week ending Feb 5

The Fed Probably Won't Raise Rates Seven Times in 2022 - The ADP employment report for January showed a net loss of jobs, consumer spending is slowing, and President Biden is sending 3,000 troops to Eastern and Central Europe in response to Russian aggression against Ukraine. Like Apple’s, Alphabet’s fourth-quarter results blew away expectations. But those look like exceptions to the rule of a generally mixed earnings picture. Against increasing economic uncertainty and rising geopolitical instability, the Federal Reserve is unlikely to raise interest rates a total of 175 basis points in 2022. Darius Dale, CEO of 42 Macro, joins Real Vision’s Ash Bennington to talk about where markets go from here. Want to submit questions? Drop them right here on the Exchange: https://rvtv.io/3Hj4jzU

 New Questions Emerge: Is the New York Fed Working for the American People or the Wall Street Banks that Own It? - By Pam Martens - Adding to a very long laundry list of questions about exactly whom the New York Fed serves, is the help-wanted ad that was posted four days ago. The ad is for a Financial Planning & Analysis Expert to work at the New York Fed’s headquarters in lower Manhattan. One part of the job description is this: “modelling of potential investment opportunities.” The New York Fed is supposed to be implementing monetary policy on behalf of the United States as mandated by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). As far as public FOMC records indicate, the New York Fed has not been assigned the job of seeking out “potential investment opportunities.” So for whom is it seeking out these investment opportunities? Is it looking for profit-making investments for the Wall Street megabanks who own it and whose CEOs rotate on and off its Board of Directors? Had the New York Fed not become so cozy with these megabank executives, one would not have to be asking that question. Every time there is a massive Fed bailout of these megabanks, the New York Fed manages to be the entity creating trillions of dollars out of thin air for the bailouts; handing out no-bid contracts to manage the bailouts to the same megabanks being bailed out; and then locking up for two years the names of the banks that got all the loot so that the public’s attention has moved on when the shocking details are finally revealed. The problem with allowing an unaccountable behemoth to continuously expand its footprint is that pretty soon there’s no ability at all to rein it in. Consider our report yesterday, which had somehow failed to grace the business newspapers of New York. The New York Fed has quietly expanded its footprint to Chicago – yes, 796 miles away in Chicago. It’s opened an additional trading floor there and staffed it up.The New York Fed’s Second Federal Reserve District has nothing to do with Chicago, Illinois. It consists of New York State, 12 northern counties of New Jersey, Fairfield County in Connecticut, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. And yet the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee – all of whom oversee the Fed – are asking no questions and providing no answers to the American people about why the New York Fed needs a trading floor in Chicago.Corrupt activities that go on inside the New York Fed were chronicled in a book in 2018 by one of its own former bank examiners, Carmen Segarra. Her book,Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall Street, describes the culture inside the New York Fed as follows:“…nothing I had seen during my decade of legal work had prepared me for what I witnessed in just a few short months at the New York Fed. “In those months I discovered a disorienting world full of hidden clues, where people said one thing but meant another. Beneath the public face of the Fed laid a web of incompetence, corruption, rampant mismanagement, secrets, and lies. In the “fake work” culture of the Fed, where supervision was a job title, not a job, the most important thing was to control the process to serve the ultimate master. The New York Fed was not simply failing to stop the banks; it was actually enabling their bad behavior.” Our reporting on the New York Fed over the past decade very much confirms the assessment of Carmen Segarra. (See related articles below.)It’s long past the time for the U.S. Justice Department to do its job and investigate this deeply troubled and co-opted institution.

Fed nominees pressed by Republicans, get support from centrists — Three White House nominees for the Federal Reserve Board received a warm welcome from the Senate Banking Committee’s Democrats and emerged relatively unscathed from Republican attacks on Thursday. The three candidates — Sarah Bloom Raskin, Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson — were pressed at length by senators on their views of climate risk regulation and the Fed’s regulatory independence. Raskin, as the Biden administration’s pick for the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, took the brunt of Republican opposition. The hearing was at times contentious as GOP lawmakers alleged that Raskin was downplaying her interest in using the Fed’s power to address banks’ role in climate change.

Biden's Federal Reserve nominees hit speed bumps — A weekslong onslaught of Republican opposition to two of the Biden administration's Federal Reserve nominees — Sarah Bloom Raskin and Lisa Cook — tees up a contentious confirmation hearing on Thursday. Saule Omarova, the White House's pick for comptroller of the currency who ultimately withdrew, faced similar blowback in the fall. But Senate Democrats seem more eager to fight for their president’s picks this time than they did for Omarova, whose prior legal scholarship was criticized by banks and others as being too radical. The White House announced on Jan. 14 that it would nominate Raskin, Cook and Philip Jefferson to three open seats of the Federal Reserve Board. Raskin, a former Fed governor and senior Treasury Department official, would serve as the central bank’s vice chair for supervision, making her one of the country’s most influential financial regulators.

Manchin praises Biden's Fed picks as 'extremely qualified' --Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin praised all five of President Biden’s nominees for the Federal Reserve, an important signal for their confirmations in the 50-50 Senate. “They all look extremely qualified,” the West Virginia senator, who is a pivotal vote, said Tuesday of the nominees. While Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell likely faces easy confirmation to a second term as head of the central bank, other Biden nominees have come in for criticism from GOP senators. Sarah Bloom Raskin, who is nominated for vice chair of supervision, faces opposition from the oil and gas lobby and some Republicans over her view the Fed should act to mitigate the risks from climate change.

Six High Frequency Indicators for the Economy - These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment. There is a clear negative impact from the omicron variant of COVID.n. This data is as of January 30th.This data shows the 7-day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Light Blue), 2020 (Black), 2021 (Blue) and 2021 (Red). The 7-day average is down 23.4% from the same day in 2019 (76.6% of 2019). (Dashed line) Air travel had been off about 20% relative to 2019 for most of the second half of 2021 (with some ups and downs) - but picked up over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays (solid leisure travel) - and has declined in early 2022 (omicron / weak business travel). 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 January 29, 2022.For year-over-year comparisons by day, we compare to the same day of the week from the same week in the previous year." Dining was mostly moving sideways, but there has been some decline recently, probably due to the winter wave of COVID. The 7-day average for the US is down 23% compared to 2019. 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 $61 million last week, down about 69% from the median for the week. This graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average. This data is through January 22nd. The occupancy rate was down 15.9% compared to the same week in 2019. The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is below the median rate for the previous 20 years (Blue). 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." This data is through January 28th for the United States and several selected cities. According to the Apple data directions requests, public transit in the 7-day average for the US is at 96% of the January 2020 level. This graph shows how much MTA traffic has recovered in each borough (Graph starts at first week in January 2020 and 100 = 2019 average). Manhattan is at about 31% of normal. This data is through Friday,January 28th.

 Incredibly Spiking US National Debt Hits Monstrous $30 Trillion by Wolf Richter - The incredibly spiking US gross national debt hit the big one: $30 trillion. That’s the amount the government owes and has issued in Treasury securities that are outstanding as of January 31. Since March 2020, the US gross national debt has spiked by a monstrous 27%, or by $6.5 trillion. Over the past 12 months, during the strongest economic growth since 1984, the national debt has spiked by 2.2 trillion. The flat spots depict the uniquely American political charade of the Debt Ceiling, the periods when the gross national debt bounced into the Debt Ceiling as set by Congress. These flat spots are the days when everyone in Congress is trying to hijack the Debt Ceiling law in order to arm-twist the other side into approving their favorite priorities! Hahahaha, Congress, thank you for that hilarious charade. During the debt ceiling charade, Congress tells the administration to keep spending the money that Congress told it to spend via the spending bills, but prohibits the administration from borrowing the money that Congress told it to spend. If this lasts beyond the out of money date, the US government would have to default, which would set off some magnificent fireworks in the financial markets.Each time after a Debt Ceiling charade is resolved in Congress, the administration is then free to borrow the money that Congress told it to spend, and the US national debt spikes to make up for the flat spots. The one thing the Debt Ceiling never does is slow down the growth of the US national debt.In 2021, there were two Debt Ceiling charades, and each time it was resolved, within days, the debt spiked with renewed vigor to make up for the flat spots. The chart below magnifies the daily debt levels since December 2020:

Congress returns to funding, Build Back Better attempt - The House of Representatives and the Senate are back from recess this week. Of course, the looming Supreme Court nomination is getting most of the attention in the Senate. But lawmakers have quite a bit on the economic agenda waiting for them as well.The big item on Congress’ to-do list is to pass a funding bill. The short-term extension passed in December runs out Feb. 18.It will likely be replaced by yet another continuing resolution, according to Laura Blessing at Georgetown’s Government Affairs Institute.Additionally, Democrats want to make another attempt at passing at least portions of the Build Back Better agenda. “But it’s not just that, there’s also a potentially bipartisan bill on China and trade that could include money for semiconductor chips and help with supply chain issues,” Blessing said.The House and Senate have different versions of that bill, per Weifeng Zhong, a senior researcher at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.“And members of Congress have not come around to sort of reconcile the differences,” he said. “But it’s at least a proposal that’s on the table, and they can move forward relatively quickly.” Of course, when it comes to Congress, “quickly” can have a pretty expansive definition.

Lawmakers face time crunch to clinch funding deal -Top congressional lawmakers are working against the clock to clinch a bipartisan agreement on government spending before a Feb. 18 deadline, with pressure building on both sides to find common ground in the face of a rapidly closing window. With roughly two weeks remaining until government funding is scheduled to lapse, some members are concerned that, absent an agreement on an omnibus spending package for fiscal 2022, lawmakers will miss another deadline this month to approve new spending levels. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, on Tuesday cast doubt on the chances Congress will come to an agreement this week on an omnibus bill for fiscal 2022 to be passed on or before the current February deadline if both sides of the aisle fail to agree on outstanding issues. “What happens in the next, say, 48 hours, 72 hours is crucial to us working anything [out] by then,” Shelby said. For months, leaders have particularly struggled with reaching a bipartisan agreement on a top-line spending number, as well as longtime legislative riders like the Hyde amendment, while, at the same time, tackling other spending battles over top priority items like the nation’s debt limit. Shelby said it’s “possible” lawmakers could pass an omnibus bill in time to avert having another continuing resolution (CR), which would temporarily fund the government at the previous fiscal year’s spending levels. But he downplayed the chances of that outcome as unlikely. Republican and Democratic negotiators are hopeful leadership will strike a deal soon in ongoing spending negotiations, with members on both sides wary of the prospect of having to resort to another continuing resolution later this month and what that could mean for a path forward in ongoing talks. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told The Hill on Tuesday that the likelihood of lawmakers passing an omnibus bill by Feb. 18 would be slim if leadership isn’t able to agree on a top-line number. “It is long past time for us to come to an agreement on the top lines and the path forward. I am hopeful it can still happen,” Coons said. “The top line decision is a leadership decision, and we've got to come to an understanding about how we're going to deal with the defense-domestic balance and how do we find room in the budget for all the different priorities that different members have,” he said.

 4 issues to watch as Congress returns - The Senate and House will return from recess this week to a growing workload. House progressives are clamoring for Senate Democrats to put aside deep political differences and pass a massive climate and social spending package before President Biden delivers his State of the Union address in March. Members of both parties are ratcheting up efforts to win consensus among themselves — and with the White House — on advancing a “mother of all sanctions” package against Russia’s energy economy if it invades Ukraine. The Feb. 18 deadline to avert a government shutdown continues to loom large. And now the Senate will have to clear time to process a Supreme Court nominee. The ambitious centerpiece of the Democrats’ domestic agenda — the $1.7 trillion “Build Back Better Act” that was at one point poised for passage through the budget reconciliation process — remains stalled, with relatively little progress in negotiations since Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced his opposition in December. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, last week called for Congress to pass a scaled-back version of the bill with $550 billion in climate spending intact by March 1. “I actually spoke to Senator Manchin — over several months I’ve been speaking to him — and the climate provisions, as they are crafted, are crafted with and by him, as well,” Jayapal said at an online event sponsored by Evergreen Action, a left-leaning group pressing for climate action. Meeting that deadline is going to be a heavy lift, however, given Manchin’s opposition to how Democrats structured the bill’s child tax credit expansion and other social spending programs. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was dismissive of the March 1 deadline. “We don’t have a timetable,” Pelosi said during an event in San Francisco last week. “That is an aspiration that they have,” Pelosi said of the Progressive Caucus. “We will pass the bill when we have the votes to pass the bill.” Still, Jayapal said she believes Manchin could support a narrower version of the $1.7 trillion “Build Back Better Act” that includes climate spending, universal preschool funding, elder care spending and various housing provisions. “Let’s take those things and put them together and pass them in the Senate,” Jayapal said. “There’s already text. It’s very easy now to go through and make that bill match the things he said he would do.” One of Pelosi’s top lieutenants, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), also refused this weekend to be deterred, telling CBS yesterday that if Manchin’s issue with the child tax credit is simply that it should be subject to means testing, then that should not be a deal breaker. Democrats in recent weeks have also discussed breaking the existing bill into pieces and passing them individually by subject matter, an idea Biden acknowledged earlier this month (E&E Daily, Jan. 20).

Raimondo: Manchin 'gettable' on revised Build Back Better plan -Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said Sen. Joe Manchin’s support of large parts of the Build Back Better package are a sign he could back a revised bill. Sen. Joe Manchin is “gettable” on a revised Build Back Better package, a key part of the Biden administration's agenda, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Monday. “I think he's gettable. I think we will get him. I think this is going to happen,” Raimondo said during a POLITICO Women Rule interview. It was opposition from Manchin (D-W.Va.) that effectively sunk Democrats' plans late last year to pass President Joe Biden's massive social spending package, which includes provisions on child care, education, climate change and infrastructure, through an evenly-divided Senate. Manchin has not ruled out supporting a retooled and scaled-back package but negotiations on such a bill have yet to take shape. The West Virginia senator said last month that such talks would be “starting from scratch, whenever they start.” With no margin for error in the Senate, any legislation would need the support of Manchin — and every other Democratic senator — in order to pass. “He is publicly on record saying he supports investments in the care economy and supports the investments to bring about universal pre-K,” Raimondo said. “We know there are a large parts of it he does support.” "Huge infrastructure” packages can take a long time to pass, Raimondo said, recalling a legislative push during her tenure as Rhode Island governor that took months longer than expected. But “sooner is better," she said, urging for a version of the president's spending plan to make its way through Congress in the coming weeks.

How will Democrats rewrite Build Back Better, Biden’s social policy bill? - President Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which bundles together a host of social and climate programs, is unraveling. Although it passed the House, key Democratic senators are refusing to support it, which effectively dooms the plan in a 50-50 Senate. Yet grouping together the social policies proposed in the bill remain urgent for women, and especially Latina and Black women in the workforce.Grouping together policies that explicitly respond to Latina and Black women’s specific vulnerabilities in the workforce can alleviate their acute economic distress, which have been exacerbated by thecoronavirus pandemic. My research indicates that women of color are advocating for linking social policies such as caregiving support and paid leave together to help them recover from the pandemic. As Democrats consider taking apart the bill and addressing each issue piecemeal, they may lose the enthusiastic support of Black and Latina women and risk leaving them further behind.The pandemic hurt all groups of working women, but hit Black and Latina women the hardest. As 2021 started, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Black women’s unemployment rate was 8.5 percent, Latinas’ was 8.8 percent, while the rate was 5.1 percent for White women. That’s partly because Black and Latina working women are concentrated in industries that shut down during the pandemic, such as hospitality, restaurants, retail and education. The layoffs in these industries — coupled with existing policy deficits in health care, retirement and paid leave — helped push women of color out of the workforce. While unemployment rates have dropped over the past year, Black and Latina women remain unemployed at higher rates than White men and women. Employment rates for Black and Latina women are nearly 10 percent lower than they were pre-pandemic.

Manchin says Build Back Better is 'dead.' Here's what he might resurrect.— Every morning at about 8:30, Sen. Joe Manchin receives a text message from a staffer informing him what the national debt is. He replies quickly: “Thanks.”On Wednesday, it crossed $30 trillion for the first time. That mundane ritual offers a clue to how President Joe Biden might win back Manchin, the pivotal centrist Democrat from West Virginia, on his climate change and social spending ambitions, which have been frozen sinceManchin rejected the House’s Build Back Better Act. In an interview Wednesday, Manchin said his priority is to “fix the tax code” — and he’s willing to bypass Republicans and use the filibuster-proof reconciliation process to do it. “It's the reason we have reconciliation. And everyone's talking about everything but that,” he said. “Take care of the debt. $30 trillion should scare the bejesus out of your generation.” Manchin once again said this week that the Build Back Better Act is “dead,” referring to the $2 trillion-plus bill that passed the House. A nonnegotiable red line for him is that all new programs must be permanent and fully financed. But even as he says there are no “formal talks” going on about a sequel, he keeps dropping hints about which policies might be worthy pursuits in some hypothetical future bill, perhaps one with a different name. Clean energy? “We believe that basically, yes, we can do something,” Manchin told reporters, even as he stressed the need to maintain enough fossil fuels for “reliability.” More subsidies for the Affordable Care Act? “Anything that helps working people be able to buy insurance that's affordable, I've always been supportive of,” he told NBC News. Extending coverage in states that limit Medicaid? “I've been very receptive on Medicaid expansion to the states that got left behind,” as long as there's an incentive to expand, he said. Democrats are listening. Discussions about Biden’s agenda inside and outside Washington are increasingly games of Manchinology, in which policymakers pore over his every pronouncement and look for a new package that succeeds where Build Back Better failed. Democrats have already begun to discuss putting some revenues and savings in a new bill toward deficit reduction to attract his support, according to Senate sources.

Joe Manchin gave a fresh hint on what he wants from a skinny Build Back Better: 'Just fix the tax code' -- It's hard to know sometimes what's on Sen. Joe Manchin's mind, but he seems to have taxes on the brain.On Wednesday, the elusive West Virginia senator reiterated a familiar priority of his for a future spending bill that Democrats eventually want to cobble together."Just fix the tax code," he told reporters. "Just fix the taxes."He also said earlier there were no major discussions to revivePresident Biden's sprawling social and climate spending bill known as Build Back Better. Manchin came out against the $2 trillion package in December, sinking it in the 50-50 Senate."There's a lot of people talking, but there's no serious talks that I'm having with anybody directly on what you're all referring to," he said. Manchin has since adopted a lead negotiating role on efforts to forge a bipartisan deal on electoral reforms. Late last year, Manchin said he voted to advance an earlier version of the party-line bill because his top priority was rolling back the 2017 Republican tax cuts. He had often said that he wanted to lift the corporate tax rate to 25% from its current level at 21%.But Manchin's central goal for the package was derailed by another Democratic holdout: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Insider reported last fall that she objected to raising corporate and individual tax rates, dealing a blow to the party's endeavor to hike taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.Senate Democrats can't afford to lose the votes of either lawmaker in the face of unified Republican opposition, underscoring their outsized influence on the size and scope of Biden's economic agenda. It's a precarious position that's already put Build Back Better on pause for the time being.In a December radio interview with West Virginia MetroNews, he said he sought to "fix the taxes so that everybody paid their fair share.""We have one chance at this, OK? You have a chance to fix the tax code that makes it fair and equitable," Manchin said. "So if we all disagree with Republicans' reconciliation on tax cuts, don't you think we can sit down and fix a fair and equitable tax code?"Manchin has also repeatedly raised concerns about rising inflation, which has reached its highest level in 40 years. A combination of persistent labor shortages and supply-chain bottlenecks are pushing prices up across the board for groceries, gas, and housing. The Federal Reserve is charged with keeping inflation at manageable levels by increasing the cost of borrowing. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled recently that an interest rate hike could come as soon as March, Insider's Ben Winck reported.

'Disgusted with our government': Families frustrated after child tax credit expires -- When the payments stopped coming, a mother in Milwaukee had to decide between buying diapers and baby formula for her newborn or paying for theWi-Fi her sons needed to attend online school. In Chicago, a mom used the last of the cash she had saved from the payments to rent a hotel room for herself and her 2-year-old daughter after their apartment’s heat was unexpectedly shut off and the temperature dropped to 9 degrees. A West Virginia woman who instructs low-income people about parenting and domestic violence said the end of the payments meant she and her kids were applying for financial support and eating meals of potatoes, beans, canned foods or pancakes. Between July and December, the expanded child tax credit provided parents a cross the United States a small financial reprieve from the pandemic’s economic turbulence. On the 15th of each month, parents who signed up received payments of up to $300 per child under age 6 and $250 per child ages 6 to 17.Many said it gave their families a little room to breathe. “I received $500 and every month I figured out what the household needed, whether it was gas, school supplies, toiletries, rent or the electric bill — whatever,” said Savanah Brooks, 36, the Milwaukee mom who gave birth to her daughter earlier this month after having to take unpaid time off work because her pregnancy was considered high risk. “It gave us just a little cushion and made life a little easier.”The expiration of that benefit, however, and Congress’ inability to pass the Build Back Better agenda that would have cemented the child tax credit for an additional year has left many parents in the U.S. — particularly those struggling to make ends meet in the pandemic’s choppy economy — overwhelmed. The half-dozen parents in states across the country who spoke to NBC News expressed feelings of deep anger, intense dejection, simmering resentment and a fierce frustration with politics and Washington, D.C., as debate over the future of the expanded child tax credit remains on a gloomy trajectory.That fight continues despite data showing the policy moved millions of children from poverty and a recent study concluding that providing financial support to a low-income family boosts children's brain development. The expiration of the expanded child tax credit is expected tothrust millions of children back into poverty and increase child hunger.

Manchin sees best fundraising haul for in nonelection year Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) raised more than $4.8 million in 2021, which marks his largest fundraising haul in a nonelection year. Manchin raked in $4,827,680.45 over the course of 2021, according to the Federal Election Commission. He raised almost $1.6 million in the fourth quarter alone. For comparison, Manchin raised $3.8 million 2017, according to Bloomberg, which was the year before he ran for reelection and his most recent off-year record. The West Virginia Democrat’s large fundraising total comes after a year in which he broke from his party on a number of occasions, causing headaches among Democrats and sometimes attracting praise from his Republican colleagues. Most notably, Manchin effectively tanked the party’s chances of approving its roughly $1.2 trillion Build Back Better spending package, announcing in December that he would vote "no" on the legislation. Democrats are now working to approve a different version of the bill that Manchin can get behind. He also caused a stir among Democrats earlier this month when he reemphasized his opposition to changing the legislative filibuster to pass voting rights reform, which is one of President Biden’s top priorities. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) joined Manchin to support upholding the Senate rule. Democrats needed support from every member of their Senate caucus to move ahead on both initiatives because of the 50-50 split in the upper chamber. While Manchin, who was first elected to the Senate in 2010, will not face a ballot until 2024, some in the party are already discussing a primary challenge to the West Virginia Democrat. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) earlier this month said he believes there is a “good chance” Manchin and Sinema will face future Democratic primary challenges.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Orders Pentagon To Prevent Civilian Deaths In Army Strikes - US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered Pentagon officials Thursday to undertake reforms to reduce the number of civilian deaths from military strikes after multiple unjustified fatal incidents. "The protection of civilians is fundamentally consistent with the effective, efficient and decisive use of force in pursuit of US national interests," Austin said in a directive issued to Department of Defense leadership. "It is a strategic and moral imperative," he said. Austin gave Pentagon officials 90 days to produce a plan for how civilian casualties can be reduced and avoided in combat operations, saying the experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq provide an opportunity to learn lessons and mitigate civilian harm in an institutional way. The move came after several incidents placed a dark cloud over the Pentagon, most recently the erroneous killing of 10 people, including seven children, in a Kabul drone strike in August 2021 during the last days of the US presence in Afghanistan. Likewise, the US military has been embarrassed by reporting by The New York Times that showed a poorly managed March 2019 bombing that killed some 70 civilians in the final days of the war against the Islamic State group. The military avoided investigation and accountability in that incident, the Times said. Austin's order came after a study of civilian death causes and reporting by RAND Corp, commissioned by the Pentagon, painted an unflattering picture of the US military's processes for dealing with such incidents. It said that in planning strikes, the military focuses so much on the enemy that it neglects the broader civilian picture -- a problem that can lead to avoidable casualties.

Pentagon Professes Shock That U.S. Airstrikes Frequently Kill Civilians - Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s promises to curb civilian casualties are as empty as the military’s vows to stop sexual harassment. THE PENTAGON IS not known for staging revivals of classic movies, but it just reenacted a famous scene from “Casablanca.”Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — after months of news reports about civilians killed by U.S. bombs, including the deaths of seven children and three adults in a Kabul drone attack — just issued a directive to reduce what the military traditionally describes as collateral damage. “We can and will improve upon efforts to protect civilians,” Austin vowed this week. “The protection of innocent civilians in the conduct of our operations remains vital to the ultimate success of our operations, and as a significant strategic and moral imperative.”His two-page directive calls for the creation of a “Civilian Harm and Mitigation Response Plan” in 90 days that will lay out a comprehensive approach to improve the training of military personnel and the collection and sharing of data, so that the wrong people don’t get killed so often. He also ordered the establishment of a hazily defined “civilian protection center of excellence” to institutionalize the knowledge needed to prevent wrongful killings. The underlying idea is that military culture will be changed so that protecting civilians is a core goal.If you were just tuning into the catastrophe of America’s forever wars, you might be impressed by Austin’s directive, in the same way you might be impressed by Capt. Louis Renault in “Casablanca” when he shuts downRick’s Café because, shockingly, gambling was happening in the casino. Renault’s horror was feigned, of course. He was a regular visitor to the cafe, and after blowing his whistle on gambling, he was handed his winnings for that night.It’s not as though the Pentagon is taking action — or pretending to take action, as is much more likely — because battlefield abuses have suddenly been brought to its attention. From the beginning, one of the hallmarks of the post-9/11 wars has been the widely reported killing of civilians by U.S. forces. These things have been revealed in exhaustive detail year after year by generations of journalists (I even did a bit of itduring the Iraq invasion), as well as nonprofit organizations and military whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Daniel Hale.There has even been a begrudging chorus of admissions by the Pentagon that go back more than a decade. In 2010, the Joint Chiefs of Staff completed its classified “Joint Civilian Casualty Study.” In 2013, a Pentagon office called Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis published a report titled “Reducing and Mitigating Civilian Casualties: Enduring Lessons.” The remarkable thing about that 2013 report — other than the fact that it included most of the remedies Austin mentioned this week — was that it contained a list of a dozen other reports on civilian casualties that JCOA alone had published in the previous five years. And five years later, in 2018, the Joint Chiefs completed yet another classified report on civilian casualties. The Washington Post, which revealed its existence, described that report as “a major examination of civilian deaths in military operations, responding to criticism that [the Pentagon] has failed to protect innocent bystanders in counterterrorism wars worldwide.” Sound familiar? And that secret report came two years after President Barack Obama had issued an executive order that said the military was killing too many civilians and needed to take a range of actions to change that.

‘Successful' US commando raid in Syria results in reports of civilian deaths -- First word came in a brief statement from Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria. The mission was successful. There were no U.S. casualties. More information will be provided as it becomes available.”Then reports from the scene from the volunteer rescue group known as the White Helmets reported that among the 13 killed by U.S. commandos were six children and four women.Several residents told the Associated Press they saw body parts scattered near the site of the raid, with witnesses describing a large ground assault, with U.S. forces using loudspeakers urging women and children to leave the area. Images on social media showed rubble from what appeared to be a house, and videos captured U.S. aircraft over the scene. The raid, which reportedly included air cover from U.S. fighter jets and Apache helicopter gunships, took place near the northwest village of Atmeh, located north of Idlib and just east of Syria’s border with Turkey, an area that has several camps for refugees from Syria’s civil war.In the immediate hours after the attack, neither the Pentagon nor U.S. Central Command released any information about the intended target of the attack.President Joe Biden released a statement Thursday morning on the target of the operation:"Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies, and make the world a safer place. Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi—the leader of ISIS. All Americans have returned safely from the operation. I will deliver remarks to the American people later this morning. May God protect our troops."The region is largely controlled by Syrian rebels and Turkish-backed forces, but it is also thought to be an area where several senior al Qaeda operatives and other militants are holed up.

Asian caucus leader warns against encouraging xenophobia in debate on China competition bill The leader of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus is urging fellow lawmakers to avoid relying on "fear of China" during debate on pending legislation to boost U.S. competitiveness and supply chains so as not to encourage xenophobia. The House is expected to pass a sprawling legislative package later this week designed to encourage more domestic production of key goods and services, invest in more scientific research, and address the current shortage of semiconductor chips to make the U.S. more competitive globally in line with nations like China. It also includes provisions to exert diplomatic pressure on China in the form of imposing sanctions for its human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and providing temporary protected status and refugee status for qualifying Hong Kong residents. But Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, has urged colleagues in recent days to focus their messaging "on how this legislation will help Americans and our economic security." Framing it as a race against threats from China, Chu warned, risks stoking anti-Asian sentiment that has led to violence against Asian Americans. "We should not rely on fear of China to make our case. That will both obscure the policies in this bill while encouraging more xenophobia from those who give credence to Cold War rhetoric painting Chinese people and those perceived to be Chinese as an existential threat," Chu wrote in the letter to colleagues, which The Hill obtained on Tuesday. "How we speak about this moment and how we rise to meet it will unquestionably have an impact on the lives and safety of Asian Americans across the country. I urge us all to keep that in our minds as we begin to debate this important legislation," Chu wrote.

COVID is not going away, and optimism is not a plan . . .Here is what Biden said about omicron in December:“We’re looking ahead to a brighter and happier December,” Mr. Biden said on Wednesday. He ticked through a list of actions by his administration that he said would help ensure fully stocked shelves in groceries and retailers through the holidays.Asked by reporters if he was worried that the Omicron variant, which officials announced later in the day had been detected in California, would threaten that progress, the president was undeterred.“I’m an optimist,” he said.Now we get this from Joshua Gans on a new omicron variant:Where BA.2 has been measured, it appears to be 1.5 times as transmissible than BA.1. That’s a lot. Omicron was already Omicron, the most transmissible virus since the Measles that ripped across the world in mere months and was responsible for the “all my friends have Covid” feeling. 50% more transmissible than that which means in terms of growth it can replace BA.1 within weeks. This is precisely what has happened in Denmark and now is happening across the rest of Europe. It could be elsewhere but they aren’t really looking.It is really hard to fathom that there will be any escaping this one. Epidemiologists are worried that the seeming peaking over the Omicron wave may be very short-lived.. . . Now we have evidence that reinfection with Omicron is not only possible but can happen quite quickly. Omicron is 5 times more likely to have reinfection than Delta. What’s more, there appears to be waning immunity in just 10 weeks. All this is just preliminary but it weighs against fatalism and towards something far more worrying.There is a chance, hopefully still a low one, that you may get Omicron again and again over the next year while it continues to circulate in such high quantities. That might mean nothing in terms of symptoms but it is hard to know. It could also mean continual bouts of illness. You may not end up hospitalised but you don’t want the flu every three months either.President Biden’s optimistic take on COVID-19 is dangerously short-sighted. What is he going to say if BA.2 leads to a surge in cases this spring? What is he going to say if a lethal new variant evades the existing vaccines? What will he say if there is a COVID wave in the fall due to fading immunity? If COVID continues to kill significant numbers of people and to disrupt daily life – which has always been a real possibility – Biden and the Democrats will be far more vulnerable to ads attacking his naïve optimism and failed promises on COVID than critical race theory, inflation, or any other issue Republican operatives and campaign consultants dream up.

Covid Situation Continuing to Develop Not Necessarily to the Officialdom’s Advantage - - Yves Smith -It is both bizarre and telling to see evidence of increased intensity in enforcing the Panglossian “Shut up and get your vax, and you will be safe in the face of our ‘let ‘er rip’ policies,” even as more evidence comes in raising doubts about their wisdom and cost. The wee problem is that emerging information continues to reinforce the idea that the West lacks choices it likes with respect to Covid. That is particularly hard to accept in our insistently optimistic, tech and expert obsessed culture, which has been reinforced by rule by MBA. A diseased managerialism has taken hold (our Clive reports that it’s even more pronounced in the UK) where if someone dares tell the higher-ups that there’s no way what they want can happen, they will suffer career harm for not being clever enough. he person who promised what can’t be delivered, and is good at finding scapegoats and excuses, will rise. So in addition to demonizing just about everyone who isn’t enthusiastically on board with the “Go son, and get your vaccine, and resume your pre-Covid life” program (the “scapegoating” part), one of the common “excuse” reflexes is to depict the end of Covid as just around the corner. Unfortunately, so many people are engaged in this sort of behavior that it can’t be pinned on a single source, as the Friedman unit was.1 But it appears that the path the West has chosen, of focusing on vaccines and almost completely abandoning other ways to reduce contagion (everything from good masks to CO2 monitors at stores showing that they are not overcrowded relative to their ventilation level, and *gah* realistic quarantines, particularly at the border), we’re now seeing vaccines falling well short of their promise as more and more evidence accumulates of what scientist GM warned about from early on: that getting Covid is likely to do damage, even in supposedly mild cases. And because most people are going to get Covid multiple times, even assuming >90% effective vaccines and perfect compliance with boosters, there’s reason to worry that damage will compound. Yes, we might get lucky and have Covid mutate into something really tame, but betting on luck is not a great way to manage public health. With that disheartening pre-existing set of concerns, consider:

Poll finds majority ready to accept COVID-19 as part of life --As the world enters the third year of COVID-19, 70 percent of Americans agree that “it’s time we accept that COVID is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives,” a new poll showed. The survey from Monmouth University released on Monday showed that while Americans are still concerned about the pandemic, the overwhelming majority think it is time to continue on with the virus being a part of normal life. The poll showed a definite partisan split, with 89 percent of Republicans saying it is time to move forward compared with 47 percent of Democrats. Seventy-one percent of independents say it is time to move forward, according to the survey. Twenty-three percent said they were very concerned about getting sick from one of the new COVID-19 variants, and 27 percent said they were somewhat concerned. Twenty-eight percent of those surveyed said they thought a return to normalcy would never happen. “Americans’ worries about Covid haven’t gone away. It seems more to be a realization that we are not going to get this virus under control in a way that we thought was possible just last year,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement. Fifty-two percent of those polled said they "support instituting, or re-instituting, face mask and social distancing guidelines in their home state," a decrease from the 55 percent who responded affirmatively last month. Monmouth’s poll included 794 U.S. adults and was conducted between Jan. 20 and Jan. 24. The poll has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. Politicians from both parties have begun to call for the nation to learn to live with COVID-19. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) on Sunday said it was time to "learn how to live" with the COVID-19 pandemic. "We're not going to manage this to zero. We have to learn how to live with this," Murphy said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) echoed a similar sentiment during his appearance on the same show. "I do believe that we need to move from a pandemic status and mode of operation to more endemic," he said. "I think we need to move out of the panic mode. I think we need to handle this and make sure that we continue with our normal lives."

Hoyer tests positive for COVID-19 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) disclosed Tuesday that he tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the latest member of Congress to contract the virus despite being vaccinated. Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat, said in a statement that he is experiencing mild symptoms. He added that he will work and cast votes remotely while the House is in session this week. “This afternoon, I tested positive for COVID-19, and I am experiencing mild symptoms. Thankfully, I am fully vaccinated and already received my booster shot," Hoyer said. Hoyer is the second member of House Democratic leadership in the past several weeks to test positive for the virus amid the surge in cases from the omicron variant, although caseloads in the Washington, D.C., region have begun declining in recent days.House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) also tested positive in December.At least 54 House members, including Hoyer, have contracted breakthrough cases of COVID-19, along with 12 senators.More than half of those cases have been since December from the omicron-fueled wave.House Democratic leaders are still requiring lawmakers to wear masks in the chamber under penalty of fines and are urging members to avoid congregating during votes.Two House Republicans have also tested positive for the virus in recent weeks: Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), who has openly said he is not vaccinated, and Rep. Daniel Webster (Fla.), who declined to disclose his vaccination status.

GOP senator tests positive for COVID-19 --Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) announced on Tuesday that he had tested positive for COVID-19 in a breakthrough case of the virus.“While asymptomatic, I tested positive for COVID-19 this afternoon. I’ve consulted with the Senate Physician and will continue to follow the recommendations of my health care provider,” he said in a statement.Hoeven’s office noted that the senator is fully vaccinated and also received his booster shot. His quarantine will last through Sunday.The news comes after Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) office announced on Friday that the senator had tested positive for COVID-19 and would be working remotely. Romney's office noted that he had also been fully vaccinated and received his booster shot. The announcement from Hoeven's office also comes on the same day that Sen. Ben Ray Luján’s (D-N.M.) office announced that the New Mexico senator remained in the hospital after he suffered a stroke last week, though he is expected to recover.

The COVID-19 cover-up: Hear no deaths, see no deaths, speak no deaths -As thousands of Americans die every single day from COVID-19, the Biden administration carries out a campaign, through media propaganda and manipulation of data, to cover up the pandemic and accustom the population to mass death in perpetuity. The body of a COVID-19 victim lies in a body bag at the ICU of the Sao Jose municipal hospital in Duque de Caxias, Brazil, Wednesday, March 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) Every day for the past week, an average of 2,700 Americans have lost their lives to COVID-19. It is as if seven Boeing 777 passenger aircraft crashed into the ocean each day, with everyone onboard dead, or two Titanics sank each day. Over 900,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 to date, according to official death reports, but in reality the figure has already passed 1 million, according to “excess death” statistics compiled by The Economist. But rather than doing anything to stop mass infection and mass death, the US government has used the emergence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant as a pretext to abandon all measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. It is allowing virtually the entire American population to become infected and re-infected with COVID-19 into the future indefinitely, meaning that hundreds of thousands of people could die every year from a preventable disease, and millions more will be permanently disabled by Long COVID. In order to force the policy of mass infection onto a public that remains highly concerned about the dangers posed by the pandemic, the US government and media have launched a systematic and deliberate effort to cover up the massive death toll through a media blackout and the manipulation of data.

Roberts says he did not ask Gorsuch 'or any other justices' to mask up on Supreme Court bench --Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed Wednesday that he did not ask Neil Gorsuch "or any other justices" to wear masks on the bench."I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench," Roberts said in a statement issued by the Supreme Court. The rare public statement from the chief justice follows an earlier statement by the Supreme Court, which confirmed that Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not ask Gorsuch to wear a mask during oral argument proceedings."Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false," the Supreme Court wrote in a statement. "While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends."The dual statements on Wednesday came amid reports from several outlets, includingNPR, which cited unnamed court sources claiming Sotomayor did not feel safe in close proximity to unmasked people, noting that the justice has diabetes and has recently been participating remotely. All nine justices are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and all but Gorsuch, who sits adjacent to Sotomayor, wear masks during hearings. A court spokeswoman said Wednesday that Sotomayor would continue to participate remotely from her chambers for the remainder of the week, according to a tweet fromNew York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak.Notably, NPR reporter Nina Totenberg's article never claimed Sotomayor asked Gorsuch to wear a mask. Rather, the article suggested Roberts acknowledged Sotomayor's concerns about COVID-19 transmission. "Chief Justice John Roberts, understanding that, in some form asked the other justices to mask up," Totenberg wrote.

On the retirement of Justice Breyer: is this any way to run a country? - Long long ago I remember reading that Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, both about 70 years old at the time, decided not to retire during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, because he was not liberal enough, preferring to wait for the next, more left-wing Democratic President. Heh! Liberals got lucky when, upon Brennan’s retirement in 1990, David Souter was named to replace him. They weren’t lucky when Marshall retired due to badly declining health in 1991 and was replaced by Clarence Thomas. Marshall died only 4 days after Bill Clinton became President; and Thomas, the first GOP Justice selected explicitly for his young age at the time (he was only 43 years old when confirmed to the Supreme Court) still sits upon the Court over 30 years later. Of course, that same scenario played out less than two years ago when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, having refused to retire during Obama’s Presidency (allegedly even after a direct appeal from Obama in 2013 when he correctly feared losing the Senate in 2014), died and was immediately replaced by the 48 year old Justice Amy Barrett. A few years ago I calculated that, during the 19th Century, the median tenure for a Supreme Court Justice was 14 years. With immense gains in longevity during the late 20th Century, and the explicit practice of selecting young candidates in their 40s in order to maximize their partisan impact with lifetime appointments, since 1950 that median had increased to 20 years; and I calculated that by 2018, it would be 30 years. The New York Times, writing two years after me, discussed the same phenomenon and included the following helpful graph: As we watch a radically reactionary majority on the Court systematically dismantle the 20th Century, there are deeper questions to be asked than just focusing on the current personnel. Namely, since the US Constitution enshrines judicial supremacy: is this any way to run a country? Why should the whims and egos of 9 individuals, deciding whether and when they want to retire, or whether they intend to serve until they drop dead, absolutely determine the rights and obligations of over 300 million people; and the fundamental structure of the government that shapes those rights and obligations? Simply, had Brennan and Marshall retired during Jimmy Carter’s Presidency, or had Ginsburg resigned during Obama’s, the fundamental supreme law of the United States would be drastically different than it is now (and even more so than it is likely to be in a couple of years). Why on earth should that be the case? Why should the idiosyncrasies of a few philosopher-kings and queens absolutely govern our lives? Over the years my position on the Supreme Court has become more radicalized. It has changed from the need to convince elderly Justices like Breyer to retire, to the more fundamental position that we should not have to engage – sometimes futilely, viz., Ginsburg – in this persuasion.

Cruz speculates on Biden picking Harris for court -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a podcast speculated that President Biden may nominate Vice President Harris to serve on the Supreme Court “to get her out of the White House.” Biden has promised to nominate a Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, but there is little to no chance he's going to pick Harris. She is not among a half-dozen names who are seen as the top potential picks to succeed the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. But that hasn't stopped some Republicans, such as Cruz, from speculating about a Harris pick. “Look, the Democratic Party is very worried that she’s the presumed successor to Joe Biden because her political negatives are so strong,” Cruz told co-host Michael Knowles on the podcast "Verdict." “I think there is a chance they nominate Kamala to the court in part because they can’t stand her and one of the virtues of naming her to the court is they get to get her out of the White House,” he said.

Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court? -- Last fall, Justice Clarence Thomas, in an address at Notre Dame, accused the media of spreading the false notion that the Justices are merely politicians in robes. Such criticism, he said, “makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference,” adding, “They think you become like a politician!”The claim that the Justices’ opinions are politically neutral is becoming increasingly hard to accept, especially from Thomas, whose wife, Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, is a vocal right-wing activist. She has declared that America is in existential danger because of the “deep state” and the “fascist left,” which includes “transsexual fascists.” Thomas, a lawyer who runs a small political-lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, has become a prominent member of various hard-line groups. Her political activism has caused controversy for years. For the most part, it has been dismissed as the harmless action of an independent spouse. But now the Court appears likely to secure victories for her allies in a number of highly polarizing cases—on abortion, affirmative action, and gun rights.Many Americans first became aware of Ginni Thomas’s activism on January 6, 2021. That morning, before the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C., turned into an assault on the Capitol resulting in the deaths of at least five people, she cheered on the supporters of President Donald Trump who had gathered to overturnBiden’s election. In a Facebook post that went viral, she linked to a news item about the protest, writing, “love maga people!!!!” Shortly afterward, she posted about Ronald Reagan’s famous “A Time for Choosing” speech. Her next status update said, “god bless each of you standing up or praying.” Later that January, the Washington Post revealed that she had also been agitating about Trump’s loss on a private Listserv, Thomas Clerk World, which includes former law clerks of Justice Thomas’s. The online discussion had been contentious. John Eastman, a former Thomas clerk and a key instigator of the lie that Trump actually won in 2020, was on the same side as Ginni Thomas, and he drew rebukes. According to the Post, Thomas eventually apologized to the group for causing internal rancor. Artemus Ward, a political scientist at Northern Illinois University and a co-author of “Sorcerers’ Apprentices,” a history of Supreme Court clerks, believes that the incident confirmed her outsized role. “Virginia Thomas has direct access to Thomas’s clerks,” Ward said. Clarence Thomas is now the Court’s senior member, having served for thirty years, and Ward estimates that there are “something like a hundred and twenty people on that Listserv.” In Ward’s view, they comprise “an élite right-wing commando movement.” Justice Thomas, he says, doesn’t post on the Listserv, but his wife “is advocating for things directly.” Ward added, “It’s unprecedented. I have never seen a Justice’s wife as involved.”

Senators Have Re-Introduced the Highly Unpopular EARN IT Bill That Would Scan All Online Messages - People don’t want outsiders reading their private messages—not their physical mail, not their texts, not their DMs, nothing. It’s a clear and obvious point, but one place it doesn’t seem to have reached is the U.S. Senate.A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have re-introduced the EARN IT Act, an incredibly unpopular bill from 2020 that was dropped in the face of overwhelming opposition. Let’s be clear: the new EARN IT Act would pave the way for a massive new surveillance system, run by private companies, that would roll back some of the most important privacy and security features in technology used by people around the globe. It’s a framework for private actors to scan every message sent online and report violations to law enforcement. And it might not stop there. The EARN IT Act could ensure that anything hosted online—backups, websites, cloud photos, and more—is scanned.The bill empowers every U.S. state or territory to create sweeping new Internet regulations, by stripping away the critical legal protections for websites and apps that currently prevent such a free-for-all—specifically, Section 230. The states will be allowed to pass whatever type of law they want to hold private companies liable, as long as they somehow relate their new rules to online child abuse.The goal is to get states to pass laws that will punish companies when they deploy end-to-end encryption, or offer other encrypted services. This includes messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage, as well as web hosts like Amazon Web Services. We know that EARN IT aims to spread the use of tools to scan against law enforcement databases because the bill’s sponsors have said so. In a “Myths and Facts” document distributed by the bill’s proponents, it even names the government-approved software that they could mandate (PhotoDNA, a Microsoft program with an API that reports directly to law enforcement databases). The document also attacks Amazon for not scanning enough of its content. Since Amazon is the home of Amazon Web Services, host of a huge number of websites, that implies the bill’s aim is to ensure that anything hosted online gets scanned.

Press reports reveal Trump commissioned second draft executive order to seize voting machines - Following on the heels of Donald Trump’s admission that he sought to “overturn” and “change the results” of the 2020 presidential election, new reports from CNN and the New York Times confirm that the would-be dictator personally led efforts to have the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seize voting machines in three states prior to the failed January 6, 2021 coup. Citing “three people familiar with the matter,” the Times wrote: “Trump directed his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to make a remarkable call. Mr. Trump wanted him to ask the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) if it could legally take control of voting machines in key swing states. …” “Mr. Giuliani did so,” wrote the Times, which also reported that Trump had previously asked then-Attorney General William Barr if the Department of Justice could seize voting machines, which Barr apparently rejected. Late Monday night, corroborating the Times report, CNN cited “multiple sources” confirming the existence of a second executive order directing the DHS to seize voting machines. Last month, it was revealed that Trump lawyers drafted an executive order calling for the National Guard to seize ballots across the country and have the intelligence agencies unilaterally declare Trump the winner. While it has previously been reported that on December 18, 2020, Giuliani called DHS Acting Deputy Secretary Kenneth Cuccinelli and asked about the feasibility of the department seizing voting machines, the fact that Trump personally directed Giuliani to do so was not previously revealed. In an earlier January interview with CNN, Cuccinelli admitted that he spoke with Giuliani on December 18, 2020. However, he claimed the conversation “never developed to the point of talking about an executive order including such action that I recall.” The new information explodes all attempts to deny that the events of January 6 were part of a conspiracy led by the then-president to overturn the election and establish a fascistic presidential dictatorship. It shatters the claim that the siege of the US Capitol was merely a protest that got out of control. And it provides further grounds for arresting the former president on charges of attempting to overthrow the Constitution. Trump suggested at a rally over the weekend in Conroe, Texas that, if reelected, he would pardon the January 6 insurrectionists who have been criminally charged, and he called for mass, violent protests should he himself be indicted. Such statements make clear that he and fascist allies such as Stephen Bannon and a considerable section of Republican lawmakers are plotting another coup.

New York Times sues the State Department for emails mentioning Hunter Biden for investigation into whether US officials helped private business interests - The New York Times sued the State Department on Monday, seeking access to US embassy emails that mention President Joe Biden's son Hunter, court filings show.In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, lawyers for The Times requested access to emails sent by officials at the US embassy in Romania between 2015 and 2019 that contain keywords including "Hunter Biden," the filings show.Politico first reported the existence of the lawsuit.In the filings, lawyers for The Times said the State Department was stalling in answering a series of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act by the Times reporter Kenneth P. Vogel from June. The FOIA requests, which were included in the filings, suggested The Times was investigating whether US officials helped grant political favors to private businesses.Per the lawsuit, one request dated June 7 asked for records relating to:

1. "The possible improper use of federal government resources to assist and advance private business interests with connections to United States government officials."
2. "The possible evasion of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by those private business interests."
3. "The nonenforcement of FARA by the federal government in relation to those private business interests."

Vogel had also asked the State Department for emails containing the keywords "Rudy Giuliani," and "Tony Bobulinski," Hunter Biden's former business associate. Former President Donald Trump sent Giuliani to Ukraine ahead of the 2020 election to investigate Biden's business history in the country.

MSNBC Says "Cancel Culture Is Out Of Hand" Over Whoopi Goldberg, While Demanding Rogan's Excommunication - It appears MSNBC, the "news network" that told its viewers the "Let's Go Brandon!" meme was part of a "slow moving insurrection" among other egregious examples of liberal fearmongering, is now suddenly convinced that "cancel culture" is toxic and needs to be "put behind us" - all because poor Whoopi Goldberg has now seen her multi-decade career blow up in her face over her latest antisemetic comments.After apologizing for her allegedly "antisemetic" comments, Goldberg - who picked her stage name supposedly because she thought having a Jewish-sounding name would help her land more auditions early in her career - doubled down during an appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, resulting in her being suspended from "The View". Apparently, Goldberg facing the consequences of her own actions was too much to bear for poor Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe"."Everybody knows Whoopi Goldberg. She's been on TV for decades she's been putting herself out there for decades. If you don't know her heart than you haven't been watching. So maybe this two week suspension is really about something else...something that maybe we need to start putting behind us which is this unbelievable need to punish and judge people when they have made a mistake."Brzezinski went on to describe - supposedly from experience - the "horror" of being a public person who has said something unpalatable about race in America. "It's horrifying...it's chilling," she said, before continuing:"I really feel, especially at the View, where their show is based on arguments, is based on debates, is based on making moments, they are pushed to do that. I hope there's learning for everybody on the show...in terms of grace, in terms of forgiveness, in terms of kindne ss.""There were so many positives that could have happened out of this debate..""This cancel culture is getting so out of hand...there were so many positives that could have come out of this debate...instead it's heading in a totally different direction."Watch the clip below:

Melinda French Gates Will No Longer Give Bulk Of Her Wealth To Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - Maybe it was a constant reminder of Bill Gates' friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, or maybe she's just made too many promises to too many pool boys - but Melinda French Gates is no longer going to donate the bulk of her wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. French Gates made the change in late 2021 Giving Pledge letter following her divorce from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, however at the time she didn't specify that it would go to the Gates Foundation, according to the Wall Street Journal."I think philanthropy is most effective when it prioritizes flexibility over ideology—and why in my work at the foundation and Pivotal Ventures I’ll continue to seek out new partners, ideas, and perspectives," she wrote.Still, French Gates says she still plans to give most of her fortune away, spreading it among various philanthropic endeavors, according to people familiar with the matter.She launched Pivotal Ventures in 2015 to focus on issues affecting women and families, including paid-leave policies and an effort to get more women into technology and public office. She has committed to give $1 billion over 10 years to Pivotal to promote gender equality. "I recognize the absurdity of so much wealth being concentrated in the hands of one person, and I believe the only responsible thing to do with a fortune this size is give it away—as thoughtfully and impactfully as possible," she wrote in her new letter.

8 in 10 app developers back measure to rein in Google, Apple: poll - Eighty-four percent of app developers support an antitrust bill aimed at curtailing the market power of Apple's and Google’s app stores, according to a poll from the Coalition for App Fairness released Monday. The industry group for app developers is pushing Congress to pass the Open App Markets Act, a bipartisan Senate bill that would block app stores from favoring their own in-house apps in searches, requiring developers to use their payment systems and preventing users from downloading apps from third-party stores. Developers surveyed by the group complained about exorbitant fees charged by the largest app stores — Apple charges a 30 percent commission on app store sales for large developers — and expressed how they'd experienced difficulty getting their apps featured or accepted by app stores. Just 13 percent of app developers surveyed oppose the bill. “The evidence is clear - app developers want the Open App Markets Act to pass so that they can have the opportunity to compete in a fair digital marketplace,” Meghan DiMuzio, executive director of the Coalition for App Fairness, said in a statement. “For too long, developers have been harmed by gatekeepers’ monopolistic practices, and consumers have suffered from less choice and innovation.” The proposal, co-sponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), is scheduled for a committee markup this week. The CEOs of Apple and Google have personally lobbied lawmakers to abandon antitrust legislation targeting their app stores, warning that they would not be able to verify the security of apps downloaded from third-party stores. The poll, conducted by ClearPath Strategies, surveyed 190 app developers in 11 states between December 2021 and January 2022. The margin of error is plus or minus 7.11 percentage points.

 Democrats circulate bill to rein in stablecoins — Congressional Democrats are crafting legislation that would establish the first federal rules and prudential backstops for stablecoins, according to draft legislation obtained by American Banker. The draft legislation — spearheaded by House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J. — would limit what institutions may issue stablecoins and would create a separate insurance fund supervised by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to cover losses by nonbank stablecoin issuers. The draft legislation has been circulating on Capitol Hill for the last several weeks but has not been officially released. While expectations are low for Congress passing significant legislation on cryptocurrencies in the near term, Gottheimer’s bill could emerge as a starting point for lawmakers’ deliberations in the coming months. M

PayPal explores launch of own stablecoin in crypto push - PayPal is exploring the launch of its own stablecoin as part of its cryptocurrency push, according to the company, which confirmed the development after evidence of the move was discovered inside its iPhone app.“We are exploring a stablecoin; if and when we seek to move forward, we will of course, work closely with relevant regulators,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of crypto and digital currencies at PayPal, said in a statement to Bloomberg News. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies backed and priced by the value of an existing currency or commodity. Evidence of the company’s exploration into building a stablecoin was first discovered in PayPal’s app by developer Steve Moser and shared with Bloomberg. Hidden code and images show work on what is dubbed a “PayPal Coin.” The code indicates such a coin would be backed by the U.S. dollar.

Outgoing FDIC chair says bank-issued stablecoins 'closely resemble' deposits - — Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Jelena McWilliams says bank-issued stablecoins “closely resemble” the nature of bank deposits, lending credibility to new proposals for federal stablecoin insurance. Speaking to the Bipartisan Policy Center one day before she is set to resign from her post as FDIC leader, McWilliams said that one of the most recent things she had directed agency staff to study was whether stablecoins — a form of cryptocurrency often pegged to a fiat currency — can or should be insured by the government. “My personal view is that generally, bank-issued stablecoins closely resemble digital representation of deposits,” says Jelena McWilliams, who will step down as Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chair on Friday. “A key question that the FDIC has been carefully exploring is whether a stablecoin, or the funds represented by a stablecoin, meets the definition of deposit under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, and relatedly, whether stablecoins could be eligible for deposit insurance,” McWilliams said.

What Happens If a Cryptocurrency Exchange Files for Bankruptcy? by Yves Smith -Bankruptcy expert and Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin has just published a post on how customers would fare if a cryptocurrency exchange were to go bankrupt in the US. The short answer is badly. Cryptocurrency exchange members, often misled by the exchange itself, likely labor under the misapprehension that they still “own” the coins they’ve entrusted to the exchange. While possible legal arrangements vary, for the overwhelming majority of customers, that is almost certainly false.I strongly encourage anyone dabbling in crypto or with friends and family doing so to read Levitin’s short and very readable piece.The risk of exchange failure is real, and particularly so with cryptopcurrency exchanges. Brave New Coin listed 50 cryptocurrency exchanges that had gone bust in the past 11 years as of mid 2021 and warned:Unfortunately crypto exchange failures or hacks often generate a perception that there was something wrong with the coins that got hacked. Typically, though, it is not a cryptocurrency that failed or a bitcoin failure, but instead it is basic mismanagement, outright founder criminality and/or mass government shutdown orders that are to blame.According to Darwinist theory, failed crypto exchanges should result in the quality of the products and services of the exchanges that remain being higher than it would have been if these poorly managed exchanges had survived. As VC Marc Andresen said in a tweet soon after the now legendary MtGox failure: “MtGox had to die for Bitcoin to thrive. Its former role from early Bitcoin days has been supplanted by better, stronger entities.”The theory goes that markets mature and get stronger through a process similar to natural selection, where bad or “unfit” services are bankrupted in one way or another, getting out of the way to make room for the good, or “fittest” services to thrive. If the theory is sound, then this long list of failed crypto exchanges should mean that the exchange sector is healthier than it has ever been – but the fact that so many exchanges continued to sink in 2020 along with all their depositor’s funds, is not reassuring.Brave New Coin apparently missed a few rotten apples. CoinTelegraph found that 75 cryptocurrency exchanges had failed “so far” 2020….as of October 7.Now to Levitin’s discussion of the consequences for hapless customers. Let’s start with the key point, when the exchange goes bust, your coins are almost certainly part of the bankruptcy estate, and you have to get in line with all the other creditors of the exchange to make your claim and eventually find out what if anything you get back. As Levitin elaborates:

CFPB warnings of bias in AI could spook lenders - Rohit Chopra has seized on nearly every public opportunity as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to admonish companies about the potential misuse of artificial intelligence in lending decisions. Chopra has said that algorithms can never "be free of bias" and may result in credit determinations that are unfair to consumers. He claims machine learning can be anti-competitive and could lead to “digital redlining” and “robo discrimination.” “When consumers and regulators do not know how decisions are made by the algorithms, consumers are unable to participate in a fair and competitive market free from bias,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in October at a news conference with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland about the launch of a new initiative to combat lending discrimination. The message for banks and fast-moving fintechs is loud and clear: Enforcement actions related to the use of AI are coming, as is potential guidance tied to what makes alternative data such as utility and rent payments risky when used in marketing, pricing and underwriting products, experts say. M

Yellen calls stricter bank capital rules for climate risk 'premature' - Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it’s too early to contemplate adjusting capital requirements for U.S. banks based on how much risk they face from climate change. “It’s just premature at this point to talk about raising capital requirements,” Yellen said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg News. Before that could happen, she said, “it’s really important that regulators do the groundwork that’s necessary for them to evaluate risks to individual firms.” How regulators incorporate climate risks into the safety and soundness rules they enforce on the largest financial institutions has become an increasingly contentious debate in Washington. Some Democrats have pushed for a much more aggressive approach that looks not only to protect financial stability but also to speed the economy’s transition toward clean energy.

Why U.S. Chamber of Commerce is concerned about Biden’s banking nominees - — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is taking on an increasingly visible role in the confirmation process for the Biden administration’s financial regulatory nominees,another indication of the ripple effects banking policy is having across the broader business community. One of the nation’s oldest and most prominent advocates for the business sector, the Chamber has historically maintained a solid distance from Senate confirmations, particularly when bank regulatory nominees are involved. But that appears to be changing under the Biden administration. In September, the Chamber blasted Cornell University law professor Saule Omarova, the White House’s pick to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency who later withdrew after significant industry pushback. And this week, the Chamber sounded yet another alarm in a letter to the Senate Banking Committee, this time over Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was nominated earlier this month to be the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision.

The New York Fed Has Quietly Staffed Up a Second Trading Floor Near the S&P 500 Futures Market in Chicago - Pam Martens On January 11, Simon & Schuster released a new book on the Fed. It’s written by bestselling author and business reporter, Christopher Leonard. The title leaves little doubt about what the author has set out to prove:The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy. For those of us who have been scrutinizing the trading operations of the New York Fed for decades, with the appropriate amount of skepticism that is inexplicably missing among the mainstream press, Leonard delivers a bombshell on page 242. Leonard writes:“The conference room in the New York Fed was located just off the main trading floor, and its doors were open during meetings so people could quietly go in and out. The room was anchored by a large table, with a couch along the wall for staffers to sit with their laptops open and take notes. There was a set of large digital monitors hanging on one wall, one of which provided a live video feed from an eerily identical room in Chicago, in a Fed satellite office near the important Chicago Mercantile Exchange.”What Leonard is describing is the Markets Group at the New York Fed, the only one of 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks to have its own trading floor; its own traders with Bloomberg terminals; its own speed dials to the major investment banks on Wall Street; and its own analysts that ferret out market-moving information from around the globe on a continuous basis. (Leonard was given an official tour of this area at the New York Fed on February 27, 2020, according to the “Notes” section of his book.)What Leonard is suggesting on page 242 is that the New York Fed’s trading floor is no longer just content to sit close to the New York Stock Exchange in lower Manhattan. The New York Fed’s Markets Group has decided to clone itself with another trading floor that sits close to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where S&P 500 futures are traded, as well as other futures contracts.Why is that a bombshell? Because it suggests to Wall Street savvy readers that the New York Fed may be planning to use the futures markets to try to engineer a soft landing in an attempt to get itself out of the very serious mess it’s made that Leonard explains very convincingly throughout his book. We checked out the New York Fed’s website and found no mention of this satellite trading floor and satellite Markets Group in Chicago. The Chicago Fed is not so secretive, however, and confirms on its website that the New York Fed’s satellite office is located inside its building. The Chicago Fed actually lists profiles of six staffers at the New York Fed’s facility, but it uses only first names, as if these folks are in some kind of witness protection program.

Wells Fargo accused of arbitration ‘fraud’ - Former Wells Fargo clients who accused the bank and its Wall Street regulator of making a secret deal involving the selection of FINRA arbitrators won a shocking victory in state court. The Jan. 25 decision vacated an August 2019 award from an Atlanta-based arbitration panel that ordered former clients Brian Leggett and Bryson Holdings to pay Wells Fargo Clearing Services a payment of $83,600 in costs and fees and expunged the complaint from the FINRA BrokerCheck records of their two former advisors. Judges rarely toss out arbitration decisions when parties seek the required approval of them in local courts. This order went even further, by questioning “the entire fairness” of FINRA’s arbitration process; alleging a broker contributed “perjured testimony” at the hearings; and speaking of a “secret agreement” between the regulator and Wells Fargo about the makeup of arbitration panels. The clients sought to vacate the award through a lawsuit, filed in October 2019. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Belinda Edwards ruled in their favor, citing Wells Fargo, FINRA and the arbitrators for misconduct throughout the proceeding.

Deutsche Bank tightens grip on WhatsApp uses amid U.S. crackdown - wDeutsche Bank is seeking to tighten oversight of employees’ electronic communication amid a clampdown by U.S. regulators on the widespread use of services such as WhatsApp in the financial industry. The German lender plans to soon roll out a technological fix to strengthen its ability to store and monitor the use of messaging apps, according to people familiar with the matter. The goal is to allow staff the convenience of keeping the services while also satisfying regulatory requirements, they said, asking not to be identified discussing the private information. Deutsche Bank has been stepping up investments in controls after regulators in the U.S. and Germany chided the bank for not doing enough. The latest project comes on the heels of an unusually high, $200 million fine imposed late last year on JPMorgan Chase for using platforms such as WhatsApp and emails, which violated rules to ensure work messages are archived for regulatory scrutiny.

Treasury warns of illicit money percolating in high-end art - The U.S. Treasury Department is looking more closely at potential money laundering and the financing of terrorism through trading high-value art. The way art is bought and sold — and some of the participants involved — may make it attractive to criminals looking to launder money, according to a study published Friday by the department. The high dollar value of transactions, transportability of goods, a longstanding culture of privacy and the use of intermediaries such as advisers are all contributing factors. The emerging digital art market, such as the use of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), may also present new risks, according to the report.

 Citi whistleblower asks for share of $400 million penalty - A Citigroup employee says she provided U.S. regulators with information that led to the bank's paying a $400 million fine. Now, she wants a judge to award her a share of the penalty. Tamika Miller, a Citigroup auditor, said she supplied federal officials with documents and other evidence that were “instrumental” to the bank’s 2020 settlement over risk management failures, according to documents filed Monday as part of a federal lawsuit in Manhattan. In seeking a payout from the U.S. government, she’s citing a whistleblower law that allows corporate tipsters to pocket as much as 30% of a sanction. For Miller, that could mean a $120 million windfall. Blowing the whistle on corporate misdeeds has become lucrative in recent years, with government watchdogs routinely awarding informants millions of dollars for their help with cases. Last year, for example, regulators doled out $200 million to one tipster alone for information about Deutsche Bank manipulating interest rates that resulted in the bank paying billions of dollars in fines.

Message to FDIC's new leaders: Crack down on 'rent a bank' loans Consumers advocates are asking new leaders at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to cut off partnerships between banks and fintechs that result in borrowers paying annual interest rates as high as 225%. Fifteen consumer groups called for the crackdown in a letter to Democratic appointees on the FDIC board, as Chair Jelena McWilliams, a Republican appointee, prepared to step down Friday. The FDIC “appears to have done nothing to curtail the predatory lending that has exploded on its watch,” wrote the National Consumer Law Center and other groups.

More banks curb or ditch overdraft fees. Is this the end of an era? - The trickle of banks eschewing overdraft fees has become a flood. Six months ago, American Banker published a look at 10 large and midsize banks that were either reducing their reliance on overdraft fee revenue or eliminating the controversial charges altogether.At the time, banks were facing competitive pressure from overdraft-free online challengers. And Biden-era regulators were expected to take a tougher stance on charges that could lead customers to pay $35 for a cup of coffee.Since then, the landscape has started to change even faster.New leaders at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have made their dissatisfaction with the status quo clearer.Some banks that had already announced changes meant to reduce their overdraft fee revenue unveiled additional steps. Other banks that had yet to take action pledged to do so soon. The following rundown of 12 large and midsize banks describes not only the steps they are taking to reduce or eliminate overdraft fees, but also how they plan to compensate for the lost revenue. (slideshow)

Fannie Mae: Mortgage Serious Delinquency Rate Decreased in December -- Fannie Mae reported that the Single-Family Serious Delinquency decreased to 1.25% in December, from 1.33% in November. The serious delinquency rate is down from 2.87% in December 2020.These are mortgage loans that are "three monthly payments or more past due or in foreclosure".The Fannie Mae serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 5.59% following the housing bubble and peaked at 3.32% in August 2020 during the pandemic.By vintage, for loans made in 2004 or earlier (1% of portfolio), 3.48% are seriously delinquent (down from 3.61% in November). For loans made in 2005 through 2008 (2% of portfolio), 5.87% are seriously delinquent (down from 6.05%), For recent loans, originated in 2009 through 2021 (97% of portfolio), 1.01% are seriously delinquent (down from 1.08%). So, Fannie is still working through a few poor performing loans from the bubble years. Mortgages in forbearance are counted as delinquent in this monthly report, but they will not be reported to the credit bureaus.This is very different from the increase in delinquencies following the housing bubble. Lending standards have been fairly solid over the last decade, and most of these homeowners have equity in their homes - and they will be able to restructure their loans once they are employed.

 Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey -- Mortgage applications increased 12.0 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending January 28, 2022. ... The Refinance Index increased 18 percent from the previous week and was 50 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 4 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 12 percent compared with the previous week and was 7 percent lower than the same week one year ago. “Most mortgage rates in MBA’s survey continued to rise, with the 30-year fixed rate reaching its highest level since March 2020 at 3.78 percent. Despite the increase in rates, refinance applications were up 18 percent, driven mainly by a 22 percent jump in conventional applications. There has likely been some recent volatility in application counts due to holiday-impacted weeks, as well as from borrowers trying to secure a refinance before rates go even higher,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “Purchase applications also increased in the final full week of January but remained 7 percent lower than a year ago. The average purchase loan size hit a new survey high once again at $441,100. Stubbornly low inventory levels and swift home-price growth continue to push average loan sizes higher.” ... The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) increased to 3.78 percent from 3.72 percent, with points decreasing to 0.41 from 0.43 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.

CoreLogic: House Prices up 18.5% YoY in December - The CoreLogic HPI is a three-month weighted average and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA). From CoreLogic: CoreLogic: CoreLogic Reports Upward Trend in Annual Home Price Appreciation Continues; Up 18.5% in December Consumer desire for homeownership against persistently low supply of for-sale homes created one of the hottest housing markets in decades in 2021 — and spurred record-breaking home price growth. Price appreciation averaged 15% for the full year of 2021, up from the 2020 full year average of 6%. Home price growth in 2021 started off at 10% in the first quarter, steadily increasing and ending the year with an increase of 18% for the fourth quarter. While there have been questions surrounding whether we are currently in a housing bubble, the CoreLogic Market Risk Indicators suggest a small probability of a nationwide price decline, and points to the larger likelihood that a fall in price will be limited to specific, at-risk markets. Still, the CoreLogic HPI Forecast shows the national 12-month growth steadily slowing over 2022. During the early months of the year, it’s projected to remain above 10% while decelerating each month to a 12-month rise of 3.5% by December 2022. Comparing the average projected National HPI for 2022 with the previous year, the CoreLogic HPI Forecast shows the annual average up 9.6% in 2022. "Much of what we’ve seen in the run-up of home prices over the last year has been the result of a perfect storm of supply and demand pressures,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. “As we move further into 2022, economic factors – such as new home building and a rise in mortgage rates – are in motion to help relieve some of this pressure and steadily temper the rapid home price acceleration seen in 2021.” ... Nationally, home prices increased 18.5% in December 2021, compared to December 2020. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 1.3% compared to November 2021. ... Home price gains are projected to slow to a 3.5% annual increase by December 2022.

Median vs Repeat Sales Index House Prices - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Median vs Repeat Sales Index House Prices Excerpt: Back in October, I wrote The Coming Deceleration in House Price Growth. In that post, I noted that the median prices (as reported by the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) was showing a slowdown in year-over-year (YoY) house price growth.In October ... the YoY growth in median prices started falling - and I expected Case-Shiller to follow. Sure enough, the YoY growth in the Case-Shiller has shown deceleration....The Case-Shiller index will probably show slower YoY growth over the next couple of reports, however median prices have picked up over the last two months - so there isn’t evidence of a sharp decline in the YOY growth.

Rents Still Increasing Sharply Year-over-year – McBride - First, from the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC): January Apartment Market Conditions Show Improvement Apartment market conditions generally improved according to the National Multifamily Housing Council’s Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions for January 2022. The Market Tightness (69), Sales Volume (59), and Equity Financing (67) indexes all came in above the breakeven level (50) for the fourth quarter in a row, though many respondents indicated conditions remained unchanged across the indexes. The Debt Financing (36) index indicated weaker conditions for the second consecutive quarter.“We are continuing to witness strong demand for apartments across the entire U.S., but most notably in the Sun Belt, where most markets have seen double-digit rent growth that has more than made up for the pandemic slowdown,” noted NMHC’s Chief Economist, Mark Obrinsky. “And even as construction continues to rebound from the lows of 2020, absorptions have more than kept pace, such that apartment occupancy remains at record-highs.This graph shows the quarterly Apartment Tightness Index. Any reading above 50 indicates tighter conditions from the previous quarter. Even though the index declined in January, this indicates market conditions tightened further in January for the fourth consecutive quarter, after being especially weak during the early months of the pandemic. From ApartmentList.com: Apartment List National Rent ReportAfter a slight dip to close out 2021, our national index ticked back up by 0.2 percent over the course of January. Even though month-over-month growth has moved back into positive territory, rent growth has still cooled substantially from last year’s peak. Year-over-year rent growth currently stands at a record-setting 17.8 percent, but over the past four months, rents have increased by a total of just 0.9 percent. Much of this cooldown is likely related to seasonal factors; it remains to be seen if rapid rent growth will return as moving activity picks back up in the spring and summer. … Although many renters may be rightfully dismayed by last year’s record-setting rent growth, the situation has shown signs of easing in recent months. From last March through September, the national median rent grew by an average of 2.1 percent per month – nearly the same amount that they increased over the entire year of 2019. However, over the most recent four months, monthly growth has averaged just 0.2 percent, with a total increase of less than one percent over that period. In December, rents actually fell by 0.2 percent, the only time they did so in 2021. That price dip proved to be short lived, but this month’s increase was still a modest one.This appears to be the normal seasonal slowdown in rent increases. Note that rents fell for much of 2020. ’m going to update some of the data that shows rents are accelerating. Here is a graph of several measures of rent since 2000: OER, rent of shelter, rent of primary residence, Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), and ApartmentList.com. (All set to 100 in January 2017)

Rents are up 40 percent in some cities, forcing millions to find another place to live -- Kiara Age moved in less than a year ago and now it’s time to move again: Rent on her two-bedroom apartment in Henderson, Nev., is rising 23 percent to nearly $1,600 a month, making it impossibly out of reach for the single mother. Age makes $15 an hour working from home as a medical biller while also caring for her 1-year-old son, because she can’t afford child care. By the time she pays rent — which takes up more than half of her salary — and buys groceries, there’s little left over. “I am trying to figure out what I can do,” said Age, 32, who also has an 8-year-old daughter. “Rent is so high that I can’t afford anything.” Rental prices across the country have been rising for months, but lately the increases have been sharper and more widespread, forcing millions of Americans to reassess their living situations. Average rents rose 14 percent last year, to $1,877 a month, with cities like Austin, New York and Miami notching increases of as much as 40 percent, according to real estate firm Redfin. And Americans expect rents will continue to rise — by about 10 percent this year — according to a report released this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At the same time, many local rent freezes and eviction moratoriums have already expired. “Rents really shot up in the second half of 2021,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. “The pandemic was kind of a pause on the economy and now that things are reopening, inflation is picking up, rents are going up and people are realizing they don’t have as much disposable income as they might have thought they had.” Higher rent prices are also expected to be a key driver of inflation in coming months. Housing costs make up a third of the U.S. consumer price index, which is calculated based on the going rate of home rentals. But economists say there is a lag of 9 to 12 months before rising rents show up in inflation measures. As a result, even if inflation were to subside for all other components of the consumer price index, rising rents alone could keep inflation levels elevated through the year, said Frank Nothaft, chief economist at real estate data firm CoreLogic. While the Federal Reserve’s likely interest rate increases are expected to slow soaring housing costs — already mortgage rates have been trending higher, which tends to cool the real estate market — the restraint on rental prices is expected to be much less direct and take longer to filter through.

Dear Mr. Fed Chair Powell Sir, Rents Are Blowing Out and People are Hurting Wolf Richter - In January, the median asking rent for one-bedroom apartments increased by 10% or more in 56 of the 100 largest cities in the US, compared to a year earlier. In 34 of the 100 largest cities, one-bedroom rents spiked by 15% or more. In 20 of those cities, rents spiked by 20% or more, and in 11 of them, rents spiked by 25% or more. Many of the cities with the largest year-over-year rent spikes are medium-size cities with more modest incomes.At the top is Fresno, CA, where the median asking rent for one-bedroom apartments in January skyrocketed by 28% in 12 months, and by 41% in two years, from $1,000 in January 2020 to $1,410 in January 2022, according to data from Zumper’s National Rent Report. Rent increases like this are nuts: This is a serious freaking problem, Mr. Chair Powell Sir. These renters are not wealthy people who made millions or billions of dollars thanks to your radical monetary policies. These are the working stiffs that now get to pay for your policies that made the already wealthy far wealthier.In the US overall, across the 100 largest markets, the median asking rent for one-bedroom apartments jumped by 12% year-over-year, according to Zumper’s National Index. The index for two-bedroom rents jumped by 14%.“Asking rents” are advertised rents for apartments listed at various rental listing services, including Multiple Listing Service. They show the current pricing of the market, like a price tag. They’ don’t include rents that tenants have been paying for months or years. Zumper’s data is limited to apartments in multifamily buildings and do not include single-family houses for rent. “Median” means that half of the apartments are listed at higher rents, and half are listed at lower rents. Can you even imagine a 20% or 25% increase in rent, Mr. Chair Powell Sir, when your pay goes up a glorious 6%, what that would require of your belt-tightening strategies? These are the 34 cities, of the largest 100 cities, were the median asking rent for 1-BR apartments spiked by 15% to 28% year-over-year. Mr. Chairman Sir, these are massive crushing rent increases that are now hitting a lot of people who are struggling to pay for them. If your pay goes up 6% and your rent goes up 25%, Mr. Chairman Sir, you’re screwed, Sir. But that’s what is happening now:

Q4 2021 GDP Details on Residential and Commercial Real Estate -The BEA released the underlying details for the Q4 advance GDP report on Friday. The BEA reported that investment in non-residential structures decreased at a 11.4% annual pace in Q4. Note that weakness in non-residential structures started in 2019, before the pandemic. Investment in petroleum and natural gas structures increased sharply in Q4 compared to Q3 and was up 49% year-over-year. The first graph shows investment in offices, malls and lodging as a percent of GDP. Investment in offices (blue) increased slightly in Q4 and was up 2.9% year-over-year. (Still declining as a percent of GDP). Investment in multimerchandise shopping structures (malls) peaked in 2007 and was up about 12% year-over-year in Q4 - from a very low level. The vacancy rate for malls is still very high, so investment will probably stay low for some time. Lodging investment increased slightly in Q4 compared to Q3, and lodging investment was down 25% year-over-year. All three sectors - offices, malls, and hotels - are being hurt significantly by the pandemic. The second graph is for Residential investment components as a percent of GDP. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, RI includes new single-family structures, multifamily structures, home improvement, Brokers’ commissions and other ownership transfer costs, and a few minor categories (dormitories, manufactured homes). Even though investment in single family structures has increased from the bottom, single family investment is just approaching normal levels as a percent of GDP. Investment in single family structures was $416 billion (SAAR) (about 1.7% of GDP), and up 18% year-over-year. Investment in multi-family structures decreased slightly in Q4. Investment in home improvement was at a $328 billion Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) in Q2 (about 1.4% of GDP). Home improvement spending has been strong during the pandemic. Note that Brokers' commissions (black) increased sharply last year as existing home sales increased in the second half of 2020 but was down in Q2 and Q3. Brokers' commissions were up 3% year-over-year in Q4.

Construction Spending Increased 0.2% in December -- From the Census Bureau reported that overall construction spending increased 0.2%: Construction spending during December 2021 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,639.9 billion, 0.2 percent above the revised November estimate of $1,636.5 billion. The December figure is 9.0 percent above the December 2020 estimate of $1,504.2 billion. The value of construction in 2021 was $1,589.0 billion, 8.2 percent above the $1,469.2 billion spent in 2020. Private spending increased and public spending decreased: Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,292.9 billion, 0.7 percent above the revised November estimate of $1,283.8 billion. ... In December, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $347.0 billion, 1.6 percent below the revised November estimate of $352.7 billion. This graph shows private residential and nonresidential construction spending, and public spending, since 1993. Note: nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted. Residential spending is 19% above the bubble peak (in nominal terms - not adjusted for inflation). Non-residential spending is 16% above the bubble era peak in January 2008 (nominal dollars) but has been soft recently. Public construction spending is 7% above the peak in March 2009. The second graph shows the year-over-year change in construction spending. On a year-over-year basis, private residential construction spending is up 15.0%. Non-residential spending is up 9.1% year-over-year. Public spending is down 2.9% year-over-year. Construction was considered an essential service during the early months of the pandemic in most areas and did not decline sharply like many other sectors. However, some sectors of non-residential have been under pressure. For example, lodging is down 23% YoY. This was below consensus expectations of a 0.6% increase in spending; however, construction spending for the previous two months was revised up.

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Down 12% Compared to Same Week in 2019 From CoStar: STR: US Hotels Improve Performance From Prior Week: U.S. hotel performance increased slightly from the previous week and showed improved comparisons against 2019, according to STR‘s latest data through Jan. 29.
Jan. 23-29, 2022 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019*):
• Occupancy: 49.7% (-12.2%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): $122.40 (-1.9%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): $60.82 (-13.9%)
*Due to the pandemic impact, STR is measuring recovery against comparable time periods from 2019. The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average.The red line is for 2022, black is 2020, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2021. The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is below the median rate for the previous 20 years (Blue).

 Las Vegas Visitor Authority for December: Visitor Traffic Down 13.3% Compared to 2019 --From the Las Vegas Visitor Authority: December 2021 Las Vegas Visitor Statistics: Las Vegas visitation saw positive gains through much of 2021, ending the year with 32.2M visitors, about three‐quarters of pre‐COVID volume but well ahead of the 19M visitors hosted in 2020. Amidst the challenges of COVID, active and evolving safety and health protocols across the destination allowed Las Vegas conventions and meetings to continue in 2021 with an estimated attendance of 2.2 million for the year, roughly a third of pre‐COVID levels. Overall hotel occupancy approached 67% for the year, dramatically ahead of 2020's 42.1% tally but below the 88.9% level of 2019. In part due to the challenged convention group segment, Midweek saw annual occupancy reach 60.5%, +23.1 pts vs. 2020 but ‐25.8 pts vs. 2019. Compared to midweek activity, weekends saw a stronger recovery, exceeding 87% in seven out of twelve months and ending the year at 81.3% (+28.5 pts vs. 2020 and ‐13.6 pts vs. 2019).This graph shows visitor traffic for 2019 (blue), 2020 (orange) and 2021 (red). Visitor traffic was down 13.3% compared to the same month in 2019.There was no convention traffic from March 2020 until June 2021 (In December, convention traffic was down 64% compared to 2019).

150 Meat Trucks Stranded At US-Canada Border As Protests Continue -The U.S. is Canada's largest export buyer for beef and Canada's largest importer supplier. Any disruption to the meat trade between both countries would have severe consequences for meat processors in Canada and consumers in the US. Days after the "Freedom Convoy" of truckers protesting vaccine mandates in Ottawa, the country's capital, protests are spreading to US-Canadian border crossings and furthering logistical headaches. Bloomberg reports 150 trucks packed with beef, bound for the US, are stuck in a traffic jam at the border at Coutts, Alberta, the Canadian Meat Council said. Since the weekend, a convoy of truckers hasslowed processing times between Alberta and Montana. We reported as of Monday, more than 100 truckers blocked the US-Canadian border between Alberta and Montana. On Sunday, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney called for an end to the blockade, stating: "Canadians have a democratic right to engage in lawful protests. I urge those involved in this truck convoy protest to do so as safely as possible, and not to create road hazards that could lead to accidents or unsafe conditions for other drivers.""It is not yet clear what the provincial or federal government is doing to facilitate a resolution. The longer this takes, it will cause more supply chain issues and this will affect everyone from producer to consumer," Marie-France MacKinnon, a spokesperson for the council, said.

Farmers Break Through Police Blockade, Leading Trucker Convoy Closer To US-Canada Border - Truckers for "Freedom Convoy" were greeted by farmers who used their tractors to penetrate the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's (RCMP) roadblocks at the Canada-US border in Coutts, Alberta, as talks broke down. True North and Rebel News reported farmers joined to strengthen the convoy as negotiations in Coutts between the truckers and Mounties collapsed on Tuesday afternoon. RCMP tried to establish a barricade, but that failed as farmers broke through and led a convoy of truckers closer to the border with Montana. Farmers and truckers stepped out of the respective tractors and trucks and sang the national anthem of Canada, "O Canada," in unison. Apparently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who, by the way, is still in hiding and is triple-jabbed after testing positive for COVID-19), has called these folks "fringe" and "racists."

AAR: December Rail Carloads and Intermodal Down Year-over-year - From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Rail Time Indicators. U.S. railroads originated 902,265 total carloads in January 2022, down 3.0% (27,861 carloads) from January 2021. It’s the fewest carloads for the first four weeks of a year since sometime before 1988, when our data begin. ... U.S. intermodal volume was 1.00 million units in January 2022, down 14.6% from last year, but January 2021 was the second best month ever for intermodal. This graph from the Rail Time Indicators report shows the six-week average of U.S. Carloads in 2019, 2020 and 2021:U.S. railroads originated 902,265 total carloads in January 2022, down 3.0% (27,861 carloads) from January 2021 and the fewest for the first four weeks of a year since sometime before 1988, when our data begin. ... Carloads excluding coal fell 6.0% in January 2022 from last year, their biggest year-over-year decline since February 2021 and, before that, August 2020. The second graph shows the six-week average (not monthly) of U.S. intermodal in 2019, 2020 and 2021: (using intermodal or shipping containers): U.S. intermodal originations totaled 1.00 million units in January 2022, down 14.6% (171,796 units) from January 2021. As with some carload commodities, the comparisons for intermodal were tough: January 2021 was the second highest volume month ever for U.S. intermodal, fractionally behind April 2021. January 2022 was the fifth best January ever for intermodal.

Biden's Warmongering Sends US Pump Prices Near Record Seasonal Highs - It appears President Biden is about to have yet another big problem as gas prices at the pump will be above cycle highs within a week.As Biden warmongers with Russia over Ukraine, the geopolitical risk premium rises and lifts crude prices (to 7 year highs) and wholesale gasoline prices.All of which means within a week or two, gas prices at the pump are going to take out pre-Omicron highs.Gas prices at the pump for this time of year have only been higher in 2012 and 2013... and even then it was only marginally higher. Given the chart above, we are well on our way to record seasonal prices... The problem for Biden now is that SPR stocks are at their lowest since Oct 2002... ...leaving Biden with no supply ammo and apparently no geopolitical leverage to lower prices, as witnessed by today's OPEC+ snub for increasing production.And without being able to do anything about it (except maybe inventivize doemstic production and blow the minds of his progressive wing), we suspect the crossover in the chart below will continue to grow...Ironically though, Russian crude deliveries into the U.S. are finally back after three weeks of no-shows. Volumes are still low though at just 20k b/d.

Gas prices climb to highest level in more than 7 years as oil surges above $90 - Gas prices rose to the highest level in more than seven years Friday, on the heels of the U.S. oil benchmark topping $90 per barrel for the first time since 2014. The national average for a gallon of gas stood at $3.423 on Friday, according to AAA, slightly surpassing the prior high-water mark of $3.422 from Nov. 8. Friday's price means consumers are now paying the most at the pump since Sept. 10, 2014, AAA data shows. The national average stood at $2.44 a year ago. The rapid rise in prices is contributing to inflationary fears across the economy and is creating a headache for the Biden administration. "Gas prices at the pump are up. We're working to bring them down, but they're up," President Joe Biden said Friday within the context of higher prices across the board for consumers. Biden did not offer specifics on how the administration is tackling elevated prices at the pump. In November, the White House said it would tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a coordinated move alongside other nations to try to ease the burden for consumers. Oil prices did move lower at the end of November and in December, but that was primarily driven by fears that the Covid omicron variant would dent demand. Once it became clear that the variant wouldn't have as much of an impact as initially feared, oil prices reversed course and starting moving higher again. WTI is now more than $10 above where it was in November — when the SPR release was announced. With calls for $100 oil, Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy said, prices at the pump will face upward pressure. "It's going to be potentially a pricier year than anticipated," he said, adding that the national average could top $4 per gallon by Memorial Day.

January Vehicles Sales increased to 15.04 million SAAR --Wards Auto released their estimate of light vehicle sales for January. Wards Auto estimates sales of 15.04 million SAAR in January 2022 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), up 20.9% from the December sales rate, but down 10.4% from January 2021. This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and Wards Auto's estimate for January (red). The impact of COVID-19 was significant, and April 2020 was the worst month. After April 2020, sales increased, and were close to sales in 2019 (the year before the pandemic). However, sales decreased earlier this year due to supply issues. It appears the "supply chain bottom" was in September, and sales in January were well above the consensus forecast of 12.6 million SAAR.

January Dallas Fed Manufacturing: Expansion Moderates - The Dallas Fed has released its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey for January. The latest general business activity index came in at 2, down 5.8 from last month. All figures are seasonally adjusted.Here is an excerpt from the latest report:Texas factory activity continued to increase but at a slower pace in January, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, came in at 16.6, an eight-month low but a reading still indicative of above-average output growth.Expectations regarding future manufacturing activity remained highly positive. The future production index receded slightly to 38.0, and the future general business activity index was largely unchanged at 16.5. Other measures of future manufacturing activity such as capital expenditures and employment showed mixed movements but remained solidly in positive territory.Monthly data for this indicator only dates back to 2004, so it is difficult to see the full potential of this indicator without several business cycles of data. Nevertheless, it is an interesting and important regional manufacturing indicator. The Dallas Fed on the TMOS importance:Texas is important to the nation’s manufacturing output. The state produced $159 billion in manufactured goods in 2008, roughly 9.5 percent of the country’s manufacturing output. Texas ranks second behind California in factory production and first as an exporter of manufactured goods.Texas turns out a large share of the country’s production of petroleum and coal products, reflecting the significance of the region’s refining industry. Texas also produces over 10 percent of the nation’s computer and electronics products and nonmetallic mineral products, such as brick, glass and cement.

January Regional Fed Manufacturing Overview - Five out of the twelve Federal Reserve Regional Districts currently publish monthly data on regional manufacturing: Dallas, Kansas City, New York, Richmond, and Philadelphia.Regional manufacturing surveys are a measure of local economic health and are used as a representative for the larger national manufacturing health. They have been used as a signal for business uncertainty and economic activity as a whole. Manufacturing makes up 12% of the country's GDP.The other 6 Federal Reserve Districts do not publish manufacturing data. For these, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book offers a short summary of each districts’ manufacturing health. The Chicago Fed published their Midwest Manufacturing Index from July 1996 through December of 2013. According to their website, "The Chicago Fed Midwest Manufacturing Index (CFMMI) is undergoing a process of data and methodology revision. In December 2013, the monthly release of the CFMMI was suspended pending the release of updated benchmark data from the U.S. Census Bureau and a period of model verification. Significant revisions in the history of the CFMMI are anticipated."Five out of the twelve Federal Reserve Regional Districts currently publish monthly data on regional manufacturing: Dallas, Kansas City, New York, Richmond, and Philadelphia. The latest average of the five for January is 11.3, down from the previous month.

ISM® Manufacturing index Decreased to 57.6% in January - -- The ISM manufacturing index indicated expansion in December. The PMI® was at 57.3% in January, down from 58.8% in December. The employment index was at 54.5%, up from 53.9% last month, and the new orders index was at 57.9%, down from 61.0%. From ISM: Manufacturing PMI® at 57.6% January 2022 Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® “The January Manufacturing PMI® registered 57.6 percent, a decrease of 1.2 percentage points from the seasonally adjusted December reading of 58.8 percent. This figure indicates expansion in the overall economy for the 20th month in a row after a contraction in April and May 2020. The New Orders Index registered 57.9 percent, down 3.1 percentage points compared to the seasonally adjusted December reading of 61 percent. The Production Index registered 57.8 percent, a decrease of 1.6 percentage points compared to the seasonally adjusted December reading of 59.4 percent. The Prices Index registered 76.1 percent, up 7.9 percentage points compared to the December figure of 68.2 percent. The Backlog of Orders Index registered 56.4 percent, 6.4 percentage points lower than the December reading of 62.8 percent. The Employment Index registered 54.5 percent, 0.6 percentage point higher compared to the seasonally adjusted December reading of 53.9 percent. The Supplier Deliveries Index registered 64.6 percent, down 0.3 percentage point from the December figure of 64.9 percent. The Inventories Index registered 53.2 percent, 1.4 percentage points lower than the seasonally adjusted December reading of 54.6 percent. The New Export Orders Index registered 53.7 percent, up 0.1 percentage point compared to the December reading of 53.6 percent. The Imports Index registered 55.1 percent, a 1.3-percentage point increase from the December reading of 53.8 percent.” This suggests manufacturing expanded at a slightly slower pace in January than in December.

January Markit Services PMI: Lowest Since Oct 2020 - The January US Services Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 51.2 percent, down from the final December estimate of 57.6. Here is the opening from the latest press release:US Sector PMI™ indices are compiled from responses to questionnaires sent to purchasing managers in IHS Markit's US manufacturing and services PMI survey panels, covering over 1,000 private sector companies. Indices are available for the basic materials, consumer goods, consumer services, financials, healthcare, industrials and technology sectors. [Press Release]Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012. Here is an overlay with the equivalent PMI survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management, which they refer to as "Non-Manufacturing" (see our full article on this series here). Over its history, the ISM metric has been significantly the more volatile of the two. The next chart uses a three-month moving average of the two rather volatile series to facilitate our understanding of the current trend. Since early in 2016, the ISM metric has shown stronger growth than the Markit counterpart.

ISM® Services Index Decreased to 59.9% in January - The December ISM® Services index was at 59.9%, down from 62.3% last month. The employment index decreased to 52.3%, from 54.7%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 in contraction. From the Institute for Supply Management: Services PMI® at 59.9% January 2022 Services ISM® Report On Business® “In January, the Services PMI® registered 59.9 percent, 2.4 percentage points below December’s seasonally adjusted reading of 62.3 percent. The Business Activity Index registered 59.9 percent, a decrease of 8.4 percentage points compared to the seasonally adjusted reading of 68.3 percent in December, and the New Orders Index registered 61.7 percent, 0.4 percentage point lower than the seasonally adjusted reading of 62.1 percent reported in December. The employment index decreased to 52.3%, from 54.7% the previous month.

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims Decrease to 238,000 - The DOL reported: In the week ending January 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 238,000, a decrease of 23,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 260,000 to 261,000. The 4-week moving average was 255,000, an increase of 7,750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 247,000 to 247,250. 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 increased to 255,000. The previous week was revised up. Weekly claims were close to the consensus forecast and increased recently likely due to the current COVID wave.

 BLS: Job Openings "little changed" at 10.9 million in December From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary - The number of job openings was little changed at 10.9 million on the last business day of December, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires and total separations decreased to 6.3 million and 5.9 million, respectively. Within separations, the quits rate was little changed at 2.9 percent. The layoffs and discharges rate was little changed at 0.8 percent, a series low. 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. This report is for December, the employment report on Friday will be for January. 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 spike in layoffs and discharges in March 2020 are labeled, but off the chart to better show the usual data. Jobs openings increased in December to 10.9 million from 10.8 million in November. The number of job openings (yellow) were up 62% year-over-year. Quits were up 27% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (See light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").

Layoffs, Quits, Hires, Job Openings: The Phenomenon of Labor Shortages and the Power-Shift from Employers to Workers - The persistence of the mind-boggling phenomenon of a labor shortage, and the accompanying shift in power from employers to workers was documented today by the JOLTS data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Based on a monthly survey of 21,000 nonfarm businesses and government entities, it estimates how many job openings there were at the end of the month, how many people companies hired during the month, how many people quit voluntarily such as for switching jobs, and how many people were laid off or were otherwise involuntarily discharged. Powell has started to mention these astronomical results of the JOLTS data – specifically the record job openings and the record quits – as aspects of the “very, very, very strong labor market” that is “historically tight,” as said at the FOMC press conference to prepare markets for the tightening that would include “a substantial amount of shrinkage” of the balance sheet.” . And today’s release was once again a doozie. The total number of workers who were laid off or discharged involuntarily in December by companies or government entities fell to 1.17 million (seasonally adjusted), a record low in the data going back to the year 2000. In the private sector alone, layoffs and discharges dropped to a record low of 1.1 million, down by 41% from December 2019: The rate of layoffs and discharges in the private sector – the number of layoffs and discharges as a percent of total private-sector employment – fell to a record low of 0.9%: The number of workers who voluntarily quit jobs in December, at 4.34 million, remained in the astronomical zone since last June, and was up 24% from December 2019. The private sector accounted for over 95% of total “quits.” These “quits” are people who decided to quit at their employer to work for another employer with more pay and/or better working conditions, where they became a “hire.” Or they decided to exit the labor force entirely to retire on their stock market laurels. Or they decided to take care of the kids, or to get rich quick with cryptos, or to take the plunge into the unknown and start their own businesses amid an explosion of new business. These record numbers of quits over the past six months show that workers have discovered their power in the labor market – and they’ve already found, or a confident in finding better opportunities somewhere else. The high number of quits also shows how aggressively employers are trying to hire people away from other employers, thereby poaching each other’s workers by offering better pay, benefits, and working conditions, and creating massive churn. It is via this mechanism of churn that pay increases spread around the economy as each employer has to deal with the new reality when a worker leaves and the position needs to be filled, and as employers implement pay raises to retain workers. When a company hires a worker away from another company, it is reported as a “quit” by the company that lost that worker, and as a “hire” by the company that got the worker. But the job opening itself just got shifted from one employer to another.

ADP: Private Employment Decreased 301,000 in January --From ADP: Private sector employment decreased by 301,000 jobs from December to Januaryaccording to the January ADP® National Employment ReportTM. Broadly distributed to the public each month, free of charge, the ADP National Employment Report is produced by the ADP Research Institute® in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual data of those who are on a company’s payroll, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis “The labor market recovery took a step back at the start of 2022 due to the effect of the Omicron variant and its significant, though likely temporary, impact to job growth,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “The majority of industry sectors experienced job loss, marking the most recent decline since December 2020. Leisure and hospitality saw the largest setback after substantial gains in fourth quarter 2021, while small businesses were hit hardest by losses, erasing most of the job gains made in December 2021.” This was well below the consensus forecast of 208,000 for this report. The BLS report will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 155 thousand non-farm payroll jobs added in January. The ADP report has not been very useful in predicting the BLS report, but this suggests weakness in the January BLS report.

ADP Signals Biggest Monthly Job Loss Since 2020 COVID Lockdowns - --Ahead of Friday's much-narrative-managed payrolls print, ADP's employment report gives us the first glimpse - outside of the ugly ISM/PMI jobs sub-indices - at just how bad things could get.Everyone from talking heads, banks, The White House, and The Fed has front-run the potentially negative print, as we note that almost half of analysts' expectations are for a drop in employment in January. Source: Bloomberg“The labor market recovery took a step back at the start of 2022 due to the effect of the Omicron variant and its significant, though likely temporary, impact to job growth,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. The Services sector lost 274k jobs in January and Goods-Producing jobs fell 27k... The majority of industry sectors experienced job loss, marking the most recent decline since December 2020. Leisure and hospitality saw the largest setback after substantial gains in fourth quarter 2021, while small businesses were hit hardest by losses, erasing most of the job gains made in December 2021.This bodes poorly for Friday but as several Fed Speakers have already noted, this is 'transitory' is unlikely to affect their decision to hike rates asap.

January Employment Report: 467 thousand Jobs, 4.0% Unemployment Rate -- From the BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 467,000 in January, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment growth continued in leisure and hospitality, in professional and business services, in retail trade, and in transportation and warehousing. The first graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.In January, the year-over-year change was 6.61 million jobs. This was up significantly year-over-year.Total payrolls increased by 467 thousand in January. Private payrolls increased by 444 thousand, and public payrolls increased 23 thousand.Payrolls for November and December were revised up 709 thousand, combined.The second graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms.The current employment recession was by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms. However, the current employment recession, 23 months after the onset, is now significantly better than the worst of the "Great Recession". The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.The Labor Force Participation Rate increased to 62.2% in January, from 61.9% in December. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.The Employment-Population ratio increased to 59.7% from 59.5% (blue line).The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.The unemployment rate increased in January to 4.0% from 3.9% in December.This was well above consensus expectations; and November and December payrolls were revised up by 709,000 combined. On the annual benchmark revision:The total nonfarm employment level for March 2021 was revised upward by 374,000. On a not seasonally adjusted basis, total nonfarm employment for March 2021 was revised downward by 7,000, or less than -0.05 percent.

 US Employers Shrug Off Omicron, Add 467,000 Jobs in January -U.S. employers added a burst of 467,000 jobs in January despite a wave of omicron inflections that sickened millions of workers, kept many consumers at home and left businesses from restaurants to manufacturers short-staffed. The Labor Department's report Friday also showed the unemployment rate ticked up from 3.9% to 4%. Estimated job growth for December was also revised much higher, from 199,000 to 510,000. The possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia would certainly affect the global fertilizer market. The... The strong hiring gain, which was unexpected, demonstrates the eagerness of many employers to hire even as the pandemic maintains its grip on the economy. Businesses appear to have seen the omicron wave as having, at most, a temporary impact on the economy and remain confident about longer-term growth. The still-high number of people who have remained on the sidelines of the workforce has exacerbated a labor shortage and led employers to raise pay to try to draw them back in. The overall outlook for the job market remains bright, with openings near a record high, the pace of layoffs down and the unemployment rate having already reached a healthy level. The nation gained more jobs last year, adjusted for the size of the workforce, than in any year since 1978. The unemployment rate fell by nearly 3 percentage points -- from 6.7% to 3.9% -- the sharpest yearly decline on records. Much of that improvement represented a rebound from record job losses in 2020 that were driven by the pandemic recession. Even so, the economy's strong growth and hiring gains last year were accompanied by the highest inflation in four decades, magnified by brisk consumer spending on furniture, electronics, appliances and other goods and vast infusions of federal aid that has now largely expired. Snarled supply chains hampered the availability of many goods, especially new and used vehicles, forcing prices up sharply. Prices of food, energy and housing soared, too. High inflation has wiped out many Americans' pay gains. Omicron infections are likely slowing the economy in the January-March quarter, particularly compared with the rapid expansion in the final three months of 2021, when it grew at a robust 6.9% annual rate. Some analysts have forecast that growth will weaken to an annual rate as low as 1% in the first three months of this year. One reason for the slowdown: Americans cut their spending in January as the spread of the coronavirus discouraged some people from eating out, traveling and going to movies and other entertainment venues. Yet as omicron fades, there are signs that consumers are poised to spend again. Auto sales jumped in January after several months of declines. Carmakers have managed to slowly ramp up production. And Americans' incomes rose at a solid pace last month, providing fuel for future spending.

January jobs report: huge gain in wages, huge upward revisions to past few months, limited Omicron impact - The 6 month average of monthly gains which declined significantly in December from about 600,000 to 500,000, increased to 547,000, . We still have 2.9 million jobs to go to equal the number of employees in February 2020 just before the pandemic hit. At the current average rate for the past 6 months, that’s about 5 more months.Wage growth exploded even higher than before, now up 6.9% YoY! Aside from April 2020, this is the highest wage growth in *40 years.*There were *huge* upward revisions (included as part of the annual revisions) to the last 2 months. November increased 398,000 to 647,000, and December increased 311,000 to 510,000. So much for those poor numbers!Here’s my in-depth synopsis of the report:

• 467,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 444,000. Government jobs increased by 23,000 jobs. The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report indicated a gain of 1,199,000 jobs(!), which factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below.
• The total number of employed is still 2,875,000, or -1.9% below its pre-pandemic peak.
• U3 unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 4.0%, compared with the January 2020 low of 3.5%.
• U6 underemployment rate fell -0.2% to 7.1%, compared with the January 2020 low of 6.9%.
• Those not in the labor force at all, but who want a job now, declined -9,000 to 5.704 million, compared with 5.010 million in February 2020.
• Those on temporary layoff increased 147,000 to 959,000.
• Permanent job losers declined -73,000 to 1,630,000.
• November was revised upward by 398,000, and December was also revised upward by 311,000, for a net gain of 709,000 jobs compared with previous reports.
• the average manufacturing workweek, one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators, declined -0.1 hour to 40.2 hours.
• Manufacturing jobs increased 13,000. Since the beginning of the pandemic, manufacturing has still lost -240,000 jobs, or -1.9% of the total.
• Construction jobs decreased -5,000. Since the beginning of the pandemic, -125,000 construction jobs have been lost, or -1.6% of the total.
• Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, rose by 3,600. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 43,500 jobs have been *gained* in this sector, or +5.2%.
• temporary jobs rose by 26,300. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 156,400 jobs have been gained.
• the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less increased by 440,000 to 2,888,000, which is 949,000 higher than just before the pandemic hit.
• Professional and business employment increased by 86,000, which is 511,000 *above* its pre-pandemic peak.
• Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose $0.17to $27.91, which is a 6.9% YoY gain. This continues to be excellent news, especially considering that a huge number of low-wage workers have finally been recalled to work.
• the index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers fell by -0.3%, which is a loss of -1.9% since just before the pandemic.
• the index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers rose by 0.3%, which is a gain of 9.9% (before inflation) since just before the pandemic.
• Leisure and hospitality jobs, which were the most hard-hit during the pandemic, gained 151,000 jobs, but are still 1,750,000, or -10.3% below their pre-pandemic peak.
• Within the leisure and hospitality sector, food and drink establishments increased 108,000 jobs, and is still -984,700, or -8.0% below their pre-pandemic peak.
• Full time jobs increased 973,000 in the household report.
• Part time jobs increased 136,000 in the household report.
• The number of job holders who were part time for economic reasons decreased by -212,000 to 3,717,000, which is a decrease of -673,000 since before the pandemic began.
• Health care employment rose by 18,000, a YoY gain of 174,900, or 1.1%, despite being the most critical sector during the pandemic.
• State and local education jobs, another hard hit sector by the pandemic, increased 28,500.

SUMMARY: With the exception of some short term negative numbers caused by Omicron layoffs, and a further decline in average manufacturing hours, which is getting to the level of concern, this was an excellent report, buoyed in part by annual benchmark revisions. Monthly gains continue at a clip in excess of 500,000. At the current rate, we will have regained all jobs lost due to the pandemic by the 4th of July. The slight increase in the unemployment rate was because so many people entered the labor force. There was also some welcome news on education jobs. Only the leisure and hospitality sector remains really hard hit by the pandemic.Perhaps the biggest news of all was the even bigger increase in average hourly wages by non-supervisory workers. A month ago I described the JOLTS report as being analogous to a reverse game of musical chairs, with jobs being the chairs and potential employees those wanting to sit in them. With a chronic shortage of people being willing to sit in the chairs on offer due to the pandemic, jobs are going unfilled, while virtually nobody is getting laid off. As a result, wages haven’t just increased, but they *continue* to increase and that rate of increase is even accelerating. Workers haven’t had it this good in decades.

Today’s Jobs Report Solves Some Headscratcher Mysteries Wolf Richter . The employment report, released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was a shocker in the positive sense. Markets had counted on terrible numbers to derail the Fed’s tightening strategy and derail the rate hike in March. But when the strong numbers came out, yields spiked, with the 10-year yield up 12 basis points to hit 1.93%, the highest since December 2019. And there was another thing. The pandemic has wreaked havoc on the normal seasonal changes in the US economy: Home sales, retail sales, initial unemployment claims, the number of people who are working, etc. These economic activities fluctuate hugely and predictably with the seasons every year. Seasonal adjustments, based on the normal seasonal patterns, are designed to smooth out the data and allow for month-to-month comparison. This worked fairly well until it didn’t: When the pandemic screwed up the normal seasonality of the economy. I have been screaming about this since the summer of 2020, and started to provide some not-seasonally adjusted data overlaid with seasonally adjusted data to shed light on this mystery that produced either shockingly good or shockingly bad results in “seasonally adjusted” terms. But “not seasonally adjusted,” the results were just fine. Some of the seasonal adjustment factors were then revised to bring them in line with the new reality. Today it was the jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics applied new seasonal adjustment factors to the January data and going back. In addition, the BLS, as it does every January, revised the data of the survey of employers (Establishment Survey) as a result of its annual benchmarking process. And the Households Survey data was revised for updated population estimates. This solved some of the bizarre distortions we have seen in the “seasonally adjusted” data last year, in both directions. We’ll get into this in a moment. But first we get into the blow-away jobs data, “seasonally adjusted.” Employers reported that they added 467,000 people to their payrolls in January, seasonally adjusted. December job gains were revised up hugely, and for the past three months combined, employers added 1.62 million jobs. This brought the total number of employees on the payrolls to 149.6 million, still down by 2.87 million from February 2020 and by about 8 million below pre-pandemic trend (green line). Households reported that the number of working people, including the self-employed and entrepreneurs that are not tracked by the Establishment Survey, jumped by 1.2 million people in January, and by 2.94 million people over the past three months, bringing the total to 157.2 million people who are now working. This was still down by 1.69 million from the total in February 2020, and was about 6 million workers below pre-pandemic trend (red line). The labor force – defined as people who were either already working or who were actively looking for a job in the four weeks prior to the survey of households – jumped by 1.39 million people in January from December, to 163.7 million. This jump in the labor force was entirely based on the annual revision of the population estimates, with the prior population estimates having understated the labor force. As it does every year, the BLS did not adjust the December-and-prior household data, including the labor force data, with the new population estimates. Today’s revisions were made for January and going forward, and January shows the catch-up. This adjustment resolves part of the mystery of why the labor force in 2021 was stuck at this low level. In addition, 1.8 million people were not included in the labor force because they couldn’t look for a job during the reference period due to the pandemic, up from 1.1 million people in December. This leaves the labor force down by 1.4 million people from February 2020 and by 3.3 million from pre-pandemic trend, even as employers were furiously trying to fill an enormous 10.9 million job openings. The unemployment rate, after the adjustment of the population data for January that brought the labor force up, deteriorated a tiny bit, to 4.0% in January, from 3.9% in December. The Employment-to-Population ratio improved a tad to 59.7%, the highest since March 2020, from 59.5% in December. Average Hourly Earnings jumped by 23 cents in January from December to $31.63 per hour, and were up 5.7% from a year ago. These historically large gains in wages were not nearly enough amid the raging inflation. With CPI inflation at 7.0%, the purchasing power of labor, as measured by average hourly earnings, fell further behind.

Comments on January Employment Report – McBride This was a strong report, and the revisions show job growth was stronger - and steadier - over the last year than originally reported.The headline jobs number in the January employment report was well above expectations, and employment for the previous two months was revised up by 709,000. The participation rate and the employment-population ratio both increased, however the unemployment rate increased to 4.0%. Leisure and hospitality gained 151 thousand jobs in January. In March and April of 2020, leisure and hospitality lost 8.20 million jobs, and are now down 1.75 million jobs since February 2020. So, leisure and hospitality has now added back about 79% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020.Construction employment decreased 5 thousand and is now 101 thousand below the pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing added 13 thousand jobs and is still 226 thousand below the pre-pandemic level.Earlier: January Employment Report: 467 thousand Jobs, 4.0% Unemployment Rate In January, the year-over-year employment change was 6.61 million jobs. This graph shows permanent job losers as a percent of the pre-recession peak in employment through the report today. This data is only available back to 1994, so there is only data for three recessions. In January, the number of permanent job losers decreased to 1.630 million from 1.703 million in November.These jobs will likely be the hardest to recover, so it is a positive that the number of permanent job losers is declining fairly rapidly. Since the overall participation rate has declined due to cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old. The prime working age will be key as the economy recovers.The 25 to 54 participation rate increased in January to 82.0% from 81.9% in December, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio increased to 79.1% from 79.0% the previous month.Both are still below the pre-pandemic levels and indicate that some prime workers have still not returned to the labor force.The number of persons working part time for economic reasons decreased in January to 3.717 million from 3.929 million in December. This is lower than pre-recession levels.These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that decreased to 7.1% from 7.3% in the previous month. This is down from the record high in April 22.9% for this measure since 1994. This measure was at 7.0% in February 2020 (pre-pandemic). This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more.According to the BLS, there are 1.691 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job, down from 2.008 million the previous month.This does not include all the people that left the labor force. Summary: The headline monthly jobs number was well above expectations; and the previous two months were revised up by 709,000 combined. With the revisions - including the benchmark revision - job growth was stronger and steadier over the last year than originally reported. The headline unemployment rate increased to 4.0% as the participation rate increased. The household survey indicated a large gain in employment of 1.01 million.The prime age participation rate and employment-population ratio, are still below pre-pandemic levels, indicating some prime workers are still out of the labor force. And there are still 2.9 million fewer jobs than prior to the recession. Overall, this was a very strong report - and surprising given the surge in COVID cases in January.

Hershey Tells Unvaccinated Employees To Hit The Highway - The Hershey Company has begun firing office workers who did not get vaccinated against COVID-19. On the way out the door, Hershey is asking employees to sign a nine-page confidentiality and release agreement that would remove their rights to sue the company or talk about their experience.Although their signature comes with a “special separation payment,” many have not signed the agreement and won’t get the money. Employees say the payment was determined by an algorithm and for some, amounted to just over two months’ pay.By most accounts, working at Hershey was a great job. Employees at the Hershey, Pennsylvania headquarters and at offices in other states report higher than average wages and bowls of candy placed around the offices for snacking. During holidays, employees would get a big bag of treats to take home, although that practice stopped after Easter 2021. There is a sample room for trying new products, colorful graphics decorating the walls, and the products are more fun than selling insurance.But it stopped being fun after months of human resources meetings that employees say included education about the vaccines, asking if the employee had changed their mind about getting the shots, and uncomfortably invasive questions.

Employees quit over 'catch the virus' promotion at Washington state bar - Employees at a Washington state bar quit over their former employers’ “catch the virus” COVID-19 promotion. Vessel Taphouse owner Steve Hartley told The Daily Herald that four employees quit their jobs and three bands refused to play at the pirate-themed bar over the promotion. The bar promoted a concert on Jan. 22 by urging ​​bargoers to bring proof of a positive COVID-19 test to get $4 off of their tickets. “Come see the show, maybe catch the virus, or just stay home and whine,” Vessel Taphouse said in a now-deleted Facebook post. “Tickets 10 bucks or 6 with proof of omicron positive test. Have you had enough???” Atrocity Girl, one of the band's billed to play that night, released a statement on Facebook pulling out of the event. “After talking it over, we feel really disturbed that this post was ever allowed to be made. We do not condone this behavior and do not think COVID is a joke. While we want to play and love being out there, we encourage everyone to stay safe!” the band wrote. Atrocity Girl frontman Johnny Angel told CBS affiliate KIRO that he was shocked by the promotion. “I was appalled,” Angel said in a statement. “I was really, really disappointed that anybody could ever really make a post like that.” Hartley said the promotion was “an ill-advised attempt at humor” and that the employees responsible have been fired from the bar, according to The Daily Herald. Justin Trudeau says he's teste

Unemployment associated with increase in violence early in COVID-19 pandemic -- The sharp rise in unemployment during the five months of the pandemic was associated with an increase in firearm violence and homicide in 16 American cities. That’s the finding of a new study from researchers at the Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) at UC Davis. The study was published in the Journal of Urban Health.The researchers did not find a corresponding increase in other crimes, such as aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and robbery. “Economic disadvantage and income inequality have long been associated with increased risk of violence,” said Julia Schleimer, the lead author of the study and a research data analyst at VPRP. “Our results indicate that the acute worsening of economic conditions, as we saw at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, may also increase violence risk.”

Illinois lawmakers want to eliminate Ameren rate surcharge - Consumer advocates and Illinois lawmakers pushed for legislation Monday they say would help “slow or stop” some future natural gas rate hikes. The legislation would eliminate a surcharge the General Assembly approved in 2013 to help utilities pay for critical infrastructure improvements, said state Rep. Joyce Mason, a Democrat from Gurnee near Chicago. The companies have since used the surcharge as “a blank check,” Mason said at a news conference Monday. Eliminating the fee wouldn’t save customers money immediately, but it could prevent large and rapid rate hikes in the future, said Abe Scarr, director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Groups, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “We’re going to slow or stop those big increases. Unfortunately we are not in a position to retroactively take this off the bills,” Scarr said. The surcharge, which appears on utility bills as the “Qualified Infrastructure Plant,” or QIP, is slated to expire at the end of 2023. The legislation would eliminate it in 2022 for Ameren, Peoples Gas and Nicor Gas customers. The surcharge has helped Ameren comply with new safety regulations, in particular those involving high pressure gas lines. Since 2013, Ameren Illinois replaced more than 450 miles of pipeline and more than 60 natural gas regulator stations, employing hundreds of workers, according to spokesman Tucker Kennedy.

Federal prisons on lockdown nationwide after two inmates in Texas killed -The federal prison system has been placed under lockdown after two inmates were killed and two others were injured at a facility in Texas on Monday. Citing sources familiar with the matter, The Associated Press reported that the incident took place at USP Beaumont, a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, at around 11:30 a.m. on Monday.The altercation reportedly involved members of the MS-13 street gang. According to the AP, the lockdown is being instituted at all 120 federal prisons in the U.S. as of late Monday evening due to fears of possible retaliation and the spread of violence. While under lockdown, inmates in these prisons will be kept in their cells for most of the day and visitations will be canceled, although the AP noted that visits had been canceled already due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement provided to Axios, the Bureau of Prisons said the lockdown was issued "to ensure the good order of our institutions. We anticipate this security measure will be short-lived." The Hill has reached out to the Bureau of Prisons for further comment. The two inmates who were killed have been identified as Guillermo Riojas, 54, and Andrew Pineda, 34, the AP reported. The two inmates who were injured have been transported to a local hospital. Two men released in UK after arrests in connection with Texas... Police respond to multiple bomb threats at HBCUs Riojas was serving a 38-year prison sentence for carjacking and interfering with interstate commerce while Pineda was serving a six-year sentence for a racketeering charge. The AP noted that the lockdown comes amid a host of issues facing the bureau, including staffing shortages, escapes and employee misconduct.

 Iowa announces upcoming end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency --Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) announced on Thursday that the state's Public Health Disaster Emergency Proclamation for COVID-19 will end in February.“We cannot continue to suspend duly enacted laws and treat COVID-19 as a public health emergency indefinitely. After two years, it’s no longer feasible or necessary. The flu and other infectious illnesses are part of our everyday lives, and coronavirus can be managed similarly,” Reynolds said in a statement. “State agencies will now manage COVID-19 as part of normal daily business, and reallocate resources that have been solely dedicated to the response effort to serve other important needs for Iowans,” she added. The governor’s office announced that the proclamation will end on Feb. 15. Only 16 of the hundreds of provisions under the proclamation are still active, per the announcement, with those remaining focused on workforce issues that the governor’s office said can be handled without the emergency executive powers.

Denver dropping mask, vaccine mandates this week -- The city of Denver will lift many of its indoor mask and COVID-19 vaccine mandates later this week. “Beginning Friday, people will no longer be required, under a public health order, to wear a mask or show proof of vaccination for entry into a business" in the city, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock (D) wrote in a tweet. Hancock also said in his Twitter thread the city’s public health order requiring masks in schools and child care facilities will remain in effect for the time being. According to Fox News affiliate KDVR,, mask-wearing is still required on the city’s public transportation and at the Denver International Airport. “Organizations that serve vulnerable populations, other businesses and venues may decide to continue to require masks or proof of vaccination. They are well within their rights to do so, and we should support them. Please do not give them a hard time,” Hancock tweeted. “Don't get too comfortable. This virus is something we’re still going to have to manage and learn to live with.” Some Colorado counties including Summit and Eagle previously lifted their mask mandate due to sharp declines in virus cases as the omicron variant shows signs of fading, the Fox affiliate reported.

 The Challenge of Keeping a Bronx Day Care Open During the Pandemic - Maria Capellan’s day care, which is situated inside her apartment on the fourth floor of a nondescript high-rise in the Bronx, is marked by paper decorations that change with the season—apples and school buses for the start of the school year, a wrapped present for Christmas, hearts for Valentine’s Day. Wooden letters of the alphabet were framed on a wall; pool-noodle horses and other toys were corralled in a corner. In the hallway, shelved folders keep track of each child—their curriculum, their needs, their progress. In the course of her work, Capellan helps families with potty training and temper tantrums. She gets up early when parents have to work early; when they work late, so does Capellan. She has been doing this for nearly two decades. She has no savings and sleeps in her living room. When covid-19 swept through the Bronx, Capellan had, she said, “the perfect mix of children and parents.” She shut down her facility in March, 2020, contracted covid, and spent the summer suffering from migraines and inflammation in her joints. All of her usual energy was gone. When she reopened, in August, she shouldered the cost of new cleaning supplies, and spent mornings and evenings disinfecting; she cooked to-go meals for families who couldn’t afford to come back full time; she visited with kids on Zoom. When one of her children started acting out at home, her parents guessed that she was missing Capellan and arranged for socially distanced meetups at the park. Another one of Capellan’s kids, Athena, did her remote kindergarten classes from Capellan’s house. New York City has been expanding free child care since 2014, when Bill de Blasio introduced a pre-K-for-all program. In 2017, the city launched 3-K for all. By most measures, these two programs have been hugely successful. By 2019, more than sixty-eight thousand children were enrolled in the city’s pre-K programs, and the 3-K program is on track to serve some thirty-three thousand children in the next two years. “This is the opportunity we’ve missed through our society for generations,” de Blasio told a crowd at the launch of the city’s 3-K-for-all program. “There’s one opportunity to get right when the brain is developing, and we can get a child to learn so deeply and to be on a path of lifelong learning.”The success of the programs, however, has left providers like Capellan with a smaller population of children to fill their own day cares. There are limits on the number of children a day-care provider can serve within each age group—a family day care cannot simply replace three-year-olds with an increased number of infants. And, following the loss of many day cares during the pandemic, parents with children under three have a smaller number of providers to choose from. In the Bronx, for example, more than two hundred and fifty day cares have shut down since the start of the pandemic, some owing to illness and others because of lost income. Some day-care providers have tried to stay full by contracting with the city to open 3-K programs, but they are compensated at significantly lower rates than Department of Education 3-K classrooms, adding to their financial woes. As a result, in New York, child care is expanding and contracting at the same time. For Capellan and other child-care advocates, the question has become how to build a bureaucracy that is fair and flexible enough to accommodate a range of families and caretakers. How do you value and compensate workers, measure success, and insure that programs like Capellan’s are not left out of the equation?

Cincinnati Public Schools give students and teachers the day off following Bengals Super Bowl appearance - Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) announced that students and staff will have a day off after the city’s NFL team, the Bengals, plays in the Super Bowl, ESPN reported. In a letter sent to parents on Monday, the school district cited celebrating "what we believe will be our city's first-ever Super Bowl victory" as the reason for making Feb. 14 a day off.

Ohio school COVID-19 cases fall as omicron wave descends from peak — Coronavirus cases reported every week by Ohio schools came in under 20,000 for the first time in a month on Thursday, as the state continues to see infections drop from an omicron variant wave peak in January. K-12 schools reported 18,744 new cases to the Ohio Department of Health in the week ending Sunday, Jan. 30. That’s the fewest cases in four weeks, but it’s still among the most reported this school year. The school year total stands at 229,222 cases among students and staff. Infections were caught in and out of school. Schools report cases among students and staff to ODH on Tuesdays, reflecting the week ending on the previous Sunday. ODH releases numbers on Thursdays at 2 p.m. Full-time or part-time students and staff who have tested positive for or been diagnosed with COVID-19. Infections were caught in and out of school. Staff members include teachers, administrators, coaches and support staff. Excludes students/staff who are completely remote, but includes them if they were “on-site” while infectious. ODH reports “new” and “cumulative” cases. Cases only move over to “cumulative” once the person is no longer COVID-positive. NBC4’s count of new cases every week reflects the change in “cumulative” cases. 1,603 (58%) of the 2,769 schools, districts, private schools, vocational schools, preschools and other non-college institutions that ODH tracks have reported a case this school year. That's six more schools than last week. The median number of cases among schools with at least one infection is 42 cases, while the median number for school districts is 191.5 cases. 189,028 (82%) of Ohio’s school cases are students and 40,194 (18%) are staff members, which include teachers, administrators, coaches and support staff. Last school year, students were roughly 2 in 3 cases, and staff were 1 in 3. Cincinnati Public Schools, a district of more than 34,000 students, leads the state with 5,291 cases, ahead of Dublin City Schools with 3,559. Dublin is among four Franklin County districts in the top eight.

Florida school district ending policy of excusing absences during pandemic - A public school district in Florida said it will no longer provide excused absences to students who are kept at home during increases in COVID-19 cases but said parents should still keep children at home if they are exhibiting signs of illness. In a Twitter thread, Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) said that beginning Monday, the district would no longer be able to provide excused absences for students at times of increased COVID-19 infections, citing a decline in cases and a strain on teachers managing assignments for large numbers of absences. "OCPS families, this is an update regarding parents keeping students home during the increased COVID-19 cases. Beginning January 31, we will no longer be able to provide excused absences in such cases," the district said. The district indicated that students who are kept at home, other than those exhibiting symptoms of illness, would be considered "truant," and it encouraged parents to consider home school if they do not want their children in an in-person learning environment during the pandemic.

Detroit students, parents angered as schools open amid COVID surge (video)In-person classes in Detroit public schools resumed on Monday for 50,000 despite dangerously high infection rates across the city. The state’s largest school district has held virtual-only classes for the past month, resulting in a 16 percent fall in test positivity rates since January 6, but rates are still over 20 percent in the city and 32 percent in surrounding Wayne County. The school reopening in Detroit, where only 38 percent of city residents are fully vaccinated, will have deadly consequences. ICU occupancy at Henry Ford, Detroit Receiving and Harper hospitals in Detroit already ranges between 86 and 96 percent. Schools are a major vector for the transmission of the deadly disease, with 126 K-12 public schools in Michigan reporting COVID outbreaks, according to the state’s Department of Health and Human Services. On Monday, a WSWS reporting team spoke with students and parents outside of Cass Technical High School in Detroit after the first day back in class. They spoke about the dangers of face-to-face classes and what is behind this policy. “Lots of teachers were out sick today and about of third of the students were absent,” a Detroit middle school teacher told the WSWS. “A lot of parents are not sending their kids because it’s too dangerous. They won’t even tell us if a student tests positive anymore. Under the district’s ridiculous guidelines, classrooms are considered ‘low-risk’ setting; those exposed won’t have to quarantine anymore,” she said. Despite the claims by Governor Whitmer that schools are being opened to address students’ academic and emotional needs, the reckless policy is being driven entirely by profit interests. The auto industry, which is barely able to keep production going due to thousands of sick workers, needs children back in school so that their parents can be sent back into equally dangerous factories.

Detroit teachers denounce resumption of in-person classes for 50,000 students - Public schools are reopening in Detroit on Monday after a month of virtual-only classes because of the high rates of COVID-19 throughout the city. This reckless action in Michigan’s largest school district will imperil the health and lives of 50,000 students and more than 5,000 teachers and other school employees who work with them each day. As of January 29, there was a 20.4 percent test positivity rate in the city, according to the Detroit Health Department’s COVID-19 Dashboard, and 32 percent in surrounding Wayne County. In an email last week, Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti falsely claimed the city’s positivity rate was 12 percent. The monthlong delay in in-person classes, which followed the two-week holiday break, reduced the city’s test positivity rate by 16 points, from 36.4 percent on January 6. Rather than keep schools closed and conducting a suite of public health measures to further reduce the transmission of the disease and save lives, city and school officials are following the lead of the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by promoting mass infection. Joining several other states, the Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services advised local health officials they no longer had to do broad contact tracing even as the state broke a pandemic high in new daily cases. “We know the schools are not safe, and this is about corporations making money,” Casey, a veteran Detroit public school science teacher, told the WSWS. “They’re rolling the dice hoping another mutation won’t pop up. It’s disgusting. So many people are dying, and every 26 hours another billionaire is being minted.” Schools are being opened in Detroit despite the low vaccination rates in the largely impoverished city. While 80 percent of school employees are fully vaccinated, just 38 percent of city residents are fully vaccinated, according to Chalkbeat Detroit. Of these, only 5 percent of 5- to 11-year-olds and 22 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds have been fully vaccinated. Only 28 percent of all 16- to 19-year-olds have been fully vaccinated, the publication reported.

Two Virginia universities no longer requiring COVID-19 vaccinations after AG's legal opinion - George Mason and Virginia Tech universities will no longer mandate COVID-19 vaccinations following a legal opinion last week from the state's attorney general. "Given our high vaccination rate, the continued decline of the omicron variant, the Governor’s recent executive orders and directives, and the recent Attorney General’s opinion, we will now strongly encourage vaccination protocols for all Mason students, faculty, and staff, though we no longer require them," Gregory Washington, the president of George Mason, said in a letter on Monday.Tim Sands, Virginia Tech's president, issued similar guidance in a letter to his campus saying "Virginia Tech will no longer require students to be vaccinated as a condition of enrollment or in-person instruction, effective immediately."At George Mason, 92.5 percent of students are vaccinated as are 94.9 percent of employees, according todata from the school. Similarly, 95 percent of students and 94 percent of employees are vaccinated at Virginia Tech, the university has reported. The announcements from the universities followed a legal opinion from Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), saying public colleges and universities in the state cannot require the vaccine. “I conclude that, absent specific authority conferred by the General Assembly, public institutions of higher education in Virginia may not require vaccination against COVID-19 as a general condition of students’ enrollment or in-person attendance,” Miyares said in a letter to Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who requested an advisory opinion on the matter. As of Tuesday, the Virginia Department of Health reported 6,055 new daily cases and a seven-day positivity rate from PCR tests of 24.5 percent.

Six Juveniles Are Persons of Interest in Threats to Historically Black Colleges - The F.B.I. said it was investigating the bomb threats, which disrupted life on more than a dozen campuses, as racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism and hate crimes. The F.B.I. has identified six juveniles as persons of interest in a series of bomb threats that targeted historically Black colleges and universities, a law enforcement official said on Wednesday.The bureau said it was investigating the threats as racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism and hate crimes.The bureau made the announcement during a week in which at least 17 historically Black colleges and universities received bomb threats, prompting administrators to temporarily cancel in-person classes and lock down buildings.The F.B.I. said its joint terrorism task forces were leading the investigation, which was “of the highest priority” and involved more than 20 field offices across the country.“Although at this time no explosive devices have been found at any of the locations, the F.B.I. takes all threats with the utmost seriousness and we are committed to thoroughly and aggressively investigating these threats,” the F.B.I. said in a statement.Students said they felt fearful, angry and mentally taxed by the threats.“A lot of us feel like this is political,” said Joyce Dihi, 19, a freshman at Spelman College in Atlanta, which received a threat on Tuesday, the first day of Black History Month.“There are people out there who don’t like that H.B.C.U.s support the excellence of Black people,” Ms. Dihi said. The development that six juveniles had been identified as persons of interest was reported by NBC News earlier on Wednesday.The authorities have so far not described any of the threats as credible. But school officials at many of the universities took precautions, such as sweeping campus buildings and moving to remote instruction.On Monday, at least seven H.B.C.U.s, including Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, La., and Delaware State University in Dover, Del., received bomb threats.At least 10 other historically Black colleges, including Spelman andHoward University in Washington, reported threats on Tuesday. Howard also received bomb threats on Monday and on Jan. 5, when at least eight H.B.C.U.s received threats, its president, Wayne A.I. Frederick, said.

UCLA cancels in-person classes after threats -- The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) canceled in-person classes on Tuesday amid a series of threats from a former instructor in a video posted online. In a statement, the university said its police department is aware of the threats sent to some members of its community and is actively engaging with law enforcement and federal agencies to address the matter. The Los Angeles Times reported that former philosophy department instructor Matthew Harris posted a YouTube video referencing a mass shooting and sent an 800-page manifesto that had specific threats toward ex-colleagues. “UCPD is actively working with out-of-state & federal agencies on threats sent to some members of our community,” the school said in a statement. “We do not have specific information that this individual is in CA. Out of an abundance of caution, all classes will be held remotely Feb 1. We will keep you updated.” Harris’ YouTube video has since been taken down, CBS affiliate KCAL reported.

Georgetown lecturer suspended after tweets about Biden court nominee - Mexican journalist Roberto Toledo was shot dead by three gunmen, becoming the fourth journalist to be slain in the country in less than a month, The Guardian reported. Toledo was shot dead by suspects in a parking lot area in the city of Zitácuaro on Monday afternoon. Toledo was a journalist for local news outlet Monitor Michoacán, according to The Guardian. In a social media post, Monitor Michoacán's director, Armando Linares, expressed his condolences to Toledo’s family, saying that “exposing corruption led to the death of one of our colleagues,” according to The Guardian. “[Toledo] lost his life at the hands of three people who shot him in a mean and cowardly manner,” Linares said. “We don’t carry weapons. We only have a pen and a notebook to defend ourselves.” Journalists have accused Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of failing to protect them and their colleagues, The Guardian reported, with the president in turn blaming "neoliberalism." Toledo’s death follows the deaths of José Luis Gambo, Margarito Martínez and Lourdes Maldonado López, who were killed earlier this month, The Guardian noted. Mexico has become known as one of the most dangerous places for journalists to work. The Committee to Protect Journalists said it counts 32 members of the media murdered since Obrador took office in December 2018, not counting Toledo's case, according to The Guardian. Those in particular danger are local reporters looking into links between politics and organized crime.

SUNY Professor: "It's A Mistake" To Think Pedophilia Is Wrong - A SUNY professor is under investigation after video clips emerged of him asserting that “it’s a mistake” to think pedophilia is wrong and that there are “evolutionary advantages to child/adult sex.” Yes, really. SUNY Fredonia professor Stephen Kershnar teaches teaches libertarian philosophy and applied ethics at the university. As part of his libertarian philosophy, Kershnar believes that society’s reaction to pedophilia is what’s wrong, and that consenting sexual relationships between adults and children could actually be a good thing. “Imagine that an adult male wants to have sex with a 12-year-old girl. Imagine that she’s a willing participant. A very standard, very widely held view is that there’s something deeply wrong about this. It’s wrong independent of it being criminalized,” said Kershnar. “It’s not obvious to me that it’s in fact wrong,” he continued. “I think this is a mistake. And I think exploring that why it’s a mistake will tell us not only things about adult/sex and statutory rape and also fundamental principles of morality.” Kershnar asserted that there was no minimum age at which pedophilia could be considered wrong. “The notion that it’s wrong even with a one-year-old is not quite obvious to me,” he luridly claimed. He went on to assert that in some foreign cultures, grandmas perform oral sex on baby boys to calm them down, adding, “It’s hard to see what would be wrong with it.” The professor said claims that it’s wrong because kids “can’t understand” sex can be countered by pointing to other activities children enter into but don’t fully understand, such as judo tournaments or bar mitzvahs. Kershnar went on to claim there were “evolutionary advantages” to child/adult sex and that there were a “surprising number of college age males” who show an attraction to pre-pubescent children. “So it’s fairly widespread among young men particularly young men in our society,” he claimed.

 Shooting at suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota school leaves one student dead - One student was killed and another was injured Tuesday afternoon when two shooters opened fire at the entrance of South Education Center in Richfield, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The altercation began around noon on Tuesday between a group of five teenagers, including the shooters, who all attended South Education Center high school. Jahmari Rice, 15, was pronounced dead at the scene. He had just transferred to the school. There were two additional victims; one student who was 17 is still in critical condition following the shooting, and another, 19, sustained minor injuries. Two suspects, identified as Fernando Valdez-Alvarez, 18, and Alfredo Rosario Solis, 19, were apprehended by Richfield police officers Tuesday evening following the discovery of two handguns allegedly used in the shooting. In a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Richfield Police Chief Jay Hawthorne stated that they are being held in the Hennepin County Jail without bail, and the department would be filing formal charges against Solis and Valdes-Alvarez as soon as Thursday. He went on to state that “no lingering threats exist to [the Richfield] community.” Following the shooting, many family members, friends and community members gathered in Richfield to commemorate Rice. Shyrese James, spoke with CBS Minnesota at the gathering. “Jahmari was the life of the party. Everywhere he went, he shined. He made everything OK, and they took my son!” she exclaimed. Rice “was a real good person. He wanted to make it big in football,” his cousin, Deonte Turner, told the New York Times. He had just transferred to the school from Richfield High School, and Tuesday was his second day at South Education Center. Several schools across Richfield were placed under lockdown Tuesday, but the lockdowns were lifted before the end of the day. Students at South Education Center will resume classes Friday. Richfield Middle School, another school, less than a mile from South Education Center, saw some officers responding to the shooting by “accidentally” swarming the building with weapons drawn. The situation generated concern among parents, leading to a statement being released by Richfield Middle School principal Erica Barlow. The statement read, “The officers had weapons drawn and were in bulletproof vests. It is unlikely that many students witnessed the event, as they were in class at the time. However, it is important that you are aware of the incident in the event that your child hears about it, as some children may be deeply impacted by this type of news.”

Universal healthcare bill in California fails to pass state legislature - A bill in the California state legislature that would have created a system to provide universal healthcare failed to pass on Monday after Democrats were unable to gather the needed support for the legislation. Democratic state lawmaker Ash Kalra, the author of the bill that failed to make it out of the state Assembly, did not bring it up for a vote on Monday after realizing there were not enough votes to pass it. The bill failed to meet a deadline by midnight on Monday in order to have a chance at becoming a state law this year. “It became clear that we did not have the votes necessary for passage, and I decided the best course of action is to not put AB 1400 for a vote today,” Kalra said according to The Associated Press. “Although the bill did not pass the Assembly by today’s deadline, this is only a pause for the single-payer movement; our coalition, including the mighty California Nurses Association, will continue the fight for accessible, affordable, and equitable healthcare for all Californians,” Kalra added. If passed, the bill would have made California the first state in the U.S. to have universal, single-payer healthcare Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D), also expressed disappointment that the bill had not been brought up for a vote. “With time, we will have better and more successful legislation to bring us closer to this goal,” said Redon. “I expect more and more of my colleagues to sign on, so we can make California a health care justice leader.” The bill did not state how much universal healthcare in California would cost, with Democrats filing another bill that would impose heavy taxes on businesses and individuals in hopes of separating the two issues and pay for the proposed system. While previous studies have estimated that universal health care would cost around $350 billion, the AP noted that California is currently on pace to pay over $500 billion in health care this year. As KRON noted, some Democrats and Republicans in the California state Assembly opposed the bill due to having too many unknowns, such the cost and how it would affect retirees and medical workers. The bill was also opposed by business organizations such as the California Chamber of Commerce. Preston Young, president of the organization, said at the time, "It is not a time to experiment with a brand new, state-run bureaucracy funded by unsustainable taxes placed on employers trying to survive a pandemic." California Gov. Gavin Newsom ran for office by proposing his own version of universal healthcare. During a budget presentation earlier this month, Newsom proposed spending an additional $2.2 billion annually to expand Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program, in order to include millions of uninsured residents regardless of their immigration status.

Long COVID Is Real, and Many Real Questions Remain - -- Long story short, we still have a lot to learn about long COVID-19. But it is a real phenomenon with real long-term health effects for people recovering from coronavirus infections. And diagnosing and managing it can get tricky, as some symptoms of long COVID-19 overlap with those of other conditions -- and what many people have as they recover from any challenging stay in the intensive care unit.Risk factors remain largely unknown as well: What makes one person more likely to have symptoms like fatigue, "brain fog," or headaches vs. someone else? Researchers are just starting to offer some intriguing answers, but the evidence is preliminary at this point, experts said at a media briefing sponsored by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.Unanswered questions include: Does an autoimmune reaction drive long COVID? Does the coronavirus linger in reservoirs within the body and reactivate later? What protection against long COVID do vaccines and treatments offer, if any?To get a handle on these and other questions, nailing down a standard definition of long COVID would be a good start."Studies so far have used different definitions of long COVID," Nahid Bhadelia, MD, founding director of the Boston University Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research, said during the briefing.Fatigue is the most common symptom of long COVID in research so far, said Bhadelia, who is also an associate professor of medicine at Boston University."What's difficult in this situation is it's been 2 years in a global pandemic. We're all fatigued. How do you tease this apart?" she asked. Other common symptoms are a hard time thinking quickly -- also known as “brain fog” -- and the feeling that, despite normal oxygen levels, breathing is difficult, said Kathleen Bell, D. Headache, joint and muscle pain, and persistent loss of smell and taste are also widely reported, said Bell, a professor and chair of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Not all the symptoms are physical either. "Pretty prominent things that we're seeing are very high levels of anxiety, depression, and insomnia," Bell said. These "actually seem to be associated independently with the virus as opposed to just being a completely reactive component." More research will be needed to distinguish the causes of these conditions.

Decreased memory B cell frequencies in COVID-19 delta variant vaccine breakthrough infection –Abstract: The SARS-CoV-2 Delta (B.1.617.2) variant is capable of infecting vaccinated persons. An open question remains as to whether deficiencies in specific vaccine-elicited immune responses result in susceptibility to vaccine breakthrough infection. We investigated 55 vaccine breakthrough infection cases (mostly Delta) in Singapore, comparing them against 86 vaccinated close contacts who did not contract infection. Vaccine breakthrough cases showed lower memory B cell frequencies against SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD). Compared to plasma antibodies, antibodies secreted by memory B cells retained a higher fraction of neutralizing properties against the Delta variant. Inflammatory cytokines including IL-1β and TNF were lower in vaccine breakthrough infections than primary infection of similar disease severity, underscoring the usefulness of vaccination in preventing inflammation. This report highlights the importance of memory B cells against vaccine breakthrough and suggests that lower memory B cell levels may be a correlate of risk for Delta vaccine breakthrough infection. This study compares the immune characteristics of 55 patients with vaccine breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection and 86 uninfected vaccinated close contacts. Memory B cell levels differed between the groups, identifying them as potential immune correlates of protection in Delta vaccine breakthrough.

• Antibody levels, including neutralizing antibodies, were similar in vaccine breakthrough patients and close contacts.
• Memory B cell levels, as assessed by B cell ELISpot, were lower in vaccine breakthrough patients than close contacts.
• T cell profiles were broadly similar across vaccine breakthrough patients and close contacts.
• The cytokine profile of vaccine breakthrough patients was similar to uninfected vaccinated individuals, with lower inflammatory profile compared to unvaccinated individuals with primary infection.

Omicron’s wave is at least 386% taller than delta’s—and it’s crushing hospitals - Despite its widespread reputation for being mild, the ultra-transmissible omicron coronavirus variant is sending a record number of people to emergency departments and hospital rooms in the US, swamping health care systems nationwide. As of January 15, omicron's highest seven-day average of daily cases was nearly 799,000—a 386 percent increase from the highest average of daily cases seen during the delta wave (from July to the end of October). Similarly, omicron's highest daily average of emergency department visits was 86 percent higher than that of delta's, and hospital admissions were 76 percent higher. The latest data comes from a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. The study highlights that even though the omicron wave has been marked by relatively smaller proportions of severe cases and deaths, the variant's extraordinary spread has still overwhelmed hospitals and taken a devastating toll on the nation. "Although patients hospitalized during the Omicron period have shorter stays and less frequent ICU admissions, the high volume of hospitalizations resulting from high transmission rates during a short period can strain local health care systems in the United States, and the average daily number of deaths remains substantial," the study concluded. The study only included data up to January 15, when the highest average of daily deaths during the omicron wave was 1,854, a 4 percent decrease from the high seen during the delta wave. However, the average is now up to over 2,300 per day, surpassing the peak during the delta wave. "'Milder' does not mean 'mild,' and we cannot look past the strain on our health systems and substantial number of deaths," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday during a White House COVID-19 press briefing. At this point, cases and hospitalizations are declining on a national level, though both are still climbing in some areas. The US is seeing an average of around 652,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, down from an all-time high of over 800,000 on January 14. The daily average of people hospitalized with COVID-19 now stands at nearly 155,000, down from an all-time high of nearly 160,000 about a week ago. When people do end up in the hospital with omicron, they tend to fare better than those sickened with delta. The CDC study found that the percentage of hospitalized patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation during the omicron wave was lower than that during the delta wave (3.5 percent versus 6.6 percent). And the percentage of hospitalized patients dying was also smaller (7.1 percent versus 12.3 percent). Length of hospital stays was shorter, with a mean during the omicron wave of 5.5 days, compared to delta's 7.6 days.

“Meaningfully milder” Omicron variant continues to kill more than 2,300 Americans each day - The death toll caused by the coronavirus Omicron variant has risen to an average of more than 2,300 Americans a day, a figure that continues to undermine the lie promoted by media outlets such as the New York Times that the Omicron variant is “meaningfully milder than its predecessors.” To put the current wave of death into perspective, it is higher than both the surge of deaths caused by the Delta variant in the fall, which peaked at just over 2,000 confirmed deaths each day, as well as the initial wave that peaked in April 2020 at more than 2,200 daily fatalities. It is still to be seen whether the current wave of death, which is still rising, will eclipse last winter’s peak of just under 3,600 deaths each day. There are also still more than 125,000 people hospitalized across the country, including 23,000 who are in intensive care units. Hospitals remain at or near “crisis standards of care,” such as the ChristianaCare health network in Wilmington, Delaware. The 1,200-bed hospital system implemented its emergency protocols in early January, the first time in its 130-year history, and has not relaxed them since.   Even the Biden administration has been forced to tacitly acknowledge the immense danger the current variant poses. During a meeting with US governors on Monday, President Biden sat 10 feet away from everyone in the meeting, including Vice President Kamala Harris, according to the Associated Press. Everyone in the room was required to wear N95 masks instead of the far-less-protective surgical masks, and only Biden himself was given a glass of water to prevent anyone else from taking their mask off for a drink. The devastating Omicron death toll comes as new guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “retire” its requirement that hospitals report to it “Previous day’s COVID-19 deaths.” The new policy was issued on January 6 and will go into effect February 2. In effect, the HHS will no longer act as a central repository for daily in-hospital deaths caused by the coronavirus. Instead, it will be up to each state to report deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), creating 50 points of potential failure and confusion as each state reports its COVID-19 deaths differently. Tennessee, for example, has only reported COVID-19 deaths on a weekly basis since December. Timely data on how many people are dying from the pandemic is no longer certain.

Omicron Survives Longer on Plastic, Skin Than Other COVID Variants -- Japanese researchers say the Omicron variant survives longer on plastic and skin than other COVID-19 variants, one possible explanation for why Omicron has spread so rapidly around the world. In a lab experiment, samples of different variants were applied to pieces of plastic and human skin collected from autopsies, researchers from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine wrote in bioRxiv. A variant “survived” until it could no longer be detected on the surface. “This study showed that the Omicron variant also has the highest environmental stability among VOCs (variants of concern), which suggests that this high stability might also be one of the factors that have allowed the Omicron variant to replace the Delta variant and spread rapidly,” the researchers wrote. On plastic, the Omicron variant samples survived an average of 193.5 hours, a little more than 8 days. By comparison, the other survival times on plastic were 56 hours for the original COVID strain, 191.3 hours for Alpha, 156.6 hours for Beta, 59.3 hours for Gamma, and 114 hours for Delta. On skin samples, the Omicron samples survived an average of 21.1 hours. The other variants had these average survival times on skin: 8.6 hours for the original version, 19.6 hours for Alpha, 19.1 hours for Beta, 11 hours for Gamma, and 16.8 hours for Delta. The study found that the variants had more resistance to ethanol than the original strain of COVID. That said, all COVID samples were inactivated after being exposed to alcohol-based hand sanitizers for 15 seconds.

What to know about BA.2, the newest Covid omicron variant. It's called the "stealth" variant, but there's nothing particularly stealthy about it. Researchers are working to parse whether it is a new threat. -As coronavirus case numbers in the U.S. show early signs of tapering, scientists are keeping a watchful eye on a newly identified version of theomicron variant, nicknamed "stealth omicron," that is driving new outbreaks in parts of Europe.The culprit is a "subvariant" of the omicron variant, which means it's closely related to omicron but has some different mutations. Known officially as BA.2, the subtype has small variations that set it apart from the original omicron strain but not enough for it to be considered an entirely new lineage."You could say they're like brothers in the same family," said infectious diseases expert Cameron Wolfe, an associate professor of medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine. "There are some subtle differences, but most of the genetics are the same in both."Researchers are trying to learn as much as they can about BA.2; here's what's known about it so far.Unlike what its nickname might suggest, the BA.2 subtype isn't known as "stealth" omicron because it's difficult to find. The nickname comes from a shortcut that helped researchers quickly identify omicron in PCR tests.Because of a quirk in omicron's genetic sequence, PCR test results looked different from typical positive tests, essentially providing researchers with an easy way to spot the variant without sequencing the samples. One of BA.2's mutations got rid of the genetic quirk, meaning that shortcut is no longer available.With omicron now accounting for more than 99 percent of new reported Covid-19 cases in the U.S., the distinction isn't a huge issue, Wolfe said, and it doesn't affect how infections are dealt with in clinical settings. It was more important last month, as omicron was gaining steam in relation to the delta variant, because monoclonal antibodies were found to be less effective to treat omicron, he added. The BA.2 subvariant most likely evolved as omicron circulated widely around the world. As a virus spreads and replicates, it naturally picks up random mutations that can change how it behaves, such as how contagious it is or how severely it can make people ill — although many mutations won't change how the virus affects humans.It's too soon to know for sure, but there are concerns that the specific mutations identified with the BA.2 subtype could make it more contagious or better able to evade vaccines — two factors that had already enabled the omicron variant to spread so pervasively around the globe.The original omicron strain, known as BA.1, featured around 50 genetic mutations that separated it from the original strain of the coronavirus. Thirty-six of the mutations were to the virus's spike proteins, which cover the outside of the virus and are the main targets of vaccines and treatments like monoclonal antibodies. A study published in the Journal of Medical Virology on Dec. 29 found that the BA.2 subtype has 28 mutations in its spike proteins, several of them different from the original omicron strain. The World Health Organization hasn't yet classified BA.2 as a "variant of concern," but it said its characteristics, "including immune escape properties and virulence, should be prioritized independently." Preliminary research in Denmark, where cases involving BA.2 are rising, suggest that the subvariant may be more contagious than the original omicron strain, which was already the most transmissible known variant to date.The BA.2 subtype accounted for 20 percent of Denmark's Covid-19 cases at the end of December, and it jumped to 45 percent of reported cases by the second week of January. Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said this week that the BA.2 subvariant is now dominant in the country.That type of rapid growth could indicate that BA.2 is more contagious than the original omicron strain, but more research is needed.

 Omicron Subvariant 1.5 Times More Contagious Than Omicron -- The Omicron subvariant, known as BA.2, spreads about 1.5 times faster than the original Omicron strain, known as BA.1, according to CNBC.The Statens Serum Institut, which monitors infectious diseases in Denmark, said that BA,2 is more contagious, but it doesn’t appear to increase hospitalizations or reduce how well the vaccine works.BA.2 overtook BA.1 as the primary variant in Denmark within a few weeks, Troels Lillebaek, director of the institute, told CNBC. The subvariant has five unique mutations on a key part of the spike protein, which is what the coronavirus uses to invade human cells, he said. This often means a higher rate of spreading.The Omicron subvariant has been detected in at least 29 states in the U.S. and 56 countries, according to the latest update from Outbreak.info. The U.S. has detected 188 infections, with the worldwide total nearing 25,000.Denmark has reported the highest number of cases, followed by the United Kingdom and India. Both Denmark and India have reported that BA.2 now accounts for about half of new COVID-19 cases in those countries.On Friday, the U.K. Health Security Agency said BA.2 has a “substantial” growth advantage over the original Omicron strain. The subvariant has spread faster in all regions of England where there were enough cases to conduct an analysis, the agency said in a report.A preliminary evaluation found that BA.2 doesn’t appear to change how well the vaccine works compared to the original Omicron strain, the agency said. A booster dose was 70% effective at preventing symptomatic illness for BA.2, compared with 63% for the original Omicron strain.The CDC also said on Friday that although the subvariant has become more common in some countries, it is currently at a low level in the U.S. and doesn’t appear to be more serious.“Currently there is no evidence that the BA.2 lineage is more severe than the BA.1 lineage,” Kristen Nordlund, a CDC spokesperson, told CNBC.The WHO hasn’t labeled BA.2 a “variant of concern” so far but will continue to monitor it. WHO officials have said that new variants will arise as Omicron spreads across the world.“The next variant of concern will be more fit, and what we mean by that is it will be more transmissible because it will have to overtake what is currently circulating,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, said during a livestream last week. “The big question is whether or not future variants will be more or less severe,” she said.

COVID-19: endemic doesn’t mean harmless - Nature - The word ‘endemic’ has become one of the most misused of the pandemic. And many of the errant assumptions made encourage a misplaced complacency. It doesn’t mean that COVID-19 will come to a natural end. To an epidemiologist, an endemic infection is one in which overall rates are static — not rising, not falling. More precisely, it means that the proportion of people who can get sick balances out the ‘basic reproduction number’ of the virus, the number of individuals that an infected individual would infect, assuming a population in which everyone could get sick. Yes, common colds are endemic. So are Lassa fever, malaria and polio. So was smallpox, until vaccines stamped it out. In other words, a disease can be endemic and both widespread and deadly. Malaria killed more than 600,000 people in 2020. Ten million fell ill with tuberculosis that same year and 1.5 million died. Endemic certainly does not mean that evolution has somehow tamed a pathogen so that life simply returns to ‘normal’. As an evolutionary virologist, it frustrates me when policymakers invoke the word endemic as an excuse to do little or nothing. There’s more to global health policy than learning to live with endemic rotavirus, hepatitis C or measles. Stating that an infection will become endemic says nothing about how long it might take to reach stasis, what the case rates, morbidity levels or death rates will be or, crucially, how much of a population — and which sectors — will be susceptible. Nor does it suggest guaranteed stability: there can still be disruptive waves from endemic infections, as seen with the US measles outbreak in 2019. Health policies and individual behaviour will determine what form — out of many possibilities — endemic COVID-19 takes.

'1 in 3 dies, should we worry': Wuhan scientists warn of new Covid virus 'NeoCov' with high death rate and spread, says report - Scientists from China’s Wuhan, where the Covid-19 virus was first discovered in 2019, have warned of a new type of coronavirus ‘NeoCov’ in South Africa, stated to have a high death and transmission rate, according to a report by the Russian news agency Sputnik. The new variant of NeoCov virus is not new, says report. Associated with the MERS-CoV virus, it was discovered in outbreaks in Middle Eastern countries in 2012 and 2015 and is similar to the the SARS-CoV-2, which causes coronavirus in humans. While NeoCoV was discovered in a bat population in South Africa and has only been known to spread among these animals, a new study published as a preprint on the bioRxiv website discovered that NeoCoV and its close relative PDF-2180-CoV can infect humans. According to researchers from Wuhan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Biophysics, only one mutation is required for the virus to infiltrate human cells. The research findings stated that the novel coronavirus poses a risk because it binds to the ACE2 receptor differently than the coronavirus pathogen. As a result, neither antibodies nor protein molecules produced by people with respiratory diseases or who have been immunised can protect against NeoCoV. According to Chinese researchers, NeoCoV carries the potential combination of MERS-high CoV’s mortality rate (one in every three infected person dies) and the current SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus’s high transmission rate.#160;

Gay, lesbian adults report higher COVID vaccination rates -COVID-19 vaccination rates are higher among gay and lesbian adults in the U.S. compared to heterosexual adults, new research suggests.According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published Thursday, just over 85 percent of lesbian or gay adults in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, compared to 76 percent of heterosexual adults.There were no “significant differences” found in vaccination rates based on gender identity, according to the report, which used data collected from more than 150,000 respondents between August and October.Gay or lesbian adults were also more likely to have confidence in the safety of vaccines, with 76 percent reporting they were either completely or very confident in vaccine safety, compared with 64 percent of heterosexual respondents. More than 90 percent of gay or lesbian adults said they believed getting vaccinated against COVID-19 was very or somewhat important, as did 87 percent of bisexual adults, according to the report.Among gay or lesbian adults, vaccination rates were highest among men at nearly 89 percent, compared with nearly 81 percent among women.Among all lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) adults, vaccination rates were lowest among Black LGBT people across all categories of sexual orientation and gender identity. The percentage of transgender or nonbinary adults who reported receiving more than one dose of a COVID vaccine was similar to that of cisgender adults, at nearly 76 percent and nearly 77 percent, respectively. The CDC report is a departure from previous findings that LGBTQ+ individuals may be more hesitant to get vaccinated, though the report’s conclusion that LGBTQ+ adults have a high degree of confidence in COVID vaccines is in line with other similar surveys.

Pfizer vaccine for children under 5 could be available soon: report- Pfizer and BioNTech are reportedly close to submitting a request for emergency authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine that can be administered to children under the age of 5. Sources familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that the companies are expected to submit a emergency use authorization request for their two-dose vaccine to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as early as Tuesday, potentially allowing for the vaccine to be available by the end of the month. According to the sources who spoke with the Post, the FDA urged the companies to submit their request so that regulators could review the data on the vaccine. “The idea is, let’s go ahead and start the review of two doses,” one source, who asked to remain anonymous, told the newspaper. “If the data holds up in the submission, you could start kids on their primary baseline months earlier than if you don’t do anything until the third-dose data comes in.” A Biden administration official told the Post that there was a consensus among health officials in "seeing this move forward," speaking on the companies' plans of submitting their request. The Hill has reached out to Pfizer and the FDA for comment. The two-dose vaccine had a good safety profile in young children and was shown to be effective at preventing numerous COVID-19 cases, according to a source. Currently, Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is the only shot approved for children as young as 5 in the U.S. Pediatric vaccinations have remained low. As of mid-January, around 28 percent of children aged 5 to 11 are at least partially vaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation The lack of COVID-19 vaccines for young children has become a source of anxiety for some parents with children under the age of 5, especially as the omicron variant caused cases to once again skyrocket across the country. However, many parents continue to express hesitance and skepticism about getting their children vaccinated at all.

Proposed Bill Would Allow Ivermectin Use For Critically Sick Patients: Iowa Lawmakers - Lawmakers in Iowa’s state Legislature have advanced a bill that would allow the use of ivermectin for critically sick COVID-19 patients. Ivermectin has been used for decades to treat parasitic worms in humans, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, some patients and doctors have attested that the drug is effective in relieving symptoms.The Iowa bill stipulates that COVID-19 patients who are on ventilators should have the ability to use ivermectin. Specifically, it expands the state’s “right to try” law, which allows terminally ill patients to access medicines that have passed under the first phase of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s trials.“I completely support it. I think that we should give patients the right to try,” said Rep. Ann Meyer, a Republican and one of the bill’s cosponsors, told the Des Moines Register in late January.Rep. Lee Hein, also a Republican, said he sponsored the measure after hearing that two families of critically ill COVID-19 patients had sought ivermectin but hospital policies prevented them from obtaining the medication. Both patients died of COVID-19, he said.“I don’t know whether any of these drugs work, but I think at that late stage in the game, once you’re on a ventilator, families ought to have at least a glimmer of hope to try something,” Hein told Radio Iowa. The FDA’s website says that its “currently available data” suggests that the medication isn’t effective at treating or preventing COVID-19. However, the agency courted controversy last year when it issued a Twitter post that suggested the drug is only used for “deworming” horses and other livestock, although it has long authorized ivermectin tablets as a treatment for worms in humans. The FDA and other agencies, meanwhile, have warned against people taking livestock-grade ivermectin, which doesn’t require a prescription, amid reports of increases in people being admitted to hospitals after taking the livestock version of the drug. The drug gained more attention after podcaster Joe Rogan confirmed that he took human-grade ivermectin in a bid to curb his COVID-19 symptoms. Ivermectin is also being used across Latin America for COVID-19, including in Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, and other countries.

 The CDC is finally recognizing 'natural immunity' — legislators should follow suit - There are now more than 65 million people who have recovered from COVID-19 in the United States. While vaccination for COVID-19 has been critically important to protect us against severe disease, hospitalizations and death, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are finally acknowledging the strong protection provided from immunity after a SARS-CoV-2 infection: so-called “natural immunity.” In the CDC report, which analyzed COVID-19 cases in California and New York in 2021 from May 30 to November 20, the scientists compared the risk of new SARS-CoV-2 infection among four groups of people: those who were unvaccinated without a prior case of COVID-19; those vaccinated without prior COVID-19; those unvaccinated with prior COVID-19 and those vaccinated with prior COVID-19. The authors explain that before the emergence of the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, recent vaccination was more protective against new infection than natural immunity (in California during June, for example, 20.9-fold vs 8.2-fold). However, after delta became prevalent, natural immunity was more protective against infection than vaccination (in California during September, 8.3-fold vs 35.0-fold). During the delta wave of COVID-19, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among those with “enhanced” immunity due to both vaccination and prior infection, was 32.5-fold lower in California and 19.8-fold lower in New York, whereas rates among those vaccinated alone (without prior COVID-19) were only 6.2-fold lower in California and 4.5-fold lower in New York. The rates among those with natural immunity were 29.0-fold lower in California and 14.7-fold lower in New York. The authors note that hospitalization rates followed a similar pattern. The report finally acknowledges what many have suspected for a long time — that surviving COVID-19 provides excellent natural immunity not only repeat infection but also to hospitalization and death for the delta variant of COVID-19. The pattern of improved protection after natural infection makes sense. It always has. That’s how immunity against infections works. That is why vaccines work. The COVID-19 vaccines were developed to mimic a natural infection based on the original virus that was identified in 2019, what biologists call the "wildtype" strain of SARS-CoV-2. The vaccines, especially the commonest mRNA-based ones, use the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the protein that acts as a key to enter cells and cause infection. By blocking that entry with vaccine-induced antibodies, infection is prevented. In contrast, during a natural infection, the human body is exposed to all parts of the virus, including the spike protein. When the immune system responds to enable recovery from the infection, it is broader and more diverse, with a greater ability to defend against any future SARS-CoV-2 virus variants. Therefore, while mutations naturally form in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein through the process of viral evolution, the targeted vaccine-based approach to attack the spike protein, while still effective, is not as robust as the armamentarium created from surviving a true infection, and most effective in combination with vaccination. What is clear from the new CDC report over all periods is this — the worst group to be in is the nonvaccinated group without prior COVID-19. That group is the most likely to be infected, and if also at risk for severe disease — older 65 years of age, obese, chronically ill or immunocompromised — the most likely to die from an infection.

U.S. Covid Death Toll Surpasses 900,000 as Omicron’s Spread Slows - — More than 2,600 Americans are dying from Covid-19 each day, an alarming rate that has climbed by 30 percent in the past two weeks. Across the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has now claimed more than 900,000 lives. Yet another, simultaneous reality of the pandemic offers reason for hope. The number of new coronavirus infections is plummeting, falling by more than half since mid-January. Hospitalizations are also declining, a relief to stressed health care workers who have been treating desperately ill coronavirus patients for nearly two years. All that has created a disorienting moment in the pandemic: Though deaths are still mounting, the threat from the virus is moving, for now, farther into the background of daily life for many Americans. The Omicron surge has brought with it an especially potent and fast-moving wave of death across the United States. The country’s per capita death rate still exceeds those of other wealthy nations, a reflection of widespread resistance to vaccines and boosters in the United States. During the Omicron surge, hospital admissions in the United States have been higher than in Western Europe. The pace of deaths across the country has accelerated throughout the fall and winter. When the United States reached 800,000 deaths in mid-December, the most recent 100,000 deaths had occurred in less than 11 weeks. This time, the latest 100,000 deaths — many from the Omicron variant — have been reported in just over seven weeks. That the 900,000-death milestone comes more than a year after vaccines were first authorized added to the pain, said Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, the Baltimore health commissioner. Federal data shows that a vast majority of deaths have been unvaccinated people. “As a public health professional, it is unbelievably sad, because I think so many of the deaths were likely preventable,” Dr. Dzirasa said. She said her agency continued to organize vaccination clinics each week, but that some of them were “barely attended.” Deaths over the past seven weeks were reported in large numbers across the United States, with especially high rates in the Southwest and around the Great Lakes.

New York COVID cases drop by half in one week, positivity rate lowest in NYC -- The number of new COVID-19 cases in New York has fallen by more than half in a week, the latest state numbers show. There were 12,332 positive test results reported statewide Friday, down from 27,643 a week earlier, according to stats released Saturday by Gov. Kathy Hochul. The statewide positivity rate dropped to 5.73 percent Friday and was 7.3 percent when measured on a seven-day average. The seven-day average in New York City on Friday was 5.21 percent, the lowest in the state. Hospitalizations dropped to 7,675 Friday with 1,183 COVID-19 patients being treated in intensive care units. A week ago, more than 10,000 people were hospitalized with the virus. There were 125 coronavirus deaths Friday, including 54 among New York City residents.

COVID-19 cases in New York drop by 90 percent since beginning of January - COVID-19 cases in New York have dropped by 90 percent over the last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Tuesday. Monday data from the New York state health department shows new COVID-19 cases across the state have dropped by almost 50 percent since last week, the governor said during a press conference, adding that new hospital admissions have declined by roughly 33 percent over the last seven days as well. State data shows 7,119 positive COVID-19 cases as of Monday, Jan. 31, which represents a 92 percent drop from three weeks ago when the DOH reported 90,132 cases on Jan. 7, according to amNY. “This is a beautiful sight,” Gov. Hochul said, according to WSYR-TV. “We have been waiting for this.” America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. Although new cases of the virus and hospitalizations are decreasing, hospitals still need help to deal with existing and future COVID-19 patients. Hochul added during the press conference that the state hospitals with staffing shortages have received a number of federal resources including 71 military medical personnel, 110 ambulance units and 225 New York National Guard members, according to WSYR-TV. “We believe we’re finally turning the corner on the winter wave. Just like the snow is melting, hopefully these numbers will continue to melt away,” Hochul added

U.S. marks latest grim milestone of the pandemic: 900,000 COVID deaths -The United States hit yet another grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic on Friday: 900,000 deaths from COVID-19. Put another way, the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus now exceeds the entire population of the state of South Dakota, the city of Indianapolis or the country of Fiji. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, as of late Friday afternoon, more than 900,500 Americans had died from complications from the virus since the pandemic began, with more than 76 million reported U.S. cases — far more cases and deaths than in any other country in the world. Earlier Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she would have more information soon about President Biden's plans to mark the milestone, but did not elaborate. Last February, shortly after Biden took office, the country's coronavirus death toll stood at 500,000. Six weeks ago, it passed 800,000, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holding a moment of silence in memory of the lives lost. At the current rate, the United States would pass 1 million coronavirus deaths in March. Over the past two months, the country has seen an explosion in COVID-19 cases driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant. According to Johns Hopkins, there have been more than 17.3 million confirmed U.S. cases in the past 28 days, or nearly a quarter (22.8 percent) of the 76 million total cases since the beginning of the pandemic. (The actual case totals are likely even higher because not everyone who gets COVID is tested, and those who test positive at home are not required to report their results.) There are signs, however, that the Omicron wave has peaked. All 50 states are reporting falling COVID-19 case rates except one — Maine — though the net positivity rate has started to fall there too. The White House COVID-19 response team and public health officials this week expressed cautious optimism about the downward trend in cases while warning that the rates of hospitalizations and deaths remain high. “While we continue to see large decreases in average daily case counts across the country, hospitalizations remain high, stretching our health care capacity and workforce to its limits in some areas of the country,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

New York, Michigan and Ohio end contact tracing - Many of the largest American states have officially ended their contact tracing programs as part of a coordinated nationwide policy to allow virtually the entire American population to be infected with the potentially deadly and debilitating COVID-19.In recent weeks, over a dozen states have ended or reduced contact tracing, including Michigan, New York, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Indiana and others.This sea change in policy, closely coordinated with the White House, has been carried out quietly, receiving no national news coverage, with the only coverage coming from local newspapers and trade publications.“Contact tracing ending in New York State,” reported Albany local ABC News 10 on January 13, writing, “As of this week, New York will no longer expect local health departments to conduct COVID contact tracing for most cases. New Yorkers who test positive for COVID-19 will no longer receive a call from a county or even the state health department.”New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that tracing will be “optional” for counties, but counties throughout the state immediately moved to end their contact tracing programs. “The days of widespread contact tracing are coming to an end across New York State, including in Onondaga [home to Syracuse] and Oneida Counties,” reported local Syracuse, New York TV station WSYR.The station reported:The significant change in policy was made quietly in Onondaga County. In an email, obtained by NewsChannel 9, the state’s contact tracing coordinator assigned to Onondaga County schools emailed local superintendents with the changes. She writes: “Onondaga County has asked us to change our interview and processes due to the new guidance… Starting 1/6/22 we are no longer registering any contact for any Onondaga County cases.”On January 30, local Richmond news station WTKR reported that the Virginia state health department is “phasing out contact tracing” and no longer “attempting to investigate every case of COVID-19.”On January 27, local Ohio station WKYC reported that “The Ohio Department of Health is no longer asking K-12 schools and local health departments to contact trace after each positive coronavirus case at school.”“Broad community contract [sic] tracing for COVID in Michigan is coming to an end in most cases,” reported Bridge Michigan on January 14. “The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has shifted away from performing individual-level case investigation and contact tracing,”reported MLive on January 29.MLive noted that, even before the end of contact tracing efforts by the state, less than two percent of cases had their contacts reached out to by health agencies.

ODH Director ‘hopeful’ as cases, hospitalizations drop but says COVID-19 may become endemic --Ohio’s top medical official on Friday detailed the latest in the state’s precipitous drop in COVID-19 cases, as the omicron variant wave falls off its peak. The omicron wave first hit Ohio close to Lake Erie. Weekly cases per 100,000 people in Cuyahoga County have dropped to 268, Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said in a Friday press conference, which is down from more than 3,000 per 100,000 in early January. Hospitalizations, too, are dropping statewide, Vanderhoff said, from a high of 6,749 on Jan. 10 to 3,464 now. That’s a 48% drop, Vanderhoff added, but it’s still a “very high and very concerning number.” Declines in hospitalizations around the state have allowed some hospitals to return their operations closer to where they were before omicron, but others still need the help of the Ohio National Guard. And cases are still 10 times above what the federal Centers for Disease Control considers “high.” “We are feeling hopeful as we begin February that better days are ahead,” he said. “But remember, we are still a very long way from having case levels like those we were seeing in the late spring through the early fall.” Vanderhoff was joined by Dr. Joseph Gastaldo, Medical Director of Infectious Diseases at OhioHealth, to discuss how the pandemic may become more endemic, meaning a disease that people live with every day or every year, like the flu. On Thursday, the state reported just reported more than 5,700 new cases, continuing a downward trend of average daily cases. The 21-day case average is just over 15,900. Coronavirus cases reported every week by Ohio schools came in under 20,000 for the first time in a month on Thursday, as the state continues to see infections drop from an omicron variant wave peak in January.

Michigan reports 9,805 new COVID cases, 209 deaths -- average of 4,903 cases per day --Michigan surpassed 2 million cases of COVID-19 on Friday as the fourth surge of the pandemic begins to subside, health leaders say. The state added 9,805 new cases and 209 deaths from the virus on Friday, including totals from Thursday. The state averaged 4,903 cases per day over the two days and of the deaths tallied Friday, 155 deaths were identified during a delayed records review, according to the state health department. Friday's additions bring the state's overall total to 2,009,221 confirmed cases and 30,379 deaths since the virus was first detected here in March 2020. The state surpassed 1 million cases on Sept. 22, 2021. The state on Friday reported 2,762 adults and 61 pediatric patients were hospitalized with confirmed infections and about 80% of the state's inpatient hospital beds are occupied. Adult hospitalization rates are declining from records set on Jan. 10, when 4,580 adults were hospitalized with COVID-19. About 16% of the hospital beds were filled with COVID-19 patients and there were an average of 1,409 emergency room visits related to COVID-19 per day in the state as of Friday compared to 24% full and 2,889 emergency room visits due to the virus in the first week of January. About 85% of COVID-19 hospitalizations are unvaccinated persons, compared to 15% of breakthrough cases. The case counts continue to drop from early January when the state set a new high mark with more than 20,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 per day. The dip lines up with modeling predictions that suggest the COVID-19 surge would peak at the end of January or the beginning of February, Lynn Sutfin, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services told The Detroit News. "We are currently at an elevated plateau and will continue to monitor case rates, percent positivity and hospitalizations to determine if cases are truly declining," Sutfin said in an email. "We urge Michiganders ages 5 and older to get vaccinated or boosted if eligible as the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine is our best defense against the virus."

Canada records highest daily COVID-19 death toll since start of pandemic -Confirming the most dire warnings made by scientists at the onset of the Omicron-fueled fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitalizations and deaths have reached record highs across Canada. This is a product of the profits-before-lives herd immunity strategy pursued by governments at the federal and provincial levels, regardless of whether they are led by parties of the nominal “left” or right. A grim milestone was reached on January 27 as 309 COVID-19 deaths were recorded nationally, the highest-ever daily total since the start of the pandemic. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths sits at 156 as of January 30, nearing the highs of the first two waves of the pandemic, before vaccines were widely available. Hospitalizations are also at record highs, with over 10,000 people in hospital for COVID-19 every day since January 21, according to COVID19Tracker.ca. An urgent warning must be issued to the Canadian working class: without the independent mass intervention of the working class to put an end to these herd immunity policies and enforce the implementation of the science-backed Zero COVID strategy, thousands of additional lives will be needlessly lost in the weeks and months to come. Governments, acting at the behest of the major banks and corporations, are rapidly dismantling all remaining public health measures designed to limit the spread of the virus. They are also concealing the extent of transmission and spreading lies about the severity of disease caused by the Omicron variant, regarded as the fastest-spreading SARS-COV-2 variant to date. These herd immunity policies, lifted from the pages of the far-right Great Barrington Declaration, are designed to maintain the flow of profits to the banks and corporations, and swell the wealth of the super-rich. Schools and non-essential workplaces have been forced open to guarantee a workforce for these corporations, even if legions of workers and their family members are killed or face long-term health problems due to COVID-19 in the process.

COVID-19 caused second-largest infection mortality disaster in Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain since 1918 -A study of continuous monthly mortality data for more than 100 years in Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain found that excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic reached greater peaks than most other periods of excess deaths since 1918. The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain are particularly suitable for an over-time perspective of excess mortality because they have reliable continuous data on death counts and were militarily neutral during both world wars. Historical data may help to support planning and preparing for current and future pandemics. In collaboration with the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, researchers from the Universities of Zurich, Bern and Oslo estimated age-specific, monthly excess deaths from all causes for Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain for 2020 to 2021 and other pandemic periods since the end of the 19th century in chronological order. The authors collected data for monthly all-cause deaths from each country’s statistical office and used yearly data on population size and age structure to account for demographic shifts over time. After conducting statistical analysis, the authors found that for all three countries 2020 marked the highest number of excess deaths since 1918. However, excess deaths in 1918 were still estimated to be six to seven times higher than 2020. The relative excess of deaths in 2020 was 12.5 percent in Switzerland, 8.5 percent in Sweden, and 17.3 percent in Spain. According to the authors, excess mortality in 2020 might have been even higher if not for strong public health interventions worldwide.

Denmark Declares End to the Pandemic - Denmark is set to lift all coronavirus restrictions in the country from 1 February despite record numbers of cases driven by the Omicron variant, with the government stating that the high percentage of vaccinated people and the less severe nature of the new strain has rendered continued curbs on society redundant.According to the Danish administration of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Covid-19 is no longer a “critical” illness for society, and as such rules including the obligatory use of face masks in public places and restrictions on social and cultural life will be lifted permanently, with nightclubs also set to reopen. “It may seem strange and paradoxical to eliminate restrictions with the current case numbers, but we have to focus on more data, one of the most important of which is the number of serious cases of illness and that curve has been broken,” Frederiksen said in a press conference. “We are ready to step out of the shadow of coronavirus, we are saying goodbye to restrictions and welcoming back the life we had before. The pandemic goes on, but we are through the critical phase.”Restrictions on entry into Denmark will remain in place, Frederiksen added, with non-vaccinated travellers required to provide proof of a negative covid-19 test and to observe quarantine on arrival. Denmark expects the high number of cases being caused by the Omicron wave to continue for a few weeks, but believes that at this stage imposing restrictions on society is a disproportionate response. Frederiksen spoke of three phases in the country: the first, which will last through the spring, will include recommendations for protecting at-risk groups, such as the use of face masks in care homes, as well as unvaccinated visitors to Norway being obliged to take a covid test and isolate. The second phase, up to autumn, will be one of observation leading into the third, in which Frederiksen said it is ”very possible” that part or all of the population will be required to get vaccinated again.

 The COVID pandemic continues to rage despite the delivery of more than ten billion doses of vaccines -The online publication Our World in Data, which has been a leading and often referenced source for critical statistics regarding the COVID pandemic, reported that on Friday, January 28, 2022, more than 10 billion doses of COVID vaccines had been administered worldwide in the 13 months since they were first introduced to the public. In that same period, the pandemic has only accelerated the mass deaths caused by the infection with the coronavirus. With 5.67 million reported COVID deaths during the pandemic, almost 4 million have died since Margaret Keenan, a 91-year-old grandmother from the UK, became the first person in the world to get the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on December 8, 2020. As the New Year’s statement published in the WSWS noted, “The global pandemic is a catastrophe of historic dimensions. It is also a crime because the disastrous impact of the pandemic is the result of decisions made by capitalist governments—first and foremost in the United States and Western Europe—to deliberately prioritize profits over lives, to reject the implementation of public health measures required to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 and, instead, to adopt policies that allow the virus to spread widely throughout the global population.” Indeed, the politics behind implementing the COVID vaccine campaign has been to disarm any public resistance against the malign “herd immunity” policies that various governmental institutions called for from the beginning, embedded into the interests of financial markets. The current objective is to completely dismantle the entire public health apparatus, including the necessary COVID metric dashboards that provide a sense of the scale of the calamity. Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 as of January 28, 2022. In short, the promise of relying solely on vaccines as an exit strategy has been disastrous. Warnings to this effect were made by scientists at the World Health Organization, stating that depending on vaccines without strict infection controls risked breeding new, more virulent variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These have been proven correct.

 As India passes 41 million official COVID-19 cases, Modi boasts of his “great success” - Citing the highly undercounted official COVID-19 infection and death figures, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is playing down the threat posed by an Omicron-led third wave of the pandemic. Modi claims the “vaccination of 75 percent of the adult population” shows his “success,” though countless reports have revealed the ineffectiveness of vaccine-only policies to check highly infectious variants like Omicron. Students wear face masks and wait outside a school on the day schools partially reopened after they were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic in Kolkata, India, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Bikas Das) Resorting to his regular practice of self-congratulation, Modi boasted on January 30, the day India passed the 41 million mark for COVID-19 infections, that “India is fighting with great success with the new wave of corona,” calling it is a “matter of pride.” Modi’s “success” story is exposed as a sinister farce: the first month of 2022 alone saw over 6 million cases of COVID-19 in India. Modi’s criminal profits-over-lives policy has already created a massive humanitarian crisis in the world’s second most populous country. With 497,975 COVID fatalities as of February 2, according to vastly undercounted official figures, India is about to pass half a million official COVID-19 deaths. Last year, however, the US-based Center for Global Development showed that India’s actual coronavirus death figure was four million, eight times higher than the official toll. These deaths include thousands of children, as pointed out by leading health experts. In The Hindu, Dr. Dhanya Dharmapalan, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist in Navi Mumbai, and Dr. T. Jacob John, a retired Professor of Virology at Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, showed that 0.4 percent (or 1,944) of India’s official 486,000 COVID deaths (as of January 12) are children. Referring to analyses estimating “a six to seven-fold higher number of deaths,” the experts wrote that this is “suggesting a far higher number of child deaths” in India. Some data given by exports highlight the disastrous prospects as millions of unprotected children are exposed to an Omicron-led surge that is spreading like wildfire. There are vast numbers of children living with diabetes, chronic heart/lung/kidney/neurological disease, obesity, or in immune-compromised states due to immunodeficiency syndromes or immunosuppressant therapies. They are at high risk of severe cases of COVID-19.

A highly virulent variant of HIV-1 circulating in the Netherlands – Abstract: We discovered a highly virulent variant of subtype-B HIV-1 in the Netherlands. One hundred nine individuals with this variant had a 0.54 to 0.74 log₁₀ increase (i.e., a ~3.5-fold to 5.5-fold increase) in viral load compared with, and exhibited CD4 cell decline twice as fast as, 6604 individuals with other subtype-B strains. Without treatment, advanced HIV—CD4 cell counts below 350 cells per cubic millimeter, with long-term clinical consequences—is expected to be reached, on average, 9 months after diagnosis for individuals in their thirties with this variant. Age, sex, suspected mode of transmission, and place of birth for the aforementioned 109 individuals were typical for HIV-positive people in the Netherlands, which suggests that the increased virulence is attributable to the viral strain. Genetic sequence analysis suggests that this variant arose in the 1990s from de novo mutation, not recombination, with increased transmissibility and an unfamiliar molecular mechanism of virulence.The main (M) group of HIV-1, responsible for the global pandemic, first emerged around 1920 in the area of what is now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (10), and had diversified into subtypes by 1960 (11). The subtypes, and the most common circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) between the subtypes, took different routes for global spread, establishing strong associations with geography (12), ethnicity, and mode of transmission. Differences in virulence between subtypes and CRFs have been reported, though it is challenging to disentangle genotypic effects on virulence from confounding effects while retaining large sample sizes, given the strong associations between viral, host, and epidemiological factors (13). The co-receptor used for cell entry has long been understood to affect virulence (14, 15), and this has been proposed as a mechanism that underlies differences in virulence between subtypes and CRFs (13), as well as one reported difference within a CRF (16).

VB variant: What we know about the new highly virulent HIV strain found in the Netherlands - A new highly virulent strain of HIV has been discovered in the Netherlands by researchers at Oxford University. Scientists believe that what they call the ‘VB variant’ has been in circulation since the late 1980s. Fortunately, they found that modern treatments are effective against the strain as individuals with the variant had similar immune system recovery and survival to individuals with other HIV variants and the research team stressed that the findings are no cause for alarm. Individuals infected with the new VB variant showed significant differences before treatment compared with individuals infected with other HIV variants. Individuals with the VB variant had between 3.5 to 5.5 times higher levels of the virus in their blood. In addition, the rate of CD4 cell decline - the hallmark of immune system damage by HIV - occurred twice as fast in individuals with the VB variant, placing them at risk of developing AIDS much more rapidly. Individuals with the newly-discovered variant also showed an increased risk of transmitting the virus to others.

Toxic Forever Chemicals Found in Almost 75 Percent of Stain and Waterproof Gear Sold by Major Retailers - Nearly three-quarters of water- and stain-resistant products contain toxic forever chemicals, a new report has found. Public health and environmental organization Toxic-Free Future tested 60 products from 10 major retailers. Of 47 products labeled stain-or water-resistant, 72 percent of them tested positive for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals known for their persistence in the environment that have been linked to health problems including cancer, immune suppression, liver damage, reproductive problems and thyroid disease. “Rain jackets shouldn’t cause cancer — but for some of us, that just might be the case,” Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan said in response to the findings, as quoted in a Toxic-Free Future press release. “These companies sold a convenience product to consumers without fully disclosing the toxic trade-off.” The products tested came from Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, Costco, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Kohl’s, Macy’s, REI, Target, TJX and Walmart and included rain jackets, mattress pads, hiking boots, comforters, napkins and tablecloths. Items that tested positive included products sold by outdoor brands with green reputations like REI and Patagonia, The Guardian reported. The report also considered the type of PFAS found in the products. There are two older varieties of PFAS called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) that are the most well-studied PFAS and have been linked to cancer, heart disease, immune problems and endocrine disorders, CNN reported. U.S. manufacturers have largely phased out these older PFAS, but testing still revealed them in 74 percent of imported products. (All of the products tested in the report were imported from Asia and sold in the U.S. in store or online.) “I was alarmed that the older, longer PFAS chains, touted by industry as having been phased out, were found in these imported products,” Melanie Benesh, a legislative and regulatory lawyer for the Environmental Working Group who was not involved with the study, told CNN. However, there isn’t strong evidence that the newer variety of PFAS is any better for human health.

Early childhood exposure to lead in drinking water associated with increased teen delinquency risk - Exposure to lead in drinking water, especially from private wells, during early childhood is associated with an increased risk of being reported for delinquency during teenage years, according to a new study by Indiana University researchers. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that children who get their water from private wells before age 6 have higher blood lead levels and, as a result, have a 21% higher risk of being reported for any delinquency after age 14, and a 38% increased risk of having a record for a serious complaint, such as felony property or weapons offenses and misdemeanor assault. "We know that lead exposure early in life has been linked to lower IQ, reduced lifetime earnings and an increased risk for behavioral problems and criminal activity," said Jackie MacDonald Gibson, author of the study and chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington. "This research highlights the need for recognition of the risks to children relying on private well water and for new programs to ensure they have access to clean drinking water. Failing to do so imposes burdens not just on the affected children and their families but also on society at large." Researchers analyzed a 20-year dataset linking blood lead measurements for 13,580 children under the age of 6 to their drinking water source before age 6, and to reported juvenile delinquency records after the children reached age 14. In addition to finding a correlation between lead exposure and behavioral problems in teens, the study also found that blood lead levels were approximately 11% higher in children relying on private wells, compared to children provided with community water service.Currently, 13% of U.S. households rely on private wells. Domestic wells are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act and are therefore rarely tested for lead or treated to prevent lead dissolution from household plumbing and fixtures, Gibson said. She noted that lead in water from any source causes equal harm, but children with private well water are more susceptible to being exposed to lead in water because most private well owners do not have corrosion control systems in place to prevent leaching of lead from well components, plumbing and fixtures into household water. In contrast, community water systems are required to monitor their water for lead and to establish corrosion control systems if elevated levels of lead are detected.

For low-income Pittsburgh, clean air remains an elusive goal - PBS NewsHour For well over a century, the Pittsburgh region was infamous for its industrial air pollution. Belching chimneys from coal and steel plants dimmed the light of the sun at times, prompting a writer for The Atlantic Monthly in 1868 to call Pittsburgh “hell with the lid taken off.” In the 1940s, the smoke and soot from factories coated buildings and bridges and was so thick that city authorities sometimes turned on streetlights in the middle of the day. Pittsburgh’s air pollution was so bad that the steel manufacturing center became known as the “City of Smoke.”Those who worked in the steel industry and many others in the region long endured the choking pollution, equating the smog with prosperity and economic growth. That began to change with reforms in the 1940s. But only in 1970, with the passage of the U.S. Clean Air Act, did officials compel the steel industry to start cleaning up its operations.Still, more than 50 years after the passage of the landmark federal legislation, the region’s air remains among the most polluted in the country. Allegheny County, which includes the city and the surrounding area, is in the top 1 percent of U.S. counties for cancer risk from toxic air pollutants released from stationary sources, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The county still struggles to meet federal health standards for pollutants, including particulates and ground-level ozone, resulting in some of America’s highest rates of asthma, COPD, and cardiovascular disease, especially among the low-income communities of color that are the most exposed. Despite Pittsburgh’s transformation in recent decades from an industrial powerhouse to a 21st-century city where the main economic engines are the tech sector, world-class medical centers, and higher education, the region has been unable to shake its legacy of dirty air. Sixty percent of the region’s pollution still comes from industrial sources like steel plants, in contrast to metropolitan areas like New York, where transportation and heating of residential and commercial buildings generate the majority of air pollutants. The region’s chronically polluted air is especially harmful for children living near outdoor pollution sources. The EPA found that 39 percent of school children who live in proximity to major sources of industrial pollution are exposed to emissions that exceed federal guidelines. A 2020 study of 1,200 Pittsburgh-area students, 52 percent of whom were Black, found 22.5 percent suffered from asthma resulting, in part, from exposure to a cocktail of contaminants including fine particulate matter, sulfur, and nitric oxide. Other factors, such as a person’s insurance coverage, also played a role. By many measures, Allegheny County remains among the most heavily polluted metropolitan areas in the United States. A 2020 study led by Dr. James Fabisiak, a University of Pittsburgh professor of environmental health, found that in addition to pollution from industrial sources, environmental justice communities in Allegheny County were exposed to high levels of traffic pollution. As a result, they were up to 25 times more likely to suffer from exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and black carbon — a component of the fine particulate matter known as PM 2.5 — than other groups. Deaths from coronary heart disease among lower income and minority residents accounted for 40 percent of the county’s total, even though they represent only 28 percent of the population, the study said.Allegheny County’s air pollution challenges are epitomized in Clairton, a low-income community of 6,600 residents some 15 miles south of Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River, where U.S. Steel operates North America’s biggest plant to convert coal into coke for steelmaking. The plant’s black chimneys emit towering clouds of steam and smoke from the 400-acre site — a plume visible from the Clairton High School football field less than a mile away. Clairton has an official poverty rate of 22 percent. Many stores are boarded up, and some residential streets are lined with abandoned homes and empty lots. The community has no large supermarket, forcing residents to drive or take public transit to the nearest full-service food store, about a 25-minute bus ride away.

State report shows how agency misses pollution spikes during storms -The Texas agency tasked with enforcing clean air rules often does not monitor industrial pollution during and immediately after severe weather events — often the height of emissions from refineries and chemical plants — leaving a hole in the state’s knowledge of air quality, according to a new state report.Industrial facilities, like oil refineries and chemical plants along the Texas Gulf Coast, typically shut down in advance of hurricanes and other storms to keep workers safe and avoid spills. But the process can cause pollution above what’s permitted or healthy. Emergency shutdowns and other accidents, equipment breakdowns and power failures during the storms tend to create even worse levels of pollution as plants burn off waste gases, which include health pollutants and climate-warming greenhouse gases such as nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds.But the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also shuts down most of its air monitoring equipment to avoid damage to sensitive devices as storms approach — causing it to miss times when pollution can be highest.“This occurs before the TCEQ is able to mobilize handheld or mobile monitoring, and often when stationary monitors are offline due to the storm,” the Friday TCEQ report said. “This generates a gap in our knowledge of air quality at a time when emissions may be the greatest.” Local officials rely on TCEQ’s air monitoring to aid in decisions such as when the public should shelter in place to avoid unsafe levels of air pollution. In Harris County, officials have turned to outside help for air monitoring where the state’s monitors failed — a lesson those officials said they learned during the 2019 Intercontinental Terminals Company fire. In 2020, a $1.1 million grant coordinated by the Environmental Defense Fund helped the county and the city of Houston purchase equipment and plan for their own air monitoring, the Houston Chronicle reported.

California water officials warn state could face third consecutive dry year as snowpack dissipates - California water officials warned on Tuesday that the state is set to face another dry year after experiencing a significant lack of snow in January, potentially marking its third consecutive year of dry conditions.The state's overall snowpack measures 92% of average for this time of year, an extraordinary drop from the 160% of average that was recorded a month ago, according to a release by the California Department of Water Resources. Officials are forecasting that by the end of the month, California's reservoirs will have 76% of average water storage for this time of year.The department, which conducted its second snow survey of the season at Phillips Station, located near Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, advised residents to focus on water conservation, since most of California's reservoirs are below-average and groundwater supplies are still recovering."We are definitely still in a drought. A completely dry January shows how quickly surpluses can disappear," DWR's director Karla Nemeth said in a statement. "The variability of California weather proves that nothing is guaranteed and further emphasizes the need to conserve and continue preparing for a possible third dry year."The department's warning comes as California grapples with historic drought conditions fueled by climate change. It also comes after a year during which California experienced the second-largest wildfire in state history.

The next big squeeze: Florida orange juice could skyrocket in price The next grocery item families could see skyrocketing in price: Florida orange juice.The state’s orange crop will be the smallest since World War II, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report earlier this month. And the threats to Florida’s “liquid gold” continue: Weather forecasters predict this weekend’s freezing temperatures in Florida will further hurt the season’s crop.Florida is the country’s largest producer of juice oranges, at its peak producing 244 million boxes of oranges annually. This year, the USDA predicts that will fall to only 44.5 million.Demand during the pandemic has shot sales to levels not seen since 2016, said Mike Sparks, executive director of Florida Citrus Mutual, a trade group representing thousands of growers. And prices have risen throughout the pandemic as each successive wave of the virus has increased consumers’ demand for products high in vitamin C, believed to be beneficial in warding off viruses.Like most groceries, orange juice prices have been going up. In 2021, orange juice prices rose 13.8 percent, according to the USDA, and according to market research firm Nielsen, retail prices of orange juice have increased another 5.73 percent this month. The 2021 increase in orange juice prices was roughly twice the rate of increase in the cost of groceries.The average price of U.S. orange concentrate rose 8.5 percent in the four weeks up to Jan. 19, according to commodity price data firm Mintec, which predicts tighter supplies combined with rising ingredient costs will drive orange juice prices even higher in coming months. The primary culprit for what is expected to be such a small crop is something called citrus greening, an incurable disease decimating Florida orange groves, spread by a creepy, lice-like bug. The state’s crop is down more than 75 percent from its peak, according to Florida Citrus Mutual. Florida has lost 50 percent of its growers because of consolidation, land development and growers just quitting the business.“Greening is the most difficult disease to ever impact citrus,” Sparks said. He points to labor shortages, plastic packaging shortages and other tricky supply chain logistics as additional challenges in recent months, but “greening is the primary cause of the reduction in number of boxes. We’re going to see prices increase.”

Two endangered Florida panthers struck and killed by vehicles, officials say - Authorities said two endangered Florida panthers were struck and killed by vehicles in separate incidents, The Associated Press reported. Wildlife officials said the remains of a 3-year-old female panther were found Friday alongside Immokalee Road in Collier County. Another 2-year-old female panther was found dead on Monday alongside Interstate 75, which is near the western Alligator Alley toll plaza. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, there have been five Florida panther deaths attributed to fatal collisions this year.

After Hunters Kill Record Number of Yellowstone Wolves, Officials Take Steps to Limit Season - Montana wildlife officials have taken steps to limit hunting on the border of Yellowstone National Park after a record number of park wolves were killed this season. The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission voted Friday to pause wolf hunting and trapping for the season in a region of southwest Montana once 82 wolves have been killed in the area. Currently, hunters have claimed the lives of 76. “The damage you are doing on wolves, this has got to stop,” March Cooke ofconservation group Wolves of the Rockies said at a public comment period ahead of the decision, as the Billings Gazette reported. Wildlife advocates and park workers are alarmed because a record number of Yellowstone Park wolves have been killed this winter, AP News reported. To date, 23 wolves from park packs have been killed: 18 in Montana, three in Wyoming and two in Idaho. That’s more than during any winter since wolves were reintroduced to the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains more than 25 years ago, and that’s bad for both ecology and tourism, wolf advocates say. “These are the most viewable wolves in the Lower 48, if not the world,” Cara McGary, owner of In Our Nature Guiding Services, said during the public comment session, as the Billings Gazette reported. “Their economic value cannot be overestimated. Thirty percent of these northern range wolves are now gone, the Phantom Lake Pack has been eliminated. How would you expect any business person to respond to such a loss of essential supply, and what’s the justification for this damage?” While the commission decided to end hunting for the season in southwest Montana’s Region 3 once the 82 number is reached, it refused calls to lower quotas along the park’s northern border. Lower quotas near the park used to be the norm before they were lifted by Republican lawmakers last year, according to AP News. The debate comes at a perilous time for gray wolves. The predators lost their Endangered Species Act protections in 2020, though protections in six northern Rockies states were lifted more than a decade ago. Republican lawmakers in both Idaho and Montana have also relaxed laws to allow strategies like night hunting, snares and aerial hunting in Idaho. So far this year, about 181 gray wolves have been killed in all of Montana as of January 26, The Hill reported. The upper limit is set at 450, and if it is reached then the commission will have to review the quota.

 Huge bank of dead fish spotted off French Atlantic coast - France's fisheries minister has called for an investigation after a spillage of more than 100,000 dead fish off the country's Atlantic coast. Video footage filmed by environmental activists shows a mass of corpses floating on the sea surface. An industry statement said the Margiris, the world's second-largest super trawler, had reported a "fishing incident" after its net broke. It said the fish were blue whiting, a species of the cod family. The lost fish would be deducted from the vessel's quota, the statement added. The Sea Shepherd France environmental group filmed the fish on Thursday, saying they covered an area of about 3,000 sq m (32,300 sq ft). Its head Lamya Essemlali told Reuters it wanted to "raise awareness among the French public" about the trawler, which it said had been banned from Australian waters and frequented the Bay of Biscay. Fisheries Minister Annick Girardin tweeted (in French) that she was investigating, and that the images were shocking. The EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevicius, also said he was seeking "exhaustive information and evidence about the case". The Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association issued a statement saying a net on the Margiris had ruptured at 05:50 local time (04:50 GMT) on Thursday morning, adding that this was a "very rare occurrence". "In line with EU law, this has been recorded in the vessel's log book and reported to the authorities of the vessel's flag state, Lithuania," it said.

A 477-mile lightning bolt sets world record, spans three states - The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced a new record had been established after a nearly 500-mile-long single flash of lightning spread across a handful of Southern states. In a statement released on Tuesday, WMO explained that the longest single flash of lightning covered a horizontal distance of 477 miles across parts of the Southern U.S. on April 29, 2020. The lightning flash was the equivalent distance between New York City and Columbus, Ohio.The 2020 lightning flash spread across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.“These are extraordinary records from single lightning flash events. Environmental extremes are living measurements of the power of nature, as well as scientific progress in being able to make such assessments. It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as lightning detection technology improves,” said Randall Cerveny, rapporteur of weather and climate extremes for WMO. The previous longest single flash was back in 2018 and took place across parts of southern Brazil, spanning 440 miles long.The new lightning record took place in a noted hotspot for Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) thunderstorms, a weather dynamic that allows “extraordinary” megaflashes to occur, in the Great Plains in North America and the La Plata basin in South America.The National Weather Service (NWS) says lightning can travel 10 to 12 miles from a thunderstorm, and over the course of one year the Earth will be struck by lightning nearly 20 million times. “Lightning is a major hazard that claims many lives every year. The findings highlight important public lightning safety concerns for electrified clouds where flashes can travel extremely large distances,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general for WMO.WMO warned that only substantial buildings that have wiring and plumbing are lightning-safe locations, not simpler structures like a bus stop. The second reliably safe location is a fully enclosed metal-topped vehicle.

At least 4 killed as powerful storm dumps record-breaking snow, U.S. –(snow graphics, videos) + At least 4 people died and more than 120 000 customers were left without power after a powerful Nor'easter hit the U.S. East Coast on Saturday, January 29, and Sunday, January 30, 2022. More than 16 million people were placed under winter weather alerts. The storm rapidly intensified into a bomb cyclone on January 29 dropping heavy snow and producing hurricane-force winds. The heaviest snow was recorded in eastern Massachusetts where 78.48 cm (30.9 inches) was registered in Stoughton, about 32 km (20 miles) SW of Boston. Snowfall rates in Boston reached 5 - 10 cm (2 - 4 inches) per hour, but even higher rates were registered in Norfolk County.1 Numerous locations broke daily snowfall records on January 29, including Boston which tied the record for biggest 1-day snowfall with 59.9 cm (23.6 inches). The storm total is 60.4 cm (23.8 inches) but 5 mm (0.2 inches) fell on January 28. Its previous daily snowfall record for January 29 was just 93.9 cm (3.7 inches) set in 1928. According to an AccuWeather analysis, the total of 60.4 cm (23.8 inches) makes for the seventh-largest snowfall event in Boston history. Atlantic City, New Jersey crushed its all-time January snowfall record by Saturday, reaching a monthly total of 84.3 cm (33.2 inches) of snow. The previous record of 51.5 cm (20.3 inches) was set in 1987. The city's 35.5 cm (14 inches) of snow Saturday also beat its previous record for the calendar date, which was set in 2014 at 18.5 cm (7.3 inches). The storm is blamed for the deaths of at least 4 people. Three of the dead were found in the snow next to their shovels on Long Island, New York, on Saturday, while a snowplow driver found an elderly woman dead inside her vehicle overnight in Uniondale, NY.The total number of flight cancellations within, into, or out of the United States reached 5 000. More than 2 600 flights were delayed within the country alone.

Winter Storm Kenan pummels US East Coast, leaving thousands without power and at least four dead - At least four people are dead and thousands are without power in the northeast United States more than 24 hours after Winter Storm Kenan unleashed record snowfall, heavy winds and blizzard conditions. Over the weekend, some 55 million people along the US East Coast were under a winter storm watch. On Saturday, the National Weather Service (NWS) identified that the storm had undergone a meteorological process called bombogenesis, more commonly referred to as a “bomb cyclone.”The NWS further warned: “The combination of heavy snow rates and strong winds will produce dangerous blizzard conditions across portions of the Mid-Atlantic and New England coasts, from Virginia’s Eastern Shore to eastern Maine, where Blizzard Warnings are in effect. Travel in these areas will be nearly impossible today due to whiteout conditions.”The nor’easter was boosted by warmer-than-average ocean temperatures off the eastern coast fueled by climate change, which aided in intensifying the storm, producing stronger winds and more precipitation than previous storms. Record snowfall was recorded in several states, including reports of over 30 inches of snow in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In Boston, nearly two feet of snow fell in less than 36 hours while below-freezing temperatures were recorded throughout south-central Florida, threatening fruit and vegetable crops.In Nantucket, Massachusetts, the cyclone produced coastal flooding and wind gusts as high as 83 mph, compounding difficulties in restoring power. At least 115,000 people throughout New York and Massachusetts lost power on Saturday according to PowerOutage.us. As lows dropped to the teens and single digits, with winds gusting over 35 miles per hour, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency reported that as of Sunday evening, at least 16,000 people were still without power.As of this writing, at least four people have died because of the storm, all of them from Long Island, New York.

Winter Storm Landon Spreading a 2,000 Mile-Long Mess of Snow, Ice From Texas to the Midwest and Northeast -Winter Storm Landon will continue to deliver a widespread mess of snow, sleet and freezing rain from the Southern Plains to the Midwest and parts of the Northeast through Friday. The storm is already creating major travel headaches and its ice accumulations have been heavy enough to knock out power and cause tree damage in some areas. Landon is producing freezing rain, sleet and some snow as far south as central portions of Texas right now, where icy roads have been reported.From there, a broad area of snow, sleet and freezing rain extends for hundreds of miles northeastward across portions of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys into the interior Northeast.Winter storm warnings, ice storm warnings and winter weather advisories have been issued by the National Weather Service for an area that stretches from Texas to Maine. That's a distance of over 2,000 miles as the crow flies.Travel will be hazardous because of snow, sleet and/or freezing rain in these areas through the end of the week. Areas that see significant icing will suffer power outages and tree damage, especially from parts of central Texas and southeastern Oklahoma into Arkansas and portions of the lower and mid-Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. To compound all this, the fresh cold air sweeping in during and behind the storm could leave roads treacherous after the storm is over in the Plains, Midwest and Northeast.

Large-scale and massive winter storm impacting the Central, Eastern and Southern U.S. - (videos) A large-scale and massive winter storm will continue impacting the Central, Eastern and Southern U.S. over the next few days. Heavy snow is expected from the southern Rockies to northern New England, while heavy ice accretion is likely from Texas to Pennsylvania. An ongoing significant winter storm is expected to impact much of the central and Northeastern U.S. through Friday night, February 4 Widespread heavy snow and freezing rain are forecast from New England to south Texas. Temperatures will be 11 - 22 °C (20 to 40 °F) below average over parts of the Plains and Mississippi Valley. At least 110 000 customers are already without power, as of 14:30 UTC on February 3. A strong cold front extending from the Lower Great Lakes to the Southern Plains will move off of the East Coast by Friday evening, NWS forecasters Kebede and Ziegenfelder noted.1 The front, supported by an amplified upper-level trough, will continue to produce a large, prolonged significant winter storm that impacts much of the central and Northeast U.S., bringing a variety of winter weather hazards, including heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain. A damaging ice storm is currently underway from eastern Arkansas to western Kentucky, where over 13 mm (0.5 inches) of ice may accumulate by Friday morning. This will likely result in power outages, tree damage, and dangerous travel conditions. A broader corridor of heavy ice accumulation is likely from Texas through the Ohio River Valley. Heavy snow totals are expected over the Southern Rockies and from the south-central Great Plains through the eastern Great Lakes and interior Northeast by Saturday morning. Therefore, Winter Storm Watches and Warnings, as well as Ice Storm Warnings, are in effect for much of the areas affected by heavy snow and ice. In addition, the combination of snow and ice will cause hazardous road conditions.Locations impacted by snow and or ice are expected to have temperatures remain below freezing and well below average for at least the next couple of days. The cold temperatures are due to the emergence of arctic high pressure, which settled over the Plains on Wednesday. This high pressure locked in very frigid air over the Plains through this Friday. As a result, high temperatures for many places across the Plains and Mississippi Valley will be between 11 - 22 °C (20 to 40 °F) below average during this period. Dangerously cold wind chills are expected to continue over central and southern Minnesota, and west-central Wisconsin through Friday morning. Additionally, moderate to heavy rain will develop within the warm sector of this dynamic system, i.e., from the Southern Plains to the Northeast.

Over 300,000 without power as major winter storm slogs east - More than 300,000 customers from Texas to Pennsylvania were without power Thursday night as a major winter storm continued moving east across the United States, bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain to Midwest and eastern U.S. The National Weather Service warned of “impossible” travel conditions, and local authorities urged drivers to stay off the roads. More than 90 million Americans from Texas to Maine’s northern border were included in winter weather advisories or winter storm and ice storm warnings, a swath of weather alerts about 2,000 miles long. In the warm, unstable air to the southeast, severe thunderstorms erupted across portions of Mississippi and Alabama Thursday afternoon, prompting numerous tornado warnings. One person was killed and at least eight were injured when a “large and extremely dangerous tornado” barreled through Sawyerville, Ala., about 30 miles southwest of Tuscaloosa, just after 3 p.m. Eastern time, according to the National Weather Service. In the colder air to the west and north, snow and ice and freezing temperatures snarled traffic as far south as Austin and the west side of Houston while extending north and east through Dallas, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis, St. Louis, Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. Advertisement Due to the build-up of ice on trees and power lines, the number of power outages in Tennessee had spiked to 135,000 on Thursday night, many of them near Memphis where Mayor Jim Strickland declared a state of emergency. The ice in Memphis was also the cause of an accident involving 16 vehicles, injuring 6 people, according to the Memphis Fire Department. As much as half an inch of ice had accumulated on tree limbs in Memphis, which snapped under its weight. MLGW, the local utility, said power restoration could “take days.” Outage numbers were also climbing in Ohio (76,000), West Virginia (22,000) Pennsylvania (22,000), according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide. In Texas, Arkansas and Kentucky, where outage numbers peaked around 70,000, 25,000 and 20,000, respectively, earlier Thursday, they were slowly declining through the evening as freezing rain transitioned more to sleet and snow and then tapered off. The outage count in Texas had dropped to below 25,000 and to under 15,000 in Arkansas and Kentucky Thursday night.

At least 21 lives lost after floods and landslides hit Sao Paulo, Brazil -- Floods and landslides caused by heavy rains affecting the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil from Friday to Sunday, January 28 - 30, 2022, claimed the lives of at least 21 people and left more than 600 families without homes. At least 9 have been injured and many more remain missing.The deaths were recorded in the municipalities of Francisco Morato, Franco da Rocha, Varzea Paulista, Aruja, and Embu das Artes, all in the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo and in the city of Ribeirao Preto.¹At least 11 died on Sunday after landslides buried several homes in cities in the interior of the state. Heavy rains were also reported in the city of Sao Paulo (population 12 million) but without major incidents.²One of the worst-hit areas in the state is Franco da Rocha, where four people died in a landslide and six others were rescued.Firefighters and health workers worked around the clock looking for victims in the mud, but local authorities believe up to 14 people are still missing.³Meteorologists said the excessive rain is a result of a summer phenomenon -- the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ), a monsoon trough.Since the start of the rainy season, heavy rains have killed more than 40 people in the states of Bahia and Minas Gerais.

Massive mudflow hits Quito after extremely heavy rain, Ecuador (videos) A destructive mudflow hit the La Gasca suburb of Ecuador's capital Quito (population 2.7 million) on January 31, 2022, sweeping away homes and cars, and claiming the lives of at least 24 people. At least 12 people are still missing and 48 were injured. The event took place after the area experienced its heaviest rainfall in nearly 20 years, with up to 75 mm (2.9 inches) in a very short period. According to Quito mayor Santiago Guarderas, the downpour overwhelmed a hillside water catchment structure that had a capacity of 4 500 m3 (159 000 feet3) with more than four times that volume. The result was a catastrophic failure that caused a 1 km (0.6 miles) long flow of mud and debris through parts of the city, including a sports field. "People who were playing couldn't get away. It grabbed them suddenly," witness Freddy Barrios Gonzalez told AFP.1 "Those who managed to run were saved but a family got buried under a river of mud. There they died." In a preliminary statement issued on February 1, Guarderas said that 174 houses were evaluated, of which 38 have partial damage and 3 were destroyed. In addition, 15 vehicles and 22 motorcycles were affected. Rescuer Cristian Rivera said many people in Quito had to be treated for hypothermia. Power was lost in some parts of the city after electrical poles were brought down. This area appears to have been affected by a similar mudflow in February 1975, when a mudflow originated from the Pambachupa ravine, affecting the La Mariscal neighborhood, close to La Gasca, said landslides expert Dr. Dave Petley of The Landslide Blog.²

Tropical Cyclone "Batsirai" expected to deliver catastrophic blow to Madagascar --Tropical Cyclone "Batsirai" formed well east of Madagascar on January 27, 2022, at a time Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi were still assessing severe damage caused by the passage of Tropical Cyclone "Ana." Environmental conditions favor further intensification, leading to a possible catastrophic landfall in Madagascar on February 5. Up to 600 mm (24 inches) of rain is possible in some areas. Batsirai is the second named storm of the 2021/22 Southwest Indian Ocean cyclone season. At 06:00 UTC on February 2, Batsirai was an Intense Tropical Cyclone located approximately 246 km (153 miles) NNE of Port Louis, Mauritius. Its maximum 10-minute sustained winds were 185 km/h (115 mph), with gusts up to 260 km/h (160 mph), while maximum 1-minute sustained winds were at 220 km/h (140 mph). The minimum central barometric pressure was 940 hPa and the system was moving WSW at 17 km/h (10 mph). "During the last few hours, the eye configuration has clearly improved in both visible and infrared imagery despite a warming of the cloud tops," RSMC La Reunion said at 06:00 UTC today.1 The cyclone remains under the influence of two contradictory steering flows coming from the subtropical ridge in the southwest and from a near equatorial ridge of middle troposphere in the northeast. Currently, under the influence of the subtropical ridge, Batsirai is moving in a general west-southwest direction. On this trajectory, it should pass near Mauritius tonight at about 130 km (80 miles) with an uncertainty of 50 km (31 miles) and tomorrow morning at about 160 km (100 miles) from Reunion, again with an uncertainty of 50 km (31 miles). The presence of the islands could modify the track.1 From tomorrow, February 3, the subtropical ridge strengthens by the south-west allowing a resumption of a trajectory in the general direction of the west towards the east coast of Madagascar. It could then land in the area of Mahanoro early Saturday, February 5. On Sunday and Monday, Batsirai could emerge in the south of the Mozambique Channel.

G2 - Moderate geomagnetic storm watch in effect - A G2 - Moderate geomagnetic storm watch is in effect for February 2, 2022, after a long-duration M1.1 solar flare produced an asymmetric, full-halo coronal mass ejection (CME) at 23:32 UTC on January 29.The CME is expected to reach Earth late February 1 or early February 2 and combine with coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS) influence to produce G2 - Moderate geomagnetic storm.Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 55 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude.

• Induced Currents - Power grid fluctuations can occur. High-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms.
• Spacecraft - Satellite orientation irregularities may occur; increased drag on low Earth-orbit satellites is possible.
• Radio - HF (high frequency) radio propagation can fade at higher latitudes.
• Aurora - Aurora may be seen as low as New York to Wisconsin to Washington state.

Quiet to unsettled geomagnetic conditions are expected through the remainder of January 31 and on February 1.

A Kernel of Good News About Global Carbon Emissions – Bloomberg --Global carbon dioxide emissions rose significantly last year, but they didn’t rise quite as much as some experts expected. Instead of increasing by 4.9% over 2020 levels, which the Global Carbon Project forecast in November, new estimates from the group suggest the increase was about 4.3%.

Measuring climate change: It's not just heat, it's humidity - When it comes to measuring global warming, humidity, not just heat, matters in generating dangerous climate extremes, a new study finds.Researchers say temperature by itself isn’t the best way to measure climate change’s weird weather and downplays impacts in the tropics. But factoring in air moisture along with heat shows that climate change since 1980 is nearly twice as bad as previously calculated, according to their study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The energy generated in extreme weather, such as storms, floods and rainfall is related to the amount of water in the air. So a team of scientists in the U.S. and China decided to use an obscure weather measurement called equivalent potential temperature — or theta-e — that reflects “the moisture energy of the atmosphere,” said study co-author V. “Ram” Ramanathan, a climate scientist at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Cornell University. It’s expressed in degrees, like temperature. “There are two drivers of climate change: temperature and humidity,” Ramanathan said. “And so far we measured global warming just in terms of temperature.”But by adding the energy from humidity, “the extremes — heat waves, rainfall and other measures of extremes — correlate much better,” he said.That’s because as the world warms, the air holds more moisture, nearly 4% for every degree Fahrenheit (7% for every degree Celsius). When that moisture condenses, it releases heat or energy, “that’s why when it rains, now it pours,” Ramanathan said.In addition, water vapor is a potent heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere that increases climate change, he said.From 1980 to 2019, the world warmed about 1.42 degrees (0.79 degrees Celsius). But taking energy from humidity into account, the world has warmed and moistened 2.66 degrees (1.48 degrees Celsius), the study said. And in the tropics, the warming was as much as 7.2 degrees (4 degrees Celsius).

Fossil fuels vs climate action: A not-so-hidden dilemma- While the effects of climate change are already severe and likely to become even more so, global human society is utterly dependent on uninterrupted flows of fossil fuels to function. And, while climate change activists continue to champion a so-called energy transition to green energy sources such as solar and wind, what they might not understand is that so far, these alternatives have been used to augment human energy consumption. They have not displaced fossil fuels at all. Nor are they likely to in any time frame that matters.To understand why this is so, we need the help of two concepts: power density and the rate-of-conversion problem. Here's what I wrote about power density more than a decade ago:[…] I concluded the following:[I]t is glaringly obvious that the energy sources we rely on now are one to two orders of magnitude smaller by land area per unit of energy produced than the industries and buildings they service are per unit of energy consumed. That means it takes a relatively small land area to service the enormous area devoted to commercial, residential and industrial buildings. Just the opposite will become the case using renewable energy sources. We will be obliged to devote vast tracts of space—far more vast than the buildings they serve—to support the energy use of our current infrastructure. This may not be impossible, but it will certainly be costly and socially disruptive.The second issue, the rate-of-conversion problem, has become even more daunting since the time I first wrote about it in 2008. This concept refers to the rate at which we are converting to low-carbon and no-carbon energy sources versus the rate at which we need to make that conversion. In that piece I explained the "crucial issue at the heart of the rate-of-conversion problem" as follows:When should we start making our conversion to an alternative energy economy? The answer is fairly straightforward. We should start while we still have ample and even growing supplies of fossil fuels. This is especially true of oil which is so critical to transportation and to the mining of the minerals needed for nuclear reactors and fuel and for the manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels. The era of plentiful fossil fuels, however, may be drawing to a close sooner than many believe.Back then oil was headed to its all-time high near $150 per barrel. Since then prices have fluctuated wildly between extremes. Today, however, oil prices are on the rise again. But something has happened which few people realize. World oil production—meaning crude including lease condensate which is the definition of oil—peaked in late 2018 and has never recovered. This has happened even as we are nowhere near displacing fossil fuels for our energy needs and the world's most important fossil fuel is now in decline.What's more is that the environmental community is focused on preventing additional production of oil, natural gas and coal—which is, of course, imperative if we are going to reduce carbon emissions and thereby lessen and even halt the progress of climate change.But lower production of fossil fuels may make it more difficult to fuel the factories and mines that are building the devices and structures we need to bring about a low-carbon future. There appear to be no good choices because we as a society have waited far too long to make the energy transition.

How the fossil fuel industry is pushing plastics on the world - . Renewable power and electric vehicles are getting cheaper, the grid is getting greener, and oil and gas companies are getting nervous. That's why the fossil fuel giants are looking towards petrochemicals, and plastics in particular, as their next major growth market. "Plastics is the Plan B for the fossil fuel industry," said Judith Enck, Founder and President of the nonprofit advocacy group Beyond Plastics. Plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, are set to drive nearly half of oil demand growth by midcentury, according to the International Energy Agency."Every company who is currently engaged in producing plastic, if you look at their capital budgets for the next two to three years, they're all talking about expansion plans," said Ramesh Ramachandran, CEO of No Plastic Waste, an initiative from the Mindaroo Foundation that's working to create a market-based approach to a circular plastics economy.Yet much of the developed world is already awash in plastics. So fossil fuel and petrochemical companies are relying on emerging economies in Asia and Africa to drive growth Alan Gelder of Wood Mackenzie forecasts that every year through 2050, there will be 10 million metric tons of growth in the market for petrochemicals, which are used to make plastics and other products. He says much of that will be shipped overseas.Alongside Middle Eastern oil giants like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the United States is a leading producer and exporter of plastic feedstocks and polymers. Asia in general, and China specifically, are the largest importers of these plastic building blocks.But Enck doubts consumers actually want more plastic "So what is driving this, is just this glut of fracked gas and the fossil fuel industry teaming up with the chemical industry to just crank out more and more plastic." Indeed, an Ipsos survey of over 19,000 adults found that 71% of consumers worldwide want to ban single-use plastics.As unpopular as they may be today, however, plastics became ubiquitous for a reason."Petrochemicals are fantastically good at what they do in terms of lightweight flexibility, durability, versatility," Gelder said. And thanks in part to fossil fuel subsidies, they're also generally the cheapest option available. The problem is that most plastic ends up languishing in landfills, or as litter on the land or sea. Only 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled, because generally, making virgin plastic is the cheapest option.China used to profitably recycle much of the world's plastic, but stopped accepting plastic waste imports in 2018, since much of it was too contaminated to be repurposed. So now, that waste is being diverted to poorer nations that don't have the infrastructure to process or recycle it. Africa saw a fourfold increase in plastic waste imports in 2019, the year after China closed its doors. Plastic also flooded into India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, which have since implemented their own import restrictions. But the U.S. is still sending its waste there anyway.

White House methane plan funds orphan well cleanup, rewards reduced farm emissions - The federal government will provide $1.15 billion this year to help states cap defunct oil and gas wells, the White House said Monday, as part of a broad plan to reduce methane emissions. The government-wide methane reduction plan comes about two months after President Joe Biden joined a pledge at the United Nations Climate Conference in Scotland to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. The plan also includes new Environmental Protection Agency regulations and an Agriculture Department incentive program for farmers to reduce or capture methane. Methane is among the most potent greenhouse gases. One ton of methane has the warming impact of 80 tons of carbon dioxide, the White House plan said. Methane accounts for about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions but experts say it is related to about 30% of human-caused climate change. The oil and gas industry accounts for 30% of U.S. methane emissions, according to the White House. The EPA proposal would target that industry, defining guidelines for state regulators for the first time, including a requirement to conduct “rigorous leak detection.” The agency would also expand what it can regulate under Clean Air Act performance guidelines. The agency is working on another proposal this year to address orphaned wells, pipelines and tank truck loading and other sources, the White House said. Together, the EPA actions would reduce methane emissions by 75% from covered sources, the White House said. As part of the administration’s methane reduction push, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has created an incentive program to reward farmers and ranchers for reducing methane and sequestering carbon.

Hold off — for now — on feeding seaweed to cows to reduce methane -- Since the United Nations COP26 climate summit, the race to reduce methane emissions from cattle production and to slow climate change appears to have officially started. As attention on this challenge grows, one potential feed additive for cattle has found the limelight: seaweed. Feeding cows seaweed is a promising approach to “help slow methane emissions — and change the world.” We certainly should be optimistic — and the feeding strategy might be a critical breakthrough. But expectations should be tempered until its merit is evaluated by science. The attention has focused on seaweed because it contains trihalomethanes, such as bromoform, which is an active ingredient that decreases methane emissions from cattle belches. But the reality is that there are thousands of species of seaweed. Red seaweed (e.g., Asparagopsis taxiformis) has been praised for inhibiting methane production from cattle by more than 80 percent because of its high bromoform content. In contrast, brown seaweed (e.g., Ascophyllum nodosum) has a lower bromoform content and is less effective at being antimethanogenic.Widespread use of seaweed varieties will require large-scale cultivation for the cattle feed industry. Seaweed farming in oceans is possible but does have some environmental concerns. Different species of seaweed prefer cold or warm water at various depths. ... We also have to examine how seaweed farming would impact marine mammal diversity and potentially contribute to ocean pollution. Bromoform from seaweed may also have an ozone-depleting effect, but its impact is not fully understood. Processing and distribution of seaweed is another challenge.Raw seaweed is wet and heavy. This creates a transport issue from the harvest site to the processing facility. Seaweed will need to be dried and ground. The final product will need additional transport to the feed mill or farm, which could be significant to feed cattle in the Midwest. Shelf-life of the raw and final product, and waste, will also need to be investigated. These are all factors that may increase fossil fuel consumption and affiliated greenhouse gas emissions. A life cycle assessment is needed to ensure that we don’t increase methane and carbon dioxide emissions more than by not feeding cows seaweed at all.We also need to learn more about how feeding seaweed impacts cow biology.We want to feed cattle additives that enhance meat and milk production and quality, and promote animal health with less feed, nutrient waste, and cost. But we know so little about whether the ability of seaweed to inhibit methane production is influenced by changes in the animal’s diet, digestion, microbiome, or genetics. These uncertainties require attention because farmer income is derived from selling milk and its components (i.e, fat and protein) not by how much methane is reduced. Active research in this area at the University of New Hampshire is expected to provide clarity.Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that bromoform is unlikely to be found in food for humans, bromoform consumption is a potential human safety concern. Research suggests that bromoform can be detected in milk from cows fed red seaweed at concentrations that would be deemed below the EPA-established maximum for drinking water. However, research from University of California, Davis, suggests that feeding cows red seaweed doesn’t impact bromoform content of meat. Scientific research on the matter is very limited but essential because the level of bromoform is highly variable across species of seaweed. So, the type but also the amount and duration of seaweed feeding are all critical factors that could contribute to bromoform content of animal-sourced foods but also the efficacy to reduce methane production.

California subsidies for dairy cows’ biogas are a lose-lose, campaigners say - A coalition of climate, environmental and animal welfare groups is calling forCalifornia to remove the huge subsidies provided to dairy farms to turn animal waste into a form of energy called biogas. Manure, which emits the potent greenhouse gas methane, is a big problem for US farms, and is particularly stark in California, where the dairy industry accounts for nearly half the state’s methane emissions. Since 2011, California has been running a policy called the low carbon fuel standard (LCFS), which now includes incentives for dairy farms to convert methane into energy to fuel vehicles by enabling them to sell offset credits. This is intended to be a win-win: reducing farm emissions while allowing fossil fuel companies to mitigate their own greenhouse gas emissions by buyingthese offsets. The number of anaerobic digesters used to produce the biogashas surged in the state especially among large dairy farms.But environmental advocates argue that the environmental benefits of biogas are exaggerated, and that the LCFS encourages the expansion of factory farms and could end up increasing emissions and pollution.In a petition to the California Air Resources Board (Carb), the state government’s clean air agency that runs the LCFS, six environmental groups called for dairy farms to be excluded from the policy. In January, Carb turned down the request but said it would continue to engage with the petitioners.This decision will “kick the can down the road [and] ensures that the program will remain fundamentally compromised and California will fall further behind its climate goals,” said Tyler Lobdell, a staff attorney with Food & Water Watch, one of the organizations involved in the petition.While biogas from manure is marketed as a clean alternative to fossil fuel, said Phoebe Seaton, co-director and attorney at the non-profit Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, a signatory to the petition, “in fact it burns the same, has many of the same environmental impacts and has enormous local impacts at its production”.Under the current credit system in California, biogas from dairy farms can receive carbon intensity ratings that are200% to 300% lower than a battery electric car powered by renewable energy from solar or wind. “That is a really stark example of the bizarre and perverse incentives that are being driven by this program,” Lobdell said. “Who in their right mind thinks that we should be prioritizing factory farm gas, which is still a combustion-based energy source?”Brent Newell, a food project senior attorney at the legal advocacy non-profit Public Justice, cited the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak settlement in California, as an example of problems with the credit program. In 2015, a ruptured well at Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility caused the US’s largest ever methane leak. As part of a settlement, the owner of the facility, Southern California Gas Company, agreed to pay more than $26mtowards the construction of digesters at dairy farms.“These facilities are getting money from the Aliso Canyon settlement fund, they’re getting money from the state, and under both of those systems, they’re getting credit for reducing the same reductions twice, then they’re selling reduction credits in the market,” said Newell.

Cracking down on methane ‘super emitters’ is a quick, low-cost way to combat climate change, researchers find - A growing constellation of methane-detecting satellites is giving researchers new and disturbing insights into “super emitters” around the globe — from pipelines in Russia to North America’s oil fields. But as the reams of data reveal the depth of the problem, they also have made clear a potential tool to combat climate change, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science. Reducing the number of incidents that release massive amounts of this potent climate pollutant is a low-cost, high-impact way that countries and corporations can help to slow Earth’s warming.“These are really, really big events. These are the kinds of things that should just never be happening,” said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund who was not involved in the study but has long conducted research on methane, the world’s second-most-prevalent greenhouse gas behind carbon dioxide.A group of scientists from France and the United States analyzed hundreds of large-emitting events between 2019 and 2020, using data collected by a European Space Agency satellite that orbits the planet 14 times a day. The new study concludes that super-emitting events represent 8 to 12 percent of global methane emissions from oil and gas operations — emissions that are not included in most national greenhouse gas inventories.The researchers documented enormous releases around the globe, primarily from fossil fuel operations in places such as Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran, as well as in the United States and parts of the Middle East.Hamburg said reducing such disastrous leaks, known as “super” or “ultra” emitters, amounts to “low-hanging fruit” in the quest to mitigate the worsening impacts of global warming. Finding ways to eliminate such colossal and unnecessary leaks, whether they result from damaged pipelines or shoddy maintenance practices, the authors write, could yield economic benefits and would produce clear climate and health benefits for relatively low costs. They calculate that eradicating ultra-emitters would represent the equivalent of removing 20 million vehicles from the road for a year, and the avoided warming would prevent an estimated 1,600 deaths annually due to heat exposure.

Coming soon: Climate lockdowns? - The past two years have been a checklist for the worst impulses of government and public sentiment. COVID allowed for supposedly temporary measures to morph into two years of “emergency” restrictions. But what if COVID was only the opening act, and another proclaimed crisis is the main event? Implementing significant but partial restrictions, one by one, in the name of the common good can allow for encompassing government control that results in relatively little backlash. Fear over climate change could lead to long-term soft lockdowns, given the precedent of immense growth of government power and significant support for sweeping state actions. This isn’t a right-wing fever dream. Calls for harsh government measures in the name of saving the environment are already in the parlance of influential organizations and figures. In November 2020, the Red Cross proclaimed that climate change is a bigger threat than COVID and should be confronted with “the same urgency.” Bill Gates recently demanded dramatic measures to prevent climate change, claiming it will be worse than the pandemic. Despite millions of people having died from COVID, former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney last year predicted that climate deaths will dwarf those of the pandemic. Lockdowns, which significantly reduced carbon emissions during 2020, could be the solution. After all, the EU’s climate service gloated, the first COVID lockdown may have saved 800 lives. What would climate lockdowns look like? Most likely, cities and states would begin a gradual and discrete ramp-up of restrictions. During the early days of the pandemic, millions of Americans worked from home; this could become the permanent norm if special carbon taxes are put in place. Such taxes could be imposed on companies, limiting driving or air miles, and extend to individual employees. Drive to work in a car? You get hit with the tax. Children could be impacted by climate lockdowns, too. Schools, especially those heavily influenced by teachers’ unions, could impose permanent online-only days. Delhi, India is already using a version of this concept to crack down on smog pollution. At the same time, either through direct government fiat or due to ineffective green energy policies, some areas of the country could r egularly experience California-style rolling blackouts. And as fossil fuels (and nuclear power) go by the wayside, consumers may be prevented from buying new gasoline cars, lawnmowers, or chainsaws. Significant measures are already being planned to combat climate change. California will ban the sale of gasoline cars in 13 years, as will Germany. Britain plans to do the same in just eight. Prohibiting internal combustion engines could save the planet, the argument goes. As each negative weather event is blamed on climate change, government will increasingly use its restrictive tools.

Offshore wind farms could help capture carbon from air and store it long-term – using energy that would otherwise go to waste - Off the Massachusetts and New York coasts, developers are preparing to build the United States’ first federally approved utility-scale offshore wind farms – 74 turbines in all that could power 470,000 homes. More than a dozen other offshore wind projects are awaiting approval along the Eastern Seaboard.By 2030, the Biden administration’s goal is to have 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy flowing, enough to power more than 10 million homes.Replacing fossil fuel-based energy with clean energy like wind power is essential to holding off the worsening effects of climate change. But that transition isn’t happening fast enough to stop global warming. Human activities have pumped so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that we will also have to remove carbon dioxide from the air and lock it away permanently.Offshore wind farms are uniquely positioned to do both – and save money. As a marine geophysicist, I have been exploring the potential for pairing wind turbines with technology that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air and stores it in natural reservoirs under the ocean. Built together, these technologies could reduce the energy costs of carbon capture and minimize the need for onshore pipelines, reducing impacts on the environment.The systems use filters or liquid solutions that capture CO2 from air blown across them. Once the filters are full, electricity and heat are needed to release the carbon dioxide and restart the capture cycle.For the process to achieve net negative emissions, the energy source must be carbon-free. If direct air capture systems were built alongside offshore wind turbines, they would have an immediate source of clean energy from excess wind power and could pipe captured carbon dioxide directly to storage beneath the sea floor below, reducing the need for extensive pipeline systems.

CCS in the Gulf: Climate solution or green washing? - - The Gulf of Mexico may be the largest potential sink for storing carbon dioxide emissions in the world — but getting the greenhouse gas under the seafloor would take a massive effort and cost. Enter Exxon Mobil Corp. The oil supermajor, along with other companies, is eyeing the Gulf as a prime spot to deploy carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, considering the region’s massive potential capacity, its existing oil and gas infrastructure, and its proximity to industrial facilities where the greenhouse gas could be captured, piped and stored underneath the seafloor. “ExxonMobil believes the greatest opportunity for CO2 storage in the United States is in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Todd Spitler, a spokesperson for Exxon’s Low Carbon Solutions business, in an email. But momentum for carbon capture in the Gulf hit a potential roadblock last week when a federal judge invalidated the Biden administration’s November oil and gas lease sale over faulty climate reviews, consequently striking a bundle of Exxon leases that observers say were primed for the company’s first Gulf carbon storage efforts (Energywire, Jan. 28). Exxon declined to comment on the impact of the court case, but the ruling is not expected to quell a rush of industry interest in Gulf carbon storage. However, critics are making accusations of green washing and warning of potential environmental risks, like carbon dioxide leaking into the ocean. The dynamic raises the question: How likely is CCS in the Gulf? Proponents say very. Exxon is part of a consortium of 14 chemical companies, drillers and refiners, including Dow Inc. and Chevron Corp., that pledged its support for large-scale carbon capture from facilities in the Houston area, backing a group proposal that aims to capture and store roughly 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030. The proposal said the captured CO2 from across the Houston industrial area could be stored in nearby on- and offshore storage sites. No official project has been announced, and the companies behind the proposal said this month that large-scale carbon capture deployment in the Houston area “will require the support of industry, communities and government.”“If appropriate policies and regulations are put in place, CCS could help the United States and Houston reach net-zero goals while generating new jobs and protecting existing jobs that are important to Houston’s economy,” the companies said in a press release.

Deep-Sea Mining Not Necessary for Renewable Energy Transition, Experts Argue - Do we really need to put ocean ecosystems at risk in order to transition to a renewable-energy economy? Proponents of deep-sea mining claim that the as-yet-untested practice is the best means of supplying minerals like cobalt, lithium, nickel, copper, vanadium and indium used in electric vehicles, storage batteries and other green technologies. But a new article published in Frontiers in Marine Science on Thursday challenges this view. The team of experts from the University of Exeter, Greenpeace Research Laboratories and Globelaw instead says that human societies can both preserve marine biodiversity and eschew fossil fuels by making different choices about how new technologies are designed and used. “If businesses, researchers and members of the public work collaboratively we have the means to achieve a future in which technology can be designed and manufactured to be sustainable and not involve extracting additional non-renewable resources,” study lead author Kathryn Miller told EcoWatch in an email. “It will require changes in behaviour but it is possible.” Thursday’s paper builds on two previous studies from the same research team considering the risks of mining minerals from the sea bed. The first, published in 2018, focused on the environmental risks posed by disturbing ecosystems where many species are still unknown to science. The second, also from 2018, looked at how the deep sea bed should be governed and regulated for the benefit of all people, not just the profit of wealthy corporations in the global North. The new paper also addresses these issues, but emphasizes how the green transition might proceed without seabed minerals. Specifically, the researchers considered the case of electric vehicle “[T]he point we make in the paper is that estimates of future demand for minerals… always depend on a set of assumptions about how we will live and which technologies will be available,” For one thing, those projections assume the use of the current lithium-ion battery that incorporates cobalt or nickel. However, there are already alternatives either in use or in development, such as Svolt’s cobalt-free lithium-ion car battery or Tesla’s lithium-ion phosphate batteries. For another, mineral needs depend on the sustainability of both transportation systems and technological design. A move away from a one-person-one-car model and towards improved metal recycling could significantly reduce the demand for novel mineral resources.

Exxon gives low-carbon solutions segment a promotion, more money | S&P Global Market Intelligence --Exxon Mobil Corp. announced a reorganization Jan. 31 that will put its low-carbon solutions segment on equal footing with its oil and gas exploration and production unit, but investment analysts expressed more interest in hearing about cost reduction and shareholder returns. "This new business has made exceptional progress building a large inventory of new business opportunities with a focus on carbon capture, hydrogen and biofuels," Chairman, President and CEO Darren Woods said on a Feb. 1 earnings conference call. "We're applying the same capabilities and expertise developed over decades to progress in our net-zero ambitions and grow our low-carbon solutions business." Still, the bulk of Exxon's earnings in the fourth quarter of 2021 came from upstream oil and gas operations. The corporation earned $8.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021 and $23 billion for the full year, reversing a $22.4 billion loss in 2020 on the strength of higher oil and natural gas prices. Exxon said it will probably increase the $15 billion originally budgeted for low-carbon activities through 2027 by about $1 billion.

Overwhelmed by Solar Projects, the Nation’s Largest Grid Operator Seeks a Two-Year Pause on Approvals - The nation’s largest electric grid operator, PJM Interconnection, is so clogged with requests from energy developers seeking connections to its regional transmission network in the eastern United States that it is proposing a two-year pause on reviewing more than 1,200 energy projects, most of them solar power. New projects may have to wait even longer. The situation can be explained in part by the rapid increase in the economic competitiveness of solar power as state energy policies and corporate sustainability plans drive a booming renewable energy industry. But the logjam threatens to put some solar developers in a financial bind and is raising questions about the feasibility of the Biden administration’s goal of having a carbon-free electricity grid in just 13 years. “It’s a kink in the system,” said Adam Edelen, a former Kentucky state auditor who runs a company working to bring solar projects and jobs to ailing coal communities in Appalachia, including West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky. “Anyone paying attention would acknowledge that this has a tremendous impact on climate policy and energy policy in the United States.” The backlog at PJM is a major concern for renewable energy companies and clean energy advocates, even though grid operators are a part of the energy economy that is largely unknown to the public. “There is broad national consensus, in the leadership from the public and the private sector, that we need to hasten the adoption of renewable energy,” Edelen said. “The planet does not have time for a delay.” PJM, a nonprofit, operates a competitive market for wholesale electricity in all or part of 13 states and the District of Columbia, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky—but one without a lot of renewable energy. Wind, solar and hydropower plants make up about 6 percent of its distribution mix.’

Opinion | Biden must end this ruinous solar power trade war with China - The Washington Post -- President Biden wants the United States to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of this decade, an ambitious target that reflects the diminishing amount of time the world has to change its climate course. Meeting this goal will require massive deployment of green energy. That, in turn, will require Mr. Biden to do everything he can to restrain the costs of wind, solar and other clean energy sources. He can start by finally ending a long-running, ruinous trade war with China over the price of solar power equipment, which has made these products more expensive than they need to be. His first step should be rejecting calls to extend tariffs on solar products such as the cells that make up solar panels, the fate of which Mr. Biden must decide by Monday. . The U.S.-China solar trade fight dates back to President Barack Obama’s administration, when U.S. solar equipment manufacturers complained about competition with cut-rate Chinese products. The Commerce Department agreed, slapping huge tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels, then expanding them in 2014. President Donald Trump in 2018 raised even more tariffs on solar modules and cells coming from any country. Mr. Biden must now decide whether to extend Mr. Trump’s tariffs. U.S. solar manufacturers claim they need protection from predatory foreign governments that unfairly subsidize their solar industries and permit the use of slave labor in their factories. Tariff backers also argue that the United States should control every step of its solar supply chain to ensure national energy independence. But the tariffs they favor have done far more harm than good. The duties are passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices for solar panels. This depresses demand. Tariff advocates point out that U.S. solar installations have boomed despite the trade barriers. True, but there is no doubt that, absent the tariffs, the country would have installed substantially more solar panels. Economists Sebastien Houde and Wenjun Wang reckon that U.S. solar panel demand would have been 17.2 percent higher without the solar trade war between 2012 and 2018, avoiding 7 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. For all that cost, the U.S. solar manufacturing sector, which these policies are supposed to be encouraging, remains tiny. Deploying renewables as quickly as possible would have not just climate benefits but national security ones, too. Running more of the economy on clean electric power is an essential step toward freeing the nation from dependence on foreign oil.

Biden to extend, but modify, Trump solar tariffs - President Biden plans to maintain former President Trump's tariffs on solar cells and panels, but loosen some restrictions on importing supplies from Asia to help combat climate change, according to people familiar with the matter. Biden will issue a proclamation on Friday morning to extend the so-called Section 201 tariffs, due to expire Sunday, for another four years, an administration official said.Biden's decision is an attempt to balance two competing priorities — both crucial to his presidency:Long-term, he wants to bolster domestic manufacturing and stimulate U.S.-based supply chains. But, in the short-term, he needs to rely on imports for crucial materials and certain equipment to fight climate change. Labor unions had been pressing the administration to fully extend the Trump tariffs, but were bracing for disappointment after Reuters reported last week that Biden was considering loosening some of them.: Biden will formally exclude bifacial solar panels, which are used in big-utility projects, to help importers and domestic installers increase solar capacity as part of his overall climate and clean energy goals. The new rules will also increase the amount of solar cells that can be imported duty-free, from 2.5 gigawatts to 5 gigawatts. Officials did not want to punish domestic solar panel manufacturers who rely on foreign cells.: An administration official noted that the 5 gigawatt quota is unlikely to directly benefit China's government, because solar cells are mostly imported from places like Vietnam and Malaysia.Union officials counter that many solar cell manufacturers in Southeast Asia have some form of Chinese government ownership. Biden will maintain solar panel tariffs that directly target China's government. The Biden administration has kept many of Trump's tariffs on China in place, with levies on some $350 billion in goods.Biden officials have also suggested that, despite Trump’s rhetoric, his trade approach didn’t go far enough in preventing China from subsidizing crucial industries. "China's government continues to pour billions of dollars into targeted industries and continues to shape its economy to the will of the state," said Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, in October.

EPA objects to USPS mail truck contract, citing climate damage - The Biden administration launched a last-minute push Wednesday to derail the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to spend billions of dollars on a new fleet of gasoline-powered delivery trucks, citing the damage the polluting vehicles could inflict on the climate and Americans’ health.The dispute over the Postal Service’s plans to spend up to $11.3 billion on as many as 165,000 new delivery trucks over the next decade has major implications for President Biden’s goal of converting all federal cars and trucks to clean power. Postal Service vehicles make up a third of the government’s fleet, and the EPA warned the agency last fall that its environmental analysis of the contract rested on flawed assumptions and missing data.The EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality sent letters to the Postal Service on Wednesday that urge it to reconsider plans to buy mostly gas-powered vehicles and conduct a new, more thorough technical analysis. The EPA also asked the Postal Service to hold a public hearing on its fleet modernization plans, a request the agency had rejected when California regulators made it Jan. 28. “The Postal Service’s proposal as currently crafted represents a crucial lost opportunity to more rapidly reduce the carbon footprint of one of the largest government fleets in the world,” wrote Vicki Arroyo, the EPA’s associate administrator for policy. Read the letter: EPA says USPS truck contract is 'seriously deficient' in acknowledging climate concerns. Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and even rising sales of electrical vehicles have yet to make a dent. Electric vehicle proponents had hoped the Postal Service purchase would provide a boost for the industry.While policymakers agree that the Postal Service’s aging and unsafe fleet is due for an upgrade, the question of how to do it has fueled a fight between Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Donald Trump donor and holdover from the last administration, and Biden officials, as well as environmental groups, state regulators and the United Auto Workers union.

Biden’s push for American-made EV ports hits supply snag - President Biden’s plan to swiftly deploy a half-million U.S.-made electric-vehicle charging stations across the country could face a major roadblock: supply. Increasingly, states tasked with carrying out the president’s vision are concerned that the made-in-America requirement for EV chargers could stall or derail the effort. The problem, states say, is an economic one. The number of known manufacturers whose supply of EV chargers comply with the president’s “Buy America” requirement is few, and the demand for these ports is about to skyrocket. “As all of the states are tapping into this new funding program to build out this infrastructure, there’s a good chance that the market won’t be able to sustain that level of demand,” said Melissa Savage, the environment program director at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Biden long has pledged to swap out fossil fuel-powered cars and trucks for electric ones in order to curb planet-warming emissions. But he also sees opportunity in developing the nation’s electric vehicle infrastructure. The effort can boost domestic supply chains and create jobs. To that end, the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed last year allocated up to $7.5 billion to help states build EV charging ports using American-made parts and labor. In response to a request for information from DOT, states and other stakeholders asked the department to provide maximum flexibility in issuing forthcoming guidance for how states should deploy EV charging ports. States that already have poured time and resources into developing their charging infrastructure said they need the flexibility to build on existing plans. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 47 states offer incentives to support the deployment of EVs or alternative fuel vehicles. . Some states suggested that DOT provide waivers, allowing certain parts to be imported from abroad, or slowly phase in the Buy America requirements. Other states requested technical assistance in implementing DOT’s vision.

Claiborne Co. Planning Commission: 'Nothing at all' can be done to stop crypto mining operation - On Tuesday, people in Claiborne County expressed their frustrations over a new cryptocurrency mining operation that was set up in Tazewell without a permit. — Scott Wade believes cryptocurrency mining is the industry of the future. That belief, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, are why he decided to build a number of mining operation locations across the southeast. "This is a new industry coming to the U.S. and our company is helping facilitate that," said the head of operations for Exponential Digital. Wade said they've set up operations in Jellico, Oneida, Maynardville, Decatur, and Tazewell, in addition to one in North Carolina. But on Tuesday, dozens of people packed the Claiborne County Planning Commission to express their frustrations about how the operation moved into town. The group began operations without permits or prior knowledge of the planning board. "As far as rules and regulations, there's nothing here to prohibit what they've done," Mayor Joe Brooks said. "We know in certain areas these things produce a lot of heat. One thing we’ve got to look at is what are we going to do if one catches on fire?” He said the only fire department in the area, the South Claiborne Volunteer Fire Department, is not equipped to handle electrical fires. He wishes they could've addressed that concern and others before the company set up. "Now we’re playing catch up on that stuff," Rodney Fugate, chair of the county planning commission, said there is nothing they can do to stop the cryptocurrency mining operation. "Nothing. Nothing at all and for that, I apologize," Fugate said. "There are no zoning laws here." He said the county commission could look at adopting zoning ordinances in the future to prevent future startups such as this one. On Tuesday, however, Fugate emphasized there was nothing more they could do.

Is Crypto Mining Driving Up Power Costs For U.S. Consumers? -A group of Democratic lawmakers, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren, demand that six major cryptocurrency mining companies detail their high energy usage, the possible impact on the environment, and the role in driving up power bills for U.S. consumers. Riot Blockchain, Marathon Digital Holdings, Stronghold Digital Mining, Bitdeer, Bitfury Group, and Bit Digital were sent letters by the lawmakers, who were concerned about “their extraordinarily high energy usage,” Senator Warren saidon Thursday.In the letters, the lawmakers want written answers from the six crypto mining companies by February 10, 2022, on the amount of energy each of their facilities consume, projected energy use for the next five years, plans to address the climate impact of their increasing operations, and details of their purchasing agreements with electricity providers.“Bitcoin mining’s power consumption has more than tripled from 2019 to 2021, rivaling the energy consumption of Washington state, and of entire countries like Denmark, Chile, and Argentina,” the statement from the lawmakers says.“The extraordinarily high energy usage and carbon emissions associated with Bitcoin mining could undermine our hard work to tackle the climate crisis - not to mention the harmful impacts cryptomining has on local environments and electricity prices. We need more information on the operations of these cryptomining companies to understand the full scope of the consequences for our environment and local communities,” Senator Warren said.Crypto mining globally has drawn a lot of attention in recent months, including from regulators, amid the current energy crisis in Europe and rising energy costs for consumers, including in the United States.

How coal country lawmakers came to love crypto - As the prospects for coal continue to darken, states that were once the lifeblood of America’s coal mining industry are now tying their economies to the production of a new type of mining: cryptocurrency. And lawmakers on Capitol Hill are moving to facilitate the trend. Wyoming, the nation’s leading coal mining state, was the first state to establish cryptocurrency banking in 2019. Texas, the largest coal power consumer, has seen a large influx of crypto mining businesses, and the CEO of the state’s largest grid operator says he’s “pro-Bitcoin.” And in Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear last year signed a law qualifying crypto mining for an alternative energy tax credit, with the stated intent for Kentucky “to become a national leader in emerging industries which use substantial amounts of energy.” The action in the states is now getting wider attention in Washington. Democrats are looking to keep tabs on the industry. Many Republicans have shed their suspicions and are now full-fledged supporters. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) is expected to introduce a bill later this year taking a free-market approach to cryptocurrency regulation. And Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) is touting a new crypto data center in his district that claims it will be 100 percent carbon neutral. “Anyone who says all crypto mining is bad for the environment does not know what they are talking about,” Timmons said in a statement to E&E News. The energy-intensive computing process required to make bitcoins, known as “proof-of-work” mining, has come under fire from some activists and Democratic lawmakers over concerns that the added power demand could worsen the effects of climate change. But supporters on and off Capitol Hill say they have a positive vision for cryptocurrency and the environment. Indeed, they argue digital mining could improve electric grids and help more affordably transition rural utility systems to renewable energy, because companies that mine for cryptocurrency want to cut their emissions and want to help utilities build renewable power infrastructure.

Experts say US DOE initiative should focus on linking eastern, western grids --A U.S. Department of Energy initiative aimed at speeding electric grid buildout should focus on establishing more ties between the nation's Western and Eastern Interconnections, a panel of experts said Jan. 28. The DOE launched the program, dubbed the Building a Better Grid initiative, earlier in January following the enactment of a bipartisan infrastructure bill that contained billions of dollars for grid infrastructure and expanded federal siting authorities. As part of the initiative, the DOE will conduct a study to identify high-priority national transmission solutions capable of relieving congestion and accommodating more clean energy resources. One of the biggest limitations with the current U.S. grid is a lack of east-west transmission lines, panelists asserted during a Jan. 28 event hosted by the U.S. Energy Association. California, for example, is notorious for its so-called "duck curve," a term that describes the shape of the state's electricity demand curve in the evenings as residents consume more power just as the sun goes down, noted Duane Highley, CEO of the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc. "Right now, the reason we have a duck curve in California is that California runs north to south and the sun sets on California all at once," Highley said. Transmission infrastructure in the wind- and solar-rich Midcontinent ISO and Southwest Power Pool Inc. regions, the nation's two largest regional grid operators in terms of geography, also mostly runs north to south, Highley noted. "To get a federal entity that could study and bring together private companies to help build and construct this network that brings solar east to west is going to resolve a lot of our issues with integrating renewables onto the grid,"

Feds: We'll find 'right fit' for Wyoming coal community grant proposals - Wyoming communities bracing for coal production downturns and coal-fired power plant closures will receive support from assorted federal “revitalization” grant programs, despite being shut out of the initial round of funding in December, according to the leader of President Joe Biden’s coal communities effort.A Wyoming “rapid response team” was assembled late last year to work more closely with the state and its coal-dependent communities, and to “make sure that those communities have the right attention to find the right fit,” Brian Anderson told WyoFile.Anderson, director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory, was tapped to serve as executive director of the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization. The IWG received many questions from Wyoming applicants — Wyoming Energy Authority, University of Wyoming, Campbell County Economic Development Corp. and the city of Cheyenne — along with criticism from Gov. Mark Gordon and Wyoming’s congressional delegation, Anderson said, following the news that four applications from the state were declined. “Yes, we were disappointed, as one of the offices that originated one of those proposals,” Wyoming Energy Authority Executive Director Glen Murrell told IWG officials during a public webinar Dec. 17. The IWG’s actions didn’t follow the language associated with granting opportunity, he said.

Japan’s Coal Imports Soar Amid Surging Natural Gas Prices -Japan is set to import the highest quantity of coal in January in just over two years, as utilities scramble to get supplies for power generation amid high spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing intelligence firm Kpler and Japanese customs data.A cold and snowy winter in Japan has raised the electricity demand, and domestic utilities are looking to buy more coal for power generation.Japan is expected to import over 17.3 million tons of coal in January, according to Edwin Toh, a dry bulk manager at Kpler, quoted by Bloomberg.The volume would be Japan’s highest level of coal imports in one month since December 2019 and around 5 percent over the five-year seasonal average, Japanese customs data showed.Coal prices have also surged in the past weeks due to a month-long export ban top coal exporter Indonesia, as well as the Russia-Ukraine crisis, which has the commodity markets concerned over disruptions of energy exports, including coal, from Russia.Still, coal prices in comparable terms for utilities are lower than prices for spot LNG cargoes in Asia.LNG prices for March delivery rose this week by more than 17 percent to $27.00 per metric million British thermal units (MMBtu), industry sources told Reuters on Friday. The Russia-Ukraine crisis and the cold weather in Japan were the key drivers of the jump in LNG prices to northeast Asia for March.The record-high natural gas prices over the past months have forced utilities in many countries, including in developed economies such as Japan and in Europe, to seek to replace gas-fired power generation with coal-fired power plants.The economic rebound from the pandemic took coal power generation to a new record high in 2021, with global coal demand likely hitting another new high in 2022, undermining net-zero efforts, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said last month. The global recovery in 2021 dashed any hopes that coal-fired power generation may have peaked, the IEA said.

W.Va. lawmakers lift ban on building nuclear power plants in state (WCHS) — A bill to repeal a ban on construction of nuclear power plants in West Virginia is now headed to the governor's desk. The House of Delegates Monday passed the Senate bill by a vote of 76 to 18. Supporters of the bill said there have been advances in technology in small modular reactors. “The nuclear power plants that they are designing today are much safer, much more efficient. They’re actually smaller than the units that were producing back in the 70s and 80s and about half the size,” Del. Guy Ward, R-Marion, said. Ward said he has worked at power plants for more than 33 years and knows a little about nuclear energy. “I prefer coal over nuclear, of course, but we need these additional plants because take a 2500-megawatts out of your system, that really makes your grid fragile. We need to take this ban away because nuclear is safe,” Ward said. Those against lifting the ban had concerns about the radioactive waste that could remain dangerous for hundreds of years. Del. Ed Evans, D-McDowell, minority chairman of the House Energy and Manufacturing Committee, said he is speaking as someone who has been around nuclear power plants. “I worry about disposing the waste. I’m a scientist. I understand it. Chemistry is absolutely one of my absolute favorites,” Evans said. “I’m telling you I’m not for this and I certainly hope that we don’t experience a Fukushima (a 2011 nuclear power plant disaster in Japan). I know we don’t get big tidal waves. We do have earthquakes. And that waste does not go away tomorrow. It does not go away next week, next year, next decade. It’s around for hundreds of years if we would have an outbreak.” West Virginia banned nuclear power production in 1996. Del. Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, argued lifting the ban will allow the state to talk about it - to see if it fits into an "all-of-the-above" energy approach for the state.

Proposal to Dump Radioactive Waste Into Cape Cod Bay Draws Opposition at Meeting – NBC Boston - People on the South Shore of Massachusetts pushed back Monday on any potential plan to dump 1 million gallons of radioactive waste into Cape Cod Bay. Holtec International, which purchased Plymouth's Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in 2019, intends to complete the plant's decommissioning by 2024.While Holtec says no final decisions have been made about what it will do with Pilgrim's radioactive waste, many in the area fear it will be released into the bay.Dozens filled a room at Plymouth Town Hall Monday to make their voices heard at a meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel."I think it would have a definite negative effect, and it would impact tourism and retail businesses," said Blake Suddath of Scituate."Cape Cod Bay's reputation of clean, safe water is important to hundreds of local businesses and organizations," Sen. Ed Markey said.Markey, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Bill Keating and Rep. Seth Moulton,penned a letter to Holtec on Jan. 12 to condemn the proposal.

Householder asks judge to dismiss public corruption case against him - Former Speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder asked a federal judge to toss out a case against him that prosecutors have called the largest probe of public corruption in state history.In a motion filed late Tuesday evening, lawyers for Householder argued that there was no “quid pro quo,” or explicit favor-for-a-favor agreement, between utility giant FirstEnergy Corp. and Householder.Without an “explicit” quid pro quo, Householder argued, a prosecution would be targeting conduct that is not only legal but “in a very real sense unavoidable so long as election campaigns are financed by private contributions.”Instead of law enforcement, Householder argued the prosecutors were just using the law here to impose their standards of policymaking and good government on the state.In June 2020, federal prosecutors accused Householder of accepting $60 million from FirstEnergy, through a web of nonprofits he secretly controlled, to ensure the passage of House Bill 6.The legislation provided FirstEnergy ratepayer funded bailouts for nuclear plants owned at the time by a company subsidiary, ratepayer-funded protections against drops in energy revenues, and a host of other provisions favorable to the company. It was worth an estimated $1.3 billion to FirstEnergy.Householder, a political adviser, and three lobbyists were accused of using the money to elect a slate of candidates who elected Householder as speaker; to engineer passage of the bill; and for personal enrichment.Last summer, FirstEnergy entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with prosecutors in which it admitted to using the nonprofit to “conceal payments for the benefit of public officials and in return for official action.” The agreement also accused Sam Randazzo, just before accepting a gubernatorial appointment as Ohio’s top utility regulator, of accepting a $4.3 million bribe from the company. Randazzo has not been charged with a crime and has publicly declared his innocence. The motion filed Tuesday doesn’t address the two pleas of guilt (one of which came from a longtime Householder adviser) or FirstEnergy’s admission. However, according to Householder, the accusations against him fail to show a relationship joining the alleged conspirators or any sort of cohesive goal.

Pipeline sues federal regulators in fight over fine for demolition of dilapidated Ohio home - – The owners of a major, multistate pipeline project that spans northern Ohio went to court Friday in a fight with regulators that stems from a dilapidated house. Energy Transfer and its subsidiary, Rover Pipeline LLC, filed a lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in U.S. District Court in Akron. The companies allege they face a fine of more than $20 million from the commission for failing to disclose their intentions to remove the home in Carroll County in 2016. The regulatory commission ordered the companies to appear before an administrative law judge for a hearing in September. The companies, however, said the issue belongs in federal court, where it can litigate its claims and receive an impartial review, “rather than in an in-house enforcement proceeding.” The case centers around the pipeline’s application process. Regulators contend the companies made misrepresentations and omitted information about the home during the application process to build Rover’s $4.2 billion pipeline. But in the lawsuit, the companies claim that the information about the home was immaterial to the project and, therefore, didn’t need to be passed along. The companies purchased the Carroll County property in 2015. It was part of the land where Energy Transfer sought to place a business operation center. The home was built in 1843, and it had holes in its roof, rotting floors and electrical and plumbing problems that needed to be overhauled, according to the lawsuit. It says that, at one point, a local fire department “even considered burning it down as part of a training exercise.” “[The companies] also explained that they had every legal right to remove the house, and their plans for its removal were known” to a state historic preservation officer, who didn’t object, the lawsuit says.

Ohio to receive $256M for abandoned oil and gas wells - Ohio will receive $256 million in new federal funding under the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to clean up abandoned oil and gas sites known as orphaned wells.Nearly 81,000 abandoned drilling sites across the country — including 891 in Ohio — are emitting methane gas and leaking toxic pollution into nearby communities, a news release states.The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law secured $4.7 billion in new federal funding to help communities plug orphaned wells. The first phase of that funding, announced this week, totals $1.15 billion across 26 states. “These urgently needed funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help get rid of dangerous pollution, ensure our kids have clean air and drinking water and simultaneously create good-paying jobs,” U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, said in the release. “This investment is a major win for our environment, our economy and our families.”

Energy Transfer criminally charged for Revolution Pipeline explosion - Corporate owners of the Revolution Pipeline that exploded in Beaver County more than three years ago are now criminally charged for their role in the disaster. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Wednesday said the Office of Attorney General Environmental Crimes Section is charging Energy Transfer subsidiary ETC Northeast Pipeline with nine counts of environmental crimes related to company “negligence” that ultimately caused the line to erupt in Center Township in September 2018. An investigating grand jury heard testimony and examined records showing the explosion happened because builders “repeatedly ignored environmental protocols and custom plans that were created to minimize erosion and the possibility of a landslide at the site," Shapiro said in a news release. Dallas-Based Energy Transfer is charged with two counts of prohibition of discharge of industrial waste, two counts of prohibition against other pollutions, two counts of potential pollution and three counts of unlawful conduct. Shapiro in October charged Energy Transfer with 48 counts of environmental crimes related to contaminated wetlands and residential drinking water during construction of its controversial Mariner East lines. Lack of proper erosion control devices led to an initial landslide at the Center Township site, the grand jury found. Despite that, contractors “continued restoring the pipeline site without adding more erosion controls,” Shapiro said, which inevitably led to another landslide following heavy rainfall. During that slide, the Revolution burst into flames, releasing more than 3 million cubic feet of natural gas, torching multiple acres of forested areas, destroying property and traumatizing nearby residents. The subsequent pollution, Shapiro said, violated the Clean Streams Law.A Department of Environmental Protection investigation found the company had not properly stabilized a number of areas along the route to prevent landslides; the DEP later fined Energy Transfer $30.6 million in civil penalties, with millions more paid to Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission. The company has faced hundreds of new violations since. If convicted, it could face fines and restitution. The 40-mile natural gas line, now back in operation, travels across Butler, Beaver and Washington counties between two processing facilities.

PennEnergy's Appalachian Natural Gas Gains RSG Tag for 99% of Production - Nearly all of PennEnergy Resources LLC’s natural gas wells have been certified as producing responsibly sourced gas (RSG), the Appalachian Basin-focused exploration and production (E&P) company reported. Regional Prices Project Canary used its TrustWell environmental certification process and determined that 375 of 378 wells, or 99%, earned a gold or platinum rating, PennEnergy said. The global gas market is increasingly adopting RSG and other designations for certifying natural gas supplies from the wellhead to end user. Certified gas is viewed as a means of making supply more attractive to some foreign markets and potentially within the United States. Focused on the Marcellus and Utica shales and Upper Devonian formation, PennEnergy’s operations span three Southwest Pennsylvania counties. According to Project Canary, the RSG designation covers operational, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data points on a per-well and midstream asset basis. PennEnergy CEO Rich Weber said Project Canary performed a “rigorous review across all of our well pads.” Among other things, the E&P has deployed monitoring units to detect and measure methane and other emissions in real time. “Our independent analysis validates PennEnergy’s commitment to operational excellence and ESG performance,” said Project Canary CEO Chris Romer. Other North American E&Ps that have pursued gas production certification include Chesapeake Energy Corp., PureWest Energy LLC, Vermilion Energy Inc. and EQT Corp. and Seneca Resources Corp.

Gov. Wolf Announces $104 Million from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Support Orphaned, Abandoned Well Cleanup in PA -Governor Tom Wolf announced today that Pennsylvania has been awarded its initial allocation of $25 million, and will receive a total of $104 million, from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to plug orphaned and abandoned wells in Pennsylvania. In addition to reducing pollution, the funding will support the creation of new, good-paying jobs related to the cleanup.“Today’s announcement from the Biden Administration is welcome relief,​ and I’m pleased that the president shares my commitment to addressing this legacy issue,” said Gov. Wolf. “​Addressing Pennsylvania’s orphaned and abandoned gas and oil wells will not only support our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it will create a cleaner local ecosystem at each well site and energize the economy of our entire commonwealth.”Pennsylvania is home to tens of thousands of orphaned and abandoned wells. These wells have the potential to pollute backyards, recreational areas, and public spaces, and frequently release methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential more than 28 times that of carbon dioxide. This initial $25 million investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will support plugging the wells to address environmental, health, and safety concerns.The Wolf Administration looks forward to working with the Department of Interior to put the resources announced today to work to enhance the state’s well plugging program and immediately remediate high-priority wells. The $25 million announced today is Pennsylvania’s initial grant allotment of $104 million in Phase I funding available to the commonwealth through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Pennsylvania is set to receive the second largest allocation of funding, after Texas.

Following Protest, NY Postpones Decision On Natural Gas Permit For Greenpoint Energy Center - The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the multinational energy company National Grid mutually agreed to extend the deadline for a final decision on a permit that could expand natural gas production at the Greenpoint Energy Center.The request for extension was filed Friday, the day after residents, local activists and two Congresswomen called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to reconsider the air permit that would allow the energy facility to process more liquid natural gas, and by extension, potentially leak more airborne pollutants. National Grid signed and agreed to the extension the same day it was submitted. A decision had been slated to happen by February 7th.DEC officials told WNYC/Gothmist that the extra time would enable the agency to complete its ongoing review of more than 6,000 public comments submitted between November 10th, 2020 and March 22nd, 2021, including from three public hearings held in March 2021. They also said it’s the sixth time an extension has been made since National Grid initially requested the permit in May 2020. “Once the review is complete, DEC will determine next steps, including if an adjudicatory hearing would be held on the application, prior to making a decision,” DEC said in an email to WNYC/Gothamist.

Con Edison, KeySpan urge FERC to ignore EPA call to pause natural gas project reviews - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should ignore the Environmental Protection Agency's suggestion that FERC stop acting on natural gas infrastructure proposals until it revises its policy for how to review them, Consolidated Edison and KeySpan Gas East, a National Grid utility, said Friday. Delaying the Iroquois Gas Transmission System's proposal to beef up its existing pipeline to increase gas deliveries to the New York City area would threaten reliability and safety, ConEd said in a filing at FERC. "Despite the near-term impacts caused by the COVID pandemic and the recent enactment of a ban on new gas service connections within New York City limits, ConEd forecasts continued firm customer peak day gas demand growth in its service territory for the next several years," ConEd said. Across the United States, environmental and other groups are urging regulators to stop enabling the expansion of the natural gas system, which they say will lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). FERC is preparing to update its decades-old criteria for reviewing gas infrastructure proposals, a revision that could affect how the agency considers potential GHG emissions from a project and its effect on the climate.In New York, Iroquois Gas proposed expanding capacity on its pipeline by 125,000 million cubic feet per day by upgrading four existing compressor stations. Half the capacity is under contract to KeySpan Gas and half to ConEd.In part, the extra gas supply is needed to facilitate a New York City policy that aims to slash the use of oil to heat buildings, according to ConEd.FERC staff released an environmental assessment for the project in September 2020, typically the last step before the agency makes a decision on a proposed project. However, responding to court decisions, in May 2021, FERC ordered its staff to revise pending environmental reviews by bolstering their greenhouse gas emissions analysis, a move that sparked concerns bySen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., about delays to the process.

Appeals court throws out another pipeline permit - — For the second time in as many weeks a federal appeals court threw out a permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline on Thursday.In a written opinion, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found “serious errors” with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s conclusion that building the pipeline across rugged mountainsides wouldn’t jeopardize endangered species in its path — specifically the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter, The Roanoke Times reported. Last week, the same three-judge panel shot down a permit that would have allowed the pipeline to pass through a 3.5 mile (5.6 kilometer) section of the Jefferson National Forest. In both cases, the judges faulted the U.S. Forest Service and the wildlife agency for failing to adequately assess the pipeline’s environmental impact. The 303-mile (487-kilometer) pipeline would transport natural gas drilled from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations through West Virginia and Virginia.“We recognize that this decision will further delay the completion of an already mostly finished pipeline, but the Endangered Species Act’s directive to federal agencies could not be clearer: halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost,” the 40-page opinion concluded. Mountain Valley said it is reviewing the court’s decision and evaluating its next steps.

U.S. natgas rises over 5%, marks first monthly gain in four (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures rose more than 5% on Monday, registering their first monthly gain in four, helped by forecasts for colder weather and higher heating demand over the next two weeks. Front-month gas futures for March delivery rose 23.5 cents, or 5.1%, to settle at $4.874 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), after rising nearly 9% to $5.057 earlier in the session. For the month, the contract was up about 31% after falling 18% in December, its biggest monthly decline in two years. The current rally appears to be the result of "short covering driven by the short-term weather outlook, which is colder-than-normal", Robert DiDona of Energy Ventures Analysis said. "Given the colder GFS (Global Forecasting System) model outlook, buy-side interest is resulting in a stronger price point," he added. "However, at the current elevated levels, it will be hard to sustain buy-side interest unless the cold forecast intensifies or continues beyond the current 11-15 day period." In intraday trade on Thursday, the February contract rose to $7.346 per mmBtu, the highest price for the front month since November 2008. The contract settled up about 46% at $6.265, its biggest daily percentage gain on record and the highest close for the front month since October 2021. Data provider Refinitiv estimated 485 heating degree days (HDDs) over the next two weeks in the Lower 48 U.S. states. The normal is 420 HDDs for this time of year. HDDs, used to estimate demand to heat homes and businesses, measure the number of degrees a day's average temperature is below 65 Fahrenheit (18 Celsius). In addition to extreme cold, record U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports were also supporting prices as global LNG buyers looked for ways to send more fuel to Western Europe in case Russia invades Ukraine and cuts off gas supplies to the rest of the continent. The amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants has averaged 12.5 bcfd so far this month, topping December's monthly record of 12.2 bcfd. Refinitiv said average output in the U.S. Lower 48 states had fallen to 94.2 bcfd so far in January from a record 97.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in December. Output dipped after wells in several regions froze, including the Permian in Texas and New Mexico, the Bakken in North Dakota and Appalachia in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Refinitiv projected average U.S. gas demand, including exports, would rise from 136.0 bcfd this week to 139.3 bcfd next week.

Extreme Volatility Ends with March Natural Gas Off 12 Cents Despite Approaching Arctic Blast - After eight straight gains, natural gas futures stumbled on Tuesday as weather forecasts backed off the intensity of frigid weather expected in Texas later this week. Warmer weather in Europe, along with an increase in Russian gas flows to the continent, also weighed on U.S. markets, with the March Nymex gas futures contract down 12.3 cents to $4.751/MMBtu. April settled at $4.573, off 10.2 cents. Spot gas prices were mixed, but leaned lower overall thanks to substantial decreases in the Northeast. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. tumbled 46.5 cents to $6.125. While there is no disagreement that widespread cold is to blanket much of the United States this week, weather models in recent runs have shown a not-as-chilly pattern in Texas. Still, temperatures were forecast to plunge into the 20s as far south as the Texas coast, with even lower temperatures in the northern half of the state. NatGasWeather said the gas markets are likely nervous about what the late-week Arctic freeze may bring to Texas and the South. This week’s polar plunge is set to arrive days ahead of the one-year anniversary of deadly Winter Storm Uri, which resulted in a 20% drop in Texas gas supply. Even if the expected freeze is not as intense as initially modeled, NatGasWeather said production is likely to be curbed because of pipeline freeze-offs. Dry gas production in the Permian Basin last month dipped below 11 Bcf/d, off from more than 14 Bcf/d when temperatures plummeted. However, output quickly recovered and has hovered on either side of 14 Bcf/d in recent days.

Supply Concerns, Short Squeeze Drive Massive 75-Cent Gain for March Natural Gas - No groundhogs were needed to convince natural gas traders that Old Man Winter was planning to stick around longer across the United States. A biting February forecast combined with strong storage withdrawals, potential supply disruptions and robust export demand to send March Nymex natural gas futures ballooning to $5.501/MMBtu on Wednesday, up 75.0 cents on the day. April surged 47.1 cents to $5.044. Spot gas action was similarly volatile as intense heating demand was seen permeating the eastern half of the country for the next several days as temperatures plunge. Cash jumped more than $1.00 at most locations, with NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. up $1.315 to $7.440. The multi-day stretch of bitter cold arrived in the central United States midweek, ushering in heavy snow that is expected to extend from the southern Rockies to northern New England when all is said and done, according to the National Weather Service. Heavy ice accumulation was likely from Texas to Pennsylvania. Although the approaching one-year anniversary of Winter Storm Uri may be causing some jitters in Texas, Bespoke Weather Services said the threat of widespread power outages amid the deep freeze was not to blame for Wednesday’s monstrous rally. Instead, it’s “the fact that we are seriously drawing down storage levels,” Bespoke said. “And more cold will only add to this issue, making it tougher to refill to comfortable levels by the end of injection season.” Government inventory reports have shown a steepening drawdown in recent weeks as a result of frigid weather through most of January. The Energy Information Administration (EIA), set to release its next report at 10:30 a.m. ET Thursday, has reported at least a 200 Bcf withdrawal in each of the last three weeks. Another 200 Bcf-plus pull is expected for Thursday. A Bloomberg survey of eight analysts produced a range of estimates from 263 Bcf to 292 Bcf, with a median of 280 Bcf. A Wall Street Journal survey had the same range of projections and landed at an average decline of 267 Bcf. A Reuters poll was wider with a low estimate of 232 Bcf, a high of 297 Bcf and a median of 277 Bcf. NGI modeled a 286 Bcf pull. This would easily crush the 183 Bcf withdrawal recorded by the EIA in the same week last year and the five-year average of 150 Bcf. .

U.S. Natural Gas Drops 11% on Milder Forecasts Despite Winter Storm - (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures dropped about 11% on Thursday in what has already been an extremely volatile week on a slightly smaller-than-expected storage draw and forecasts for less cold and lower heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. That price decline came even as a major winter storm hit Texas and the rest of the central United States, reminding the market of last year's February freeze when gas pipes and power plants froze, leaving millions without power and heat for days. The weather, however, was still expected to remain colder than normal through mid February, which caused prices to rocket up almost 16% on Wednesday. That cold has already frozen gas wells and caused U.S. output to drop to its lowest since last February. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said U.S. utilities pulled a massive 268 Bcf of gas from storage during the brutally cold week ended Jan. 28, the biggest weekly withdrawal since last year's February freeze. That withdrawal, however, was lower than the 277-bcf drop analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with a decline of 183 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2017-2021) average decline of 150 bcf. "Sustained cold is expected to drive the following two withdrawals past 200 bcf as well, and the market faces the potential of experiencing five consecutive 200+ withdrawals, a feat not ever witnessed in the history of the gas market," Front-month gas futures for March delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell 61.3 cents, or 11.1%, to settle at $4.888 per million British thermal units. On Wednesday, the contract jumped 15.8% to its highest close since Jan. 27 when it soared 46% and settled at its highest since December 2008. The NYMEX said the number of futures traded on Wednesday jumped to 851,384 contracts, the highest daily volume since last year's February freeze. Data provider Refinitiv said output in the U.S. Lower 48 states fell from a record 97.3 Bcf/d in December to 92.9 Bcf/d in January and 91.3 Bcf/d so far in this month after wells in several regions froze, including the Permian in Texas and New Mexico, the Bakken in North Dakota and the Appalachia in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. On a daily basis, preliminary data from Refinitiv showed output on Thursday was on track to drop to 88.2 Bcf/d, which would be its lowest in a day since last year's February freeze.

U.S. natgas drops near 7% on forecasts for less cold, despite winter storm — U.S. natural gas futures dropped almost 7% on Friday during a period of record volatility on forecasts for less cold and lower heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. Traders said the price declined even as a massive storm battered much of the country from Texas to New York, cutting gas output to its lowest level since 2021's February freeze. Last February, Winter Storm Uri killed over 200 people in Texas, caused power and gas prices to soar to record highs in many parts of the country and left millions of homes and businesses without heat and power for days after gas pipes and power plants froze. This week's storm, called Winter Storm Landon, was much less severe than Uri. High temperatures during Uri remained below freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit or zero degrees Celsius) for eight days in a row in the West Texas town of Midland in the Permian oil- and gas-producing shale basin, according to AccuWeather. The normal high in Midland is 64 F at this time of year. High temperatures during Landon, however, were only expected to remain below freezing for one day and that was Thursday when the mercury reached just 24 F. As for power outages, there were only around 300,000 homes and businesses without service Friday afternoon from Texas to New York - though the storm was still ongoing. Front-month gas futures () for March delivery fell 31.6 cents, or 6.5%, to settle at $4.572 per million British thermal units, their lowest close since Jan. 26. That 7% decline was actually a quiet day for the front-month after a couple of extremely volatile weeks when the contract soared by a record 46% on Jan. 27, plunged 26% on Jan. 28, jumped 16% on Feb. 2 and fell 11% on Feb. 3. Those large price changes over the past couple of weeks boosted close-to-close volatility over the past 30 days to a record high on both Thursday and Friday, above the prior volatility high set in 1996.

Feds sending Louisiana $111 million to plug hundreds of 'orphan' oil and gas wells - Louisiana is set to receive more than $111 million as part of a new federal program aimed at plugging the growing number of “orphan” oil and gas wells around the country, a move that could reduce one of the state’s biggest environmental threats and give Louisiana a much-needed economic boost. The U.S. Interior Department announced on Monday that Louisiana would be awarded about $47 million to plug and clean up orphan wells as part of the first phase of funding and grants from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which President Joe Biden signed in November. Louisiana’s allotment is expected to grow to at least $111.4 million in later phases, according to U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the act’s sponsors. “I’ve heard from communities across Louisiana about the environmental and safety hazards of orphan wells,” the Baton Rouge Republican said. “This funding from the bipartisan infrastructure package will create jobs, help state officials address these wells and make Louisiana a cleaner place to live. In addition, the land around these wells can be repurposed and lead to an economic boost.” Just two members of Louisiana's eight-member congressional delegation voted for the infrastructure bill: Cassidy and U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans. The U.S. has millions of wells that have been abandoned by their owners and are now the responsibility of state governments. Louisiana’s official tally is 4,605 orphan wells, but state officials stay there are likely many more that have not been documented. The number is expected to grow as more wells are shut down due to low oil prices and a spate of bankruptcies and downsizings by small oil and gas companies. The $111.4 million for Louisiana is enough money to plug about a quarter of the state’s documented orphan wells.

Judges Increasingly Demand Climate Analysis in Drilling Decisions - — A judge’s decision this week to invalidate the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the nation’s history, on grounds that the government had failed to take climate change into consideration, shows that regulatory decisions that disregard global warming are increasingly vulnerable to legal challenges, analysts said Friday.Judge Rudolph Contreras of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Thursday that the Biden administration had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it conducted an auction of more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. The Interior Department failed to fully analyze the climate effects of the burning of the oil and gas that would be developed from the leases, the judge said.The ruling is one of a handful over the past year in which a court has required the government to conduct a more robust study of climate change effects before approving fossil fuel development. Analysts said that, cumulatively, the decisions would ensure that future administrations are no longer able to disregard or downplay global warming.“This would not have been true 10 years ago for climate analysis,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard University. He said it is “a big win” that courts are forcing government agencies to include “a very robust and holistic analysis of climate” as part of the decision-making when it comes to whether or not to drill on public lands and waters.Emissions from fossil fuel extraction on public lands and in federal waters account for about 25 percent of the country’s greenhouse gases.Shell, BP, Chevron and Exxon Mobil offered $192 million for the rights to drill in about 1.7 million acres in the area offered by the government in the Nov. 17 lease sale. The leases have not yet been issued.Judge Contreras said the government had relied upon an outdated and flawed analysis from the Trump administration, which argued that not holding the lease sale would result in higher greenhouse gas emissions because oil companies overseas would increase their production to fill a vacuum in the market.He called reliance on that analysis a “serious failing” and ordered a new study under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which says the government must consider ecological damage when deciding whether to permit drilling and construction projects.The judge reached the same conclusion as judges for both the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and the District Court for the District of Alaska in cases within the past two years concerning lease sales based on a similar analysis.

Federal Judge Cancels Oil and Gas Leases in Gulf of Mexico, Citing Climate Crisis - In a huge win for environmental groups, a federal judge has canceled more than 80 million acres of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Judge Rudolph Contreras of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Biden administration failed to sufficiently take climate change into consideration when offering the leases. Environmental group Earthjustice brought the suit on behalf of four other environmental groups, Reuters reported. Earthjustice argued that, in selling the oil and gas leases, the U.S. Department of the Interior was relying on an outdated environmental analysis that didn’t provide a realistic assessment of the impacts of the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the development of the leases. Now the Department of the Interior must conduct a new environmental analysis that takes greenhouse gas emissions into account before it decides whether or not to hold a new auction, reported The New York Times. “This requires the bureau to go back to the drawing board and actually consider the climate costs before it offers these leases for sale, and that’s really significant. Once these leases are issued, there’s development that’s potentially locked in for decades to come that is going to hurt our global climate,” Hardy said. However, a lawsuit brought by attorneys general from 13 states led to a federal judge in Louisiana blocking the order, as well as ruling that the administration must go forward with the lease sales that had already been scheduled. According to CNN, at the time Biden administration officials acknowledged that the sale went against its climate goals, but said that there was nothing they could do. Biden administration officials have asserted that if the lease auction wasn’t held, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland risked being held in contempt of court, but environmental groups argued that there were other options for the administration to consider, including doing a new assessment of the environmental impacts, The New York Times reported. “We will continue to hold the Biden administration accountable for making unlawful decisions that contradict its pledge to take swift, urgent action on code red climate and environmental justice priorities,” said legal director at Friends of the Earth Hallie Templeton, reported The New York Times.

Court's invalidation of offshore drilling sale ratchets up the pressure on Interior - The Interior Department is under pressure from both the fossil fuel industry and environmentalists over an assessment of an offshore drilling lease sale first greenlighted by the Trump administration. A cancellation of the offshore lease in the Gulf of Mexico by a federal judge was a win for the Biden administration, but now the decision rests with the Interior Department on how to proceed. The agency faces a tough decision about whether to cancel, change or maintain the sale without the ability to blame the outcome on Trump-era calculations. The development is the latest in a saga of court challenges regarding this particular offshore drilling lease sale. The lease sale, known as Lease Sale 257, was originally approved at the end of former President Trump’s tenure. It was later carried out by the Biden administration after a June ruling against its pause on new oil and gas leasing. Last week, Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, invalidated the sale and the leases won during it, stating that the Trump administration’s assessment had failed to account for how the sale would change global fossil fuel demand, potentially worsening climate change. In his decision, Contreras gave the Biden administration a great deal of latitude on how to approach the solution to this problem, writing that he would “vacate Lease Sale 257 and allow the agency an opportunity to remedy its ... error as it so chooses in the first instance.” “The Court does not specify how BOEM must do so, on what timeline, or what ultimate conclusion it must reach, leaving those issues to the sound discretion of the agency,” he said, referring to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Asked about next steps, the Interior Department referred The Hill to a statement issued on the decision in which spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said the department was “reviewing the court’s decision concerning deficiencies.” Schwartz also emphasized that the department was “compelled to proceed with Lease Sale 257” by the June ruling and said that “deficiencies” in the overall oil and gas program need change. “Especially in the face of the climate crisis, we need to take the time to make significant and long overdue programmatic reforms,” she said. According to Sara Gosman, an environmental law professor at the University of Arkansas, the ruling leaves the BOEM, which is overseen by the Interior Department, with multiple options. In an emailed statement to The Hill, Gosman said that after its revised analysis, the department could choose to either not hold the sale or decide to hold a smaller one if these decisions are backed by a new analysis. She also said that the department may be able to “drag its feet and not make a decision” until the end of the current leasing period, effectively halting it.

Court ruling gives Biden chance for reset on climate policy - (AP) — President Joe Biden has an opportunity for a reset on climate policy after a federal judge rejected an administration plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil drilling.U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras tossed the drilling plan late Thursday, saying the Interior Department did not adequately take into account the proposed drilling’s effect on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists say the lease sale goes against Biden’s campaign promise to stop new oil and gas leasing on federal land and water. The court decision was released on the one-year anniversary of a federal leasing moratorium Biden ordered as part of his efforts to combat climate change.The Biden administration proceeded with the sale after losing a court case in Louisiana last summer. Energy companies including Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil offered a combined $192 million for drilling rights on more than 300 tracts totaling nearly 2,700 square miles, one of the largest sales ever in the Gulf. The 68-page decision by Contreras sends the proposed Gulf lease sale back to Interior to decide next steps.Biden has set an ambitious goal to slash planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, speeding what is already a market-driven growth of solar and wind energy and lessening the country’s dependence on oil and gas. The push comes as the effects of climate change, including more powerful hurricanes, wildfires and drought, are increasing. Moving ahead with the sale — initiated by the Trump administration — “was terrible policy and also bad politics,″ said Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation at Earthjustice, one of the environmental groups that challenged the offshore sale. Biden “campaigned on addressing climate change, and a growing sector of the electorate — young, diverse and active — are climate change voters,″ he said. “They voted for Biden, and if he wants them to vote for him again the White House needs to respond on climate.″

Exxon locked workers out of their jobs. Can workers lock Exxon out of a carbon capture deal? - In Beaumont, Texas, working at one of Exxon Mobil’s plants has long been a way to earn steady wages and support a family in this industrial corner of the Gulf Coast. But for the past nine months, about 600 union employees at Exxon’s refinery and other plants have been struggling to pay their own bills: They have been locked out of their jobs because Exxon has been unable to come to an agreement with the union over a new contract. Kyle said that the company is refusing to honor protections for senior workers that have been in place for decades, while the union is demanding that those protections remain in place. At the end of last April, without a contract finalized and with the threat of a union strike pending, the company began escorting employees out of the complex, theBeaumont Enterprise, a local newspaper, reported. The company stated that the provisions the union was asking for were “items that would significantly increase costs and limit the company’s ability to safely and efficiently operate.”Some workers, willing to take the deal Exxon was offering, began a campaign to decertify the union, which would end union representation at the plants. The United Steelworkers union believes that Exxon illegally assisted the campaign and has filed complaints with the National Labor Review Board. But in addition to using this legal channel to try to protect their union, the Steelworkers tried a different tactic. They started their own campaign to pressure Exxon into a deal — by undermining the company’s push for public money to build a $100 billion carbon capture hub in nearby Houston. Last April, just before the lockout began, Exxon announced a proposal to turn the Houston Ship Channel into a carbon capture and storage “innovation zone.” The Ship Channel is a 50-mile stretch in the Port of Houston that’s home to a high concentration of industrial facilities. Exxon said it wanted to work with other companies in the area to capture carbon dioxide emissions from the manufacturing, chemical, and power plants there, and pipe the CO2 out to the Gulf of Mexico to be pumped thousands of feet under the seafloor for permanent storage. It estimates the project could eventually capture 100 million metric tons of carbon annually by 2040, which is about 1.5 percent of current U.S. emissions. Exxon has stressed that the $100 billion concept would require a mix of public and private funding, such as corporate tax breaks, and began lobbying local leaders for support.

Chevron had ‘strong’ Permian output growth in Q4, 10% increase eyed for 2022: CEO -Chevron’s Permian Basin production showed “strong” production growth in fourth-quarter 2021 which was just shy of the landmark 700,000 boe/d level, and 50% higher activity levels are projected this year for the company’s operation in the giant West Texas/New Mexico basin, its top executive said Jan. 28. The company is targeting full-year Permian production growth of 10% in 2022, which is “a little bit better” than earlier projected, CEO Mike Wirth said during Chevron’s quarterly earnings call. In Q4, Chevron’s Permian production of 681,000 boe/d from unconventional West Texas/New Mexico reservoirs was up 11% year on year and 9% sequentially. The company’s full-year 2021 production from the basin averaged 608,000 boe/d, up 6% year on year. Permian output growth of 10% year over year in 2022 would would place full-year production around 670,000 boe/d. Wirth anticipates “a little bit over 200 wells” are anticipated to be placed on production this year in the basin, which would be up about 50% from 2021. “Activity in the Permian is really increasing aligned with the guidance that we’ve issued previously and spending this year up from $2 billion to $3 billion,” he said. “Broadly speaking, the Permian is healthy and getting better,” he said. “That is the largest piece of what we would anticipate in terms of production growth” over the coming year within the company’s portfolio.

Double E Pipeline expands Permian gas deliveries amid drilling, production ramp - The 1.35 Bcf/d Double E Pipeline has begun delivering Permian Basin gas supply to Kinder Morgan's intrastate Gulf Coast Express project in a bullish sign for West Texas and New Mexico production. Deliveries from the recently commissioned Double E Pipeline to Gulf Coast Express began Jan. 25 with flows at the interconnection point averaging just under 40 MMcf/d over the past week, S&P Global Platts Analytics data shows. The new deliveries potentially point to growing demand for capacity on Double E Pipeline and its downstream interconnection to Gulf Coast Express. Following commercial startup of Double E in November, the project had previously made intrastate deliveries exclusively to Kinder Morgan's Permian Highway Pipeline. In January, flows from Double E to Permian Highway have averaged nearly 150 MMcf/d – an increase of about 20 MMcf/d from the month prior. Rising utilization on Double E Pipeline and its recent growth in delivered volumes to Kinder Morgan's two intrastate lines comes as upstream activity in the Permian Basin continues to accelerate this year. Since the start of January, gas production from West Texas and eastern New Mexico has been on a tear, recently approaching a previous record high at a combined 14 Bcf/d as producers hit the accelerator this year. As of late January, an estimated 304 drilling rigs are currently in operation across the Delaware and Midland basins, just one shy of a late-December high and the most since April 2020, rig data from Enverus shows. Other upstream indicators are also looking bullish for production. In the six-month period ending in December, well completions in the Permian averaged about 400 per month – a sustained high unseen since the first quarter of 2021. New well boring also reached a pandemic-era high in December with a total of 315 wells drilled during the month – the most since April 2020, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. Oil production has been the primary driver of recent growth. According to a short-term production forecast from the EIA, Permian output could hit a new record high by February at over 5 million b/d.

Oil Frackers Brace for End of the U.S. Shale Boom – WSJ -- The end of the boom is in sight for America’s fracking companies. Less than 3½ years after the shale revolution made the U.S. the world’s largest oil producer, companies in the oil fields of Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota have tapped many of their best wells.If the largest shale drillers kept their output roughly flat, as they have during the pandemic, many could continue drilling profitable wells for a decade or two, according to a Wall Street Journal review of inventory data and analyses. If they boosted production 30% a year—the pre-pandemic growth rate in the Permian Basin, the country’s biggest oil field—they would run out of prime drilling locations in just a few years. Shale companies once drilled rapidly in pursuit of breakneck growth. Now the industry has little choice but to keep running in place. Many are holding back on increasing production, despite the highest oil prices in years and requests from the White House that they drill more.The limited inventory suggests that the era in which U.S. shale companies could quickly flood the world with oil is receding, and that market power is shifting back to other producers, many overseas. Some investors and energy executives said concerns about inventory likely motivated a recent spate of acquisitions and will lead to more consolidation.Some companies say concerns about inventories haven’t factored into their decisions to keep output roughly flat. For several years before the pandemic, frustrated investors had pressured companies to slow production growth and return cash to shareholders rather than pump it back into drilling. Companies have promised to limit spending, though some executives recently said high prices signal a need for them to expand again this year.U.S. oil production, now at about 11.5 million barrels a day, is still well below its high in early 2020 of about 13 million barrels a day. The Energy Information Administration expects U.S. production to grow about 5.4% through the end of 2022.Big shale companies already have to drill hundreds of wells each year just to keep production flat. Shale wells produce prodigiously early on, but their production declines rapidly. The Journal reported in 2019 that thousands of shale wells were pumping less oil and gas than companies had forecast. Many have since marked down how many drilling locations they have left.Some shale companies will eventually have to start spending money to explore for new hot spots, executives and investors said, and even then, those efforts are likely to add only incremental inventory. Few are currently doing so. Pioneer Natural Resources Co. , the largest oil producer in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, raised its oil production between 19% and 27% a year in shale’s peak years. Now, Pioneer is planning to increase output only 5% a year or lower, for the long term.Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer, said the combination of investor pressure and limited well inventory means he cannot drill as he once did. “You just can’t keep growing 15% to 20% a year,” he said. “You’ll drill up your inventories. Even the good companies.”

Oklahoma's oil regulator to shut some disposal wells following large quake -Oklahoma's oil and gas regulator said it would shut deep saltwater disposal wells on Jan. 31 and restrict others near where a large earthquake earlier in the day rattled homes and businesses in the northern part of the state.The quake had a magnitude of 4.5 on the Richter scale, regulator Oklahoma Corporation Commission said in a revised estimate. No damage had been reported, according to an official with the Grant County Sheriff Department.The tremor occurred near Medford, Oklahoma, in the north-central part of the state and home to oil and gas drilling. The OCC is ordering shut three disposal within six miles of the quake's epicenter and that other water disposal wells within 10 miles of the epicenter would be restricted to accepting an average volume of 500 barrels per day. Several years ago, Oklahoma suffered a sharp uptick in earthquakes tied to the disposal of saltwater, a natural byproduct of oil and gas production. The tremors had largely subsided in recent years after the OCC took measures to limit water disposal in quake-prone areas.Monday's quake occurred in an area where the OCC had previously shut down disposal due to an increase in quakes.West Texas is now grappling with a similar issue in its Permian Basin, the largest U.S. shale field. The state's Railroad Commission, which regulates its oil and gas industry, has taken steps in recent months to curb the frequency of earthquakes, including shutting some disposal wells. Texas Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright on Jan. 31 published a public letter addressing the increase in earthquakes in the Permian Basin. In it, he touted the benefits of recycling water and also said the RRC is working with operators to expedite the approval of additional shallow disposal wells, which are less likely to induce seismic activity.

Report: State policies allow oil and gas companies to skirt responsibilities for plugging and cleaning up abandoned wells - A new report says the state fails to hold companies responsible for the plugging and cleanup of their abandoned wells by allowing companies to use loopholes like keeping wells barely active to avoid having to plug them and offering tax incentives for low-producing wells and high-cost gas wells.“Eliminating Orphan Wells and Sites in Texas” is the latest in a series of publications released by the environmental organization Commission Shift about operations at the Texas Railroad Commission, which is charged with regulating oil and gas development, coal and uranium mining, and gas utility service in the state.The report asserts that Texas routinely takes on risks without collecting enough taxes and fees from the industry it oversees to deal with them.It says orphan wells are a problem throughout the state that will only get worse as “the oil and gas industry is exhibiting signs of systemic decline.”Approximately 9 million people in the U.S. live within one mile of an abandoned oil and gas well, which can emit harmful gasses that are amajor problem for the climate and disproportionately impact low-income communities of color.What constitutes an orphaned well? What are the potential financial and health implications of failing to responsibly plug and clean them up?What is the Texas Railroad Commission’s role when it comes to regulating oil and gas wells? How does the current system prevent industry accountability?What reforms could be implemented to fix Texas’ orphan wells problem? The Biden administration announced on Monday it will provide 26 states including Texas with funding to plug abandoned oil and gas wells. Is it enough?

Environmental group says analysis shows oil and gas companies have used ‘forever chemicals’ to frack wells across Colorado -- Companies have used potentially toxic "forever chemicals" to coax oil and gas from Colorado wells since at least 2008, according to a new report from Physicians for Social Responsibility. The environmental advocacy group also claims drillers may have concealed some dangerous chemicals they’ve pumped into wells under state rules that allow companies to withhold the disclosure of industry "trade secrets." Dusty Horwitt, one of the report’s authors, said the disclosure exemptions make it nearly impossible to know the full extent of the industry’s use per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances — also known as PFAS."Coloradans could be unknowingly exposed to these highly toxic forever chemicals, as they're called, from thousands of oil and gas wells across the state," Horwitt said. The claims could add another chapter to a rapidly expanding PFAS pollution crisis. The category of chemicals was born in 1938 when a chemist at DuPont stumbled upon polytetrafluoroethylene, a compound that later became famous as a nonstick cookware coating known as Teflon. Companies soon found other applications for the chemical’s slipperiness and ability to resist oil and water. The discovery fueled the development of other PFAS chemicals now used in a wide range of consumer products like dental floss, waterproof jackets and fire fighting foam. Over the last few decades, researchers have increasingly raised concerns about potential health threats. Peer-reviewed studies have found PFAS exposure can lead to an increased risk of fertility problems, high cholesterol, certain cancers and other health issues, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.While scientists haven't fully understood how PFAS endangers human health, it's clear the persistent chemicals have become an unavoidable part of modern life. Public health experts estimate 95 percent of Americans have traces of PFAS in their blood. A 2020 state sampling project found detectable levels of the chemicals in every river and stream sampled across Colorado.

Living near or downwind of unconventional oil and gas development linked with increased risk of early death – Elderly people living near or downwind of unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD)—which involves extraction methods including directional (non-vertical) drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—are at higher risk of early death compared with elderly individuals who don’t live near such operations, according to a large new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The results suggest that airborne contaminants emitted by UOGD and transported downwind are contributing to increased mortality, the researchers wrote. The study will be published on January 27, 2022 in Nature Energy. “Although UOGD is a major industrial activity in the U.S., very little is known about its public health impacts. Our study is the first to link mortality to UOGD-related air pollutant exposures,” said Petros Koutrakis, professor of environmental sciences and senior author of the study. Added co-author Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science, “There is an urgent need to understand the causal link between living near or downwind of UOGD and adverse health effects.”

U.S. Drilling Activity Rises on Strength of Williston Growth, Says Baker Hughes -Driven by strong growth in the Williston Basin, the U.S. oil and gas rig count climbed three units to 613 during the week ended Friday (Feb. 4), according to the latest figures published by oilfield services provider Baker Hughes Co. (BKR). Gains in the United States included two oil-directed rigs and one natural gas-directed unit. The combined U.S. count ended the week 221 units ahead of its year-earlier total of 392, according to the BKR numbers, which are partly based on data from Enverus. Land drilling increased by five units for the period, while the Gulf of Mexico count fell two units to 16, flat year/year. Three vertical units and two horizontal units were added during the week, partially offset by a two-rig decrease in directional drilling. The Canadian rig count climbed one unit to 218, up from 171 a year ago, with the net change reflecting an uptick in oil-directed drilling for the period. Broken down by major basin, the Williston posted the largest week/week gain, picking up four rigs to grow its total to 31, up sharply from 12 in the year-earlier period. Elsewhere among plays, the Granite Wash, Permian Basin and Utica Shale each added one rig to their respective totals. The Arkoma Woodford, Cana Woodford and Marcellus Shale each dropped a rig. In the state-by-state count, BKR recorded gains of three rigs each in North Dakota and Texas, with Alaska adding two rigs for the period to end with eight overall. Ohio and West Virginia each added one rig for the period. On the other side of the ledger, Louisiana, New Mexico and Pennsylvania each saw two rigs exit week/week, while California and Oklahoma each posted one-rig declines for the period, the BKR numbers show. Gains in the United States included two oil-directed rigs and one natural gas-directed unit. The combined U.S. count ended the week 221 units ahead of its year-earlier total of 392, according to the BKR numbers, which are partly based on data from Enverus. Land drilling increased by five units for the period, while the Gulf of Mexico count fell two units to 16, flat year/year. Three vertical units and two horizontal units were added during the week, partially offset by a two-rig decrease in directional drilling.

Study: Toxic fracking waste is leaking into California groundwater - Chevron has long dominated oil production in Lost Hills, a massive fossil fuel reserve in Central California that was accidentally discovered by water drillers more than a century ago. The company routinely pumps hundreds of thousands of gallons of water mixed with a special concoction of chemicals into the ground at high pressure to shake up shale deposits and release oil and gas. The process — called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — produces thousands of barrels of oil every day. But it also leaves the company saddled with millions of gallons of wastewater laced with toxic chemicals, salts, and heavy metals. Between the late 1950s and 2008, Chevron disposed much of the slurry produced in Lost Hills in eight cavernous impoundments at its Section 29 facility. Euphemistically called “ponds,” the impoundments have a combined surface area of 26 acres and do not have synthetic liners to prevent leaking. That meant that over time, salts and chemicals in the wastewater could leak into the ground and nearby water sources like the California Aqueduct, a network of canals that delivers water to farms in the Central Valley and cities like Los Angeles. And that’s exactly what happened, according to new research published in the academic journal Environmental Science & Technology this month. Carcinogenic chemicals like benzene and toluene as well as other hydrocarbons have been detected within a half a kilometer of the facility. About 1.7 kilometers northwest of the facility, chloride and salt levels are more than six times and four times greater than background levels, respectively. The research leaves little doubt: The contaminants are migrating toward the aqueduct. “At the section 29 facility, you have to go 1.8 kilometers away from the facility to find background water quality. That’s pretty far.” The facility shuttered in 2008, and it no longer accepts wastewater. Chevron has continued to monitor the contaminant plume and submits yearly water quality reports to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, a local groundwater quality regulator. In a 2019 report, the company claimed it would cost more $800,000 to monitor the plume and report to the regulator for the next 30 years. The Section 29 facility isn’t an isolated case. Between 1977 and 2017, over 16 billion barrels of oilfield wastewater was disposed in unlined ponds in California. The vast majority of these are located outside of Bakersfield in the state’s Central Valley: According to DiGiulio’s research, there are at least 1,850 wastewater ponds in the San Joaquin Valley’s Tulare Basin. Of those, 85 percent are unlined and about one-fourth are active, like the Section 29 facility. However, despite not being operational, many of them may be leaking into the ground. Wells that monitor groundwater quality are few and far between, so it’s difficult to know the exact scope of the pollution. But DiGiulio warns that the ponds constitute “a potential wide-scale legacy groundwater contamination issue.” This month’s study is the first to quantify the number of unlined pits in California and analyze their effects on groundwater. The findings bolster 2015 research by California Council on Science & Technology and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which concluded that unlined wastewater pits posed a threat to groundwater sources and called for investigations into whether contaminants have leaked from disposal ponds. Research conducted by the United States Geological Survey for the Central Valley Water Board has also found evidence of oil and gas wastewater contaminating groundwater.

Calif. weighs help for oil workers in green future - California officials are brainstorming how to help oil industry workers as the state moves to phase out fossil fuels and replace gasoline-powered vehicles with electric cars. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office and legislators are talking to unions representing industry workers, and a new state Assembly document outlines potential solutions. But it’s a complex quandary, raising questions about whether to guarantee workers their current salaries and benefits as their jobs disappear. “One of the major hurdles in transitioning existing fossil fuels activities to clean energy ones has been the potentially negative economic consequences to workers and communities,” according to a document from the Assembly Office of Policy and Research obtained by E&E News. “As the state implements its ambitious climate goals, there is an opportunity to assist workers impacted by the transition to a green economy.” Nearly 112,000 people work in 14 fossil fuel and ancillary industries in California as of 2018, according to a report last year from the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The total includes oil and gas extraction operations, and support activities, and sectors such as fossil-fuel-based power generation. What California decides to do about oil industry workers has the potential to ripple beyond the nation’s most populous state, said Catherine Houston, legislative, political and rapid response coordinator with United Steelworkers District 12.That union represents many oil industry workers. “California typically takes the lead in a lot of these types of things, and we become an example for other states across the nation,” Houston said. “So whatever we do can potentially serve as a federal model.”

Biden Administration Announces $1.15 Billion to Plug Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells -The Biden Administration announced new actions Monday to tackle methane pollution. The measures include $1.15 billion in funds from the Department of the Interior that states can use to close up abandoned oil and gas wells. The funding comes from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which set aside $4.7 billion for a federal program dedicated to orphaned wells. “President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is enabling us to confront the legacy pollution and long-standing environmental injustices that for too long have plagued underrepresented communities,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a press release. “We must act with urgency to address the more than one hundred thousand documented orphaned wells across the country and leave no community behind. This is good for our climate, for the health of our communities, and for American workers.” There are 130,000 documented abandoned oil and gas wells in the U.S, the Interior Department calculated last month, as The Washington Post reported. However, in 2018 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that there might really be as many as two to three million orphaned wells. About nine million people live within a mile of an abandoned well, according to a study from McGill University and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and these wells can emit a variety of gasses including methane. “It’s a pretty big problem that’s flown under the radar for a long time,” EDF senior attorney Adam Peltz, who approved of the new measures, told The Washington Post. In addition to preventing climate pollution and protecting the health of vulnerable communities, plugging wells can also provide unionized, well-paying jobs, the Interior Department said. The money will be sent to 26 states that submitted notices of intent last year, CNBC reported, including $100 million for Texas and Pennsylvania.Some environmental advocates thought that the administration could go further to address the problem caused by abandoned wells. “Addressing these existing wells is an important first step,” Sierra Club deputy legislative director Mahyar Sorour said, as CNBC reported. “But unless it’s paired with bonding reform that requires oil and gas companies to cover these costs up front, the industry will continue to leave behind toxic wells on our public lands and expect taxpayers to cover the cost of cleaning them up.” The Biden Administration championed the Global Methane Pledge last year, which calls for a 30 percent reduction in 2020 methane emissions by 2030, according to a White House fact sheet. The U.S. helped mobilize more than 110 countries to sign the pledge. President Biden also announced the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan at the COP26 climate conference last year.

DOI announces $1.5B in funding for orphaned well clean up - The Department of the Interior announced $1.15 billion in funding is available to states from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to create jobs cleaning up orphaned oil and gas wells across the country. This is a key initiative of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocated a total of $4.7 billion to create a new federal program to address orphan wells. Millions of Americans across the country live within a mile of an orphaned oil and gas well. Orphaned wells are polluting backyards, recreation areas, and public spaces across the country. The historic investments to clean up these hazardous sites will create good-paying, union jobs, catalyze economic growth and revitalization, and reduce dangerous methane leaks. “President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is enabling us to confront the legacy pollution and long-standing environmental injustices that for too long have plagued underrepresented communities,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “We must act with urgency to address the more than one hundred thousand documented orphaned wells across the country and leave no community behind. This is good for our climate, for the health of our communities, and for American workers.” Plugging orphaned wells will also help advance the goals of the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan, as well as the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, which focuses on spurring economic revitalization in the hard-hit energy communities. Nearly every state with documented orphaned wells submitted a Notice of Intent (NOI) indicating interest in applying for a formula grant to fund the proper closure and cleanup of orphaned wells and well sites. The Department today released the amount of funding that states are eligible to apply for in Phase One, which includes up to $25 million in Initial Grant funding and a quarter of the total Formula Grant money available for the 26 states that submitted NOIs. These allocations were determined using the data provided by states from the NOIs and equally considers the following factors required by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: job losses in each state from March 2020 through November 2021; the number of documented orphaned oil and gas wells in each state; and the estimated cost of cleaning up orphaned wells in each state.

Biden is sending more than $1 billion to states to plug abandoned oil and gas wells - The Biden administration on Monday announced it will send $1.15 billion to states to plug thousands of orphan oil and gas wells that emit methane, a potent climate-changing greenhouse gas.Methane is a main component of natural gas and accounts for 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The oil and gas industry represents nearly 30% of the country's methane emissions.Methane is 84 times more potent than carbon and doesn't last as long in the atmosphere before it breaks down, which makes it a significant target for reducing global warming more quickly while simultaneously working to reduce other greenhouse gases.The funding to plug oil and gas wells comes from President Joe Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill, which allocated a total of $4.7 billion to form a new federal program to address the thousands of wells abandoned across the country.Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement that the funding enables the government to "confront the legacy pollution and long-standing environmental injustices that for too long have plagued underrepresented communities.""We must act with urgency to address the more than one hundred thousand documented orphaned wells across the country and leave no community behind," Haaland said. "This is good for our climate, for the health of our communities, and for American workers." The money will go to the 26 states that submitted notices of intent to the Department of Interior last year, including more than $100 million each for Pennsylvania and Texas. Roughly 9 million people live within a mile of an abandoned oil and gas well, some of which emit harmful gases that disproportionately impact low-income communities of color in the U.S.

Satellite Images Revealed Russia, US Are Major Sources of Methane Leak - Experts ran satellite images through an algorithm to automatically discover the world's largest methane plumes coming from oil and gas facilities all over the world. Around a tenth of the oil and gas industry's methane emissions come from "ultra-emitter" locations predominantly in Turkmenistan, Russia, and the United States, according to researchers. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and governments have just agreed to reduce emissions of the strong greenhouse gas methane by 2030, as per New Scientist. While satellites have detected large plumes of methane escaping from particular gas pipes, such as an Ohio gas well and numerous pipelines in Turkmenistan's central region, nothing is known about the global scale of these leaks. The largest methane plumes emanating from oil and gas installations across the world can now be detected using photos taken by a satellite instrument and an algorithm. More than 25 metric tons of methane per hour are being pumped out of these ultra-emitters. Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an American non-profit organization in Washington DC, argues that's a lot. The oil and gas industry's 2019-20 methane emissions are expected to be around 8 million metric tons, or tenth of that amount. Over a two-year period, Turkmenistan was the most significant ultra-emitter, producing more than a million metric tons of methane. At slightly under a million tonnes, Russia was in second place followed by Iran, Algeria, and Kazakhstan.

The Oil Industry Has a $500 Billion Bubble Problem --- Oil prices are rebounding as global economic activity picks back up. But the boom could likely be a mirage as governments finally get their act together on climate change—and it could lead to financial ruin if Big Oil ends up chasing it.A new report from Carbon Tracker, a London-based think tank, found that if the industry takes the bait and tries to wring more oil and gas out of the ground, it could end up strapped with more than $500 billion in stranded assets. (And let’s not even get started on the damage to the climate.)From a business standpoint, the industry clearly sees dollar signs with high prices and rebounding demand. But could create what Axel Dalman, a lead author of the report, said in a press release would be a “nightmare scenario if they go ahead with projects which deliver oil around the time that demand starts to decline.”World leaders are well aware at this point that the end of the fossil fuel era needs to start, and soon. If not, humanity could face catastrophic consequences. The report finds that as governments start to (hopefully) get serious about winding down the fossil fuel industry to protect the climate, it could leave oil companies and shareholders holding the bag.“As the world transitions away from oil and gas, [companies] run the risk of destroying significant value as a result of failing to deliver the expected return results,” said Mike Coffin, co-author of the report. “For investors, this means ensuring that they engage with companies and that companies are ultimately stewarding that capital appropriately, and are not investing and wasting money on products that run the risk of becoming stranded assets as demand falls away in the next decade.”Carbon Tracker’s suggestion to these companies and the shareholders? Resist the temptation to go all in on projects because this peak demand can’t and won’t last forever. The report predicts that some fossil fuel companies and their shareholders may only have a few years to really cash in on their investments at peak or near peak demand before oil prices come back down to earth by the end of this decade. Some may reap in a return while prices are still high, but it’s likely that many won’t as governments around the world invest in cleaner infrastructure and demand for electric vehicles goes up. That demand is expected to go up more than 30% by 2030, Carbon Tracker noted in the report.The report findings also show why the world needs a solid plan for winding down the industry. An unmanaged decline could drive billions in losses, hurt workers, and still potentially screw the climate in the end if a few companies end up trying to squeeze every last drop of oil they can out of the ground.

Canada's Questerre studying new completion technique - Canadian producer Questerre Energy has commissioned a study and report on a new completion technique to replace conventional hydraulic fracturing, the company said February 1. By using lower pressures and rates than the standard currently used for fracturing new rock, the technique takes advantage of existing natural fractures to stimulate the formation. The technique is similar to an approach utilised in geothermal projects. Maurice Dusseault, professor of engineering geology at the University of Waterloo, has been engaged to conduct the study. Dusseault was on the direction committee for the strategic environmental assessments completed by the government of Quebec. “This new technique could be incredibly effective in a naturally fractured formation like the Quebec Utica,” Questerre CEO Michael Binnion said. “Subject to new legislation, we hope to apply to complete two wells in Quebec to prove the efficacy of this new approach.” Quebec has implemented a moratorium on fracking in the province, essentially stranding an estimated contingent resource of nearly 6 trillion ft3 of natural gas Questerre holds in the Utica shale beneath the Quebec Lowlands. Questerre has been pursuing a variety of initiatives to eventually produce this resource, including various blue hydrogen and carbon capture and storage opportunities, but so far, those proposals have fallen on deaf government ears, Binnion said. “We encourage the government to reconsider the benefits of our zero-emissions project to meet their climate goals.”

Mexico likely to cut oil exports to Europe, Asia after new refinery starts -Valero - Mexico’s state-run Petroleos Mexicanos would likely reduce oil sales to Europe and Asia before the United States, its main market for oil exports, after its Dos Bocas refinery begins operations, a Valero Energy Corp executive said on Thursday. Pemex in December said its crude exports will fall to 435,000 bpd this year from 1.019 million bpd in 2021 and it plans to cease all crude exports after its 300,000-barrel-per-day Dos Bocas refinery in the southeastern state of Tabasco begins processing crude next year. Pemex was not immediately available to respond to the Valero executive’s comments. Analysts expect that the exports decline – which has not yet been included in the budget Mexico’s congress approved for 2022 – would primarily affect customers that buy Mexican crude on the spot market, including many in Asia. “It looks like their (Pemex) goals are pretty aggressive,” said Gary Simmons, Valero’s chief commercial officer, during the firm’s fourth quarter earnings call on Thursday. The Texas-based refining company, which is among the U.S. top importers of heavy crude, expects to continue its business relationship with Pemex, he added. “Our experience has been that as they increase refinery runs in Mexico, they increase the export of high-sulfur fuel oil, and that’s a good feedstock for our high complexity U.S. Gulf Coast (refinery) system,” he said. Pemex also plans to reshuffle fuel imports after buying Shell’s 50%-stake in the Deer Park refinery in Texas, which will give it access to up to 230,000 bpd of U.S. fuels. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Erwin Seba and Marianna Parraga; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Italy rejects extradition of Venezuela's ex-oil minister, says lawyer -– Italy has rejected a request by Venezuela for the extradition of Rafael Ramirez, a once powerful oil minister and former head of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, his lawyer said on Saturday. Authorities in Venezuela had asked Interpol to locate and arrest Ramirez in 2018 and subsequently demanded his extradition from Italy in 2020 in connection with embezzlement charges. Ramirez, who denies the corruption allegations, says President Nicolas Maduro’s administration is seeking to smear him over his anti-government comments. “The Italian Supreme Court has declared definitively inadmissible the extradition request,” Ramirez’s Italian lawyer Roberto De Vita told Reuters. He said the court had backed a previous ruling that Ramirez could not be sent back to Venezuela because of human rights violations in the South American state. Court rulings in Italy are initially delivered to those involved in the case and the verdict has not yet been published on the Supreme Court website. Ramirez served for a decade as oil minister and president of state oil company PDVSA, which controls some of the largest crude reserves in the world. Venezuela’s Supreme Court said on Facebook in 2020 that Ramirez faced criminal charges including embezzlement and bid-rigging for oil contracts. He was ousted from his post as Venezuela’s U.N. envoy in 2017 after publicly criticizing Maduro and the status of the OPEC nation’s oil industry.

UK Gas Production Could Plunge 75% By 2030 - The UK could become much more vulnerable to price shocks and geopolitical events unless new offshore fields are approved and developed—and the UK’s gas production could plummet by 75 percent by 2030, the offshore energy industry body OGUK said on Thursday. Without new investment in new gas fields in the North Sea, the UK will be left more vulnerable to crisis, such as the current one between Russia and Ukraine, the industry association noted. Additional price shocks would add to the ongoing energy crisis in the UK where gas and power suppliers are going bust, while customers face a cost-of-living crisis when the energy market regulator Ofgem raises the price cap on energy bills as of April 1. The worst is yet to come for consumers in April, when millions of households would be thrown into energy poverty, with many people having to choose between eating and heating. Domestic production currently meets 47 percent of the UK’s gas demand, 31 percent comes from pipeline imports from Europe, mostly from Norway, and 21 percent from LNG imports. In 2020, Russia supplied 3.4 percent of the UK’s gas, OGUK said. According to the industry body, new fields are needed in the UK North Sea to stave off a predicted 75-percent plunge in domestic supplies if no new fields are approved. Many fields remain to be tapped, according to geological surveys. Such fields are estimated to contain oil and gas equivalent to 10-20 billion barrels of oil—enough to sustain production for 10-20 years, OGUK said. “In the longer term, if UK gas production is allowed to fall as predicted, then our energy supplies will become ever more vulnerable to global events over which we have no control – as we now see happening with Russia’s threatened invasion of Ukraine,” OGUK Energy Policy Manager Will Webster said on Thursday.

Nord Stream 2: Russia-Germany gas pipeline becomes a geopolitical lever - The crisis surrounding Ukraine has been a harsh reminder to Europeans of just how dependent they are on Russian energy supplies. While the European Union weighs its options for a united and robust response to Russia if Vladimir Putin decides to invade Ukraine, the bloc is feeling a new sense of unease over its dependence on Russian oil and gas. Mounting tensions over a Russian troop buildup along the Ukrainian border has turned the spotlight back onto the controversial Nord Stream 2 project, a more than 1,200-kilometre gas pipeline running from western Russia to northeastern Germany under the Baltic Sea, which was completed in late 2021. If the pipeline – a joint project involving a consortium of Russian, German, Dutch and French energy companies – is given the green light from Brussels to become operational, it will be able to pump 55 billion cubic metres of gas to Germany each year. But the current diplomatic crisis with Russia is complicating the pipeline’s future. If Russia invades Ukraine, “the decision to halt Nord Stream 2 would be part of the EU’s political or military strategy”, said Anna Creti, director of the Climate Economics department of Paris Dauphine University, in an interview with FRANCE 24. “But it cannot be done unilaterally; it would need the agreement of the entire consortium.” In the long-term contract concerning Nord Stream 2, “we have Russia’s national company Gazprom on one side, and on the other we have several European companies that have to bargain, gain or modify clauses", Creti said. "The EU is not just one stakeholder and Russia can bargain with the [respective] companies – and possibly play one against the other." On the other hand, “if Russia decides to stop the flow of gas to Europe, it wouldn’t be overnight”, said Creti, adding that a complete interruption of energy supplies would be unlikely given the safety risks of suddenly stopping gas flows. A more likely scenario would be for Russia to further decrease the flow of gas over a few weeks, sending a very clear signal to Europeans that their supply is in danger, according to Creti.

Critical German Oil Network Hit With Cyberattack Amid Rising US-Russian Tensions The energy crisis surrounding Europe worsened as Germany's fuel-supply network was hit with a cyberattack on Jan. 29. The incident follows mounting tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine and the possibility Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany could be axed if Russia invades Kyiv. The US has insisted it would block the pipeline opening upon a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Western governments and their corporate media counterparts aren't helping the situation as they drum up the prospects for conflict between Russia and the US. This week, it just so happened a cyberattack partially paralyzed Germany's most critical fuel network as the geopolitical turmoil worsened in the region. S&P Global Platts reports the attack targeted energy company Mabanaft Group and storage company Oiltanking Group. Disruptions to some oil products in Germany, Europe's biggest oil consumer, are being reported. Oiltanking declared force majeure at eleven terminals in Germany and was operating at "limited capacity." "All parties continue to work to restore operations to normal in all our terminals as soon as possible," both companies said in a joint press release. Traders told S&P Global Platts the cyberattack might last for upwards of two weeks as the companies are expected to "just pay off the blackmailers."

What if Russia turns off the gas? Europe assesses its options amid Ukraine crisis -- Escalating tensions between Russia, Ukraine and the West have heightened concern about the future of Russian gas flows to the European Union, with lawmakers and energy providers scrambling to prepare contingency plans. It comes as President Joe Biden warns there is a "distinct possibility" Russia could invade Ukraine as soon as next month and as the Kremlin says there is "little ground for optimism" after the U.S. rejected its main demands to resolve the crisis. Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops near the border of Ukraine but denies planning to enter the former Soviet republic. "European natural gas supplies are well below their typical norms and inventories, so a key question to ask is if Europe has enough natural gas inventory to survive," For several months, Russia has been accused of intentionally disrupting gas supplies to leverage its role as a major energy supplier to Europe amid an escalating dispute with Ukraine. Russian gas flows to Europe have been lower than typically expected for a sustained period, with political analysts suggesting that Moscow has purposefully withheld supplies in a bid to speed up certification of the highly contentious Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Indeed, Russia's purported role in exacerbating Europe's energy crunch was even the subject of a rare public rebuke from the International Energy Agency, with the group calling on Russia to increase gas availability to Europe and ensure storage levels were filled to adequate levels during a period of high winter demand. The Kremlin has repeatedly disputed claims it is using gas as a geopolitical weapon, with state-owned Gazprom saying it has fulfilled its contractual obligations to customers. Now, as Russia-Ukraine tensions reach a fever pitch, energy analysts are deeply concerned about the risk of full supply disruption to the EU — which receives roughly 40% of its gas via Russian pipelines and several of which run through Ukraine. The prospect of a supply cut-off of Russian gas is seen as likely to result in profound public health and economic consequences, particularly as such a scenario could come in the middle of winter and amid the coronavirus pandemic. Energy analysts at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group believe the worst-case scenario of Russia abruptly cutting off all supplies to Europe is also the least likely scenario. This is partly because such a move would have major financial costs for Moscow, while simultaneously triggering a coordinated effort by EU states to permanently reduce gas imports from Russia. "Even if a full disruption of Russian gas exports to the EU remains unlikely, officials and energy providers there have been making contingency plans," analysts at Eurasia Group said. For example, European utilities have increased orders of shipped liquefied natural gas cargoes over the Christmas and New Year period, chiefly from the U.S. and Qatar, which have around 100 cargoes scheduled to arrive in Europe in January alone. Eurasia Group said, citing ship tracking data, that this reflected an increase of roughly 40% from the previous record in March 2021.

Russia, China agree 30-year gas deal via new pipeline, to settle in euros - (Reuters) - Russia has agreed a 30-year contract to supply gas to China via a new pipeline and will settle the new gas sales in euros, bolstering an energy alliance with Beijing amid Moscow's strained ties with the West over Ukraine and other issues. Gazprom, which has a monopoly on Russian gas exports by pipeline, agreed to supply Chinese state energy major CNPC with 10 billion cubic metres of gas a year, the Russian firm and a Beijing-based industry official said. First flows through the pipeline, which will connect Russia's Far East region with northeast China, were due to start in two to three years, the source said in comments that were later followed by an announcement of the deal by Gazprom. Russia already sends gas to China via its Power of Siberia pipeline, which began pumping supplies in 2019, and by shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG). It exported 16.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to China in 2021. GRAPHIC - Russia-China plan new gas pipeline https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/mopanywylva/RussiaChinaGasPipeline.png The Power of Siberia network is not connected to pipelines that send gas to Europe, which has faced surging gas prices due to tight supplies, one of several points of tension with Moscow. Under plans previously drawn up, Russia aimed to supply China with 38 bcm of gas by pipeline by 2025. The new deal, which coincided with a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Beijing Winter Olympics, would add a further 10 bcm, increasing Russian pipeline sales under long-term contracts to China. Gazprom gave few details about the deal in its announcement. Russian gas from its Far East island of Sakhalin will be transported via pipeline across the Japan Sea to northeast China's Heilongjiang province, reaching up to 10 bcm a year around 2026, said the Beijing source, who asked not to be identified. The deal would be settled in euros, the source added, in line with efforts by the two states to diversify away from U.S. dollars. Discussions between the two firms began several years ago after the start-up of Power of Siberia, a 4,000-km (2,500-mile)pipeline sending gas to China. Talks accelerated more recently after Beijing set its 2060 carbon neutral goal, the source said. "China's coal shortage last year served as another wake-up call that natural gas has its special value, that's why CNPC decided to top up with the new pipeline deal," the source said.

As Europe seeks alternatives to Russian gas, Algeria has pipeline capacity to spare - The European pursuit to secure energy supplies puts Algeria firmly in the spotlight, as the EU’s third largest gas provider behind Russia and Norway. The country, which has pipelines across the Mediterranean Sea to Spain and Italy, as well as an LNG terminal, exported about 34 billion cu m of gas to the EU in 2021, or 8% of the union’s total imports, according to Eurostat. Any increase in Algerian volumes would not come anywhere close to offsetting a complete shutdown of Russian imports, which totaled about 130 billion cu m in 2021, but it would provide some measure of relief to a continent already facing tight supplies and soaring energy prices this winter. Having boosted output by bringing several projects online over the last few years, Algeria stands ready to tap its spare production and pipeline capacity to increase exports to the continent, if called upon, a government official told S&P Global Platts. But growing domestic gas consumption and the country’s political instability could put a damper on what Algeria may be able to provide, experts said. “The country has major problems in relation to increasing supply in the context of rising domestic demand,” Western governments, led by the Biden administration, have threatened to impose harsh sanctions on Russia, including its energy sector, if it invades Ukraine, potentially choking off the source of some 40% of European gas imports. The new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would send Russian gas to Germany, is among the projects in the sanctions’ crosshairs. Platts Analytics estimates Algeria could provide an additional 7 billion cu m of gas to Europe in 2022, largely through higher shipments via the Transmed pipeline to Italy. Other incremental exports could go through a recent expansion of the Medgaz pipeline to Spain and possibly some more LNG cargoes, said the government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss commercially and politically sensitive matters. Reopening the GME pipeline through Morocco to Spain would restore another export valve, but the political dispute that shuttered its operations in November remains unresolved, and the government official declined to say whether Algeria was facing US or EU political pressure to resume gas flows.

Peru bars Repsol executives from leaving country after oil spill - Peruvian judicial authorities have decided to temporarily bar top executives of Spanish firm Repsol from leaving the country in the wake of a major oil spill that has polluted the coast and sea north of the capital Lima. The 18-month ban applies to Jaime Fernandez-Cuesta, executive director of Repsol Peru, and three other company directors -- Renzo Tejada, Gisela Posadas and Jose Rey, reports Xinhua news agency. Fernandez-Cuesta is to be investigated for his responsibility in the pollution of the environment, while the others are accused of complicity, according to local presiding judge Romualdo Aguedo. The January 15 oil spill occurred when a ship unloaded into a pipeline at the La Pampilla refinery operated by Respol in Ventanilla, Peru. The Spanish multinational initially said only seven gallons of crude spilled, attributing the accident to abnormal waves along the Peruvian coast following a volcanic eruption occurred in Tonga, the Pacific Ocean country. Peru's Environment Ministry estimated on Friday that about 11,900 barrels of crude have leaked into the ocean.

24 Peruvian beaches now affected by oil spill - La Prensa Latina Media - The Jan. 15 oil spill at a Peruvian refinery operated by Spain’s Repsol has contaminated at least 24 beaches along the country’s central coastline, according to the latest report by the Digesa environmental health and food safety directorate, which is part of the Peruvian Health Ministry. In a communique released Sunday on the social networks, the agency said that so far 24 beaches have been affected by the floating oil that has spread from the La Pampilla refinery, located in the Ventanilla district in Callao province, all the way to Peralvillo beach, in the municipality of Chancay. “The environmental disaster has continued to spread from the beaches of the Ventanilla district to the coasts in the district of Chancay, with reports being received of contamination of the water and sand at 24 beaches,” Digesa said, raising the number of damaged beaches from 21 – as in its penultimate statement – to two dozen. The environmental catastrophe, which the Peruvian government has called “the worst ecological disaster” to have occurred in Lima in recent years, has already affected some 100 kilometers (62 miles) of coastline, with the oil slick now covering an area of approximately 11.9 sq. km (4.6 sq.mi.), both sea and coast, according to a report issued Friday by the Environment Ministry. Given this scenario, Digesa urged regional authorities to restrict public use of the contaminated beaches until clean-up work can be done and recommended that the public not go to the zones affected by the spill since those spots “represent a serious health risk.” According to Repsol, the amount of crude that spilled has been tallied at 10,396 barrels, a figure significantly higher than the 6,000 barrels the company had mentioned in previous days and slightly below the 11,900 barrels estimated by the Environment Ministry. Initially, the Spanish firm reported that just 0.16 barrels (about 6.6 gallons) of oil had spilled. Given the differing reports, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry on Saturday night accused Repsol of having “shown a probably deceitful attitude,” adding that the government “will announce (the imposition of) a drastic sanction” on the firm. “Information about the true quantity of barrels of petroleum spilled at Ventanilla verifies the ecocide and reveals Repsol’s lack of transparency,” the Foreign Ministry said on the social networks. In addition, Peru’s Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement (OEFA) said that Repsol has failed to implement on time the first series of measures ordered to clean up the oil spill and warned that the firm is risking huge fines that could total 226 million soles (about $59 million).

Peru halts oil activities at Repsol refinery in wake of spill - The Peruvian government on Monday halted all activities involving vessels loading and unloading oil at the La Pampilla refinery, operated by Spanish petroleum firm Repsol, after on Jan. 15 at least 10,396 barrels of crude were inadvertently spilled into the ocean, contaminating at least two dozen of the country’s beaches. Peruvian Environment Minister Ruben Ramirez made the announcement at a press conference, saying that “Repsol has not provided the certainty that it can deal with a new spill” at La Pampilla, Peru’s largest refinery processing some 120,000 barrels of petroleum per day. Ramirez said that this suspension of activity will be maintained until the firm provides Peruvian authorities with “the technical guarantees that another (spill) will not occur in the sea,” guarantees that include modifying contingency plans and undertaking additional more drastic measures. In addition, Repsol must present “a management plan for ocean oil spills” and its facilities will have to be certified once again by the appropriate authorities to validate their safety and integrity. The suspension, which was ordered in a resolution issued by Peru’s Environmental Evaluation and Enforcement Agency (OEFA), includes La Pampilla’s four maritime terminals for supplying crude, including the modern mono-buoy mooring installed in 2019, the first of its kind in the South American country. It was at Terminal No. 2 of the second type where the accident causing the catastrophic spill occurred during an unusually high ocean level due to the tsunami created by the recent eruption of the volcano in Tonga. Meanwhile, the Mare Doricum oil tanker involved in the spill remains anchored in the Bay of Callao under orders not to move from the site and the posting of a bond for 150 million soles (about $39 million). The crude that spilled during the accident has spread over some 50 kilometers (31 miles) of coastline from Ventanilla, in Callao province, the port region near Lima, to the town of Chancay, in the northern part of Lima province.

Death toll of seabirds in Peru oil spill continues to grow - Peru’s Sernanp environmental protection agency said Wednesday that its response teams are still finding dead seabirds covered in oil in the wake of the Jan. 15 accident that spilled 10,396 barrels of crude into the Pacific Ocean. Besides maintaining a register of the dead birds, the teams are “rescuing those that are seriously affected by the oil and we take them to the National Forest and Wildlife Service of Peru, which has set up an area for veterinary attention,” Sernanp investigator Roberto Gutierrez told Efe. The agency is carrying out daily surveys in the Islotes Pescadores (Fishermen’s Islands) natural preserve in the Ancon district, 40 km (25 mi) from Lima. Since Jan. 18, Sernanp has counted 170 seabirds that died as a result of the disaster at the La Pampilla refinery in Callao, the port city adjacent to the capital. The oil spill occurred when freak waves from a tsunami-triggering volcanic eruption near the faraway island nation of Tonga rocked the Mare Doricum tanker as it was unloading nearly 1 million barrels of crude. Measuring the impact of the spill on the environment is a massive challenge “that will take a long time and is complex,” Gutierrez said. “There are effects of the accident that aren’t visible now and will be later, especially the presence of heavy metals and toxins in the bodies of animals, as it is already leading to poisoning of birds that are consuming contaminated water and fish,” he said. Sernanp has brought 22 marine birds, including gannets, cormorants and penguins to veterinarians for treatment. And the agency warns that the damage from the spill threatens to drive a “local extinction” of sea otters, an endangered species. “But along with mammals and birds, the environmental tragedy affects crustaceans, arthropods, conchs, clams and sea urchins, to name a few examples,” Gutierrez told Efe. The crude spread across 11.9 sq km (4.59 sq mi) of water and beaches, according to the Peruvian government.

Repsol Says Peru Oil Spill Will Be Cleaned Up In March Spanish energy giant Repsol on Thursday vowed to finish by March cleaning up a devastating oil spill that has polluted beaches and killed wildlife. Almost 12,000 barrels of crude spilled into the sea off Peru on January 15 as a tanker unloaded oil at a Repsol owned refinery. "We expect that if the weather allows us then, in mid-March" the cleaning of beaches and islands off the coast will be completed, Repsol's environmental security director Jose Terol told reporters. However, he warned that it would take a little longer to finish cleaning cliffs and rocks that are difficult to access. "By mid-February, there will already be no more slicks in the sea. In an optimistic scenario, work on the difficult to access areas will be finished by the end of March," said Terol. Peru's government described the spill -- which Repsol blamed on freak waves caused by a volcanic eruption more than 10,000 kilometers away near Tonga -- as an "ecological disaster." The oil slick has been dragged by ocean currents about 140 kilometers north of the refinery, prosecutors said, causing the death of an undetermined number of fish and seabirds. Peru has demanded compensation from Repsol, and the energy giant faces a potential $34.5 million fine, the Environment Ministry has said. Even as the Repsol spokesman spoke, a group of protesters from the hard-hit nearby beach town of Ancon gathered with signs and chanted demands outside the plant. "Repsol accept responsibility", and "Repsol murderer, the beaches of Ancon are in mourning" were among their signs. "The reason for the protest is that (the oil spill) has left us without work because of this contamination of the sea in Ancon," Miguel Basurto, a 53-year-old motorcycle taxi driver, told AFP. "We feel outraged because we have no support from the Repsol company. They clean their hands of it, and go away and leave us with all this pollution that affects children and the elderly," said merchant Ana Garrido, 40. It was the first time since the spill that Repsol let journalists visit its La Pampilla refinery -- to see how 90 specialists there are managing the 3,000 people who are cleaning up the spill.

Pipeline ruptures after rockslide, indigenous people face another environmental disaster, Ecuador - A pipeline running through Ecuador's Amazon rainforest ruptured on Friday, January 28, 2022, spraying crude oil into the rainforest.The event took place on the banks of the Coca River, threatening the livelihoods of 27 000 Indigenous Kichwa people still suffering impacts of the massive oil spill in April 2020.According to NBC, more than 60 000 people depend on water from the river.¹Videos posted by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and Amazon Frontlines (AF) showed oil spraying out of the pipeline into the rainforest, eventually reaching the Coca River.Authorities have not yet released info on the magnitude of the spill, but estimates are that it was big, AF said."The river is contaminated. Look," said a campaigner in a video posted by AF, showing oil flowing into the Coca River. "Thousands of liters are being spilled into the river. Thousands and thousands."²"This is the exact reason why we oppose oil extraction," said Andres Tapia of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, the parent organization of CONAIE."Spills have become a part of our daily life, and we live with the contamination for decades. The oil industry has only brought us death and destruction… We are calling on the government to halt oil expansion plans and properly clean up this spill and all the others that continue to contaminate our territories and violate our rights."OCP Ecuador, the company that operates the pipeline, said the rupture was caused by rockfall, adding they have stopped pumping and begun cleanup.The company further said they have contained the spill so it cannot contaminate any bodies of water.However, footage released by AFrontlines showed oil entering the river.

Oil spill sprays crude into Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest - The private company that runs an oil pipeline in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest stopped pumping oil Saturday after a rupture in the pipeline, according to a statement from the company. Footage obtained and posted on Twitter by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), an advocacy group, shows oil spraying out of the pipeline. The rupture happened Friday, and was caused by a rock fall, said OCP Ecuador, the company that operates the pipeline. OCP Ecuador said it had “immediately initiated clean up, environmental remediation as well as repair of the pipeline in the Piedra Fina sector and implemented all the necessary actions to avoid, reduce, mitigate and repair any impact related to the OCP pipeline rupture caused by the rockslide on January 28, 2022.” The company said it had contained spilled oil so “it cannot contaminate any bodies of water” and had stopped pumping crude until “conditions are right.” Remedial action includes containing the spilled crude so it cannot contaminate any bodies of water. “This is the exact reason why we oppose oil extraction,” said Andres Tapia of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, the parent organization of CONAIE. “Spills have become a part of our daily life, and we live with the contamination for decades. The oil industry has only brought us death and destruction. … We are calling on the government to halt oil expansion plans and properly clean up this spill and all the others that continue to contaminate our territories and violate our rights.”

Ecuador Oil Spill, Ecuador Oil Spill Damage: 6,300 Barrels Oil Spill, South America's 2nd In 14 Days, Damages Reserve - An oil spill caused by a ruptured pipeline in Ecuador's Amazon region leaked almost 6,300 barrels into an environmental reserve, according to information provided Wednesday by the company that owns the conduit. The firm OCP said it had "collected and reinjected 5,300 barrels of crude into the system" since the accident on Friday when heavy rains caused a boulder to fall on the pipeline in a mountainous region. OCP said the recovered oil amounted to 84 percent of the total that leaked, which would mean around 6,300 barrels. The oil was collected in large basins deployed as an emergency measure when there is a leak. OCP president Jorge Vugdelija said in a statement that the company was using people and machines to "collect traces of crude found in the river." He added: "We will not spare resources to comply with the cleaning, remediation and compensation." Around 21,000 square meters of the Cayambe-Coca nature reserve has been affected by the leak. Crude flowed into the Coca river, one of the largest in Ecuador's part of the Amazon and which serves as a water source for many riverbank communities, including indigenous ones. "We demand to know... what will be the process of delivering water and food to the communities. It's clear that the river water cannot be used or drunk," Cayambe-Coca is 4,000 square kilometers (1,544 square miles) of mountains and rainforest in the Amazon basin sitting between 600 and 5,790 meters (1,970 to 19,000 feet) above sea level. Recent heavy rains caused landslides and rock falls in the area of Piedra Fina, where the pipeline lies. The 485-kilometer pipeline straddles four provinces all the way to the Pacific coast in the west, transporting 160,000 barrels of oil a day from wells in the jungle. Oil started spilling out immediately after the pipe was hit by a massive rock. "At the moment the tube exploded, the oil shot out, like a pressure pump," said site worker Cesar Benalcazar, 24. "We tried to stop the crude from reaching the river but the slope made it descend like a waterfall." In 2020 a mudslide damaged pipelines in the same area, resulting in 15,000 barrels of oil polluting three Amazon basin rivers, affecting several communities. Crude petroleum is Ecuador's biggest export product. Between January and November 2021, the country extracted 494,000 barrels per day.

Authorities rush to contain oil spill moving toward eastern Thailand resort island -— Authorities are rushing to prevent an oil spill in eastern Thailand from damaging fragile corals, after officials said on January 30 that the leak that began last week was drifting towards more coastal areas. Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Varawut Silpa-archa said it was crucial to try to prevent the main mass of oil from reaching the shore at Ao Prao, a small bay on Koh Samet, which is a popular resort island. "If the oil reached inside this area it could impact the beach and cause heavy damage to the shallow water corals," Varawut said. The oil began leaking from a pipeline owned by Star Petroleum Refining Public Company Limited (SPRC) late on Tuesday. Before it was brought under control, an estimated 50,000 liters (13,209 gallons) of oil escaped into the ocean 20 km (12 miles) from the coastline of eastern Thailand. Mae Ramphueng Beach in Rayong province was declared a disaster area after some oil came ashore there late on Friday. The latest satellite image from the government's Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) showed the oil spill has spread to cover 67 sq km (25.87 sq miles) area of the sea. Most of the oil had formed a thin film rather than a thick oil slick, navy spokesman Vice Admiral Pokkrong Monthatphalin told reporters, citing aerial photographs.

Thailand beach declared disaster area after massive oil spill, aerial images show extent of damage, A beach on Thailand's east coast has been declared a disaster area by the authorities after an underwater oil pipe leak. In the aftermath, oil has been washing up on a beach, blackening the sand. It is causing damage to marine life. Authorities have revealed that the leak from the pipeline, owned by Star Petroleum Refining Public Company Limited (SPRC), started late on Tuesday (January 25). SPRC said it was trying to minimise oil reaching the shoreline using booms. It was brought under control a day later after spilling an estimated 50,000 litres of oil into the ocean 20 km from the country's industrialised eastern seaboard. Thailand's navy and pollution experts have begun cleaning up a spill in the Gulf of Thailand. Photos and videos from the region showed crews in yellow plastic protective suits at Mae Ram Phueng Beach on Saturday afternoon cleaning up the oil slick. Mae Ram Phueng Beach is about two and a half hours from Bangkok, a popular tourist place as local hospitality businesses said that the oil washing up on the beach could be the "nail in the coffin" for pandemic-hit hotels and restaurants.

Efforts to remove oil sludge off Rayong shoreline - Oil washing up on Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong could be the “nail in the coffin” for hotels and restaurants already brought low by the pandemic, local hospitality business operators said on Saturday. The navy and pollution experts are scrambling to clean up the mess created by the spill that took place in the Gulf of Thailand on Tuesday after at least 60 tonnes of crude leaked from a pipeline about 20 kilometres off the coast. Crews in yellow plastic protective suits fanned out along the beach on Saturday afternoon to start cleaning up the oil slick that began washing ashore late Friday night. Star Petroleum Refining Plc (SPRC), the operator of the undersea pipeline that leaked, said it was trying to minimise the amount of oil reaching the shoreline by using booms. An aerial surveillance aircraft is monitoring the slick on the sea. A 47-square-kilometre area was affected before the slick drifted to the shoreline late Friday, a satellite image from the government’s Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency showed. Marine scientist Thon Thamrongnawasawat said the oil slick was expected to continue to wash up on shore over the coming days due to stronger winds. People should “definitely avoid” swimming in affected areas, Mr Thon said in a Facebook post. For struggling resorts and tourism-dependent businesses at Mae Ramphueng beach and the surrounding area, the pollution and lack of swimmers could spell disaster for livelihoods. “There have been fewer customers because of Covid-19 and the lethargic economy and now the oil spill is like a nail in the coffin,” said Korn Thongpiijit, 45, who manages the Barnsabhaisabai Resort, which is situated right next to where authorities have set up a clean-up operation. A dozen ships are spraying dispersant chemicals and so far more than 80,000 litres have been used over the affected area, the Royal Thai Navy said on Saturday. SPRC said divers had found a failure in a flexible hose that formed part of the undersea equipment around a single-point mooring — a floating buoy used to offload oil from tankers. A pipeline leak in the same area in 2013 led to a major slick that coated a beach on neabry Koh Samet.

Industry Ministry will set up panel to investigate Rayong oil spill - An underwater pipeline owned by Star Petroleum Refining (SPRC) sprung a leak last Tuesday, releasing approximately 160,000 litres of oil into the sea before the leak could be plugged. On Saturday, Rayong’s Mae Ram Phueng Beach was declared a disaster zone after oil from the spill washed ashore. Satellite images showed the slick had spread across 47 square kilometres of sea. “The objective of the committee is to uncover the exact amount of oil that has seeped into the sea, the cause of the incident and to find solutions that will sustainably mitigate the environmental impact,” Suriya said. “The panel will consist of experts in related fields, representatives from local communities and relevant government agencies including the Marine Department, the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand, the Pollution Control Department and the Public Health Ministry.” Headed by the Industry Ministry, the panel will also supervise the “repair” of industrial estate facilities around Map Ta Phut port that were affected, and issue regulations to ensure the safety of workers. Suriya added that the ministry had tasked the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand, which is responsible for the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate, to coordinate with SPRC in providing appropriate compensation to affected communities and businesses in the industrial estate, which are mostly petroleum refiners. Earlier this week SRPC announced that it would establish a centre in association with Rayong authorities to accept complaints from people affected by the incident, and has promised to provide suitable compensation in both short and long terms. On Tuesday the Puenchumchon (Friends of Communities) Association announced it would train schoolchildren in Rayong to prepare for possible leakage of hazardous chemicals from the industrial estate. “The training will cover instructions on using safety equipment and an evacuation drill,” association manager Monchai Raksujjarit said.

Impact of Rayong oil spill will take more than a decade to overcome, say locals --Local fishermen are worried that the oil spill in Rayong will have a far-reaching impact on the marine ecosystem, especially since the area is still struggling from the aftermath of the 2013 disaster. Weerasak Kongnarong, president of the Rayong fishermen association, said earlier this week that the wind and waves are pushing the slick toward Koh Samet, and it will take at least 20 years for the damage to be mitigated. He said just using dispersant chemicals is not enough. He added that the association has also rejected the compensation offered because it’s very small and will not pay for the losses that will be incurred over the next decade or two. Siwatt Pongpiachan, director of NIDA Centre for Research & Development of Disaster Prevention & Management, said soil samples taken from Koh Samet two years after the 2013 spill showed the presence of carcinogen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon. Judging by this, he said, the spill on January 25 will affect the marine ecosystem for at least another 10 years. Phenchom Saetang, director of the Restoration Ecosystem Foundation, said apart from the damage caused in 2013, the huge amount of chemicals used to disperse the oil also caused insurmountable damage to marine life. She said residents should get together and demand that the government set up a panel that can investigate and come up with fair compensation. Sarinee Achavanuntakul, a co-founder of sustainable business accelerator Sal Forest, said the facts of the incident are not very clear. She said Star Petroleum Refining Company Limited (SPRC) and Chevron should release all the information and provide updates on the clean-up progress. Tara Buakamsri, country director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said citizen science is lacking in Thailand as people think the issue is not related to them. Meanwhile, Thanakrit Vorathanatchakul, a prosecutor with the Attorney General's Office, said in a Facebook post that the government can sue for damage, while fishermen, businesses and locals should come together and demand compensation. He added that locals can also take the company to court and suggested they do it as a group to keep the court fees low.

Explosion In Oil Storage Unit Near City Kills 3 Kids, Man - Times of India - Three kids were among four persons killed after a turpentine oil factory and storage unit inside a makeshift building on farmland exploded in Jamwaramgarh near Jaipur on Sunday morning.According to additional SP Dharmendra Kumar Yadav, the reports prima facie suggest that the building was used for storing turpentine oil. Jamwaramgarh SHO Jogendra Rathore have named the victims as follows, Ramesh alias Kalu Ram (25), Divya (2), Garima (3), and Ankush (5).Police said that three others were injured in the fire and were undergoing treatment in the hospital.‘Building was used to pack oil into small canisters’According to Jamwaramgarh deputy SP Shiv Kumar Bhardwaj, the incident took place at Dhoola Raoji village.“It appears that the building was used to pack oil from large drums into small packets,” he said. The building was made up of one room with a tin shed on farmland.Police said it belonged to one Shankar Lal Saini and the victims and injured were members of his family and relatives. All victims are residents of the same Dhoola Raoji village. Police described the building as a “factory”, but suspect that it was run without legal permit and safety norms. Shankar Lal Saini’s house is located nearby the building and kids had gathered to play inside it before the explosion took place, suspected to be due to some short circuit. Mahendra Pal Meena, a local resident and leader in Jamwaramgarh, said that the incident took place early in the morning when the kids were present inside the building.“It was a very tragic accident. We expect the victims' families will be given some compensation,” he said.

TasPorts managing spill after tug collision - TasPorts teams have pulled the final tug, Wilga, out of the contamination area after a collision at the Port of Devonport between commercial vessel Goliath and TasPorts tugs Campbell Cove and York Cove. The collision on Friday 28 January caused both TasPorts tugs, which were berthed and stationary at the time of the incident, to take on water, and they became submerged alongside the wharf at Berth 3 West. TasPorts Chief Operating Officer, Stephen Casey, said significant planning was integral in the successful extraction of the third tug from the containment area. “At the time of the incident, a third tug, Wilga, was alongside, narrowly avoiding the collision,” Mr Casey said. “In response to the incident, TasPorts teams mobilised quickly and deployed oil spill response equipment within 45 minutes of the collision, which captured the third vessel in the containment area.” Aligned with the Tasmanian Marine Oil and Chemical Spill Contingency Plan and the identified risk of oil spill from the submerged tugs, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took control of the site as the leading agency, with TasPorts continuing to work alongside. “A plan was developed under the guidance and direction of the EPA to enable the tug’s extraction, whilst minimising impact to the port and potential oil dispersal,” Mr Casey said. “The plan saw Wilga towed from the containment area as a ‘dead ship’ by tug Watagan from the Port of Burnie, minimising disruption to contaminated water. “Additional controls were also put in place for the towage operation by TasPorts Harbour Master to ensure the ongoing integrity of the oil spill containment.

Again, Nigeria Loses 6.5m Barrels of Oil to Force Majeure, Sabotage in December - There appears to be no end in sight to the financial and resource haemorrhage in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, with the country once more losing as much as 6.596 million barrels of oil in its December 2021 production. At an average of $75 per barrel that crude oil sold last month and an official exchange rate of N415/$1, Nigeria failed to take advantage of high international oil prices for the month, losing a whopping $487.5 million (about N202.3 billion). Latest figures from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) indicated that the losses were due to a combination of factors, including force majeure declared by a Joint Venture (JV) partner. Other reasons listed by the national oil company included community issues, maintenance work, sabotage, and technical matters, like leakages, pressure build-up, and faulty valves. But in the month that the company experienced the N202 billion loss, it remitted a meagre N20 billion of its projected N209 billion to the Federation Account. The amount was, however, about 100 per cent higher than the N10.5 billion it contributed in November 2021.NNPC’s presentation to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) indicated that Bonny took the greatest hit, losing 2.712 million barrels in the month due to the force majeure declared on the Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL). The Urha terminal followed with 1.468 million barrels loss, which curtailed production within the period and hobbled exports. The loss from that particular terminal exceeded the country’s production for the entire month. Odudu terminal also suffered the same fate due to decrease in production as a result of maintenance work on the Odudu and Ima terminal.Furthermore, Forcados shed 456,575 barrels of oil as a result of what NNPC described as community issues, which delayed reinstatement of the facility. Besides, Yoho dropped 420,000 barrels during the month under review, owing to a faulty valve; Ajapa lost 30,000 barrels due to shut down, while Aje terminal curtailed production within the period to the tune of 62,000 barrels. Similarly, Brass suffered sabotage around Tebidada and Ogbaibiri flow stations as well as valve issues, pressure build-up, high sand production, leak repairs, resulting in a total loss of roughly 198,200 barrels. Last week, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) lamented that with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production quota of 1.683 million bpd in January and 1.701 million bpd in February, Nigeria was only able to pump 1.396 million bpd currently. In all, it stated that this was leading to a loss of at least 115,926 million bpd on a daily basis, put at roughly $300 million monthly.“We are losing about 115, 926 barrels per day, so that literally translates to roughly $300 million and that’s a huge loss to a nation that actually requires these funds,”

Oil production vessel explodes off Nigerian coast — An oil production ship exploded off the coast of Nigeria in what may prove to be the nation’s second major environmental setback in three months. The Trinity Spirit, able to store about 2 million barrels of oil, blew up early Wednesday, Shebah Exploration & Production Co., which has the vessel on lease, said in a statement. The ship can process up to 22,000 barrels a day, according to the company’s website. While no fatalities have been confirmed, 10 crew were on board the vessel when it exploded, according to Shebah. The company said it is investigating the cause. The incident puts increasing focus on the oil industry’s environmental legacy in Nigeria. In November, a well operated by independent producer Aiteo Eastern E&P Co. blew, spewing oil and gas into the air and surrounding river for five weeks before it was capped. As international companies such as Shell Plc sell their remaining onshore and shallow water assets in the country, activists and local communities fear they will retreat without addressing widespread damage allegedly caused by decades of pumping oil. It’s unclear how much crude was being held on the Trinity Spirit. Data published by Nigeria’s state-owned energy company show no production from Shebah’s permit in 2020 or 2021, while the country’s oil regulator announced in mid-2019 it was revoking the license. The vessel was still on fire Thursday evening, Idris Musa, director general of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, said. “From the environment angle, we are putting in efforts to prevent damage beyond the current burning of the contents” of the ship, he said.

Fire extinguished from Nigerian oil tanker explosion amid ‘full-scale’ probe into disaster -- A massive blaze has been extinguished following the explosion of an oil production vessel off the coast of Nigeria.The vessel, which has the capacity for two million barrels of oil, burst into flames on Wednesday and belched thick, black smoke before it sank. The fate of the ten crew onboard remains unclear.The vessel, which had been operating in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, is owned by Shebah Exploration & Production Company Ltd (SEPCOL). SEPCOL is “prioritizing investigations with respect to their safety and security” and has notified all relevant authorities about the development, Ikemefuna Okafor, CEO of the oil company, told AP.The vessel has the ability to process up to 22,000 barrels of oil per day, according to Fleetmon. Nigerian government regulators have launched a “full-scale” probe into the explosion to determine how much oil the vessel was carrying, and who it belongs to.An industry source told Reuters that the vessel had about 50,000 barrels in storage.

New Fossil Fuel Project Would Turn Uganda Into Oil-Producing Country - A new project from French fossil fuel company TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) would turn Uganda into an oil-producing country for the first time. Total announced Tuesday that the companies would spend more than $10 billion to develop oil fields in Uganda and build a pipeline network both within the landlocked country and through Tanzania, which has a coastline.“In the name of the joint venture partners and… TotalEnergies, I declare the final investment decision for the Lake Albert development project,” TotalEnergies Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne said when he announced the deal, as Reuters reported.The project would exploit oil reserves underneath Lake Albert, which sits between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, AllAfrica reported. The reserves were first discovered in 2006, but have yet to be accessed because of a lack of infrastructure, as well as disagreements between the Ugandan government and oil companies. “This milestone puts us on the path to first oil in 2025,” Uganda’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu said in a speech now that the deal has finally been signed, as AllAfrica reported. Accessing the oil would mean building a 1,443-kilometer (approximately 897 mile) heated pipeline from Hoima, Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean, according to 350.org. The so-called East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) would be the largest heated crude-oil pipeline in the world and is vehemently opposed by climate activists. “The future of East Africa relies on building sustainable, diversified and inclusive economies – not by letting huge multinational corporations like Total extract resources and keep the profit,” 350Africa.org regional director Landry Ninteretse said in a statement reported by 350.org. “The impacts of building the East Africa Oil Pipeline will be devastating for our communities, for wildlife and for the planet.”

TotalEnergies and Chevron to Leave Critical Gas Field in Myanmar - TotalEnergies, the French oil giant, and Chevron said Friday that they would begin taking steps to withdraw from an offshore natural gas field in Myanmar that is a critical source of energy for both the host country and neighboring Thailand. TotalEnergies said it was responding to a deterioration of the human rights situation and the “rule of law” in Myanmar since the military coup in February. The situation had reached a point, the company said, where it could no longer “make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country.” Since the coup, the military regime has waged a brutal crackdown on protests. Soldiers and the police have killed at least 1,488 civilians, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Chevron and TotalEnergies argued in the past that their presence was beneficial to the people of Myanmar and that shutting off the flow of gas would increase hardship. Chevron says the gas from the Yadana field generates electric power for roughly half the population of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, as well as supplying Thailand. “Effectively turning off the power to half of Yangon’s homes, schools and hospitals — in the middle of a state of emergency and a pandemic — risks creating even more hardship,” Chevron said in a briefing note published in May on the company’s website. Last year, Chevron waged a vigorous lobbying campaign in Washington to prevent the White House from imposing sanctions in Myanmar that could disrupt the gas operations at the Yadana field and worsen the crisis for people who rely on the power. The companies, though, have evidently decided that they have no choice but to yield to pressure from human rights groups and others to prepare to abandon a project that provides financial sustenance for Myanmar’s military.

China’s 2022 crude imports seen rebounding on new refineries, inventory refill - China’s crude oil imports could rebound by 6-7% this year, reversing 2021’s rare decline as buyers step up purchases for new refining units and to replenish low inventories, analysts and oil company officials said. Robust demand from China, which accounts for a tenth of the global crude trade, would help underpin global oil prices, keeping supplies tight amid forecasts for a jump in crude prices to $100 a barrel or more. Demand recovery, however, is not expected until the second half of the year as China continues to combat COVID-19 outbreaks and limit production by smaller refiners. For 2022, crude oil imports into China look set to grow by 600,000-700,000 barrels per day (bpd), offsetting last year’s 590,000 bpd fall to match or beat 2020’s record volume of 10.85 million bpd, analysts at FGE, Rystad Energy and Energy Aspects told Reuters. Brent and West Texas Intermediate futures LCOc1, CLc1 are already at 7-year highs near $90 a barrel as investors look beyond the demand hit from the Omicron variant. “We expect China’s refinery runs to grow by 500,000 bpd, mainly driven by new refinery capacity coming online in 2022 and the recovery in transport and aviation fuels picking up the pace in the second half of the year,” Imports are likely to make a slow start initially as Beijing’s zero-tolerance virus control measures keep a lid on fuel demand, while reduced import quotas and narrowing refining margins will limit production by independent refiners. Refinitiv data showed January arrivals totalled 41.13 million tonnes (9.69 million bpd), below 44.6 million tonnes in January 2021 and 46.1 million tonnes two years ago. A possible release of state petroleum reserves (SPR) in coming weeks will also dampen national oil companies’ purchases, analysts said.

EIA forecasts OPEC production will grow in 2022 despite recent production outages in Libya - In our January Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we forecast that OPEC petroleum production will increase by nearly 2.7 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2022, the largest year-over-year increase in OPEC production since 2004. This increase in our forecast of crude oil production is largely based on our interpretation of the January 2022 OPEC+ meeting, when participants reaffirmed their decision to continue to increase output by 0.4 million b/d each month until all of the production cuts are reversed. We expect that recent production disruptions in Libya will be more than offset by production increases from other OPEC members. Libya’s crude oil production averaged nearly 1.2 million b/d during 2021. In late December 2021, armed militants shut in an estimated 370,000 b/d from the four key oil fields in the southwestern part of the country. We estimate that 0.4 million b/d of crude oil production went offline in Libya in late December 2021. This unplanned outage contributed to the increase in the Brent crude oil spot price to $90 per barrel (b), as of January 19, 2022, which was $16/b more than the December average. This January daily high was the first time the Brent crude oil price had reached $90/b since October 2014. Heightened political risk following the delay in Libya’s presidential and parliamentary elections (which were scheduled for December 24, 2021) continues to create uncertainty. In addition, ongoing maintenance on the country’s aging infrastructure also continues to limit oil production in Libya. As a result of this disruption in Libya, we estimate that unplanned outages in OPEC countries increased to 2.2 million b/d in December 2021. Our forecast assumes that the sanctions that are constraining petroleum exports from Iran and Venezuela will remain in place through the end of 2023. Despite the recent increase in unplanned outages, we estimate that OPEC members still have more surplus production capacity than they have had on average in the past. OPEC’s surplus crude oil production capacity increased to nearly 9 million b/d in mid-2020 as the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic greatly reduced demand, causing producers to lower output. OPEC’s surplus capacity has fallen since then and most recently averaged 4.6 million b/d in December 2021. We forecast OPEC crude oil production will increase by 2.5 million b/d to an average of 28.8 million b/d in 2022. Source: EIA

OPEC+ Fails To Reach Production Targets In January -OPEC has again failed to meet its own production targets again in January as the group lifted production only 210,000 additional barrels per day for the month. Looking at this through a monthly lens, the group increased production by just 210,000 bpd instead of the 400,000 bpd increased production that the alliance agreed to—creating a January shortfall of 190,000 barrels per day. But the real shortfall is much larger. Looking back at the base amounts that OPEC is working with, and factoring in each month’s planned increased production, January production cuts from OPEC show a much larger shortfall. OPEC’s actual January production cuts still amounted to 2.803 million barrels per day short of the base levels when OPEC agreed to the cuts. This compares to the pledged cut for January of 2.129 million bpd. This equates to an extra 674,000 bpd in cuts for January than what OPEC has agreed to. In terms of actual production, OPEC produced 27.8 million bpd in December, lifting this to 28.01 million bpd in January. Noteworthy increases came from Saudi Arabia (+100,000 bpd), Nigeria (+50,000 bpd), and the UAE and Kuwait (+40,000 bpd each). These production gains were partially offset by decreased output by Iraq (-30,000 bpd) and Libya (-40,000 bpd). If we start looking at the beginning of the cuts, there are only two OPEC members that are producing above their January target, and that’s Algeria and Gabon. The largest under producers, in terms of percentages—or rather those missing their ramp-up targets more than anyone else—include Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Nigeria. Of all the OPEC members, it is Saudi Arabia, however, that has the most in terms of numbers of barrels to add back into the market as part of the future production ramp up. According to Reuters figures, Saudi Arabia still has 878,000 bpd to add back into the market.

To Ease Supply Pressures, OPEC-Plus Targets Further Crude Production Increase -Citing robust demand and fading pandemic worries, an alliance of major oil producing countries agreed on Wednesday to extend production increases into March. Policymakers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), headed by Saudi Arabia, and a Russia-led group of allies known as OPEC-plus, said they aim to boost output by 400,000 b/d next month. The effort would continue a targeted rate of monthly supply increases the cartel began in August to gradually unwind production cuts of nearly 10 million b/d made in April 2020 amid the initial demand destruction imposed by the coronavirus. Analysts noted OPEC’s and others’ forecasts for robust demand through 2022 as the Omicron variant of the virus, while highly contagious, appears less lethal than earlier strains. Most major economies, including the United States, have resisted lockdowns amid Omicron’s spread and instead focused on vaccine campaigns, allowing travel to further rebound and demand for fuel to climb. Prices reflect the demand backdrop. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded above $90/bbl at its height on Wednesday, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate oil approached $89 early in the day – both near multi-year highs. Rystad Energy analyst Bjørnar Tonhaugen said American producers and others outside of OPEC-plus also are likely to raise output this year to meet demand and capitalize on favorable prices. “Prices are far-far above breakeven…from anywhere from the U.S. shale patch to offshore, not to mention onshore fields in the Middle East,” Tonhaugen said. “From an operator’s economical perspective, investments and supply should see a positive jolt some months down the line this year and into the next.” All of that noted, U.S. producers are under relentless pressure from Wall Street to be cautious about substantial oil output increases. Investors want to see more investment in renewable fuels. Additionally, Tonhaugen said, several members of OPEC-plus are struggling to keep pace with the cartel’s targeted increases, including war-torn Libya and both Nigeria and Angola, which have struggled with deteriorating infrastructure. There also “is anxiety about damage to production capacity from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait and Russia, from too low investments during the pandemic and before,” Tonhaugen said. “Looking back, we find that OPEC-plus has failed to live up to its own pledge of increasing production according to plan,” trailing its target last month and over several months in 2021.OPEC researchers in January predicted global demand would rise by 4.15 million b/d and that consumption would exceed 100 million b/d in the third quarter, returning demand to pre-pandemic levels.

Oil rises, hovers near 7-year highs on supply fears, political risks -- Oil rose 1% on Monday, hovering near 7-year highs hit in the previous session, amid concerns over tight supply as well as geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Brent crude rose 92 cents, or 1.0%, to $90.95 a barrel at 0051 GMT, after adding 69 cents on Friday. The front-month contract for March delivery expires later in the day. The most-active Brent contract, for April delivery, was trading at $89.69, up $1.17 or 1.3%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 99 cents, or 1.1%, to $87.81 a barrel, having gained 21 cents on Friday. Both benchmarks recorded their highest since October 2014 on Friday, $91.70 and $88.84, respectively, and a sixth straight weekly gain. "Underlying anxiety about global supply shortages, coupled with ongoing geopolitical risks, have caused the market to start the week on a strong note," said Toshitaka Tazawa, an analyst at Fujitomi Securities Co Ltd. r "With an expectation that OPEC+ will keep the existing policy of gradual increase of production, oil prices will likely stay on a bullish sentiment this week," he said, predicting Brent to remain above $90 a barrel and WTI to head toward $90. Major producers in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies led by Russia, collectively known as OPEC+, have raised their output target each month since August by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) as they unwind record production cuts made in 2020. But they have failed to meet their production targets as some members have struggled with capacity constraints.

More Gains For Crude As Demand Skyrockets, $100 Oil Forecast Again - The latest sign of tightening crude inventories – oil held on tankers falling by over 20 percent last week – was one of several factors that caused prices on Monday to once again climb, with Brent settling above $91 per barrel and posting a 17 percent monthly gain. Additionally, a damaged oil pipeline in Equador caused further supply worries, and snowstorms in eastern U.S. boosted demand for fuels. West Texas Intermediate rose $1.33 to settle at $88.15 per barrel, while Brent for March settlement gained $1.18 to $91.21 per barrel (the more active April contract rose 74 cents to $89.26). It was also reported on Monday that profits from converting oil to gasoline in the U.S. are at the highest level for this time of the year since 2013, while in Europe oil's premium to crude is at its highest on a seasonal basis in at least three years. Paul Wallace, analyst at Bloomberg News, said that while geopolitical tensions and other factors play significant roles in oil's bullish performance, "The issue of dwindling spare capacity is really what's at play here, it's something that's really come to the front of traders' minds." He added that if tensions between Russia and Ukraine were to ease it would certainly cause prices to abate, but whether it would be by $5 or $10 per barrel he could not say. Monday also saw the increasingly familiar spectacle of various analysts predicting $100 oil in the near future, one being Stephen Schork, principal at The Schork Group: he pegged the chances at 30 percent. But the predictions were not altogether upbeat: Mohammed Ali Yasin, chief strategy officer from Al Dhabi Capital, reminded Bloomberg television that oil in the three digits could slow global recovery. As for the meeting this Wednesday of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, it is widely expected that they will maintain their policy of raising their output by 400,000 barrels per day per month, and this caused Louise Dickson, senior oil markets analyst at Rystad Energy, to remark that the "month-to-month supply increases of 400,000 bpd are either too immaterial for the market to appreciate and more importantly, not being completely fulfilled by the group. "The only short-term solution for balancing the supply-short oil market will therefore need to come from OPEC+, and steered by Saudi Arabia, the producer with the largest spare capacity."

Oil Records Strongest January in Over Thirty Years - Robust and persistent demand, coupled with stagnant supply, has crude off to a raging start in 2022. Oil had its biggest January gain in at least 30 years as robust demand outpaced fresh supply. The global benchmark settled above $91 a barrel, posting a 17% gain this month. The combination of booming demand, scratchy supply and dwindling stockpiles has helped crude soar this month, with top banks and oil companies saying prices may soon pass $100 a barrel. Crude’s rally is really “a supply story,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “Crude is flying in the face of a strong U.S. dollar and a weak global stock market. It comes down to its own fundamentals more than anything else.” Traders were greeted Monday with a familiar set of drivers, from the weather to stockpiles. Low temperatures in the U.S. have been boosting demand for fuels, as Boston reported a daily snow record over the weekend and New York’s Central Park received more than 8 inches (20 centimeters.) An oil pipeline in Ecuador was damaged by a rock slide, potentially endangering supply. Meanwhile, oil held on tankers fell by more than 20% last week, the latest sign of ebbing inventories. While the advance has gained extra support as Russia amasses troops near Ukraine, it also has been compounded by the inability of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies to meet planned supply output increases. The OPEC+ alliance gathers Wednesday to assess the market. As economies continue to recover from the pandemic, oil product markets are roaring. Refiners across the globe are making robust profits from producing gasoline, with the demand outlook signaling continuing strength. WTI for March delivery rose $1.33 to settle at $88.15 a barrel in New York. Brent for March settlement gained $1.18 to $91.21 a barrel. The more active April contract rose 74 cents to $89.26. Global oil markets are in backwardation, a bullish pattern in which near-term contracts command a premium to those further out.

Oil Futures Soften After Expiries - In early trading on the first day of February, oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange posted mild losses as investors monitor developments leading up to Wednesday's OPEC+ policy meeting for additional clues on the alliance's plans to release more supplies into a tightening oil market, while the upturn in manufacturing activity across European Union this month lent limited support. Eurozone's economic data released overnight showed manufacturing activity across the 19-nation bloc regained upward momentum at the beginning of 2022, led by gains in production, new orders, and employment. The improvement came on the back of tentative signs that supply chain issues are starting to abate, while inflation pressures eased slightly. The headline number for Eurozone's final manufacturing Purchaser Manager's Index improved to 58.7 this month -- the highest since August 2021, and 0.7% higher compared with December reading. Data split by Eurozone countries revealed Austria had the strongest-growing manufacturing sector in January, while faster expansions were also seen in the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland. Germany, the European Union's largest economy, recorded an improvement of 4.4 points from an 18-month low 49.9, signaling solid growth in business activity across the private sector after a slowdown at the end of 2021. Also on Tuesday, oil traders are monitoring the developments around OPEC+ monthly meeting, with expectations for the 23-nation producer alliance to raise joint supplies by 400,000 bpd next month. In December, OPEC+ added just 253,000 bpd to its combined production compared with an agreed to quota for a 400,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) increase, according to data from the International Energy Agency. The document from OPEC+ technical panel seen by Reuters indicates that total production by OPEC+ countries was 824,000 bpd lower than the required production in December 2021, with overall compliance for the group climbing to 122%. OPEC's persistent underproduction fuels speculation about the cartel's ability to ramp up output in coming months. IEA estimates that OPEC's spare capacity could fall by half to just 2.6 million bpd in the second half of the year. Near 7:30 a.m. ET, the front-month West Texas Intermediate futures declined $0.46 to $87.67 per barrel (bbl), with international benchmark Brent crude for April delivery falling $0.51 to $88.73 bbl. NYMEX March RBOB futures dropped 1.61 cents to $2.5383 gallon and March ULSD futures slumped 2.45 cents to near $2.6918 gallon.

Oil little changed despite talk of possible OPEC+ supply boost (Reuters) -Oil prices ended little changed on Tuesday, as geopolitical tensions and tight global supplies supported the market even as some speculated that OPEC+ might boost supplies more than expected. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, together known as OPEC+, has been expected to decide at a monthly meeting on Wednesday to keep gradually increasing production. But Goldman Sachs said there was a chance the oil market’s rally would prompt a faster ramp-up. On Friday, crude benchmarks hit their highest prices since October 2014, with Brent touching $91.70 and U.S. crude hitting $88.84. They gained about 17% in January on a supply shortage, political tensions in the Middle East and between Russia and the West over Ukraine. Still, sources said an OPEC+ technical panel meeting on Tuesday did not discuss a hike of more than the expected 40,000 barrels per day from March. OPEC undershot its promised output boost in January, a Reuters survey found, and other analysts expected the rally to persist. [OPEC/O] “The Saudis will likely avoid any major adjustments as they have proven adept in recent years at treading a fine line in manoeuvring global pricing in their preferred direction,” Brent crude settled down 10 cents, or 0.1%, at $$89.16 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 5 cents to $88.20. “The oil market is currently unreservedly bullish,” “It is international tension, the perception of tight supply and the cold winter that are the most important factors behind the strength.” Prices were under some pressure from expectations that this week’s U.S. supply reports will show an increase in crude stockpiles. Analysts expect stocks to have risen by 1.8 million barrels. Rising differentials in the physical crude market imply concern about tight supply, Varga said. One of the North Sea crudes that underpins Brent, Ekofisk, was bid on Monday at its highest in more than a decade.

WTI extends losses as US gasoline demand slips as inventory builds - - As we detailed earlier, oil prices have had a wild ride overnight and are now trading back below levels when the API inventory data hit last night (showing a surprise crude draw and another big gasoline build). The OPEC+ meeting appeared to go without any controversy, agreeing to the 40K b/d production hike as planned, which sent oil prices spiking notably (WTI almost $90)......but that has all been reversed now with some desks claiming Iran headlines (U.S. should ease its sanctions on Iran in order to help tightly supplied markets and ease prices, Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji says in comments to the state-run Shana news agency) may have been a driver of the reversal. More likely is a lack of liquidity as all markets are fading at the same time. API

• Crude -1.645mm (+1.833mm exp)
• Cushing -1.031mm
• Gasoline +5.816mm
• Distillates -2.508mm

DOE

• Crude -1.05mm (+1.833mm exp)
• Cushing -1.17mm
• Gasoline +2.12mm
• Distillates -2.41mm

The official data confirmed API's - though to a lesser extent - with Crude stocks drawing down and Gasoline inventories rising for the 5th straight month... Total crude stockpiles, including commercial inventories and crude held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, fell by more than 2.9 million barrels in the week to Jan. 28. On top of the 1 million barrel draw in commercial crude, another 1.87 million barrels were drawn out of the SPR. Source of Graphs: Bloomberg Implied U.S. gasoline demand slipped week-on-week but rose for the first time since late December on a four-week rolling basis. Gasoline inventories continued to build, mostly in the east coast, offsetting a dip in the U.S. Gulf Coast. US crude production continues to hover at 2 month lows...

WTI Lower Despite Crude Stock Draw; Output Falls to 10-Week Low -- Oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange weakened in late-morning trade Wednesday, with the U.S. crude benchmark accelerating losses following the midmorning inventory report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The report showed commercial crude oil stockpiles unexpectedly fell during the final week of January, even as refiners sharply reduced run rates amid softer demand for motor gasoline while domestic production extended lower for the second consecutive week Near 11:30 a.m. EST, front-month West Texas Intermediate futures dropped $0.80 barrel (bbl) to $87.29 bbl. NYMEX March RBOB futures held a 0.40 cent gain at $2.5797 gallon, with the front-month ULSD futures turned lower to trade near $2.7362 gallon, down 0.57 cent. U.S. commercial crude oil inventories unexpectedly decreased by 1 million bbl from the previous week to 415.1 million bbl and are now about 9% below the five-year average. Analysts expected crude stockpiles would rise by 1.1 million bbl from the prior week. Oil stored at the Cushing, Oklahoma, hub, the delivery point for the WTI contract, fell 1.2 million bbl from the previous week to 30.5 million bbl, the EIA said in its weekly report. U.S. crude oil production, meanwhile, fell by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the previous week to the lowest weekly rate since mid-November at 11.5 million bpd. Refiner run rate dropped 1% to 86.7% compared with analyst expectations for a 0.1% decrease. For the gasoline complex, EIA's inventory report was bearish, showing stockpiles having increased 2.1 million bbl from the previous week to 250 million bbl, more than analyst expectations for inventories to have increased by 1.7 million bbl. Demand for motor gasoline reversed lower by 279,000 bpd to 8.226 million bpd, down 539,000 bpd or 6.2% against the five-year average. Demand for middle distillates remained resilient in the final week of January, holding near 4.669 million bpd -- 515,000 bpd or 12.4% above the five-year average. Distillate stocks were drawn down for the third straight week, down 2.4 million bbl to 122.7 million bbl, and are now about 19% below the five-year average. Analysts estimated distillates inventories would fall by 1.6 million bbl from the previous week. Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 21.6 million bpd, up 11.8% from the same period last year. Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.2 million bpd, up 5.2% from the same period last year. Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 4.4 million bpd over the past four weeks, up 11.3% from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was up 29% compared with the same four-week period last year at 1.466 million bpd.

Oil little changed after draw in U.S. stocks, eyes on OPEC+ decision - Oil prices rose on Wednesday towards last week's seven-year highs after data showing a fall in U.S. crude stocks underlined solid demand, but investors remained cautious ahead of an OPEC+ meeting due later in the day. Brent crude climbed 36 cents, or 0.4%, to $89.52 a barrel, before pulling back. The contract last traded 10 cents lower at $89.06 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 12 cents, or 0.14%, at $88.32 a barrel, having gained 5 cents the previous day. Tight global supplies and geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have boosted oil prices by more than 15% so far this year. On Friday, crude benchmarks hit their highest prices since October 2014, with Brent touching $91.70 and U.S. crude hitting $88.84. "A drop in U.S. crude inventories provided support, though an increase of gasoline stocks partially offset bullish sentiment," said Satoru Yoshida, a commodity analyst with Rakuten Securities. "OPEC+ is likely to maintain its policy unchanged, which means a supply shortage and an upward trend in oil prices will continue," he said. U.S. crude stocks fell by 1.6 million barrels for the week ended Jan. 28, against analysts' estimate of an increase of 1.5 million barrels, according to market sources citing American Petroleum Institute figures on Tuesday. But gasoline inventories rose by 5.8 million barrels, above analysts' expectations for a 1.6 million build. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, together known as OPEC+, will likely stick to existing policies of moderate output increases on Wednesday, five sources from the producers' group said, even as it expects demand to rise to new peaks this year and as oil prices trade near their seven-year highs. But Goldman Sachs said there was a chance the oil market's rally would prompt a faster ramp-up. Sources said an OPEC+ technical panel meeting on Tuesday did not discuss a hike of more than the expected 40,000 barrels per day from March. Tensions between Russia and the West also underpinned crude prices. Russia, the world's second-largest oil producer, and the West have been at loggerheads over Ukraine, fanning fears that energy supplies to Europe could be disrupted. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West of deliberately creating a scenario designed to lure it into war and ignoring Russia's security concerns over Ukraine.

OPEC+ agrees on another gradual oil-output hike for March— OPEC and its allies agreed to make another modest output increase in March, sticking to their plan even as the failure of several members to deliver the scheduled monthly supply hikes stokes a rally in crude prices. After a brief meeting on Wednesday, the 23-nation coalition rubber-stamped the nominal revival of 400,000 barrels a day for March, according to a statement posted on its website. The alliance has has made identical pledges in previous months, but a Bloomberg survey showed that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries barely managed to increase supplies in January due to issues ranging from under-investment to militia unrest. Oil prices soared to a seven-year high above $90 a barrel last month, stirring expectations of a return to triple-digits, as supplies from OPEC+ and elsewhere failed to keep up with the vigorous recovery in demand from the pandemic. The rally is whipping up a wave of inflation that’s frustrating central banks and inflicting a cost-of-living crisis on millions. Widespread difficulties in restoring supplies increasingly place the burden on the group’s Gulf nations: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait. That’s leaving traders anxious over the spare capacity available to cover any disruptions, whether deeper losses in Libya or another attack like last month’s drone strike in Abu Dhabi. “If prices continue their precipitous rise, we see a path to Saudi Arabia reprising the regulator role and ramping up output,” said Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC Capital Markets. “Of course the question is whether this would require a White House call.” West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 1.2% to $89.25 a barrel as of 8:39 a.m. in New York. OPEC+ will meet again on March 2. OPEC’s 13 members increased production by only 50,000 barrels a day in January as slight gains across the group were wiped out by a 140,000 barrel-a-day decline in Libya, according to the Bloomberg survey. The North African nation was stricken with a blockade of its western fields by militias, forcing the shutdown of its biggest reservoir, Sharara. The 10 OPEC nations engaged in managing supplies increased by 160,000 barrels a day, about two-thirds of their targeted amount. One bright spot was Nigeria, where production rose by 100,000 barrels a day as the key Forcados export system returned to normal operating levels.

OPEC+ agrees on March output rise amid oil price rally, defying pressure from U.S., India - A group of some of the world's most powerful oil producers agreed on Wednesday to a further planned increase in output, even as crude prices trade near record levels amid geopolitical tensions. OPEC and non-OPEC partners, an influential energy alliance known as OPEC+, swiftly decided to green-light the return of 400,000 barrels per day for March. The move, widely expected by energy analysts, marks a continuation of the group's strategy to gradually reopen the taps. Led by OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC leader Russia, the energy alliance is in the process of unwinding record supply cuts of roughly 10 million barrels per day. The historic production cut was put in place in April 2020 to help the energy market recover after the coronavirus pandemic cratered demand for crude. OPEC+ has faced pressure from top consumers such as the U.S. and India to pump more to reduce prices and aid the economic recovery. The group has resisted calls for speedier increases despite higher oil prices. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has previously said the broader group does not wish to boost production levels too quickly as it remains wary of potential changes to demand.

WTI Tops $89 As OPEC+ Agrees To 400k B/D Production Increase - Yet another potential event risk moment appears to have been averted as the OPEC+ JMMC is recommending the group proceeds with the planned 400,000 barrel a day increase. WTI has rallied above $89 on the news... Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Abdulaziz bin Salman again reiterated OPEC+ cautious approach when it comes to their output policy. “Prudence as I’ve been preaching about is what saved us in OPEC+,” he said just a few hours ahead of the meeting today at a conference in Riyadh. “I belong to an experience that pushed me to be trying to be a prudent person, so prudence dictates that you have a bit of think here and a bit of think there, and make sure that you see in your radar and in your screen and this screen should be 360 and don’t allow yourself the liberty of cherry picking because you don’t know who will evolve.” Notably, OPEC’s cautious pace of supply increases of course runs counter to the prevailing view in Wall Street and the trading world of a tight global market. The group’s conservatism is a reflection of its outlook for the year, which continues to project surpluses every month... The full OPEC+ meeting will almost certainly rubber stamp the decision as the bigger hike that some observers considered hasn’t materialized... and Biden's influence on the cartel is exposed as negligible once again.

Oil prices retract after weak US employment data -- Oil prices experienced a slight fall on Thursday following data showing an unexpected drop in employment in the US and on signals that Iran will return to the oil market. International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $89.12 per barrel at 0600 GMT with a 0.39% gain after closing the previous session at $89.47 a barrel. American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at $87.83 per barrel at the same time for a 0.49% fall after ending the previous session at $88.26 a barrel. Companies cut 301,000 jobs in January in the US, against the expectation of the addition of 200,000 positions, payroll processing firm ADP said on Wednesday, signaling a slower economic rebound and pressuring oil prices. The Iranian Minister of Petroleum Javad Owji on Wednesday said the country was ready to return to the oil market as quickly as possible, which also drove prices down. Nonetheless, the price fall is expected to be limited, with the latest decision of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to hold the output increase at 400,000 barrels per day. Twenty-three members of the world's biggest oil producers, the OPEC group and allies, known as OPEC+, agreed at their meeting on Wednesday to extend the current plan of raising output by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) through March. US commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, decreased by 1 million barrels last week to 415.1 million barrels, US Energy Information Administration announced on Wednesday. The drop in oil inventories came against expectations of an increase of 1.525 million barrels.

WTI Tops $90 on Weather, USD Weakness Ahead of Jobs Report - Oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange reversed sharply higher in afternoon trade Thursday, lifting West Texas Intermediate above $90 per barrel (bbl). The moves came amid a one-two punch of a rapidly weakening U.S. dollar index ahead of the release of U.S. employment report for January that could show job losses, and a potential for wellhead freeze-offs in Texas and Oklahoma oilfields as a potent winter storm lays siege on a large swath of the country from northeastern Texas, through the Midwest to states in the Northeast. DTN Weather forecasts negative temperature anomalies for several cities along the storm's 2,000-mile path through this weekend and into early next week, including subfreezing temperatures in Dallas-Fort Worth area and Tulsa, Oklahoma, with readings below freezing seen in Houston from Thursday through Saturday. Prolonged subfreezing temperatures could lead to wellhead freeze-offs, frozen pipes, and equipment failures, as numerous pipelines in Texas run aboveground and equipment is largely unwinterized. The region's cold anomaly resurrected memories of Winter Storm Uri a year ago, when more than 1.3 million bbl in daily oil output was shut-in. As of Thursday afternoon, the Texas power grid was meeting the state's electricity demand, according to the Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state officials managing Texas's emergency response to the winter response. In financial markets, U.S. dollar index slumped more than 0.5% against a basket of foreign currencies to finish the session at two-week 95.379, as currency traders' position ahead of January's nonfarm employment report set for release at 8:30 a.m. EST on Friday. The median consensus calls for roughly 200,000 jobs to have been added last month, but not all economists are so optimistic. Investment bank Goldman Sachs expects Friday's report to show a decline of 250,000 jobs, with the wide range of expectations including estimates that as many as 400,000 job losses occurred last month. U.S. jobless claims leading up to the report do not paint a rosy picture. Weekly applications for unemployment benefits rose for the first two weeks of January before reversing this trend around the midmonth -- roughly around the time when the Bureau of Labor Statistic stops its data collection. On Wednesday, payroll provider Automatic Data Processing indicated private businesses shed 301,000 jobs last month -- the biggest drop since the start of the pandemic. On the session, March WTI futures added $2.01 to settle at $90.27, and international benchmark Brent crude for April delivery advanced $1.64 for a $91.11 per bbl settlement. NYMEX March RBOB futures rallied 3.57 cents to $2.6427 gallon, and March ULSD futures surged more than 7 cents to $2.8395 per gallon.

Oil hits fresh seven-year highs as rally extends to a 7th week - (Reuters) – Oil prices surged to fresh seven-year highs on Friday, extending their rally into a seventh week on ongoing worries about supply disruptions fueled by frigid U.S. weather and ongoing political turmoil among major world producers. Brent crude rose $2.16, or 2.4%, to settle at $93.27 a barrel having earlier touched its highest since October 2014 at $93.70. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude ended $2.04, or 2.3%, higher at $92.31 a barrel after trading as high as $93.17, its highest since September 2014. Brent ended the week 3.6% higher, while WTI posted a 6.3% rise in their longest rally since October. The market’s surge accelerated in the last two days as buyers piled into crude contracts due to expectations that world suppliers will continue to struggle to meet demand. U.S. jobs figures were surprisingly strong in January, despite the presence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Crude prices, which have already rallied about 20% so far this year, are likely to surpass $100 per barrel due to strong global demand, market strategists said this week. Some, however, see risks to the rally. Citi Research said it expects the oil market to flip into surplus as soon as the next quarter, putting the brakes on the rally. “A spike towards $100 crude should not be ruled out in the short run, but downside risks are plentiful, including Omicron setbacks on demand, economic growth concerns and financial market corrections as the central banks fight inflation,” said Bjørnar Tonhaugen, Rystad Energy’s head of oil markets. Winter storms bringing icy conditions in the United States, particularly in Texas, also fueled supply fears as extreme cold could cause production to shut temporarily, similar to what happened in the state a year ago. Tight oil supplies pushed the six-month market structure for WTI into steep backwardation of $9.06 a barrel on Friday, its widest since September 2013. Backwardation exists when contracts for near-term delivery are priced higher than those for later months – and is reflective of near-term demand that encourages traders to release oil from storage to sell it promptly. The number of U.S. oil rigs, an early indicator of future output, rose two to 497 this week, its highest since April 2020, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co said. [RIG/U] Even though the oil rig count has climbed for a record 17 months in a row, the weekly increases have mostly been in single digits and production is still far from pre-pandemic record highs as many companies focus more on returning money to investors rather than boosting output. Oil markets have also gained support from geopolitical risks as major oil producer Russia has amassed thousands of troops on Ukraine’s border, and is accusing the United States and its allies of fanning tensions.

U.S. oil benchmark posts highest finish since September 2014 - Oil futures rallied on Friday to tally a seventh straight weekly rise, with the U.S. benchmark marking its highest finish since September 2014, as a harsh winter storm raged in the U.S., piling onto myriad supply worries. "The latest upswing was triggered by a cold snap in Texas, which is fueling concerns about production outages in the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. shale play. A year ago, a period of extreme cold weather had caused massive disruptions to oil production there," More heavy precipitation and ice was expected to hit the eastern portion of the country Friday. West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery climbed by $2.04, or 2.3%, to settle at $92.31 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the highest finish for a front-month contract since Sept. 29, 2014, according to Dow Jones market Data. For the week, prices traded 6.3% higher. April Brent crude , the global benchmark, gained $2.16, or 2.4%, to $93.27 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange, marking the highest settlement since Oct. 2, 2014. Prices saw a weekly rise of 5.4%. "Oil prices are rising more than fundamentals suggest," "Stocks are starting to build (even outside of China), refiners are heading towards maintenance season, and supply is growing at record rates," supported in large part by U.S. shale growth resuming," she said. Still, there are soaring risks to supply, including the Russia-Ukraine crisis, OPEC+ capacity constraints, and financial interest in oil is strong, said Kim. Also "looming over markets is an Iran nuclear deal that could lift some pressure, or exacerbate it." On Wednesday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies stuck with an initiative to boost production by another 400,000 barrels a day in March. "The market had been relying on OPEC+ to gradually raise volumes, but had overestimated their ability to actually do so," OPEC member states have been unable to produce oil at their assigned quota levels -- worsening the supply-demand deficit, he said. Read:Why OPEC+ can't hit its oil production targets--and what it could do about it "As a result, the market has found itself stretched in all directions: multiyear low inventories among OECD countries, coupled with razor thin spare capacity anywhere ---- and no signs of real investments in oil and gas projects," said Raj. "Then you add geopolitical tensions to the mix, and you see why oil is headed to $100," he said. Still, the path to $100 oil would likely require a "geopolitical triggering event." "The only spare oil production capacity is now at the hands of the three usual suspects -- Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Raj said. "Now that spare capacity is so little, even the slightest tension can trigger spikes in oil prices." In other energy trading, March gasoline rose about 1.4% to $2.679 a gallon -- ending 5.5% higher for the week, while March heating oil added nearly 1.3% to $2.875 a gallon, for a weekly rise of 6%. March natural-gas futures fell 6.5% to $4.572 per million British thermal units, ending 1.4% lower for the week.

US & Iran Close To Reaching Nuclear Deal In Vienna, Biden Officials Signal - Biden administration officials are signaling that the US and Iran are close to reaching an agreement to revive the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, The New York Times reported on Monday. The JCPOA negotiations that have been ongoing in Vienna are currently on pause as diplomats have returned to their capitals for consultations. Envoys on all sides have signaled the talks are entering their final stage and that now "political decisions" need to be made. Even though the Biden administration has maintained a hardline stance towards Iran, US officials are putting the responsibility to revive the JCPOA on Iranian leadership. A senior State Department official told reporters on Monday that if Iran is willing to make the necessary "decisions" quickly, the US can "see a path to a deal."The official wouldn’t detail what the major sticking points are between the US and Iran. An Iranian official said Monday that there are still "significant issues" regarding the removal of sanctions to resolve. Iran is also seeking guarantees that the US won’t withdraw from the deal again.

U.S. Conducts 'Successful' Raid on ISIS in Syria, Civilians Die in Battle - The U.S. military has conducted a nighttime raid against the head of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Syria's insurgent-held northwestern province of Idlib. While no U.S. casualties were reported, a number of civilians died as well as a result of what President Joe Biden's administration has said was a suicide blast by the ISIS leader. "U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria," Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a statement early Thursday, confirming the news. "The mission was successful. There were no U.S. casualties. More information will be provided as it becomes available." Hours later, President Joe Biden confirmed that the target was ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, also known as Hajji Abdullah. The news came after hours of speculation prompted by local reports, some of which suggested civilians had been killed.An initial report issued during the raid by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based office tied to Syria's exiled opposition, reported that the U.S.-led coalition helicopters conducted bombings in an area between Idlib and Aleppo provinces west of Deir Ballut village. The helicopters also dropped off personnel, who called for the evacuation of women and children from nearby homes before storming them, it added. Citing unnamed sources, the observatory said violent clashes took place as part of an operation targeting a non-Syrian jihadi figure.The activist network reported that the operation began around midnight and bore similarities to the October 2019 raid in Idlib that ended in the death of Qurayshi's predecessor and ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, including the takeoff of aircraft from the nearby "Khurab Ashek" base in the northern Syrian town of Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab. Echoing other reports of those following the operation, the observatory identified the target location specifically as a two-story building with a basement in the village of Atmeh.

Witnesses describe what happened: ‘Those who remain will die.’ --The neighbors had never heard anything like it. Just after midnight, the whir of military helicopters flying low toward their homes in a pastoral stretch of northwestern Syria roused them from their sleep.Then a voice rang out in Arabic from a loudspeaker, ordering the occupants of a nearby house to give themselves up.“Those who want to take part in jihad, come out!” the voice said, according to a close neighbor who gave only his nickname, Abu Omar. “Everyone will be safe if you surrender. Those who remain will die.”The United States has hailed the rare airborne raid by commandos in a rebel-held patch of Syria early Thursday as a major success against terrorism, saying it ended the life of the shadowy leader of the Islamic State, known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi.But for families living on the outskirts of the town of Atmeh near Syria’s border with Turkey, the raid made for a night of fear and left a house full of dead neighbors they said they had never really known. At least 13 bodies were recovered from the rubble left by the raid, rescue workers said, including six children.A neighbor who gave his name as Abu Muhammad said that his family was so terrified by what they heard outside that they did not even peek out the windows. Then they heard heavy banging on the door and opened it to find American commandos and an Arabic-speaking interpreter.They were told they would not be harmed, and were directed to flee the house and hide behind another building until the confrontation was over. The family did as they were told and hid in the cold until all had fallen quiet, Abu Muhammad said. On their way back to their house, he said, they saw the body of a dead child.

US Says NO to Food as Human Right While Afghanistan Suffers Under Sanctions -- On November 9, 2021, the United States, the world's most vocal supporter of human rights, voted against a United Nations committee's draft on the right to food which passed by 180 votes in favor to 2 against (Israel, United States). The UN committee expressed alarm that in 2020, "the number of people lacking access to adequate food rose by 320 million ‑ to 2.4 billion ‑ amounting to nearly a third of the world’s population, and that between 720 million and 811 million people faced hunger". Currently, the hunger situation in Afghanistan is the most acute with over half the population suffering from extreme levels of hunger. Afghanistan has been subjected to US sanctions since the US loss to the Taliban in 2021. “Hunger is a violation of human dignity”, Cuba’s delegate said while addressing the UN Committee meeting. Presenting the draft, he voiced concern that the United States has blocked consensus on the text for four years in a row. The United States representative — highlighting conditions in the Lake Chad Basin, Yemen and Somalia ‑ said the draft contains unbalanced and inaccurate positions that her delegation simply cannot support. The concept of food sovereignty could justify food protectionism, negatively impacting food security, she explained, adding that the United States does not recognize the right to food, as it lacks a definition in international law. Meanwhile, Shelley Thakral, the World Food Program spokesperson for Afghanistan, says more than half the population — some 23 million Afghans — are facing what the WFP calls extreme levels of hunger. Malnutrition is soaring. Food prices have risen. And the WFP's surveys show the overwhelming majority of Afghans, 98% of the population, lack enough food to eat. Many are surviving on limited diets with less fresh vegetables, dairy or meat – or none at all, according to an NPR report.

Erdogan Fires Turkey's Statistics Chief After Inflation Hits 36% - Turkish dictator president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sacked the head of the state statistics agency, according to a decree published this weekend, after releasing data showing last year's inflation rate hit a 19-year high of 36.1%. Sait Erdal Dincer was just the latest in a series of numerous economic dismissals by Erdogan, who has sacked three central bank governors since July 2019, and countless ministers. As AFP notes, Erdogan has railed against high interest rates, which he believes cause inflation, the exact opposition of conventional economic thinking.Hilariously, the 2021 inflation number published by Dincer angered both the pro-government and opposition camps. The opposition said it was understated, claiming that the real cost of living increases were at least twice as high.In December, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu was refused an appointment with Dincer and turned away by security guards when he sought to enter the statistic agency's headquarters in Ankara. He had accused the agency of "fabricating" the numbers to hide the true impact of the government's policies and slammed it as "no longer a state institution but a palace institution", in reference to Erdogan's presidential complex.Erdogan meanwhile criticized the statistics agency in private for publishing data that he felt overstated the scale of Turkey's economic malaise.Realizing what was coming, Dincer was resigned to his impending fate: "I sit in this office now, tomorrow it will be someone else," he said in an interview with the business newspaper Dunya earlier this month."Never mind who is the chairman. Can you imagine that hundreds of my colleagues could stomach or remain quiet about publishing an inflation rate very different from what they had established?""I have a responsibility to 84 million people," he added.Erdogan did not explain his decision to appoint Erhan Cetinkaya, who had served as vice-chair of Turkey's banking regulator, as the new state statistics chief."This will just increase concern about the reliability of the data, in addition to major concerns about economic policy settings,"

Fourth Mexican journalist slain in less than a month - Ilya Shapiro, a recently hired administrator at Georgetown University Law Center and a prominent libertarian, has been suspended by the university after he tweeted that President Biden was not going to nominate “the objectively best pick” but a “lesser Black woman” to be the next Supreme Court justice, justice, according to The New York Times. Shapiro was slated to begin as a senior lecturer and executive administrator in a division of the law school just one day after he was placed on leave due to his controversial tweet, the Times reports. The dean of Georgetown Law said that the school would be investigating if Shapiro violated the school's policies on professional conduct, nondiscrimination and anti-harassment. Shapiro's tweet, which is now deleted, led to widespread criticism for the implication that a nominated Black woman would be "lesser." “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart,” Mr. Shapiro tweeted. “Even has identity politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American. But alas doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?” Sri Srinivasan is the Indian-born chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Biden awaiting approval from Ukraine on ambassador selection: report -President Joe Biden is reportedly close to announcing his ambassador to Ukraine but is still waiting on formal approval from the Ukrainian government. The president has reportedly selected the current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, Bridget Brink, a source familiar told CNN. However, Biden has not officially nominated her yet because the administration is still waiting on approval from Kyiv. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the ambassador to Ukraine would be announced "very shortly" in a press conference earlier this month. "I can tell you that when an ambassador is nominated, that person will have the full confidence of the president of the United States, that person will be someone that is well known to me and with whom I have a close relationship, and that person will have very demonstrable expertise and knowledge in this region," he said.A source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN that the Ukrainian government is still vetting Brink. The approval process for ambassadors to foreign governments can take anywhere between days and weeks. Until an ambassador is approved, Kristina Kvien, the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, currently remains the country's top diplomat in Kyiv.The U.S. has not had a permanent ambassador to Ukraine since Marie Yovanovitch was recalled by the Trump administration in May 2019. She later told House impeachment investigators that former President Trump “knee-capped” U.S. anticorruption efforts in Ukraine, among other allegations.Last week, the State Department ordered family members of government employees at the embassy to leave the country while also allowing nonessential staffers to depart amid the growing worries of a Russian invasion.

Bank of England Warns of Record Slump in Standard of Living, As It Hikes Interest Rates for Second Time in Two Months -The BoE’s decision to implement back-to-back rate hikes, for the first time since 2004, heaps yet more pressure on stretched household finances and struggling businesses. The Bank of England yesterday (Thursday, Feb 3) raised interest rates for the UK economy from 0.25% to 0.5%, its highest level since the early days of the virus crisis, after already raising them 15 basis points in December. The BOE also voted to begin quantitative tightening (QT) by paring back its holdings of government bonds. This it will do by allowing maturing government bonds to expire without replacing them, and by selling its corporate bonds outright.Following its decision to hike rates, the BoE warned of a record slump in living standards, although obviously some people (i.e., those in the lower and middle classes whose finances are already stretched to the limit) will be more affected than others (e.g. the super rich, who have so far done exceedingly well out of the virus crisis).The decision by the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to hike rates was passed by a majority of five to four. Interestingly, the minority wanted an even larger increase to 0.75%, underscoring the Monetary Policy Committee’s increasingly hawkish stance. It was the UK’s first back-to-back interest rate hike since 2004.Asked why the BoE is heaping yet more pressure on struggling households, the bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, said: “If we don’t take this action it will be even worse. It’s a hard message. I know it’s a hard message.” The BoE forecast that inflation could rise as high as 7.5% by April. It is currently at 5.4%, its highest level in 30 years. The huge monetary stimulus programs unleashed by the world’s largest central banks in the first months of the virus crisis and maintained for over a year and a half, are almost certainly exacerbating global price rises, especially as this huge expansion of money supply has coincided with a sharply limited supply of vital products.