was pushed through by the three parties that now make up the “right-left” Va por Mexico (Go for Mexico) electoral coalition consisting of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), the previously governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of Peña Nieto, and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the supposed “left” part of the coalition. They picked up the bulk of the seats that Morena lost. Once the third-strongest party after the PRI and PAN, the PRD, “social democratic” in name only, will gain just over a dozen seats, having pursued a trajectory which in fact is ever more to the right. Morena did considerably better in the state elections for governors. It won 10 or 11 of the 15 seats up for grabs, in addition to the one it previously held. That will extend its power over a number of states, several largely rural—Baja California, Baja California Sur, Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tlaxcala, Zacatecas, and possibly oil-rich Campeche, while an allied PT/PVEM candidate will likely win in San Luis PotosÃ. Morena’s biggest defeat was in Mexico City, a stronghold of parties aligned with AMLO since the late 1990s. AMLO was once mayor, and the current mayor is Claudia Sheinbaum, a leading contender to succeed him as Morena’s next presidential candidate in 2024. Morena had held 11 of the 16 alcaldÃas, but appeared likely to win only six or seven of them. COVID-19 hit especially hard in the city, and discontent simmered over the collapse of an elevated metro line in May, killing 26 riders and injuring many more.. The criminal negligence and corruption involved was clear for all to see.
Russia Mulls Ordering State Firms To Switch To Euro, "Preparing" For Possible Disconnect From SWIFT --On Monday a flurry of bombshell statements came out of Russia after at the end of last week Putin blasted the United States for using the dollar as a tool for waging "economic & political war" in an address before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Amid a tightening US and EU sanctions noose, most recently surrounding the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Putin also suggested a more "acceptable" scenario of European nations paying for Russian gas in euros, amid what alarmingly appears a broader de-dollarization effort which includes Russia's sovereign wealth fund deciding to dump all of its dollars and dollar-denominated assets in favor of those denominated in euros, yuan - or further buying precious metals like gold. "The euro is completely acceptable for us in terms of gas payments. This can be done, of course, and probably should be done," Putin calmly said Thursday.And now Russia's Finance Minister has announced preparations for stimulus to move FX liquidity into euros while specifying it's mulling ordering state companies to switch to euros, according to RIA news. Additionally, Moscow said it's responding to calls for more sanctions by "preparing" for possible disconnect from international payment systems, namely SWIFT. However, a mere couple hours later the Finance Ministry walked back some of the most provocative earlier official statements: "Russia will rely on economic means to encourage companies to shift from dollar to euro and doesn’t plan any restrictions on use of U.S. currency," a follow-up report noted. Bloomberg noted, "RIA Novosti and Tass withdrew earlier articles citing Finance Ministry official as saying the government plans directives to order state companies to make the shift. RIA and Tass said the official retracted his quotation." Perhaps this was yet another early "warning" signaling the West and no "mistaken" citation at all?... Here's what the Monday TASS statements in questions said... "Russia is preparing for additional sanctions, and serious work has been initiated into dealing with the country’s potential disconnection from international payment systems, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin said at parliamentary hearings in the State Duma."
France's Macron slapped in face during walkabout (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped in the face on Tuesday by a man in a crowd of onlookers while on a walkabout in southern France, video of the incident showed. Macron's security entourage quickly intervened to pull the man to the ground and move Macron away from him. Two people were arrested in connection with the incident, broadcasters BFM TV and RMC radio reported. The incident took place while Macron was on a visit to the Drome region in south-eastern France, where he met restaurateurs and students to talk about how life is returning to normal after the COVID-19 epidemic. In video circulating on social media, Macron, dressed in shirt sleeves, could be seen walking towards a crowd of well-wishers who were behind a metal barrier. The French president reached out his hand to greet one man, in a green T-Shirt, with glasses and a face mask. The man could be heard shouting out "Down with Macronia" ("A Bas La Macronie") and then he delivered a slap to Macron's face. Two of Macron's security detail tackled the man in the green T-shirt, while another ushered Macron away. But Macron remained in the vicinity of the crowd for a few more seconds, and appeared to be talking to someone on the other side of the barriers. The presidential administration said there had been an attempt to strike Macron, but declined further comment.
British tourists scramble to return from Portugal to meet a new quarantine deadline. -British tourists scrambled to leave Portugal over the weekend in order to beat a Tuesday deadline for a new quarantine imposed by the British government on those returning from Portugal over concerns about a dangerous virus variant.Britain had recently put Portugal, one of the most popular destinations for British tourists, and 12 other countries and territories with low coronavirus caseloads on a “green list,” allowing visitors coming from Britain to avoid a quarantine period upon returning from those locations.Britons fatigued by a miserable winter and a four-month national lockdown had just begun flocking to Portugal, because most of the other green-listed places were either not accepting tourists or were not already favored destinations. The process still involved several forms and P.C.R. virus tests, whose costs can total hundreds of dollars.The decision Thursday to reintroduce restrictions was heavily criticized by British travel operators and opposition politicians. But the government defended the move as a health-safety requirement to help Britain fight a new coronavirus variant that was first detected in India, known now as the Delta variant.Britain’s switch of travel rules for Portugal prompted thousands of British tourists to pay extra to rebook early return flights. British Airways and other airlines added flight capacity to help bring them home.As British tourists headed early for the airport in Faro on Sunday, a major tourism hub in Portugal’s southern Algarve region, the line there stretched well outside the terminal, according to reports from British newspapers.The latest quarantine decision came less than a week after thousands of English soccer fans had visited Porto, in northern Portugal, to watch the final of the Champions League, with no quarantine restriction. The move by British officials comes as cases remain generally low in Britain, though officials have been working to contain surges of the Delta variant. Daily cases have increased by 89 percent from the average two weeks ago, while deaths have increased by 49 percent, according to a New York Times database.
Bank of England wants tight regulations for digital currencies--As more digital currency projects come to market, the Bank of England wants to ensure that stablecoins — which are designed to be equal in value to government currencies — should be regulated under the same rules as traditional money.The BOE on Monday said it expects stablecoins to offer a one-to-one redemption with traditional currency accounts at all times with a "robust" legal claim.Stablecoins are designed as a hedge against volatility for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. The BOE refers to stablecoins as private-sector digital tokens that aim to maintain a stable value in relation to national currencies.
Oxford student who led move to remove Queen's portrait is American --The Oxford University student who led a vote to remove Queen Elizabeth II’s portrait — sparking outrage in the top tiers of UK government — is a wealthy American private school boy who is a Captain America fan, it emerged Wednesday. Stanford grad Matthew Katzman, 25, tabled the motion to remove the image from Magdalen’s Middle Common Room, saying it was not welcoming because the monarch “represents recent colonial history.” Members of the Middle Common Room then voted in favor by a “substantial” majority — sparking fierce backlash. The Queen “is the head of state and a symbol of what is best about the UK,” UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson tweeted. “During her long reign, she has worked tirelessly to promote British values of tolerance, inclusivity & respect around the world.” A spokesman for Boris Johnson then told the Daily Mail that the prime minister “supports” his minister’s statement. Now it has emerged that the man leading the movement to take down the portrait was not even British, but from Washington, DC — only adding to the outage. Katzman is the son of commercial lawyer Scott Katzman, 65, who lives in a DC mansion worth more than $5.5 million, according to the Mail. He previously attended the $48,000-a-year Sidwell Friends School, a historic Quaker private college — where the Mail says he “likely” counted former President Barack Obama’s 22-year-old daughter Malia as a contemporary. Her younger sister, Sasha, also went there, as did Nancy Reagan, Chelsea Clinton, President Biden’s grandchildren and the offspring of other presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.
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