week ending Jul 2

Against panic: The Fed should not be given permission to cause a recession in the name of inflation control --EPI Blog by Josh Bivens - The disappointing May data on consumer prices—showing continued strong growth of overall inflation and no real reduction of core inflation—seem to have been a turning point in how many influential policymakers and analysts view the U.S. inflation problem. In particular, it has inspired near-panic and damaging exhortationsthat the Federal Reserve should push the economy to the brink of recession in the name of fighting inflation. It has also led to preemptive absolutions of the Fed of any criticism that might come their way if a recession does result from steep interest rate increases.This panic is unwarranted, and the Federal Reserve should not feel free to ratchet up interest rates without regard to the risk of recession. Years from now, a recession induced by the Fed raising rates too quickly will be seen clearly as a policy mistake that could have been avoided. This conclusion stems from several simple facts:

• Both real output and the economy’s underlying productive capacity (potential output) are essentially in line with what pre-pandemic forecasts projected by mid-2022. None of these pre-pandemic forecasts indicated this would imply economic overheating by now. Given this, the macroeconomic balance between demand and supply cannot be so out of alignment that it explains a large share of the acceleration of inflation in the past 15 months.
  • Crucially, potential gross domestic product (GDP) was clearly above actual GDP for most of 2021 when inflation started. This is very hard to square with macroeconomic imbalances driving the rise of inflation.
  • Finally, there is rich, existing literature on the degree of inflation to expect given an overshoot of aggregate demand over potential supply. These estimates imply substantially less inflation than we’ve seen to date, meaning that factors besides simple macroeconomic imbalances are likely at play.
• While the May price data were discouraging, there is reason to think that some of the drivers of inflation in recent months may be losing steam.
  • Profit margins are still at historically high levels but have come down significantly in 2022.
  • Wage growth has lagged inflation over the entire episode and has even decelerated in recent periods. This means that wages’ role as a dampener of inflation looks set to continue (and maybe even strengthen) in coming months.
• The main channel through which higher interest rates will put downward pressure on prices runs through a softer labor market (higher unemployment) reducing growth in labor incomes, which reduces demand and reduces pressure on prices from the cost side as well. But, labor income growth has not been a key driver of inflation so far; in fact, wage growth has significantly dampened the growth of inflation over the past 15 months. In the past six months, hourly wage growth is actually running at a pace entirely consistent with the Federal Reserve’s 2% long-run inflation target.

Biden Endorsed Bill Would Task Federal Reserve With 'Racial Equity' Amid Record Inflation - The Federal Reserve System of the United States of America may soon be charged with maintaining something called “racial equity” if a new bill makes its way through the U.S. Senate.Big League Politics reports that H.R. 2543 would expand the Federal Reserve’s existing dual mandate of maintaining price stability and full employment to focus on promoting “racial and economic justice in borrowing, housing, and lending.”This gives the Federal Reserve the duty to “execute monetary policy and other functions in a way that reduces ethnic and racial inequities,” writes Jose Nino. “In effect, the passage of this law would make racial equity an integral part of the Fed’s mandate.”Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is expected to hike the interest rate multiple times this year in a bid to stop inflation that is currently reaching highs not seen since the stagnant economy of the 1970s.Inflation is currently reported to be at around 8.6%, a percentage seen at the onset of the 1970s inflation crisis, according to numbers released last months. However, other estimates suggest the real rate of inflation could be higher. According to Axios, the high inflation of the 1970s led experts to reexamine how it was calculated. The new calculations are still in use today, and if converted to the methodology in use in the 1970s, the inflation today may in fact be as bad as that seen in the 1970s.Biden’s move to increase the job duties of the Federal Reserve comes as the 46th president and his representatives have stressed that “recession is not inevitable.”While on a four day vacation in Delaware, Biden snapped at a reporter who noted most economists are predicting a recession.“Not the majority of them aren’t saying that,” Biden falsely claimed. “Come on, don’t make things up.”More recently, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that the White House simply does not agree with those predicting economic hard times.“We don’t see a recession right now,” Jean-Pierre said, speaking on Biden’s behalf. “We are not in a recession right now.”She stressed that the United States was in the midst of a “transition” that would lead it “to a place of stable and steady growth.”

Scott, other GOP senators join Toomey’s fight with the Fed -Sen. Pat Toomey’s effort to reform the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks will not join him in retirement at the end of the year. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who is expected to succeed Toomey as the minority leader or chair of the Senate Banking Committee, joined the Pennsylvania Republican in calling for more accountability from reserve banks in a Tuesday letter sent to Esther George, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.The letter is Toomey’s latest effort to acquire more information about the regional Fed bank’s decision-making process regarding its granting the Colorado fintech Reserve Trust a Federal Reserve master account. To date, Scott has not weighed in on the matter, but in the letter, joined by Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., he said there's a “pressing need to reform the regional Fed banks to make them more transparent and accountable to Congress.”The letter went on to further affirm committee Republicans’ commitment to the issue. Lummis and Tillis had previously expressed concern about the Kansas City Fed’s handling of master accounts, raising the issue with Fed Chair Jerome Powell during a hearing last week. The letter is at least the fifth sent by Toomey to the Kansas City Fed regarding Reserve Trust. The topic first arose in January, ahead of the confirmation hearing for Sarah Bloom Raskin, the Biden administration’s then-nominee for the Fed’s vice chair for supervision. A former Fed governor and Treasury official, Raskin sat on Reserve Trust’s board in 2018 when it was granted access to the Fed’s payment system. It remains the only known fintech to have had a master account. During Raskin’s hearing in February, Lummis and others pressed her about communications she had with the Fed about Reserve Trust while on the company’s board. Raskin provided few details during and after the hearing, leading Republicans on the committee to refuse to advance any of President Biden’s Fed nominees until their questions were adequately answered. Raskin eventually withdrew her name from consideration.The handling of the Reserve Trust account has fed into a greater debate about which institutions should be entitled to master accounts and how much say individual reserve banks should have in the matter.Toomey has remained adamant about getting answers from the Kansas City Fed and establishing greater oversight rules for reserve banks moving forward. Earlier this month, he revealed that the Kansas City Fed quietly revoked Reserve Trust's master account sometime after defending the decision to grant it in February.

PCE Price Index: May Headline at 6.35% YoY - The BEA's Personal Income and Outlays report for May was published this morning by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The latest Headline PCE price index was up 0.59% month-over-month (MoM) and is up 6.35% year-over-year (YoY). Core PCE (YoY) is now at 4.69%, well above the Fed's 2% target rate. The adjacent thumbnail gives us a close-up of the trend in YoY Core PCE since January 2012. The first string of red data points highlights the 12 consecutive months when Core PCE hovered in a narrow range around its interim low. The second string highlights the lower range from late 2014 through 2015. Core PCE shifted higher in 2016 with a decline in 2017, 2019, and 2020, with a major increase in 2022. The first chart below shows the monthly year-over-year change in the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index since 2000. Also included is an overlay of the Core PCE (less Food and Energy) price index, which is Fed's preferred indicator for gauging inflation. The two percent benchmark is the Fed's conventional target for core inflation. Most recently, the Fed reviewed their monetary policy strategy and longer-term goals and released a statement, mentioning its federal mandate to promote "maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates". They also confirmed their commitment to using the two percent benchmark as a lower limit: The Committee reaffirms its judgment that inflation at the rate of 2 percent, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures, is most consistent over the longer run with the Federal Reserve's statutory mandate. The Committee judges that longer-term inflation expectations that are well anchored at 2 percent foster price stability and moderate long-term interest rates and enhance the Committee's ability to promote maximum employment in the face of significant economic disturbances. In order to anchor longer-term inflation expectations at this level, the Committee seeks to achieve inflation that averages 2 percent over time, and therefore judges that, following periods when inflation has been running persistently below 2 percent, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time." Read the August 2020 statement here

Fed's Favorite Inflation Indicator Dips, US Spending Slows In May - The headline-maker from this morning's macro melange is The Fed's favorite inflation indicator - Core PCE Deflator - printed lower than expected at +4.7% YoY (vs +4.9% expected and +4.9% prior). The headline May PCE printed +6.3%, equal to the April data As a reminder, however, this is May data, and gas prices have soared in June. Americans pace of spending slowed significantly in May to just +0.2% MoM (half the expected +0.4%) while incomes rose +0.5% MoM (as expected)... Graphics Source: Bloomberg. Americans spending rose slower than their incomes for the first time since December. Adjusting for inflation, spending actually dropped 0.4% MoM in May... On the incomes side, private wage growth slowed to 11.9% YoY, the lowest since Dec 2021 while government workers wage growth rose to 5.8% YoY, up from 5.7% in April... On a year over year basis, incomes grew at 5.3% but spending rose at 8.5%... The BEA revised historical data which lifted April's savings rate from 4.4% to 5.2% and May's print upticked to 5.4% - the highest since February... So this is good news - inflation rolling over and Americans pulling back from over-spending? The question is - will the former re-accelerate in June while the latter continues?

Q1 GDP Growth Revised down to minus 1.6% Annual Rate From the BEA: Gross Domestic Product (Third Estimate), GDP by Industry, and Corporate Profits (Revised), First Quarter 2022: Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2022, according to the "third" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2021, real GDP increased 6.9 percent.The "third" estimate of GDP released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "second" estimate issued last month. In the second estimate, the decrease in real GDP was 1.5 percent. The update primarily reflects a downward revision to personal consumption expenditures (PCE) that was partly offset by an upward revision to private inventory investmentHere is a Comparison of Third and Second Estimates. PCE growth was revised down from 3.1% to 1.8%. Residential investment was unrevised at 0.4%.

1st Quarter GDP Growth Revised Down 1.6% - The U.S. economy shrank at an annual pace of 1.6% in the first quarter, slightly more than earlier estimates, according to the third and final revision issued by the Bureau of Economic Analysis released on Wednesday. The drop was a sharp reversal from the 6.9% increase in the fourth quarter. The downward adjustment came as corporate profits fell more than originally estimated. The economy has downshifted from its torrid pace of 2021 as federal stimulus programs ended and rampant inflation cut into consumer spending and corporate profits. The Federal Reserve is aggressively raising interest rates to slow demand at a time when the economy remains constrained by ongoing supply chain issues. The increased cost of energy, exacerbated by Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, is also putting pressure on the economy with gasoline around $5 a gallon and the higher cost of oil affecting industries from agriculture to transportation. Many economists have lowered their expectations for economic growth this year as well as raising the odds the economy will tip into recession within the next 12 to 24 months. “Economic momentum will likely protect the U.S economy from recession in 2022,” Beth Ann Bovino, managing director and chief economist, U.S. & Canada at S&P Global Ratings, wrote on Tuesday. “But, with supply-chain disruptions worsening as the weight of extremely high prices damage purchasing power and aggressive Federal Reserve policy increases borrowing costs, it's hard to see the economy walking out of 2023 unscathed,” she added. The credit rating firm downgraded its gross domestic product forecast for 2023 to 1.6% growth from 2% in its May estimate, while keeping 2022 growth unchanged at 2.4%. “While our baseline signals a low-growth recession, the chances of a contraction (a technical recession) are rising,” Bovino noted. “We assess recession risk at 40% (35%-45% band), reflecting a larger spike in prices with even more aggressive Fed policy heading into 2023. The wider band reflects increased uncertainty over the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict.”

Q2 GDP Forecasts: Close to Zero -From BofA: With the downward revisions to spending and weak spending data in May, we have revised down our 2Q GDP tracking by from 1.5% qoq saar to0.0% qoq saar. [July 1 estimate] From Goldman: We left our Q2 GDP tracking estimate unchanged at +1.9% (qoq ar). [July 1 estimate] And from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNowThe GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2022 is -2.1 percent on July 1, down from -1.0 percent on June 30. [July 1 estimate]

Five High Frequency Indicators for the Economy -These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment. Notes: I've added back gasoline supplied to see if there is an impact from higher gasoline prices. Apple has discontinued "Apple mobility", and restaurant traffic is mostly back to normal. The TSA is providing daily travel numbers. This data is as of June 26th.This data shows the 7-day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Light Blue), 2020 (Black), 2021 (Blue) and 2022 (Red). The dashed line is the percent of 2019 for the seven-day average. The 7-day average is down 10.8% from the same day in 2019 (89.2% of 2019). (Dashed line) Air travel - as a percent of 2019 - has been moving sideways over the last several months, off about 10% from 2019. This data shows domestic box office for each week and the median for the years 2016 through 2019 (dashed light blue). The data is from BoxOfficeMojo through June 23rd. Movie ticket sales were at $241 million last week, down about 6% 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 June 18th. The occupancy rate was down 4.8% compared to the same week in 2019. . This graph, based on weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows gasoline supplied compared to the same week of 2019. Blue is for 2020. Purple is for 2021, and Red is for 2022. As of June 10th, gasoline supplied was down 7.9% compared to the same week in 2019. Recently gasoline supplied has been running somewhat below 2019 levels. Here is some interesting data on New York subway usage. 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 36% of normal. This data is through Friday, June 24th.

Michael Hudson: A Depression Is Coming (video & transcript) – Excerpt: For the Fed, the only two things that it can do is, number one, raise the discount rate, the interest rate; and number two, spend $9 trillion buying stocks, and bonds, and real estate mortgages to increase real estate prices, and to increase the amount of wealth that the wealthiest 10% of the population has. To the wealthiest 10%, especially the 1%, it’s not only inflation that’s a problem of wages; every problem that America has is the problem of the working class earning too much money. And if you’re an employer, that’s the problem: you want to increase your profits. And if you look at the short term, your profits go up the more that you can squeeze labor down. And the way to squeeze labor down is to increase what Marx called the reserve army of the unemployed. You need unemployment in order to prevent labor from getting most of the value of what it produces, so that the employers can get the value, and pay that to the banks and the financial managers that have taken over corporate industry in the United States. You mentioned that while the Fed blames the inflation it on labor, that’s not President Biden’s view; Biden keeps calling it the Putin inflation. And of course, what he really means is that the sanctions that America has placed on Russia have created a shortage of oil, gas, energy, and food exports. So really we’re in the Biden inflation. And the Biden inflation that America is experiencing is the result basically of America’s military policy, its foreign policy, and above all, the Democratic Party’s support of the oil industry, which is the most powerful sector in the United States and which is guiding most of the sanctions against Russia; and the national security state that bases America’s power on its ability to export oil, or control the oil trade of all the countries, and to export agricultural products. So what we’re in the middle of right now isn’t simply a domestic issue of wage earners wanting higher salaries – which they’re not particularly getting; certainly the minimum wage has not been increased – but you have to put this in the context of the whole cold war that’s going on. The whole US and NATO confrontation of Russia has been a godsend, as you and I have spoken before, for the oil industry and the farm exporters. And the result is that the US dollar is rising against the euro, against sterling, and against Global South currencies. Well, in principle a rising dollar should make the price of imports low. So something else is at work. And what’s at work, of course, is the fact that the oil industry is a monopoly, that most of the prices that have been going up are basically the result of a monopolization, in the case of food, by the marketing firms, like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, that buy most of the crops from the farmers. The irony is that while food prices, next to oil prices, are the major factor that is soaring, farmers are getting less and less for their crops. And yet farmers’ costs are going up – up for fertilizer, up for energy, up for other inputs – so that you’re having enormous profits for Archer Daniels Midland and the food monopolies, of the distributors, and enormous, enormous gains for the oil industry, and also of course for the military-industrial complex. So if you look at what’s happening in the overall world economic system, you can see that this inflation is being engineered. And the beneficiaries of this inflation certainly have not been the wage earners, by any stretch of the imagination. But the crisis that the Biden policy has created is being blamed on the wage earners instead of on the Biden administration’s foreign policy and the basically the US-NATO war to isolate Russia, China, India, Iran, and Eurasia generally.

Poor 2Y Auction Tails At Highest Yield Since 2007 As Foreign Buyers Flee - We start today's two-fer auction special day (there is a 5Y auction at 1pm), with another nosebleeding 2Y auction yield. Moments ago the Treasury sold $46 billion in 2Y paper at a high yield of 3.084%, tailing the When Issued 3.077%, and the highest yield since December 2007. Just as notably, with the exception of a brief reversal in April, this was the 11th consecutive higher 2Y auction high yield. The bid to cover of 2.509 was the lowest since March, printing below last month's 2.607%, and was well below the six-auction average of 2.63. The internals were also disappointing, with Indirects taking down just 51.5%, the lowest since November's 45.6%; and with Dealers holding on to 23.2% of the auction, the most since January (with QE over they will have trouble disposing of this paper), Directs were awarded 25.3%, the most since March, and well above the 18.6% recent average. Overall, this was a disappointing 2Y auction which was somewhat unexpected in light of the sharp concession today which saw yields spike as futures rose.

Can the Government Even Pay the Rising Interest Expense on its Gigantic Debt as the Fed Pushes up Rates? Yes. Here’s Why by Wolf Richter - There has been a lot of hand-wringing recently among the tightening deniers. They’re now saying, in their latest barrage, that the Fed can never raise its policy rates above x%, such as 2% or whatever, because the government can never pay those higher interest rates on its huge debt and will go bankrupt. And look, they say, interest payments already jumped, and no way that the government can pay much more than that. In Q1, federal interest payments on its debt jumped by 11.7% year-over-year to $140 billion. OK, they’re still down a bunch from the peak in Q2 2019 of $147 billion, but you kinda get the idea of what they’re saying:So let’s take a look. Only newly issued debt carries the new interest rates. Existing bonds pay the same interest they’ve always paid, until they mature. There are some exceptions, such as Series I Savings Bonds (the I-bonds folks can buy directly from the government), TIPS, floating rate notes, etc. But for most part, Treasury securities pay the interest at which they were issued until they mature. At that point, they’re replaced with new debt, and this new debt comes with the current interest.It’s not the $30.5 trillion in total government debt that will suddenly cost more as interest rates rise, but only newly issued debt. So this higher interest expense will spread only gradually over the debt.Interest expense increased sharply because of the spike in debt. Since March 2020, the gross national debt spiked by $7 trillion, or by 30%, from $23.5 trillion in March to 2020, to $30.5 trillion currently.The spike in the debt of the Federal government since March 2020 is just stunning. But it slowed in 2022 and is now back to its pre-pandemic growth rate. Obviously, a spike like this cannot be sustained without some major, let’s say, re-arrangement, such as a big bout of inflation, I mean, oops…But the burden of interest expense is near historic lows. The government’s tax revenues rise with GDP and with inflation, because growth in economic activity and profits and wage inflation create higher tax revenues, and the Fed’s creature of asset price inflation created higher capital gains tax revenues, though they will go into a tailspin as assets are being repriced under QT and higher rates, and capital gains turn into capital losses.So interest expense has been rising, but tax revenues have been rising even more quickly along with GDP, and the burden of that interest expense on the US fell to 2.21% of GDP by Q3 2021, the lowest since 1959.In Q1 2022, interest expense as percent of GDP ticked up to 2.35%, still very near those historic lows. The increase in the percentage was in part due to thedecline in GDP in Q1.

US Readies Longer Range Missile Defense System For Ukraine As G7 Hikes Sanctions - While President Joe Biden is in attendance at the G7 summit in southern Germany at the start of his week, the administration is planning to soon announce the next major transfer of weapons to Ukraine, but this time an advanced, medium-to-long range surface-to-air missile defense system.The system being readied would put Ukraine's strike capability into deeper territory far behind Russian lines. According to CNN, "Ukrainian officials have asked for the missile defense system, known as a NASAMS system, given the weapons can hit targets more than 100 miles away, though the Ukrainian forces will likely need to be trained on the systems, a source said.""The NASMAS system the same one that protects Washington, DC, and the area around the nation’s capital," the report adds. The surface-to-air system is produced by Raytheon in partnership with Norwegian defense company Kongsberg.Just last week, amid an additional $450 aid package which marked the latest security assistance, the Pentagon reportedly transferred four more HIMARS mobile rocket launchers and artillery ammunition for others. So far Washington has given Kiev missiles with a range of about max 50 miles.Related to the newest system being readied for the Ukraine battlefield, AFP writes of the US administration:An announcement is "likely this week" on the purchase of NASAMS, an "advanced medium- to long-range surface-to-air missile defence system", as well as other weaponry to help Ukraine fight Russia's invasion.This will include "additional artillery ammunition and counter-battery radars", which are used to pinpoint the source of enemy artillery firing.During the second day of the G7 meeting at Schloss Elmau, Volodomyr Zelensky gave a virtual address urging the West to supply more arms, particularly heavier weapons and munitions."Partners need to move faster if they are really partners, not observers," he said, also appealing for air defense systems. He went so far as to suggest that Ukraine's Western backers could help it end the war by winter, despite multiple US and Pentagon officials recently predicting a 'years-long', protracted conflict.

Biden to announce extension of increased US troop presence in Poland: report - President Biden reportedly plans to announce the extended presence of American troops in Poland who were stationed there over the winter amid Russia’s war against Ukraine. Biden will officially make the announcement while in Europe for a NATO security alliance summit he is attending with other world leaders, NBC News reported on Monday, citing two former administration officials with the matter.Several hundred more troops could be stationed in Poland more permanently, according to the news outlet, which also discussed the move with a European official.The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.The Defense Department first sent troops to Poland in early February in an effort to bolster Eastern Europe’s and NATO’s defenses ahead of the expected Russian invasion of Ukraine, which came on Feb. 24.The Pentagon deployed at least 4,700 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to Poland, which borders Ukraine, throughout February. Other American troops were also repositioned in Germany and Romania ahead of the invasion.In late March, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced he would extend the presence of the troops in Poland as the war in Ukraine dragged on. “Nobody knows how long the need is gonna be there, the acute need for these deterrents and defense capabilities because we don’t know how long this war in Ukraine is going to last,” said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby at the time.Biden visited the troops in late March to raise their spirits and champion the cause. During that visit, the White House said about 10,500 troops were in Poland.

US Officials Doubt Ukraine Can Take Back Territory, White House "Losing Confidence" -- According to a report from CNN, White House officials are "losing confidence" that Ukraine will be able to retake all the territory Russia has captured since it invaded on February 24 as Russian forces continue to make gains in the eastern Donbas region. Unnamed US officials told CNN that President Biden’s advisors have started debating if and how the US should start convincing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should change his definition of what "victory" will look like. Zelensky has repeatedly stated that Ukraine’s goal is to drive Russia out of all territory it has captured since it invaded. He also has said he wants to expel Russian forces from Crimea, a territory Moscow has controlled since 2014.But even as the US and NATO are sending more and more heavy weapons to Kyiv, the prospect of Ukraine being able to launch a sufficient counter-offensive does not seem realistic. Ukraine is taking heavy casualties, with officials admitting they are losing between 100 and 200 troops each day.The fact that Russia would have the upper hand in the Donbas was obvious from the start of the war. But after Russian forces withdrew from areas in the north near Kyiv and Chernihiv in early April, Western officials began pushing the narrative that Ukraine can win. But over the past month, the narrative has collapsed as Ukraine is clearly outgunned.Both US and Ukrainian officials believe that how Ukraine does on the battlefield moving forward is entirely dependent on Western military aid. "Whether Ukraine can take back these territories is in large part, if not entirely, a function of how much support we give them,” a congressional aide told CNN. US officials told CNN that even though they have a more pessimistic assessment, the Biden administration is not pushing Ukraine to make territorial concessions to end the fighting.

Biden-Erdogan Meeting On The Table As Turkey Vows 'Won't Back Down' At NATO Summit - The 2022 NATO summit in Madrid, Spain is set to kick off Tuesday and run through Thursday of this week; however, US officials say they don't expected Turkey's concerns over Sweden and Finland's membership bids to be allayed. One European diplomatic official told CNN that there's hope of "last moment" Turkish concessions: "My best projection based on what I've seen is that they will run this to the wire at Madrid. They also always prefer if they're going to make concessions to do it at the leader level, they believe that enhances that status," the unnamed official said. "It is Turkey's standard operating procedure not to give concessions till the last possible moment. And that last possible moment is usually defined as a bilateral with the US president, followed by a leaders meeting." Ankara has emphasized that despite pressure from Western allies, it doesn't at all see the Madrid summit as a "deadline". This as Turkish media has confirmed Erdogan will attend talks with the leaders of Sweden and Finland just ahead of the NATO meeting this week. "There will be a four-way summit at the leader level with the attendance of our president in Madrid upon the request of the NATO secretary general," a Turkish foreign ministry statement said. And according to Turkish presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin: Kalin said Erdogan attending the talks with Sweden, Finland and NATO on Tuesday "does not mean we will take a step back from our position." Kalin said Türkiye and the Nordic countries had largely agreed on issues and would be in a better position in Madrid if they could agree on them during talks on Monday. "We have brought negotiations to a certain point. It is not possible for us to take a step back here," he also said of the talks on Monday. Erdogan's government has been consistent in denouncing Swedish and Finish "support" for Kurdish "terrorist" groups, namely the outlawed PKK and its affiliates, for example in northern Syria. Erdogan has gone so far as to demand the Nordic countries extradite wanted members of the organization. While Ankara is pledging that it will not back down, there's growing anticipation that it will take nothing less than a meeting between Erdogan and Biden - where it'd be the US expected to make big concessions visa-a-vis Turkey - for Turkey to budge on the NATO membership questions.

Empire To Expand NATO In Response To War Caused By NATO Expansion - by Caitlin Johnstone - Turkey’s President Erdoğan has officially withdrawn Ankara’s objection to the addition of Finland and Sweden to NATO membership, with the three countries signing a trilateral memorandum at a NATO summit in Madrid. The removal of Erdoğan’s objection was reportedly obtained via significant natsec concessions from the other two nations largely geared toward facilitating Turkey’s ongoing conflict with regional Kurdish factions, and it removes the final obstacle to Finland and Sweden beginning the process of becoming NATO members. Finland’s addition will more than double the size of NATO’s direct border with Russia, a major national security concern for Moscow. “Sweden and Finland moved rapidly to apply to NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reversing decades of security policy and opening the door to the alliance’s ninth expansion since 1949,” Axios reports. So the western empire will be expanding NATO again in response to a war that was predominantly caused by NATO expansion. Brilliant. Biden Says US Will Beef Up Military Presence in Europe as NATO Summit Begins in Madrid. At the same NATO summit, President Biden announced plans to ramp up US military presence in Europe in response to the Ukraine war. “Speaking with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Biden said the US will increase the number of US Navy Destroyers stationed at a naval base in Rota, Spain, from four to six,” Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports. “The president said that this was the first of multiple announcements the US and NATO will make at the summit on increasing their forces in Europe, steps being taken in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” This news comes out as a new CNN report tells us that the Biden administration does not believe Ukraine has any chance of winning this war, yet still won’t encourage any kind of negotiated settlement to end the bloodshed. From CNN:White House officials are losing confidence that Ukraine will ever be able to take back all of the land it has lost to Russia over the past four months of war, US officials told CNN, even with the heavier and more sophisticated weaponry the US and its allies plan to send. Advisers to President Joe Biden have begun debating internally how and whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should shift his definition of a Ukrainian “victory” — adjusting for the possibility that his country has shrunk irreversibly. US officials emphasized to CNN that this more pessimistic assessment does not mean the US plans to pressure Ukraine into making any formal territorial concessions to Russia in order to end the war.This would confirm what I and many others have been saying since Russia invaded: that this proxy war is being waged not with the intention of saving Ukrainian lives by delivering a swift defeat to Moscow but with the intention of creating a costly, gruelling military quagmire to weaken Russia on the world stage.This is further confirmed by a new Politico report that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has discouraged France’s President Macron from facilitating a negotiated peace settlement between Moscow and Kyiv, which would support an earlier Ukrainian media report that Johnson had discouraged President Zelensky from such a settlement during his visit to Kyiv in April.

Biden Says Turkey Will Get New F-16 Jets, Claims "No Quid Pro Quo" With Erdogan - President Joe Biden in his Thursday press conference from the Madrid NATO summit claimed that he's never waivered on supporting a new F-16 sale to Turkey, also emphasizing in response to a reporter's question that there was "no quid pro quo" with Erdogan regarding Finland and Sweden's entry into NATO."Biden at press conference says the United States should sell Turkey the F-16 fighter jets but adds there was no quid pro quo in relation to Ankara's lifting of its veto for Finland and Sweden," a Reuters correspondent writes of his latest statements. "Says Congress approval needed for sale but he's confident that can obtained." The day prior, the US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Celeste Wallander previewed the White House stance in saying, "Strong Turkish defense capabilities contribute to strong NATO defense capabilities." She added, "The US Department of Defense fully supports Turkey’s modernization plans for its F-16 fleet."Concerning the assertion that there was "no quid pro quo", the statements come the day after Biden and Erdogan met on the sidelines of the two-day NATO summit. One regional report emphasized of that meeting: On the same day, Biden thanked Erdogan profusely for revoking his opposition to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO.

US officials back in Venezuela in a bid to rebuild ties -- (AP) — Senior U.S. government officials have quietly traveled to Caracas in the latest bid to bring home detained Americans and rebuild relations with the South American oil giant as the war in Ukraine drags on, forcing the U.S. to recalibrate other foreign policy objectives. A U.S. State Department spokesperson described the trip as a welfare visit focused on the safety of several U.S. citizens detained in Caracas, including a group of oil executives from Houston-based Citgo jailed more than four years ago. The delegation includes Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy on hostage affairs, as well as Ambassador James Story, who heads the U.S. government’s Venezuelan Affairs Unit out of neighboring Colombia. President Nicolás Maduro confirmed the visit during televised remarks, saying the delegation would meet with a trusted ally, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, to “give continuity to the bilateral agenda between the government of the United States and the government of Venezuela.” The visit follows a surprise trip in March by the two officials and Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council director for the Western Hemisphere. That was the first White House trip to the county in more than two decades. That trip resulted in the release of two American citizens who the U.S. considered unjustly detained and a promise from Maduro to jumpstart talks with his opponents. Months earlier, he had suspended the negotiations, led by Norwegian diplomats in Mexico, after a key ally was extradited to the U.S. on money-laundering charges. It’s unclear what else the officials are seeking to accomplish during the mission. But high on the list are likely to be Maduro’s demand that the U.S. lift crippling oil sanctions that have exacerbated hardships in what was once South America’s most prosperous nation.

DOE touts oil industry dialogue without deal on energy prices - No clear solutions emerged from a closely watched meeting between Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and top oil and gas executives, who gathered to discuss high gasoline prices and domestic refining capacity. Although several companies and the Department of Energy described the meeting as productive, DOE’s readout from the meeting offered few details beyond expressing a desire for “ongoing dialogue” and the pursuit of solutions to “alleviate the current supply and price challenges.” Participants at the meeting, which was convened at President Joe Biden’s direction, discussed a variety of topics, including a potential fuel export ban and the issuance of fuel waivers, according to an industry source familiar with the meeting. Officials from the National Economic Council and the State Department were also present at the meeting, the person also said. The gathering was held at DOE headquarters. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who said a decision hasn’t been made on a fuel export ban, called the meeting a “productive dialogue focused on creating an opportunity for industry to work with government to help deliver needed relief to American consumers.” “This is a first step with a continued dialogue,” Jean-Pierre said yesterday in the White House briefing room. “Clearly we want to come to solutions, and I think … there’s going to be multiple other steps to get there.” The meeting came one day after Biden called on Congress to suspend the federal gasoline tax through the end of September, an idea that faced a lukewarm reaction from some lawmakers and outright dismissal from others (E&E Daily, June 23). It also highlighted the political headache rising energy costs are creating for the Biden administration, as experts suggest the president has limited options to lower pump prices significantly in the short term. Representatives for BP PLC, Shell USA Inc., Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. all confirmed that executives from their companies participated in yesterday’s meeting. Jean-Pierre emphasized yesterday that the gasoline tax holiday is important to Biden, describing a potential suspension of the gas tax as a “simple, fast way to give American families, the American public, a little relief for 90 days.”

Gas tax holiday: Republicans' history of flip-flopping - Several Republicans who've bashed President Biden's calls for a three-month federal gas tax suspension have previously supported a state or federal gas tax holiday.It suggests that historically, support for suspending or reducing the gas tax as a means of providing relief for American consumers has not fallen neatly along partisan lines.Some of the most prominent Republicans — who have called Biden's plan to suspend the federal gas tax "stupid," "treacherous,"and "a complete gimmick" — have proposed, supported and even signed into law their own gas tax relief legislation.: Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), who on Thursday called measures proposed by the administration "gimmicky" and "short term," introduced legislation in 2006 that would lift the very same federal gas tax.In March, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) signed a letter calling on California Governor Gavin Newsom to suspend the gas tax for six months. In 2018, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a bill that would cut the federal fuel tax from 18.4 cents per gallon to 3.7 cents per gallon between 2021 and 2025.McCarthy donated $300,000 to a California proposition aimed at repealing the California gas tax, Roll Call reported. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) donated $25,000. While Rubio accused the Biden administration of "rolling out more gimmicks," he proposed a plan when he ran for president in 2015 to reduce the federal gas tax by 80%. In 2008, Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) co-sponsored the late Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) legislation that would suspend the gas and diesel taxes from May to September 2008.

Biden Says Americans To Suffer High Gasoline Prices For “As Long as it Takes” - Biden said in a Thursday press conference that Americans would suffer high gasoline prices for as long as it takes for Russia to be defeated. New York Times’ Jim Tankersley asked the President on the final day of the NATO summit in Madrid how long American drivers would have to pay a premium for gasoline. “The war has pushed prices up—they could go as high as $200 per barrel, some analysts think. How long is it fair to expect American drivers and drivers around the world to pay that premium for this war?” Tankersley asked. “As long as it takes so Russia cannot, in fact, defeat Ukraine,” President Biden replied. “If we do these things—and it’s estimated we could bring down tomorrow, if they—if Congress agreed and the states agreed, we could bring down the price of oil about $1 a gallon at the pump—in that range. And so we could have immediate relief in terms of the reduction of the—of the elimination of—temporary elimination of the gas tax. And so, I think there’s a lot of things we can do, and we will do, but the bottom line is, ultimately, the reason why gas prices are up is because of Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia,” President Biden added. The Biden Administration has been under extreme pressure to bring down the prices at the pump for Americans. Gasoline prices began to rise early in 2021 as post-pandemic demand began to come back online. U.S. refiners are now running at 95% of capacity, and there are no new refineries due to come online in the United States. Gasoline prices spiked even higher as crude oil prices rose in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 71 percent don’t want Biden to run for reelection: poll - Seven in 10 Americans say they do not want President Biden to run for a second term, according to a new poll that comes as Biden’s approval numbers remain low and his party braces for losses this November. A Harvard CAPS–Harris Poll survey shared exclusively with The Hill found that 71 percent of respondents polled do not think Biden should run for a second term, compared to 29 percent who say he should run. Among the contingent of respondents who believe the president should not run, 45 percent said Biden should not make another bid because he is a bad president, while about one-third of respondents said he is too old and about one-quarter said because it is time for a change. View Post “President Biden may want to run again but the voters say ‘no’ to the idea of a second term, panning the job he is doing as president. Only 30 percent of Democrats would even vote for him in a Democratic presidential primary,” Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS–Harris Poll survey, said. But a majority of respondents — 61 percent — also say former President Trump should not run for the White House in 2024. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said the former president should run again. Among the respondents polled who believe Trump should not make another bid in the next presidential cycle, 36 percent said Trump was erratic, 33 percent said he would divide the country and 30 percent said he was responsible for Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of pro-Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying the election results. A majority of those polled said they would consider a moderate independent candidate should Biden and Trump square off against each other in 2024, including majorities of both Republicans and Democrats polled.

Democrats' Lose Grip on Senate While Leahy Recovers From Fall (Reuters) - Vermont U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, 81, will undergo emergency hip surgery after falling Wednesday night, depriving his fellow Democrats of any majority in the chamber until he returns. Leahy, who is third in line to the U.S. presidency given his role as Senate president pro tempore, broke his hip at his house in the northern Virginia suburbs outside Washington, his office said on Thursday, adding that he is expected to make a full recovery. "Having been born blind in one eye, the Senator has had a lifelong struggle with reduced depth perception. He has taken some remarkable dingers over the years but this one finally caught up with him," his office said in a statement. While Leahy has said he will not seek re-election in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, his vote is critical in the 50-50 split Senate where Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris holds the tie-breaking vote. Leahy also chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, which oversees federal spending, at a time when President Joe Biden is still pressing his Build Back Better economic plan. Democrats are seeking to maintain their hold on the chamber in November, and the seat Leahy has held since 1974 is still seen as leaning Democratic.

Dr. Fauci reveals ‘COVID rebound’ after Pfizer’s Paxlovid treatment - The quadruple-vaccinated Dr. Anthony Fauci said he is experiencing a “much worse” COVID rebound after being treated with Pfizer’s antiviral medication Paxlovid.The 81-year-old chief medical adviser to the White House revealed his health struggles while speaking remotely at the Foreign Policy Global Health Forum on Tuesday.The nation’s leading infectious disease expert tested positive for COVID-19 on June 15 and was initially experiencing mild symptoms, according to a statement released at the time by the National Institutes of Health.When his condition took a turn for the worse, he began a five-day course of Paxlovid, which was granted anemergency use authorization by the Food and Drug administration in December 2021 to treat high-risk COVID patients in an effort to prevent hospitalizations and deaths.Fauci said Tuesday that after he recovered from his initial bout with the coronavirus, he tested negative for three days, but then tested positive again on the fourth day, reported the San Francisco Chronicle.“And then over the next day or so, I started to feel really poorly, much worse than in the first go-around,” Fauci said. “So I went back on Paxlovid and right now I am on my fourth day of a five-day course.”The scientist added that he is feeling better but “not completely without symptoms.”In April, the Biden administration announced it was expanding the availability of Paxlovid, touting it as “one of the most effective treatments in our nation’s medicine cabinet.” A month later, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning regarding a COVID-19 rebound after Paxlovid treatment. The agency said some patients who were prescribed a course of Paxlovid experienced a recurrence of COVID symptoms or tested positive for the disease between two and eight days after the initial recovery. The CDC suggested that “a brief return of symptoms may be part of the natural history of (COVID-19) infection in some persons, independent of treatment with Paxlovid and regardless of vaccination status.”

Biden Admin Inks $3.2 Billion Deal With Pfizer For 105 Million COVID-19 Vaccines -The Biden administration said it has signed a new agreement with Pfizer and partner BioNTech for 105 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine for a fall vaccination campaign, with the deal worth $3.2 billion. The contract includes doses for both adults and children, as well as supplies of a retooled Omicron-adapted vaccine that is currently pending approval by federal health authorities, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a statement. “We look forward to taking delivery of these new variant-specific vaccines and working with state and local health departments, pharmacies, health care providers, federally qualified health centers, and other partners to make them available in communities around the country this fall,” said HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell. Pharmaceutical firms have been developing vaccines for the Omicron variant that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says is the dominant strain in the United States.“This agreement will provide additional doses for U.S. residents and help cope with the next COVID-19 wave. Pending regulatory authorization, it will also include an Omicron-adapted vaccine, which we believe is important to address the rapidly spreading Omicron variant,” Sean Marett, Chief Business and Chief Commercial Officer of BioNTech, said in a statement.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to issue a decision in the coming days following a Tuesday meeting in which external advisers recommended modifying the vaccines to better target Omicron.Under the new Pfizer contract, the U.S. government has the option to buy an additional 195 million doses, bringing the total up to 300 million, HHS said.“Over the past 18 months, we have procured and delivered more than 750 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine nationwide, contributing to two-thirds of American adults being fully vaccinated,” O’Connell said.

After calls from AOC and other Dems to expand the court, White House says Biden 'does not agree' with the move - As calls for remedies to restrictions on abortion access grow, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Saturday thatPresident Joe Biden "does not agree with" expanding the Supreme Court. "I was asked this question yesterday, and I've been asked it before... about expanding the Court. That is something that the President does not agree with. That is not something that he wants to do," Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing on Air Force One.On Friday, The Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade – the landmark case guaranteeing a right to abortion. Twenty-two states have made it illegal or inaccessible to obtain an abortion.Democrats have previously called on Biden to endorse legislationthat would add more judges to the nine-member Supreme Court in order to offset the current conservative majority. New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Biden and Congressional Democrats Saturday to work on court reforms, including restraining judicial review and expanding the courts. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey also tweeted Friday in support of an expansion of the courts.Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota called on Biden in an op-ed published on the New York Times Saturday to declare a public health emergency. The senators wrote that such a declaration would "protect abortion access for all Americans, unlocking critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services."Biden put together a commission to study options for Supreme Court reform in 2021. The commission, made up of legal scholars,recommended term limits for justices in a report published in December.Jean-Pierre said the President would "continue to look at solutions" on abortion rights and speak to legal scholars, but did not specify what actions Biden would be taking.

‘Infuriating’: Biden Rebuked for Continued Opposition to Supreme Court Expansion -President Joe Biden was rebuked Saturday for doubling down on his opposition to expanding the U.S. Supreme Court even after its deeply unpopular right-wing majority spent the past weekending the constitutional right to abortion care, weakening gun restrictions, undermining the separation of church and state, and eroding hard-won civil rights, with more attacks on equalityand federal regulatory power expected.“That is something that the president does not agree with,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters when asked about the possibility of court expansion. “That is not something that he wants to do.”MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan called the president’s lack of urgency “ridiculous,” “infuriating,” and “inexplicable.”“What does Biden ‘agree’ with doing?” Hasan asked on social media. “What does the leader of this country want to do to stop the increasingly fascistic assault on our democratic institutions and basic rights?”Hasan and other outraged commentators were responding to a viral tweet suggesting that Biden is opposed not only to court expansion but also to filibuster reform.While ABC News confirmed that Biden doesn’t support expanding the high court, CNN reporter Mike Valerio deleted his tweet because, as journalist Judd Legum explained, it misrepresented Jean-Pierre’s comments about the president’s position on the filibuster. Although Biden has typically defended the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for advancing most legislation, he has called for carve-outs on voting rights. He may or may not do the same for reproductive freedom, but Jean-Pierre dodged the question.“I don’t care what President Biden thinks about the filibuster,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “He is no longer in Congress.” “This is the messaging and the actual facts,” Lieu continued. “If we elect two more Democratic U.S. Senators and Democrats hold the House, we can pass the bill that codifies Roe v. Wade into law.”

Abortion rights proponents file wave of lawsuits challenging bans - Abortion rights activists have quickly filed a slew of lawsuits in states with trigger bans on abortions that went into effect following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last week. Lawsuits have so far been filed by organizations like Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in about half of the 13 states that had trigger laws dependent on the overturning of Roe. In Mississippi, where the state government brought forward the case that ultimately resulted in the Supreme Court overturning Roe, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to prevent Mississippi from activating its trigger ban, which would prohibit all abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger or a rape was reported to law enforcement. The trigger ban was certified by Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) on Monday. In its lawsuit, Jackson Women’s Health argues that abortions are still protected in Mississippi by the state’s own constitution through a 1998 decision by the Mississippi Supreme Court. In the case of Pro-Choice Mississippi v. Fordice, a group of physicians from women’s health clinics successfully sued to overturn a statute that required the permission of both parents or guardians of a minor seeking an abortion before the procedure was performed. The court ruled that there was nothing more “personal and private” than what a person did with their own reproductive system in that case. The Center for Reproductive Rights said in a statement that the decision from this case remains valid as good law. Abortion providers also filed a lawsuit in Texas on Monday seeking to stop the state’s pre-Roe abortion laws from going into effect. These laws would make abortion providers criminally liable for performing abortions. Texas has sought to pass some of the most extreme anti-abortion laws in the U.S., including one that would allow anyone in the state to sue someone suspected of helping facilitate an abortion — whether they were a health care provider or the person who drove the pregnant person to a facility — for a minimum judgement of $10,000.

Uncertainty surrounds ‘abortion pill’ access and legality after SCOTUS ruling — The pills used to perform medically induced abortions are shaping up to be at the center of the next fight in the U.S. Several states have already banned and criminalized abortion following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Friday that overturned Roe v. Wade. The landmark case had previously secured abortion as a constitutional right. Now, as the decision falls back to the individual states, some worry about future access to the FDA-approved pills that can be used to induce abortion in a private setting. “This is a very viable option,” said Monica Skoko, a former nurse for Planned Parenthood. “It is an incredibly safe option.” Some opposed to abortion, however, want to see it outlawed. “It’s no different than a surgical abortion,” said Florida Family Policy Council President John Stemberger. “It ends that unborn child’s life and we think that’s morally wrong, we think it should be legally wrong.” A medical abortion requires taking two FDA-approved pills: mifepristone and misoprostol, according to the Mayo Clinic. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and keeps the embryo from staying implanted in the uterus. Misoprostol rids the embryo from the body. The procedure is most effective during the first trimester of pregnancy, according to the Mayo Clinic. The option has become increasingly more common in the U.S. and accounted for more than half of all abortions in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a group that researches and supports abortion access.

HHS Outlines Post-Roe ‘New Reality’ Amid Pressure on Biden Administration to Take Action -The secretary of Health and Human Services on Tuesday outlined the agency’s action plan for the “new reality” created by overturning Roe v. Wade – the latest of the Biden administration’s efforts to make clear its support for safeguarding abortion access amid criticisms that its response has left much to be desired. “This is a moment of crisis in health care,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said during a press conference Tuesday in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the case that guaranteed a right to an abortion, saying that it puts “at risk the life and health of millions of our fellow Americans.” Becerra called the Supreme Court’s decision “despicable” but added that it was not “unpredictable,” explaining that his agency has been preparing for the decision for “some time.” Among the modest actions announced is one directing the agency to take steps to protect family planning care, one to ensure providers and clinics have appropriate resources and another to protect the privacy of those seeking reproductive health care. “There is no magic bullet, but if there’s something we can do, we will find it and do it at HHS,” he said, highlighting access to medication abortion as especially critical. Medication abortion has for more than 20 years has been an FDA-approved method to terminate pregnancies early on using the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, accounting for 54% of all U.S. abortions in 2020. But at least 19 states already ban the use of telehealth for medication abortion or require the pills to be taken in the presence of a health care professional. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration in December announced it would make a pandemic policy permanent – allowing people to receive the abortion medication by mail. But the federal government and states have been at odds over who has the final word on the medication. On Friday, President Joe Biden highlighted actions his administration will take to make medication abortion and other medication like contraceptives available, calling moves in states to monitor and block such medication “wrong and extreme.” But the central message from the White House following the Supreme Court's decision has largely been to get people to the polls.“Voters need to make their voices heard,” Biden said on Friday, explaining that his executive powers only extend so far and Congress may lack the votes needed to get things done.

Life After Roe Will Be Worse Than Democrats Feared - We are dealing with religious fanatics, with police chiefs on a mission and prosecutors looking to make their careers in deeply red places. et’s not kid ourselves. The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturningRoe v. Wade, is going to be a catastrophe. There’s a German proverb that translates roughly as “the soup is never eaten as hot as it’s cooked,” meaning things won’t be as bad as you fear. Sometimes that’s true, but it wasn’t for the Germans, and it won’t be for us.For years pro-choicers have warned that the right to abortion was at risk, only to be called Chicken Littles by pundits and politicos, usually men. Some thought returning abortion to the states would lead to a middle-of-the-road practical solution and, more important, take abortion out of politics. Ha! Others were sure no one wanted bans to happen: Republicans only used “cultural issues” to distract voters from the party’s real agenda, screwing the working class on behalf of corporations. Thomas Frank made himself famous with a book devoted to that thesis, What’s the Matter with Kansas? I hope he apologizes to the women of Kansas, because the fears he dismissed have come to pass.What can be done? Abortion funds, which raise money for low-income patients’ procedures, are wonderful, and you should give them all your money now, but even before Dobbs, they couldn’t help everyone in need. Their work will be harder now. On Monday, abortion funds in Texas suspended operations because of laws criminalizing helping women seeking to end their pregnancies. If you thought, as many did, that abortion opponents would be satisfied with a return to pre-Roe hypocrisies, when millions of women got abortions while law enforcement mostly looked the other way, think again.What about traveling to pro-choice states, some of which have recently strengthened protections for abortion rights? That’s not so easy, even for people with money, although it will be much harder for low-income patients. Most women who have abortions are mothers, after all; many have jobs that won’t allow them time off. They can’t just pick up and fly to New York City or Chicago, or drive all day and night to reach the nearest clinic. They’ll need help, and help is expensive. The Brigid Alliance, an abortion travel service which pays all costs—transportation, lodging, food, child care—spends about $1,000 per patient. The influx of patients from states with bans will affect care in the states they travel to. Clinics are already overscheduled. Soon they will be overwhelmed. So let’s face it. In half the country, women are fetal vessels now. Their lives, their physical and mental health, their education, their employment, their relationships, their ability to care for their other children, their hopes, ambitions and dreams—none of that matters. What matters is that they incubate a fertilized egg and deliver an infant—which, as Amy Coney Barrett suggested, they can always drop off at the nearest safe-haven baby box. The law may not come after you if you give a pregnant friend money for the procedure or drive her to a free state; anti-abortion activists might not track your pregnancy digitally, as Jia Tolentino warns, but then again, they might (memo to readers: Delete your period tracker now). The capacity exists: to know your online searches, your travel plans, your proximity to a clinic. Does a fetal vessel have rights? I wouldn’t count on it.

Biden Predicts States Will Try to Arrest Women Who Travel for Abortions - (Reuters) -President Joe Biden predicted on Friday that some U.S. states will try to arrest women for crossing state lines to get abortions after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to the procedures nationwide. Thirteen Republican-led states banned or severely restricted the procedure under so-called "trigger laws" after the court struck down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling last week. Women in those states seeking an abortion may have to travel to states where it remains legal. Convening a virtual meeting on abortion rights with Democratic state governors on Friday, Biden said he thinks "people are gonna be shocked when the first state ... tries to arrest a woman for crossing a state line to get health services." He added: "And I don't think people believe that's gonna happen. But it's gonna happen, and it's gonna telegraph to the whole country that this is a gigantic deal that goes beyond; I mean, it affects all your basic rights".

Roe's overturning won't affect abortion access for service members, Pentagon says - Last week's Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and allowing states to ban abortion will not stop the U.S. military from permitting its medical providers to continue to perform abortions in cases of rape, incest or if the mother's life would be endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term, according to a Pentagon memo issued Tuesday. The Pentagon also said the court's decision would not affect its leave policy, which allows personnel to travel as needed to receive care for one of the covered abortions or, in other cases, at their own expense. The high court's decision, handed down Friday, had raised questions about whether the military's medical system would be allowed to provide access to covered abortions even in states that have banned or plan to ban the procedure. The Hyde Amendment that prohibits the federal government's funding of abortions has exemptions for the military in the cases of rape, incest or risk to the health of the mother. MORE: State-by-state scramble defines the immediate post-Roe future: The Note At least 13 states have now ceased nearly all abortion services. "The Supreme Court's decision does not prohibit the Department from continuing to perform covered abortions, consistent with federal law. There will be no interruption to this care," Gil Cisneros Jr., the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, wrote in the memo this week to top Pentagon officials. "Health care providers will continue to follow existing departmental policy, and the leadership of military medical treatment facilities will implement measures to ensure continued access to care," Cisneros continued. Cisneros also stressed that the Justice Department has long held "that States generally may not impose criminal or civil liability on federal employees who perform their duties in a manner authorized by federal law" and that government counsel would be provided to employees and service members if needed.

Howard Stern on Roe v. Wade’s overturning: ‘I’m actually going to probably have to run for president now’ -Howard Stern is ripping the Supreme Court’s decision striking down Roe v. Wade, saying the ruling might spur him to launch a White House bid. “I’m actually going to probably have to run for president now,” the SiriusXM host told “Howard Stern Show” listeners on Monday. The show marked Stern’s first public comments about Friday’s Supreme Court decision, which overturned the 1973 landmark ruling that had provided a constitutional right to abortion. Stern, who’s long railed against the United States’ Electoral College system, said of conservative Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch: “These appointed judges by [former President] Trump were appointed by a president who lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. This is where we get into trouble.” If he were to run for office, the 68-year-old radio pro said, “I am going to do the very simple thing that’ll set the country straight: one vote, one person. No more Electoral College. I’m getting rid of it.” “The problem with most presidents is they have too big of an agenda. The only agenda I would have is to make the country fair again,” Stern said. Stern slammed Justice Clarence Thomas, who joined the 6-3 majority decision, describing him as “sitting there like Darth Vader, dormant [and] waiting for other kooks to join the Supreme Court.” “I’ll give you a couple of examples of why this is so horrible,” Stern said, as he mentioned “everyday women who go to the doctor and they find out that the baby has horrible birth defects.” “A lot of times women are raped. A lot of times contraception doesn’t work. And then there’s even a more confusing state where a man and a woman want to have a baby, and all of a sudden things go medically wrong,” Stern later told a listener. “We were past all of this — and we still are. We as a country voted for Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes,” Stern, who supported the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee over Trump, exclaimed. “We voted for Biden because it was repugnant — all this horseshit,” Stern continued. “But now for life, we’re stuck.”

Abortion pill maker plans multistate legal action to preserve drug access - The generic manufacturer of a key abortion medication plans to challenge state restrictions or bans on its use, one of its lawyers told POLITICO, arguing that an FDA drug approval should trump any state moves to limit access to mifepristone. Ken Parsigian of Latham & Watkins wouldn’t disclose where GenBioPro plans to file lawsuits. The company is currently challenging a Mississippi law that effectively banned telehealth abortions by making patients see doctors in person to obtain the medication, even though the FDA ended its requirement that the pill be personally doled out in 2021. “This is a national issue,” Parsigian told POLITICO. “Obviously, there are states where it’s not an issue, but there are lots of states where it is. We’re going to be pressing it because this is obviously a lot more critical to a lot of women than it was a week ago.” In fact, Two Texas state lawmakers announced plans Wednesday to introduce legislation explicitly banning the prescribing, compounding or dispensing of abortion medications unless to save the life of a pregnant person, which they said is a response to Biden administration officials’ statements pledging to ensure nationwide access to the pills. State Reps. Brian Harrison — who served as Trump’s HHS chief of staff — and Tom Oliverson acknowledge that a prohibition on abortion medications already exists under Texas law, but that their state “must do everything they can to protect their clear constitutional authorities.” Some legal scholars who favor abortion rights argue the FDA should assert that its drug-approval decisions preempt actions by states to limit or ban use of mifepristone. The notion of preemption, which derives from the Constitution’s supremacy clause, says that federal law trumps state law when the two conflict. “The FDA’s determined it’s safe and effective and in the interest of public health for this drug to be very readily available,” Parsigian said.

Democrats look to recruit businesses from red states restricting abortion - — Blue-state governors have a new business recruiting tool: abortion. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade has Democratic leaders trying to flip the script on low-tax red states, hoping to entice businesses whose employees don’t want to live with restrictions on their reproductive freedoms. The Golden State has long endured needling from Republicans and some business owners who criticize California’s less-than-friendly corporate conditions. Most notably, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has lamented that it is now a land of “overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation,” and last year decided to relocate the headquarters of his high-profile, massive electric car company from California’s Silicon Valley to tech boomtown Austin, Texas — a state without personal income taxes. But now, with abortion outlawed in 13 states, including Texas, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said businesses should reconsider setting up shop where their employees can’t access the full scope of reproductive health care. Next year’s state budget, set to be enacted this week, includes business incentives that give extra consideration to companies coming from states that discriminate against LGBTQ people and those that restrict abortion rights. “We’ve got your back, but come back,” Newsom said at a news conference Friday, the day of the Supreme Court ruling. “Some of you may have left the state, come on back. Some businesses may have left, come on back. It’s a point of pride that we welcome you back, we want to celebrate that we have you back.” Democratic governors in states including Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey have made similar pitches to companies in red states, touting their own social programs and liberal policies as reasons they’re a great place to grow a business. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently sent letters to businesses in Georgia and elsewhere, saying the ruling would hamper their ability to “attract and retain top female talent,” as first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Privacy in the Wake of Dobbs: How Safe Are Your Medical Records and Digital Data If Prosecutors or Bounty Hunters from No-Choice States Come Knocking? By Jerri-Lynn Scofield - In the wake of last Friday’s Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, abortion is now prohibited, restricted or uncertain in half of U.S. states. Before we can address the question posed in the headline, we must consider some legal issues first. It’ll soon become clear how aggressively prosecutors in no-choice states will be in targeting state residents who seek abortions in states where the procedure is still legal. The concept of extraterritorial jurisdiction has more often been considered to date in the context of international law, when a sovereign state – aka, a country – tries to exercise legal jurisdiction outside its normal boundaries to target actions that may be perfectly legal in the other sovereign state.Many state legal officers have already signalled their reluctance to prosecute women who pursue abortions. To do so may certainly raise considerable political difficulties. But that doesn’t mean these prosecutors – or bounty hunters, more on those in a moment – won’t pursue other targets, with the aim of making it more difficult for residents of no-choice states to obtain abortions in states where the procedure is still legal. Targeting out-of-state third parties might thereby have a ‘chilling effect’ on provision of abortions even in states where the procedure remains perfectly legal.Possible targets for prosecution could include:

• companies that provide funds for their employees to travel out-of-state to jurisdictions where abortion is still legal;
• companies that offer health plans that cover abortion;
• insurers that provide an abortion benefit for women;
• organizations that provide information to women about how to obtain an out-of-state surgical abortion;
• organizations that assist and support women in arranging travel to another state to arrange an abortion;
• those that drive the vehicles that transport women to undergo an abortion;
• organizations that provide information about how to procure mifepristone;
• pharmacies that supply mifepristone across state lines;
• clinics that provide surgical abortions in states where abortion is legal to women from no-choice states.

Legislators in some no-choice states are mulling legislation to restrict interstate travel. Arkansas state senator Jason Rapert told the Washington Post that the Arkansas legislature may soon address this issue in a special session (see Antiabortion lawmakers want to block patients from crossing state lines). Per WaPo:“Many of us have supported legislation to stop human trafficking,” said Rapert, president of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers. “So why is there a pass on people trafficking women in order to make money off of aborting their babies?”

Biden: Abortion ruling has been ‘destabilizing’ for U.S. standing -President Joe Biden on Thursday insisted that America’s allies “do not think” that the United States is backsliding, despite a recent spate of mass shootings, record inflation and widespread public dissatisfaction with the direction of the country. Instead, Biden argued that the “outrageous behavior” of the Supreme Court — which last Friday overturned Roe v. Wade and revoked the constitutional right to abortion — is “the one thing that has been destabilizing” for the United States. Taking reporters’ questions during a news conference at the conclusion of the NATO summit in Madrid, Biden asserted that international observers “haven’t found one person, one world leader to say America is going backwards.” “America is better positioned to lead the world than we ever have been,” Biden said. “We have the strongest economy in the world. Our inflation rates are lower than other nations in the world.” Apart from the Supreme Court’s decision “essentially challenging the right to privacy,” the United States has “been a leader in the world in terms of personal rights and privacy rights,” Biden said. “And it is a mistake, in my view, for the Supreme Court to do what it did.” Biden went on to claim that he had “not seen anyone come up to me to [say] anything other than … ‘Thank you for America’s leadership. You’ve changed the dynamic of NATO and the G-7.’” Although Biden maintained that his foreign counterparts were not critical of the United States to him personally, the Supreme Court’s decision to undo decades of precedent protecting nationwide abortion access has indeed prompted disapproval from several world leaders. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the court’s decision as a “big step backward” that “clearly … has massive impacts on people’s thinking around the world.” French President Emmanuel Macron conveyed “solidarity with the women whose liberties are being undermined” by the court. AndCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the reversal of Roe “horrific.” Leaders from Belgium, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg similarly expressed dismay over the decision. POLITICO also reported that during a dinner this week on the sidelines of the NATO summit, attended by foreign ministers from the alliance’s 30 member states, at least four diplomats aired concerns about the Supreme Court’s decision.

Roe reversal signals a threat to the fight against climate change, experts say - The decision overturning Roe v. Wade ended a half century of constitutional protections for abortion rights, and some legal observers suggest Friday’s opinion could also signal a willingness by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority to drastically curtail federal efforts to fight climate change.“This decision shows that they are willing to throw out what most considered to be long-established law,” said Jonas Monast, assistant professor and director of the Center on Climate, Energy, Environment and Economics at the UNC School of Law. “That could open the door to many other issues that we considered long settled by the court.”Environmental advocates are now anxiously awaiting a high court decision expected in a matter of days in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which challenges the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants. Such rule-making is considered crucial because the energy sector is the nation’s second-largest source of greenhouse gases.The case is tied to an April 2021 legal challenge from coal mining companies and more than a dozen Republican state attorneys general who argued the Clean Air Act — adopted three years before the original Roe v. Wade decision — does not permit the agency to set regulations that drastically change how the nation’s electricity is produced.Strict rules governing carbon dioxide — the leading contributor to climate change — are critical to President Joe Biden’s goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50%, compared to 2005 levels, by 2030.Just as the court chose to overturn a half century of legal precedence established by Roe v. Wade while ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, environmental groups now wonder whether the conservative majority will follow a similar path in deciding West Virginia v. EPA.

Abortion ruling may add hurdle to climate lawsuits - The Supreme Court’s decision last week to topple decades of abortion law may signal the court is less willing to allow climate change and other environmental lawsuits into the courthouse.The ominous sign for environmentalists in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization comes 63 pages into the 79-page opinion as Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, argues that earlier abortion cases have “diluted” the law and “ignored the court’s third-party standing doctrine” — which generally requires parties before the court to have some proof of injury (Greenwire, June 24).Environmentalists have worried the court would use the standing doctrine to determine who can be heard. Alito took a narrow approach to standing when he was a federal appeals court judge, and his reference to the provision in a draft copy of Dobbs that was obtained last month by POLITICO set off alarms (Climatewire, May 6). “The difference now, of course, is that the language appears in an opinion for the court, authored by Justice Alito and joined in full by four other justices,” said John Echeverria, a professor at Vermont Law School. “Dobbs can be read as a signal that the new conservative majority is poised to embrace a once minority viewpoint on third-party standing, making it harder for environmental advocates and other public interests to pry open the courthouse door.”

Clarence Thomas cites claim that Covid vaccines are ‘developed using cell lines derived from aborted children’ - Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a dissenting opinion Thursday cited claims that Covid-19 vaccines were “developed using cell lines derived from aborted children.”The conservative justice’s statement came in a dissenting opinion on a case in which the Supreme Court declined to hear a religious liberty challenge to New York’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate from 16 health care workers. The state requires that all health care workers show proof of vaccination.“They object on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children,” Thomas said of the petitioners.None of the Covid-19 vaccines in the United States contain the cells of aborted fetuses. Cells obtained from elective abortions decades ago were used in research during the development of the Covid vaccine, a practice that is common in vaccine research.A group of doctors, nurses and other health care workers brought the case, suing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in an objection to the state’s vaccine mandate on religious grounds. The district court issued a preliminary injunction, but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed it and the Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear the challenge on Thursday.The court instead left in place the lower court ruling rejecting petitioners’ claim that New York’s mandate violates the First Amendment right against religious discrimination. All 16 health care workers were either fired, resigned, lost hospital admitting privileges or decided to receive the vaccine.

Supreme Court sides with high school coach who led prayer on football field -- The Supreme Court’s conservatives ruled on Monday for a high school football coach who was reprimanded for leading postgame prayers on the football field’s 50-yard line. The 6-3 decision marked a win for coach Joseph Kennedy in his dispute with the Seattle-area school district that placed him on paid leave for violating a policy that bars staff from encouraging students to engage in prayer. “Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic—whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority. “The only meaningful justification the government offered for its reprisal rested on a mistaken view that it had a duty to ferret out and suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination,” he added. The ruling was just the latest in a series of recent watershed opinions by the Supreme Court, the most monumental being the court’s 6-3 decision last week to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the nearly 50-year-old federal right to abortion. Monday’s decision effectively erased a major 1971 ruling that conservatives have long criticized as fostering discrimination against religion. Starting in 2008, Kennedy began kneeling on the school football field after games and engaging in brief prayer. Eventually, many of his players joined him, as did members of opposing teams. This continued without formal complaint for seven years until the school told Kennedy to stop. The coach went on to defy the school’s order and was placed on administrative leave. He later filed a lawsuit alleging the school violated his First Amendment speech and religious rights in disciplining him for what he depicted as a form of private religious expression. The school painted Kennedy as having led a prominent public demonstration of his religious beliefs on school grounds. His influential capacity as a coach, they argued, put pressure on the football team — including nonreligious players — to join in prayer or risk their playing time being cut. Justice Sotomayor, who last week accused the court’s conservatives of “dismantling” the separation of church and state, wrote a dissent that was joined by her two fellow liberal justices. In it, she again blasted the conservative majority’s opinion for further eroding the church-state barrier. “It elevates one individual’s interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual’s choosing, over society’s interest in protecting the separation between church and state, eroding the protections for religious liberty for all,” wrote Sotomayor, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

US Supreme Court rules in favor of public school officials pressuring students to participate in Christian prayer --Yesterday the US Supreme Court handed down a decision in favor of a football coach who held disruptive, provocative religious ceremonies at the 50-yard line after high school football games, during which he would surround himself with kneeling students. The Supreme Court’s decision, which comes on the heels of the decision Friday abolishing the constitutional right to abortion, is a direct assault on the separation of church and state. The decision was issued by the far-right bloc consisting of Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, John Roberts and Clarence Thomas. The remaining three justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan—filed a dissenting opinion. The lawsuit in question was filed by Joseph Kennedy, who was hired in 2008 by the Bremerton School District in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington, to serve as a part-time assistant coach for the varsity football team at Bremerton High School and as head coach for the junior varsity team. The school district’s written policy, like many throughout the US, provides that “religious services, programs or assemblies shall not be conducted in school facilities during school hours or in connection with any school sponsored or school related activity.” The policy requires secular neutrality: School officials cannot endorse or denounce any particular religion while acting in their official capacities. Kennedy, while acting in his official capacity, developed a practice of forming Christian prayer circles at the 50-yard line after football games in flagrant violation of this policy. At the center of the circle, surrounded by kneeling students, Kennedy would hold a football helmet in the air and lead the students in prayer in full view of the assembled parents and as well as the students of the opposing team. Students playing for the team were pressured to participate in these religious ceremonies led by Kennedy. As the dissenting justices noted in their written opinion, “several parents reached out to the District saying that their children had participated in Kennedy’s prayers solely to avoid separating themselves from the rest of the team.” The school district attempted to take steps to address the problem, correctly believing that under well-established American constitutional law, the district could not be seen as officially endorsing any particular religion. The district made patient efforts to accommodate the coach by offering to move his prayer sessions to a secluded and private area. But the coach arrogantly and stridently refused to stop the practice, leaving the district no choice but to ultimately suspend him—fearing that if they did not, the district could be rightfully sued by parents who were opposed to their children being pressured to participate in religious ceremonies. The coach, backed by religious fundamentalists and doubtless emboldened by a long string of reactionary decisions by the Supreme Court, sued the district for reinstatement, claiming that his “religious liberty” had been violated. The Supreme Court rewarded him yesterday with a decision in his favor, provocatively claiming that he was “fired for praying.”

What the Supreme Court’s football coach ruling means for schools and prayer -The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Monday in support of a high school football coach who knelt on the 50-yard line and prayed after games, paving the way for a new landscape concerning the role of religion in public schools. The court’s conservative majority sided with Joseph Kennedy and against the Bremerton School District in Seattle, agreeing that the coach’s First Amendment rights were violated when the district placed him on leave for violating a policy prohibiting staff from encouraging students to engage in prayer. .The ruling contrasts with two precedents the Supreme Court issued in the 20th century that prohibited school-sanctioned prayers in the classroom and the reading of the Bible in public schools as part of the wall between church and state.It also brings an end to the 1971 precedent Lemon v. Kurtzman, which created a test to gauge church-state separation policies in public schools. That case has been scorned by conservatives as biased against religious interests.Courts have long used those precedents to rule on similar cases, so the Supreme Court’s ruling is likely to launch a pathway for new religious policies in public schools.In her dissent, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued Monday’s ruling sets a new precedent that “elevates one individual’s interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual’s choosing, over society’s interest in protecting the separation between church and state.”“Today’s decision is particularly misguided because it elevates the religious rights of a school official, who voluntarily accepted public employment and the limits that public employment entails, over those of his students, who are required to attend school and who this Court has long recognized are particularly vulnerable and deserving of protection,” she added in an opinion backed by liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.The concept of separation between church and state is embedded in the Establishment Clause in the Bill of Rights, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”Before 1962, however, dozens of states enforced religious policies in public schools, and some even required the Bible to be read in classrooms.The Supreme Court ruled in Engel v. Vitale in 1962 for the first time that states cannot recite prayers in schools, arguing it was a violation of the Establishment Clause. A year later, the high court ruled in School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp that state officials also cannot read the Bible or recite the Lord’s Prayer in classrooms.After Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971, states were required to follow a three-pronged test when enacting statutes and policies in schools involving religion. Chief Justice Warren Burger’s test forced states to ensure policies have a secular legislative purpose, don’t promote or inhibit religion, and don’t involve “excessive government entanglement with religion.”Monday’s ruling effectively overrules the Lemon v. Kurtzman test.It does not overrule Engel v. Vitale or School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp, but states could use the new Supreme Court precedent to apply policies similar to the coach’s prayer movement.The conservative court’s ruling also signals a movement toward fewer restrictions between church and state overall, according to Jeffrey Toobin, the chief legal analyst for CNN.“This is a case where they are moving the law, incrementally, in a very clear direction to allow more state involvement in religion,” Toobin said on Monday. “It can be with regard to prayers in schools. It can be in regard to money going into religious organizations or to exempt religious organizations from government mandates.”

Clarence Thomas signals interest in making it easier to sue media -- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday expressed a desire to revisit a landmark 1964 ruling that makes it relatively difficult to bring successful lawsuits against media outlets for defamation. Thomas’s statement came in response to the court’s decision to turn away an appeal from a Christian nonprofit group who disputed their characterization by the civil rights watchdog group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Coral Ridge Ministries Media sued the SPLC for defamation for listing them as a hate group on their public database, which led to Amazon excluding Coral Ridge as a recipient of charitable contributions from online shoppers. Thomas dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the lawsuit, which had been dismissed by lower courts for failing to overcome the decades-old legal standard, established in the landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, that public figures who sue for defamation must not only prove defendants made defamatory statements, but that those statements were made with “actual malice.” “This case is one of many showing how New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity,’” Thomas wrote. “SPLC’s ‘hate group’ designation lumped Coral Ridge’s Christian ministry with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis,” the justice added. “It placed Coral Ridge on an interactive, online ‘Hate Map’ and caused Coral Ridge concrete financial injury by excluding it from the AmazonSmile donation program. Nonetheless, unable to satisfy the ‘almost impossible’ actual-malice standard this Court has imposed, Coral Ridge could not hold SPLC to account for what it maintains is a blatant falsehood.” It’s not the first time Thomas has called for revisiting the actual malice standard, which many journalists and free speech advocates see as a fundamental protection for reporting on public figures. Last year, he dissented in another instance where the Supreme Court declined to take up a defamation case that had been stymied by the 1964 precedent.

 Supreme Court Reinstates Louisiana Election Map Disputed By Democrats - The Supreme Court granted an emergency Republican application to reinstate a disputed election map in Louisiana late in the day on June 28, a move that allows the map to remain in place for the next elections.In the process, the high court also stayed two lower court rulings that found that the redrawn congressional district boundaries in the map probably violated the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of black voters.The court said in the brief unsigned order (pdf) that it would hold off on considering the merits of the case until after it hears and decides a similar dispute from Alabama that is expected to be argued in the court’s new term that begins in October.The map was approved by Louisiana state lawmakers in March after they overrode Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’s veto.According to a CNN summary, the map kept Republicans’ advantage in five of the Pelican State’s six congressional districts.This left only the 2nd district, which runs all the way from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, as the state’s only majority black district and the sole district to favor Democrats. Reportedly, 33 percent of all Louisianans are black.

Supreme Court reins in landmark tribal lands ruling - The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to narrow the scope of its landmark ruling that recognized nearly half of Oklahoma as Indian Country. The case, Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, focused on criminal jurisdiction in the state after the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that about 19 million acres of eastern Oklahoma was tribal land of the Muscogee (Creek), Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole nations — a decision that has already affected coal oversight in the Sooner State. In a 5-4 decision yesterday led by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court walked back the reach of its ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma and toppled much older court precedent, finding that the federal government and state had concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by non-Native Americans against tribal members on reservation land (Energywire, April 28). Advertisement “Indian country is part of the State, not separate from the State,” Kavanaugh wrote in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett arrived at the court after the McGirt decision, which was a 5-4 ruling that opponents had hoped could be overturned after another conservative justice joined the bench and shifted its ideological balance. Kavanaugh added in his opinion that Supreme Court precedent does say federal law may preempt state jurisdiction in some instances. “But otherwise, as a matter of state sovereignty, a State has jurisdiction over all of its territory, including Indian country,” he wrote. Castro-Huerta affirms Oklahoma’s authority after the justices ruled in McGirt that the state did not have jurisdiction to prosecute a sex abuse crime committed by a Native American against a member of the Creek Nation on reservation land. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who penned the McGirt decision, wrote a scathing dissent of yesterday’s ruling, joined by the court’s three liberal justices. Gorsuch warned that Castro-Huerta undoes nearly 200 years of Supreme Court precedent dating back to the 1832 case Worcester v. Georgia, which established that Native American tribes have sovereignty “unless and until Congress ordains otherwise.” That ruling determined that states did not have inherent criminal jurisdiction over tribal land, he said, noting later that the power to punish crimes is one of the most important attributes of sovereignty. “Where this Court once stood firm,” Gorsuch wrote, “today it wilts.”

U.S. Supreme Court Limits Federal Power to Curb Carbon Emissions - (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday imposed limits on the federal government's authority to issue sweeping regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants in a ruling that will undermine President Joe Biden's plans to tackle climate change. The court's 6-3 ruling restricted the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal- and gas-fired power plants under the landmark Clean Air Act anti-pollution law. Biden's administration is currently working on new regulations.

WEST VIRGINIA ET AL. v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL (pdf) Syllabus and Opinion of the Court www.supremecourt.gov

Supreme Court climate ruling may chill regulation - EPA is left with fewer options to curb planet-warming emissions after the Supreme Court today hobbled the agency’s powers in a landmark climate decision.The court’s 6-3 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, which breaks down along ideological lines, states that the Clean Air Act did not give the agency authority to craft a broad power plant emissions rule like the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, and the majority — led by Chief Justice John Roberts — applied the regulation-chilling “major questions” doctrine to reach its conclusion.Roberts wrote that the doctrine “took hold because it refers to an identifiable body of law that has developed over a series of significant cases all addressing a particular and recurring problem: agencies asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted. Scholars and jurists have recognized the common threads between those decisions.” He continued: “So have we.” Justice Elena Kagan, who penned the liberal justices’ dissent, criticized her conservative colleagues’ interpretation of the doctrine. She said the case law on the doctrine demonstrates that it should be used in cases where an agency is clearly operating outside of its lane and where the action at issue would conflict with a “broader design” by Congress. “But that is not true here,” Kagan wrote. “The Clean Power Plan falls within EPA’s wheelhouse, and it fits perfectly … with all the Clean Air Act’s provisions. That the Plan addresses major issues of public policy does not upend the analysis. Congress wanted EPA to do just that.” In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Samuel Alito, applauded the application of the doctrine. “When Congress seems slow to solve problems, it may be only natural that those in the Executive Branch might seek to take matters into their own hands,” Gorsuch wrote. “But the Constitution does not authorize agencies to use pen-and-phone regulations as substitutes for laws passed by the people’s representatives.”Oral argument in West Virginia took place on the same day that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued an alarming report on the impact of gloabl warming — and said governments aren’t doing enough to stop it (Climatewire, March 1).With its ruling today, the Supreme Court removed one of EPA’s most significant methods of curbing carbon pollution from the power sector, the second-biggest contributor of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Democrats: Supreme Court ‘sentenced our planet to death’ - Democrats are fretting about the planet’s future, and their climate policy ambitions, after the Supreme Court this morning scaled back the Biden administration’s authority to regulate power plant greenhouse gas emissions. The court, in a 6-3 ruling, said EPA does not have the broad authority it sought to use with the Obama-era Clean Power Plan to force the kind of emissions reductions that could be achieved by switching from coal-fired generation to cleaner sources of power. Democrats, green groups and the clean energy industry view the decision as a major blow to President Joe Biden’s goal of decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 and to the scientific imperative of drastically slashing emissions by 2050. It also comes amid an increasingly fierce partisan battle on Capitol Hill about a court heavily shaped by President Donald Trump’s nominees. House Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) called the ruling “an alarming display of hubris.” “Today’s decision makes a mockery of the clear separation of powers outlined in our Constitution and subverts decades of settled law,” Pallone said in a statement. “The Clean Air Act is emphatically clear that EPA has both the authority and the obligation to protect public health and regulate dangerous air pollution like greenhouse gases.” The case, West Virginia v. EPA, stemmed from a federal court ruling that struck down the Trump administration’s scaled back replacement for the Clean Power Plan. Trump’s EPA, the lower court ruled, had interpreted its Clean Air Act authority too narrowly. The Supreme Court took up the case after a petition from Republican states and coal companies, a move that surprised legal observers, since the Biden administration had said it would not go back to the Clean Power Plan. The decision today hinges on the major questions doctrine, the idea that sweeping regulations that are of “vast economic and political significance” should have more direct authority from Congress. “A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s majority opinion. The National Mining Association, to that end, today said the case was not about climate change, but rather “the authority of government agencies and the economic impacts to the states and all Americans when that authority is abused.” Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle tracked the case closely and filed briefs, viewing it as hugely consequential for the future of U.S. climate policy. For Republicans, it’s a victory in a long-running war over EPA’s regulatory authority. “If Congress had intended to give EPA such sweeping authority to transform an entire sector of our economy, Congress would have done so explicitly,” Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who led a GOP amicus brief in the case, said in a statement. “Today’s decision by the Supreme Court is welcome news and further proves that EPA overstepped its authority by imposing enormously burdensome regulations on states to reconfigure our electric grid despite Congress’s rejection,” Capito said.

'I will take action': Biden responds to SCOTUS climate ruling - President Joe Biden today said he would exercise all legal options to continue fighting climate change after the Supreme Court took a major EPA regulatory option off the table.The president said he had directed his legal team, EPA and the Justice Department to review the court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, which said the federal government could not broadly regulate carbon pollution from the power sector, the second-largest contributor of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.“We cannot and will not ignore the danger to public health and existential threat the climate crisis poses,” Biden said in a statement. “The science confirms what we all see with our own eyes — the wildfires, droughts, extreme heat, and intense storms are endangering our lives and livelihoods.He continued: “I will take action.”The president has recently spoken out against other court rulings, including its decision last week to overturn nearly 50 years of legal precedent recognizing the constitutional right to abortion access.Biden’s EPA plans to propose by March 2023 its own power plant rule to replace the Clean Power Plan — which the Supreme Court today determined exceeded the agency’s authority, even though the regulation is not currently in effect (Greenwire, June 30).A final Biden power plant rule is expected by 2024, which means the president would need to win a second term to defend the regulation in court.The utility sector met the Clean Power Plan’s goal — a 32 percent reduction in carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 — a decade early, even without the regulation.EPA still has authority to curb emissions in other ways, including curtailing pollution from the transportation sector, which is the largest source of U.S. emissions.Conservative groups have challenged those efforts, however, including in lawsuits that raise claims under the major questions doctrine, which the Supreme Court used t oday to limit EPA’s control over power plant emissions (Greenwire, April 11).

How SCOTUS’s latest decision could hinder Democrats’ effort to reinstate net neutrality rules - The Supreme Court’s ruling to curb the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could hurt Democrats’ long-fought battle to reinstate Obama-era net neutrality rules. If the same principle is applied from the majority opinion in Thursday’s case, arguing that Congress must grant clear authorization for certain regulations, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may not be able to restore rules banning service providers from blocking or throttling websites. “There is a large shift of power from the agencies to the courts,” said Blair Levin, a policy adviser to New Street Research who served as chief of staff to former FCC Chair Reed Hundt. Levin and other experts say the decision was written in a way that opens the door for rulemaking decisions at the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to potentially be overturned in court. At the heart of the issue is the conservative majority basing its 6-3 decision on a legal philosophy called the “major questions doctrine.” The principle means proposed rules can be challenged on the basis that the rule is a “major question” that only Congress should be able to address. The decision essentially gives courts the ability to decide what is a major question, and in turn decide the regulation requires clear authorization from Congress, Levin said. “So it adds a level of uncertainty to any decision by an agency,” he said. “Whatever you thought the odds of the agency decision being overturned before, you now think are higher.” Democrats and advocates have been pushing to have the 2015 net neutrality rules reinstated after they were revoked under the Trump administration. But a year and a half into the Biden administration, the FCC has been unable to take action due to a 2-2 partisan deadlock on the commission amid hold-ups over Biden nominee Gigi Sohn in the Senate. Now, even if a Democratic-controlled FCC were to reinstate the order, the rules would face a more uncertain path forward in the courts. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it and say that this is good news for the [Federal Trade Commission] or the FCC. Or any kind of regulatory action,”

Supreme Court blow to EPA authority could strengthen banks legal standing — A Supreme Court decision to limit the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency fell short of overturning a broader cornerstone of administrative law. But the move extended a streak of hostility toward regulatory authority that analysts expect will continue for the foreseeable future.In a 6-3 decision released Thursday morning, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled decisively against the EPA, which had been sued for a never-enforced plan that would have directed certain power plants to either reduce their emissions or adopt cleaner sources of energy. The years-long case, West Virginia v. the EPA, was closely watched not just by environmentalists and fossil fuel advocates but by administrative law experts as well, some of whom had feared the case could have wider implications for the balance of power between regulators and their industries, including among banks.Notably, the Supreme Court’s decision against the EPA did not obliterate the principle of Chevron deference — a judicial test introduced in the 1980s that affords significant flexibility to the regulators in how they interpret and apply their statutory authorities. The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, did not refer to Chevron deference, but the three liberals did in their dissent.But by ignoring the principle, the ruling emphasized that Chevron is not particularly popular with the conservative majority, and it may only be a matter of time before the test is formally dispensed with. And while the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday was relatively narrow in scope, many policy watchers interpreted the decision as an ominous sign for any future rulemaking that attempts to push the boundaries of an agency’s authority. Industries closely policed by federal regulators may also be emboldened to push back in court on anything they view as unreasonable.

Explainer-How the Conservative Supreme Court Is Reshaping U.S. Law (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's most consequential term in decades, with blockbuster rulings on abortion, guns, religion and climate change policy, illustrated how its expanded conservative majority is willing to boldly use its power with far-reaching impacts on American society. Democratic President Joe Biden's appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, sworn in on Thursday to replace retiring fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer on Thursday, does not change the court's ideological balance, with a 6-3 conservative majority. The majority's assertiveness could continue in a number of major cases in the court's next term, which begins in October. Some conservatives would like to go further and ban abortion nationwide, either through an act of Congress or via a Supreme Court decision, although it remains to be seen if the justices would be receptive to such an approach. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas caused alarm on the left by writing in his concurring opinion that the court should consider overturning other precedents going back decades protecting individual freedoms including gay marriage, same-sex intimacy and access to birth control. It is unclear if other justices would sign on to such a move. In another landmark ruling expanding gun rights, the court on June 23 found that the U.S. Constitution protects an individual's right to carry a handgun in public. The ruling, which invalidated New York's limits on that practice as a violation of the Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms," will have the biggest impact in states and localities with stricter gun control measures in place. Legal scholars predict that other gun restrictions will fall given that the ruling also declared that, going forward, lower courts must assess the constitutionality of gun restrictions by comparing them to those traditionally adopted throughout U.S. history.The Supreme Court on Thursday curbed the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in a ruling that limits federal agency power. The decision, a blow to the Biden administration's aggressive plan to curb carbon emissions, has broad implications because the court invoked what it calls the "major questions" doctrine, which holds that agency actions of nationwide importance require explicit authorization from Congress. Business groups challenging regulations are now likely to bring up the doctrine in court challenges while judges have latitude to interpret what constitutes a major question. The court in a series of recent rulings further chipped away at the wall separating church and state, eroding American legal traditions intended to prevent government officials from promoting any particular religion.

High court marshal seeks enforcement of anti-picketing laws (AP) — The marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court has asked Maryland and Virginia officials to enforce laws she says prohibit picketing outside the homes of the justices who live in the two states. “For weeks on end, large groups of protesters chanting slogans, using bullhorns, and banging drums have picketed Justices’ homes,” Marshal Gail Curley wrote in the Friday letters to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and two local elected officials. Curley wrote that Virginia and Maryland laws and a Montgomery County, Maryland, ordinance prohibit picketing at justices’ homes, and she asked the officials to direct police to enforce those provisions. Justices’ homes have been the target of abortion rights protests since May, when a leaked draft opinion suggested the court was poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide. The protests and threatening activities have “increased since May,” Curley wrote in a letter, and have continued since the court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was issued last week.

Jackson sworn in as Breyer's Supreme Court replacement - Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in today as the Supreme Court’s newest justice shortly after Stephen Breyer’s retirement from the nation’s highest bench officially took effect at noon. Like Breyer, for whom she once clerked, Jackson has a reputation as a pragmatic jurist who often — but not always — rules in favor of environmental interests. She took her oath less than two hours after Breyer joined the rest of the court’s three-member liberal wing in opposing limits to climate regulation in the blockbuster case West Virginia v. EPA (see related story). Jackson, with her husband Patrick Jackson holding the Bible, took the constitutional oath administered by Chief Justice John Roberts and the judicial oath administered by Breyer. Her daughters Leila and Talia were also in attendance. “There will be a formal investiture in the fall,” Roberts said. “But the oaths will allow Justice — Judge — Jackson to undertake her duties, and she’s been anxious to get to them without any further delay.” The first Supreme Court case in which Jackson, 51, will hear oral arguments is Sackett v. EPA, another high-stakes environmental battle that has the potential to curb federal protections for the wetlands and waterways (Greenwire, June 14). Jackson, the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court, has been a federal judge for about a decade — first as an Obama appointee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, then as a Biden appointee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Harvard College and Harvard Law School graduate served less than a year on the D.C. Circuit before she was nominated to the Supreme Court, but she built a robust record as a moderate judge during her years on the D.C. District Court (Greenwire, Feb. 25).

‘Indefensible’: Outrage as New Reporting Shines Light on Biden Deal With McConnell -The details of President Joe Biden’s deal with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to nominate an anti-abortion lawyer to a lifetime federal judgeship came into clearer focus on Friday, sparking fresh calls for top congressional Democrats to block the proposed agreement.Slate‘s Mark Joseph Stern reported Friday that “McConnell will allow Biden to nominate and confirm two U.S. attorneys to Kentucky”—positions that are term-limited—if the president nominates Republican lawyer Chad Meredith to a post on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.“Under the arrangement, Meredith would take the seat currently occupied by Judge Karen Kaye Caldwell, a George W. Bush nominee,” Stern noted. “Caldwell submitted her move to senior status on June 22, which, once complete, will allow Meredith to take the seat. A lawyer with connections to the Kentucky governor’s office who is familiar with the agreement told Slate that Caldwell conditioned her move upon the confirmation of a successor—specifically, the conservative Meredith.”The terms of the deal as well as its timing—right on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision last week to strike down Roe v. Wade—infuriated Democratic lawmakers and advocates who are currently fighting to shield reproductive rights from Republican officials like Meredith, who defended anti-abortion laws during his tenure as Kentucky’s solicitor general.Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), who had planned to recommend nominees for the Eastern District in the case of a vacancy, told Slate that Biden’s deal with McConnell is “indefensible” and that he has expressed his “outrage” to the White House, which has yet to publicly acknowledge the arrangement.“I understand how brutally manipulative Mitch is, but at some point you have to stand up to him,” Yarmuth told the outlet. “You have to just confront him and say, ‘No, we’re not gonna appoint your people. We’re not gonna let Mitch McConnell appoint judges and other federal officials in a Democratic administration.'”

Former Meadows aide to testify at last-minute Jan. 6 hearing -Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, is the mystery guest that will speak at a last-minute hearing organized by the Jan. 6 committee, according to multiple reports.Hutchinson has already provided a wealth of information to the committee, sitting with its investigators over the course of three separate interviews.It was a taped deposition with Hutchinson that the committee used to detail which Republican lawmakers had sought pardons from Trump. It was her testimony that indicated that Meadows had been warned about the potential for violence on Jan. 6. And Hutchinson also told investigators White House lawyers had advised against the Trump campaign alternate elector scheme.Hutchinson would be the first White House employee to testify publicly before the committee. Her appearance was first reported by Punchbowl News.While Meadows proved an elusive subject for the committee, Hutchinson has been able to detail many of the goings on at the White House in the days leading up to Jan. 6.She detailed numerous meetings Meadows organized with lawmakers, and was in the West Wing on Jan. 6.Her appearance comes after the committee reversed course in announcing it would suspend hearings until July, announcing a hearing with exactly 24 hours notice and without providing any other details as to the identity of its new witness.Instead, the committee only said it would convene to “present recently obtained evidence.”The move left speculation over who would appear, particularly after its Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) made a public plea for former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to appear for testimony. The committee had also recently interviewed a British documentarian after subpoenaing footage from his interviews with former President Trump, his children, and Vice President Mike Pence.Hutchinson’s appearance comes after she recently changed representation, replacing Trump-linked attorney Stefan Passantino with Jody Hunt of Alston and Bird.Hunt did not respond to request for comment on Hutchinson’s appearance, nor did the committee.

Jan. 6 hearing witness: Irate Trump grabbed wheel, demanded to go to Capitol - The House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol attack heard stunning testimony on Tuesday from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. She told the committee and an international TV audience that then-President Donald Trump was warned about potential violence and crimes, that he wanted supporters with weapons let into his Jan. 6 rally, and that he then demanded his security detail take him to the Capitol, going so far as to grab the wheel of the presidential limousine. This was the sixth hearing this month investigating what the committee says was the conspiracy by Trump and his allies to overturn the election. Here is how the hearing unfolded:

• Cheney raises concerns about witness intimidation, Thompson encourages others to come forward
• Extraordinary hearing closes
• Witness: Trump didn't want to respond as attack on Capitol unfolded
• Witness 'disgusted' by Trump’s attack on Pence
• Witness: Trump threw his lunch against wall in anger

Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows requested pardons after Jan. 6 attack– In bombshell testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee Tuesday, former top aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, revealed Meadows and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani both sought presidential pardons related to the Capitol attack. Meadows and Giuliani join a growing list of other Republicans who asked for pardons related to Jan. 6 and Trump's efforts to overturn the election.The list includes five GOP congressmen: Matt Gaetz of Florida, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Louie Gohmert of Texas. Hutchinson said in deposition video revealed last week that those five members asked about pardons.Hutchinson's testimony gave more details about Meadows' actions leading up to and on the day of Jan. 6, 2021. Meadows told Hutchinson that "things might get real, real bad on January 6,” which she said was the first time she felt afraid of what might happen on Jan. 6, when Congress was set to count electoral votes. The night before the Capitol attack, Meadows was instructed to callRoger Stone and Michael Flynn “regarding what would play out the next day,” according to Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.Stone was later photographed on the Capitol accompanied by members of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers. Flynn, in a deposition to the committee, exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked whether the violence at the Capitol was justified and whether he believed in the peaceful transfer of power. On the day of the Capitol attack, Hutchinson informed Meadows that protesters brought weapons to the Jan. 6. rally, to which Meadows largely ignored her while staring at his phone. When violence erupted at the Capitol, Hutchinson told Meadows, who had little reaction to the news. "He almost had a lack of reaction," Hutchinson said. "I remember him saying, ‘All right,’ something to the effect of, ‘How much longer does the president have left in his speech?'"When Hutchinson told Meadows again that rioters were getting closer to the Capitol, he showed little regard while "sitting on his couch on his cellphone." Meadows' position as Trump's chief of staff prompted Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Donald Trump Jr. to text Meadows imploring him to have Trump condemn the attacks, which Trump was reluctant to do, according to Hutchinson's testimony.

Back to Normal Fails by Roger Gathmann - Back in 2018, the NYTand all right thinking campaign consultants were giggling and acting shockedabout the undignified doings of this character named Trump, who was president.Instead of doing what presidents are supposed to do – remaining solemnly in the Oval Office, trying to look like a stuffed goose who was all about war for freedom, he was acting like a huckster, going out to rally his troops up and down the country.The campaign industry people were right in the short run: the legislative races on the national level went against Trump. But in the long run, what an excellent strategy! This was not only using tweaking the demonstration form, merging it with the campaign rally, but it was hooking up the party to a national populist movement.Now, of course, we have a D majority in the Senate and House and a D president. And they sit there helplessly as the R SCOTUS takes away everything the Dems produced in the last fifty years. They sit there helpless and the campaign industry geniuses think, hey, great time to cash in, sending out millions of spam ads, and the usual talking heads say, vote like your life depended on it. All pretending like the car is gonna move when it don’t have no gas, Sally.Biden is sorta hopeless. I don’t think he has the energy or temperament to be a barker. What we need, desperately, is a barker. We have several women, as a matter of fact, who could do it. But instead of coordinating with these women – instead of going out there and in Trumpian manner vilifying the six outlaws, the six demagogues on the court, sitting on the citizenry – instead of making this a real fireworks election – we are getting pallid emails to VOTE! As if this was a just discovered thing. As if VOTING as in restoring the Civil Rights act of 1965 had not been voted down unceremoniously in Congress, without much after effect by the Dem executive branch. On to UKRAINE! Trump, being a buncombe artist, discovered how to merge the kind of street politics that go into demonstrations and the political machine that is party politics. The Dems are so entirely blind to this obvious phenomenon in the age of Reality TV that they have planned – as far as I can see – nothing to make this a national campaign. Nothing about inflation, nothing about Roe Rights, nothing about the striking down of concealed weapons carry, nothing about how to limit, nay, dissolve the unconstitutional and undemocratic power of, the Court. Nothing, as the Fool said in King Lear, will get you nothing.

Jan. 6 Committee May Make Criminal Referral on Witness Tampering -Cheney - (Reuters) - The congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack may make a criminal referral to the Justice Department recommending that anybody who tried to influence testimony be prosecuted, Representative Liz Cheney told ABC News in a report broadcast on Thursday. The witness-tampering issue emerged during the Jan. 6 select committee's sixth hearing on Tuesday, when Cheney revealed that some witnesses reported receiving veiled threats from allies of former President Donald Trump to do "the right thing." "It gives us a real insight into how people around the former president are operating and to the extent to which they believe that they can affect the testimony of witnesses before the committee," Cheney, a committee vice chair and one of two Republicans on the panel of nine, told ABC in an interview. "It's something we take very seriously. And it's something that people should be aware of. It's a very serious issue, and I would imagine the Department Justice would be very interested in and we'll take that very seriously as well," she said. The panel is investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. seat of government last year as lawmakers convened to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory over Trump, a Republican, in the November 2020 election. Evidence gathered by the committee could be crucial in the Justice Department's criminal investigation of the riot and any plan to subvert the outcome of the election.

U.S. Capitol riot panel subpoenas White House counsel under Trump - (Reuters) - A congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol announced on Wednesday that it has subpoenaed former President Donald Trump's White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, to testify about Trump's activities on the day of the melee. The subpoena seeking a deposition from Cipollone followed dramatic public testimony on Tuesday from a former White House aide, who told the panel that Cipollone had warned her that they could face "every crime imaginable" if Trump went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 after delivering a fiery rally speech to his supporters. "The Select Committee's investigation has revealed evidence that Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded," the panel said in a statement. "Any concerns Mr. Cipollone has about the institutional prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony," the committee said. Cipollone could not be reached immediately for comment. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Trump's White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, told the committee on Tuesday that Trump wanted to leave the rally for the Capitol and that he grabbed the steering wheel of the armored presidential SUV when he learned that the Secret Service would not drive him to the Capitol, where thousands of his supporters rioted. "We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable," Hutchinson said Cipollone told her if Trump were to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6. "'We need to make sure that this doesn't happen, this would be a really terrible idea for us. We have serious legal concerns if we go up to the Capitol that day,'" Cipollone said, Hutchinson testified. But the probe faced questions on Wednesday about what steps it had taken to corroborate Hutchinson's account of Trump's having struggled with Secret Service agents. Hutchinson testified that Tony Ornato, a senior Secret Service official, told her that Trump, a Republican, had struggled with agents after giving a fiery speech to his supporters outside the White House that morning in which he repeatedly falsely blamed widespread fraud for his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. read more U.S. media outlets, citing Secret Service sources, said the head of Trump's security detail, Robert Engel, and the driver of the car were prepared to challenge Hutchinson's testimony that Trump had tried to grab the steering wheel. Neither Engel nor the driver made public statements on Wednesday. Trump on Tuesday denied having grabbed the wheel.

Trump’s ex-lawyer Cipollone is at eye of hurricane for Jan. 6 panel - House investigators examining last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol have set their sights on a figure they deem crucial to discerning former President Trump’s actions through the long hours of the riot: Trump’s former lead attorney. Pat Cipollone, who served as White House counsel for the final half of Trump’s tenure, has emerged in recent days as a central player in the behind-the-scenes drama that unfolded at the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, after a mob of Trump supporters had breached the Capitol and a team of Trump’s increasingly frantic aides scrambled to convince a reluctant president to call them off. During Tuesday’s revealing hearing on Capitol Hill, Cassidy Hutchinson, the former lead adviser to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, said Cipollone had foreshadowed trouble on Jan. 6 days in advance, and grew furious during the attack when Trump and Meadows took no steps to curb the violence, even as the mob was threatening to kill Vice President Mike Pence. “Mark, something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood is going to be on your effing hands,” Cipollone warned Meadows, according to Hutchinson’s firsthand account. Cipollone appears to be a useful foil to Meadows. Both men had front-row visibility to the numerous plots to keep the president in power. But where the committee has cast Meadows as a servile Trump loyalist, they’ve made clear they see Cipollone as being one of the few inner-circle figures to protest the president’s bellicose plans for Jan. 6, including his persistent intention to march with his supporters to the Capitol that day. “Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy,” Hutchinson told the select committee, relaying Cipollone’s plea to her the morning of Jan. 6. “Keep in touch with me. We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.” Cipollone has met with investigators informally behind closed doors, but has not testified under oath. That’s a mistake, said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the select committee, who has used the public hearings to urge his cooperation. “We think the American people deserve to hear from Mr. Cipollone personally,” she said during another hearing on June 21. After numerous public pleas, the committee lost its patience on Wednesday, issuing a subpoena for Cipollone’s testimony. The subpoena called him “uniquely positioned” to help the committee as it looks to examine Trump’s “awareness of and involvement in activities undertaken to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.”

Prosecutors Oppose Ghislaine Maxwell's Last-Minute Bid To Delay Sentencing - The prosecutors in the case against Jeffrey Eppstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell on June 26 dismissed claims raised by the defendant’s attorneys, who told the judge that Maxwell was unable to access her legal documents because she had been placed on suicide watch.In a June 25 letter to Judge Alison Nathan from Bobbi Sternheim, one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s defense attorneys, Sternheim informed the court that Maxwell was placed on suicide watch on June 24 by the Manhattan Detention Center (MDC), which in turn could cause a delay in Maxwell’s sentencing, scheduled for this Tuesday.Sternheim went on to write, “She is not permitted to possess and review legal documents and is not permitted paper or pen. This has prevented her from preparing for sentencing.”She states this was done “without having conducted a psychological evaluation and without justification.”The attorney goes on to say, “Ms. Maxwell was abruptly removed from general population and returned to solitary confinement, this time without any clothing, toothpaste, soap, legal papers, etc. She was provided a ′suicide smock′ and is given a few sheets of toilet paper on request. This morning a psychologist evaluated Ms. Maxwell and determined she is not suicidal.” The prosecution investigated the allegations and came to a different conclusion.In a letter to Nathan dated June 26, the prosecution wrote, “This morning, the Government spoke directly with the Warden and the Chief Psychologists of the MDC. Based on that conversation, the Government understands that the defendant currently has access to all of her legal documents in hard copy and is able to confer with defense counsel. Accordingly, there is no basis to adjourn sentencing in this matter.”The letter confirms Maxwell was indeed placed on suicide watch, after the Bureau of Prisons Inspector General’s Office (the IG) had received an email from Maxwell claiming to be in fear for her safety, specifically from members of the MDC staff.However, it goes on to say, “Although the defendant has claimed to psychology staff that she is not suicidal, she has refused to answer psychology staff’s questions regarding the threat she reported to the IG.“While she claimed to the IG to be in fear for her safety, she refused to tell the psychology staff what that fear is.”The prosecution claims the warden and the chief psychologist have confirmed that Maxwell “will be able to prepare for sentencing unencumbered.”

Ghislaine Maxwell Receives 20 Years for Aiding Epstein in Sex Trafficking - - Ghislaine Maxwell, the former socialite who conspired with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually exploit underage girls, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday by a judge who said she played a pivotal role in facilitating a horrific scheme that spanned continents and years. Ms. Maxwell, 60, the daughter of the British media magnate Robert Maxwell, was convicted on Dec. 29 of sex trafficking and other counts after a monthlong trial, at which the government presented testimony and other evidence depicting Ms. Maxwell as a sophisticated predator who groomed vulnerable young women and girls as young as 14 years old for abuse by Mr. Epstein. Her sentencing, which drew throngs of onlookers and journalists to a Lower Manhattan courthouse, brought a measure of resolution to a lurid case whose primary actor eluded justice by suicide. The investigations into the behavior of Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Epstein showed how two prominent members of society used wealth and status to exploit and abuse the vulnerable. And the case afforded a gaze into a world where the patina of glamour hid the routine infliction of intimate, life-changing cruelty. “The damage done to these young girls was incalculable,” said Judge Alison J. Nathan of Federal District Court in Manhattan. The sentence was shorter than the government had recommended — federal prosecutors in Manhattan had asked the judge to impose a sentence of at least 30 years. If the conviction is upheld, Ms. Maxwell, with time potentially credited for good behavior and the two years she has spent in jail, could leave prison in her 70s. Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers had sought to discredit her accusers’ accounts and argued that the government was trying her for Mr. Epstein’s crimes. Ms. Maxwell spoke in court on Tuesday — her first public remarks since her July 2020 arrest. Standing at the lectern in blue prison scrubs, her ankles shackled, she acknowledged “the pain and the anguish” of the victimized women who had addressed the court. But she stopped short of apologizing or accepting responsibility for her crimes. “It is the greatest regret of my life that I ever met Jeffrey Epstein,” Ms. Maxwell said. “Jeffrey Epstein should have been here before all of you.” Ms. Maxwell’s trial and conviction were widely seen as the legal reckoning that Mr. Epstein, 66, never had. The disgraced financier hanged himself in his Manhattan jail cell one month after his July 2019 arrest as he awaited his own trial on sex trafficking charges.

Prosecutors Say Prince Andrew 'Next Target' After Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced To 20 Years - Following the relatively light twenty year sentence Ghislaine Maxwell has received for sex trafficking underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors representing the victims have said that the ‘next target’ should be British Royal Prince Andrew.The lawyers acting on behalf of those alleging abuse requested that the FBI continue investigating the Epstein case and look harder at Andrew and other individuals accused by the victims.“Let’s hope they’re the next target,” Attorney Brad Edwards told reporters.Edwards represented Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who settled a sex abuse civil lawsuit out of court with Andrew, the Duke of York.Attorney Spencer Kuvin, representative of several other alleged victims of Epstein and Maxwell added “Obviously, Andrew is one of the targets they will be looking into. He should definitely be concerned, but if he did nothing wrong, then come forward and tell the full story to the FBI, not the media.”Los Angeles lawyer Lisa Bloom, who is representing several other alleged victims said “We call upon the FBI to fully investigate Prince Andrew. Virginia Giuffre’s civil case should be just the beginning. Everyone associated with Epstein and Maxwell should be carefully investigated.”Bloom previously told reporters that Prince Andrew “should be quaking in his boots.”As we previously reported, the British public have expressed concerns that the money for Andrew’s pay off to Virginia Roberts Giuffre, which will likely run into the millions, will be siphoned from taxpayers.

Bezos, Musk and other billionaires lose combined $1.4T in first half of 2022 - Billionaires — including Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk — took a financial hit in the first half of 2022, losing a total of $1.4 trillion, Bloomberg reported. Zuckerberg, whose total net worth is about $60 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, had begun the year with more than $100 billion, the news outlet noted. The index notes that Bezos has a current total net worth of $133 billion, while Bloomberg notes he lost around $63 billion in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, Musk, whose total net worth is $210 billion, lost close to $62 billion during that same time period. Among the billionaires who have seen the steepest losses for 2022 include cryptocurrency exchange executive Changpeng Zhao at close to $80 billion; Zuckerberg, who lost $65.5 billion; Bezos; Musk and LVMH CEO and chairman Bernard Arnault, who lost about $50 billion. Zelensky: 2,610 Ukrainian cities, towns remain under Russian occupation How SCOTUS’s latest decision could hinder Democrats’ effort to reinstate net neutrality rules Bloomberg noted that some of the billionaire losses were attributed to poor company performance in the last quarter; others come against swings in certain markets, like cryptocurrency. Those losses also come against several other factors: decades-high inflation, an ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine tampering with an already sensitive supply chain and the Federal Reserve’s announcement last month to raise interest rates at the fastest pace in nearly 30 years.

Banks to SEC: Climate rule poses 'real-world' problems - Wall Street lenders are railing against key provisions of a proposed rule that would require them to include climate-related information in financial disclosures. The Securities and Exchange Commission received thousands of letters during its public comment period on a controversial rule that aims to provide investors with more information about companies’ exposure to climate change. Among those submitting comments: the largest U.S. banks, and the lobbying groups and law firms that represent them. Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., the Financial Services Forum and the Bank Policy Institute were among those that submitted dozens of pages of comments arguing that the SEC needs to take a hard look at the version it released — and try again. The sector is “basically asking the SEC to gut most of the important changes that this rule would bring to the current voluntary world,” said Kathleen Brophy, a senior climate finance strategist with the advocacy group Sunrise Project. But Brophy, who reviewed the industry’s comments, said she is encouraged that the sector is engaging with the proposed rules substantively and is offering nuanced feedback — rather than dismissing the need for the proposal entirely, as has been the approach of Republican lawmakers and some business groups. Many of the firms and trade associations emphasized that they support the SEC’s goal to improve climate-related information. But all of them have major problems with the specifics of how the agency plans to do so. The American Bankers Association — which represents small, regional and large banks — went so far as to say the rule goes “far beyond” the SEC’s mandate to protect investors, and that its significance “will likely require withdrawal and reproposal.” Broadly speaking, the industry argues that the rule, as currently written, would require companies to disclose vast swaths of information that would be complex to compile and calculate, and that may not actually be useful or important to investors making key financial decisions. In their comments, the banks call on the SEC to soften or exclude disclosure requirements related to companies’ indirect greenhouse gas emissions, so-called climate scenario analysis and more. “Our comments focus on proposed requirements that pose real-world implementation challenges that are not justified by the benefits. We believe that these requirements introduce unnecessary complexities by focusing on matters immaterial to investors,” Muneera Carr, Wells Fargo’s chief accounting officer, wrote in a letter to the agency.

EY will pay a record $100 million fine after the SEC found 49 staff cheated on an ethics exam - Big Four audit giant EY has reached a record settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after the regulator found dozens of staff cheated on an ethics exam.EY agreed to pay a $100 million penalty after the SEC found that 49 employees sent or received answer keys to a Chartered Public Accountant (CPA) ethics exam between 2017 and 2021.In an order published Tuesday, the SEC said further that "hundreds of other audit professionals" at EY cheated on professional courses and exams, "including those addressing CPAs' ethical obligations."The order also noted that many EY employees who did not cheat themselves were aware of the cheating, but did not report it, breaching company codes of conduct."This action involves breaches of trust by gatekeepers within the gatekeeper entrusted to audit many of our Nation's public companies," Gurbir Grewal, head of the SEC's enforcement division, said in a statement."It's simply outrageous that the very professionals responsible for catching cheating by clients cheated on ethics exams of all things," he added.As well as the record financial settlement, the SEC said that EY has agreed to undertake "extensive remedial measures to fix the firm's ethical issues."EY's record settlement is double the previous the penalty given to an audit firm for an ethics violation. In 2019, KPMG agreed a $50 million settlement after it was found to have used stolen data to alter already completed audits after being tipped off that it was about to be inspected. 

SEC Chair Gensler Again Says Bitcoin Is Not a Security. What About Ethereum? - Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler today reaffirmed the SEC's view that Bitcoin is a commodity but refrained from extending the label to any other cryptocurrencies in an interview with CNBC.Gensler singled out Bitcoin as an example of a crypto asset that should be regulated under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as he's done previously, but would not comment on other coins or tokens."Some, like Bitcoin, and that's the only one, Jim, I'm going to say because I'm not going to talk about any one of these tokens, my predecessors and others have said, they’re a commodity," Gensler said in response to a question from CNBC’s Jim Cramer.Gensler added, however, that many other “crypto financial assets have the key attributes of a security,” noting that the main similarity between the two is the idea that “the investing public is hoping for a return.”The regulatory framework surrounding cryptocurrencies and digital assets has centered on the interpretation of which ones function as securities, like stocks, and which ones operate as commodities, like gold. The previous SEC administration believed that both Bitcoin and Ethereum were commodities, but Gensler only mentioned Bitcoin in his latest comments and has previously avoided answering questions about Ethereum specifically.Prior to Gensler taking the helm at the SEC, the Commission’s leadership had publicly adopted the position that both Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities—the latter of which with some controversy, considering that Ethereum launched in 2014 through an ICO that would by today’s standards be considered an illegal securities offering.

Bitcoin is the only coin the SEC Chair will call a commodity - Monday morning, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, said on CNBC's Squawk Box that the only token he would lump in with commodities was bitcoin. Gensler pointedly declined to name any cryptocurrency other than the original one, notable because the market has been operating under the assumption that there is a sort of wink-and-nod understanding that ether is also not a security. "Many of these financial assets, crypto assets, have the key attributes of a security... some like bitcoin, and that's the only one, Jim, I'm going to say, because I'm not going to talk about any of these tokens, my predecessors and others have said they're a commodity," Gensler said. He made the comment as he discussed the importance of collaborating with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).Meanwhile, other token communities besides ether have also been cautiously optimistic that their own assets might qualify for treatment as a commodity. For example, Hiro, the company behind the issuance of the STX token, notified the SEC in early 2021 that it would no longer treat its cryptocurrency as a security. Commodities can be traded by anyone. Securities can only be traded by accredited investors (basically, rich people) unless they are on public markets (such as stocks), which is an expensive pain. The SEC did not respond to a request for comment and clarification from Axios. Ethereum was launched with a fundraiser in 2014 that most see now as a securities offering. The question is whether it hasbecome a commodity, and whether that answer provides the regulatory roadmap for other cryptocurrencies.

One of the most prominent crypto hedge funds just defaulted on a $670 million loan - Prominent crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has defaulted on a loan worth more than $670 million. Digital asset brokerage Voyager Digital issued a notice on Monday morning, stating that the fund failed to repay a loan of $350 million in the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, USDC, and 15,250bitcoin, worth about $323 million at today's prices.3AC's solvency crunch comes after weeks of turmoil in the crypto market, which has erased hundreds of billions of dollars in value. Bitcoin and ether are both trading slightly lower in the last 24 hours, though well off their all-time highs. Meanwhile, the overall crypto market cap sits at about $950 billion, down from around $3 trillion at its peak in Nov. 2021.Voyager said it intends to pursue recovery from 3AC (Three Arrows Capital). In the interim, the broker emphasized that the platform continues to operate and fulfill customer orders and withdrawals. That assurance is likely an attempt to contain fear of contagion through the wider crypto ecosystem."We are working diligently and expeditiously to strengthen our balance sheet and pursuing options so we can continue to meet customer liquidity demands," said Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich.As of Friday, Voyager said it had approximately $137 million in U.S. dollars and owned crypto assets. The company also noted that it has access to a $200 million cash and USDC revolver, as well as a 15,000 bitcoin ($318 million) revolver from Alameda Ventures.Last week, Alameda (FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's quantitative trading firm) committed $500 million in financing to Voyager Digital, a crypto brokerage. Voyager has already pulled $75 million from that line of credit. "The default of 3AC does not cause a default in the agreement with Alameda," the statement said.

'Bitcoin Jesus’ Roger Ver Spars With Crypto Exchange CoinFlex Over Margin Call - A public dispute between a longtime crypto investor and a digital-asset exchange is the latest in a series of mini-crises that have rocked crypto markets in recent weeks. CoinFlex, a crypto exchange, on Tuesday named Roger Ver as the counterparty who failed to pay $47 million of stablecoin in a margin call. Ver denies he defaulted on debt owed to CoinFlex. CoinFlex had previously disclosed a liquidity issue that led to the exchange pausing withdrawals. CoinFlex CEO Mark Lamb said in a tweet that the company served Ver, who is an investor in the exchange and was an early promoter of Bitcoin, with a notice of default.

Goldman Sachs Cut its Hype-and-Hoopla Creature Coinbase to Sell after it Collapsed 87%, as Crypto “Trading Activity Dries Up” -- Crypto-trading platform Coinbase hired Goldman Sachs in late 2020 as financial advisor for its efforts to go public. They decided eventually to go public via a direct listing. Coinbase was hyped to the nth degree by Wall Street and by the whole crypto pump-and-dump club. Goldman Sachs became the first-listed of the joint-managers of the direct listing, followed by J.P. Morgan, Allen & Co., and Citigroup. Goldman collected huge fees for its efforts. On April 14, 2021, Coinbase shares [COIN] started trading at $381 a share then spiked to $429.54 intraday, and closed at $328.28, giving it a market cap of about $88 billion. Over the 16 months since that propitious intraday high, Coinbase shares have collapsed by 87%, to $56.40 at the moment. And today, after stock jockeys and dip buyers had taken huge losses in their Coinbase shares, Goldman Sachs cut its own creature to “sell” and cut its price target to $45. And shares dropped about 10% by mid-day today. A chart that looks like this – and my Imploded Stocks column is full of them – is an indictment of the Wall Street banks and the hype-and-hoopla machine that pumped and dumped no matter what into the laps of the most gullible retail investors ever, chasing after the most fabulous get-rich-quick schemes ever. It takes two to tango. The 10% plunge today is barely visible after this utter collapse: On June 14, following the hiring freeze announced on June 5 and reports of rescinded job offers, Coinbase announced that it would lay off 18% of its workforce. Which was easy to do since the company switched to working-from-home during the pandemic in May 2020 – it became what it called a “remote-first” company – which was made permanent in 2021. And 1,100 laid-off people found out via personal email, after they’d been locked out from their corporate emails and other access. So that was easy. These layoffs followed the debacle of the disclosure in an SEC filing thatcrypto holders on its platform were just “unsecured creditors,” made worse by CEO Brian Armstrong’s tweet storm which promised that “We have no risk of bankruptcy,” which inspired huge amounts of confidence. So today, Goldman Sachs comes out and issues a sell rating on its own creature and cuts its price target to $45, after most stock jockeys that ever touched it got their faces ripped off. The issue for Coinbase is that it’s not fun anymore to trade crypto gambling tokens. It used to be a huge amount of fun when prices soared, spiked, and exploded on an hourly basis. But now that prices kathoomphed, in terms of the hated, disparaged, and soon to collapse fiat, some of them by nearly 100%, thereby wiping out about $2 trillion of the $3 trillion in gambling token value, the fun has turned into a nightmare. Many traders who were leveraged in their positions got wiped out and were left by the wayside. And Coinbase, which makes its revenues from fees off trading activity, is confronted with the unpleasant issue that its revenues drying up.

As This Crypto Stock’s Price Collapsed, Goldman, JPMorgan and Citigroup Issued Buy Ratings - By Pam and Russ Martens -- When the cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, first offered its stock to the public on April 14, 2021, its S-1 Registration Statement that was filed with the SEC indicated that Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Citigroup were its financial advisors, along with Allen & Company.Most Americans would assume that if one is the financial advisor to a company going public for the first time, the financial advisor would know a considerable amount about that company’s business and future prospects.But as we reported last Wednesday, horror stories in the thousands about how Coinbase runs its exchange have been piling up in the publicly accessible database of the federal regulator, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Three business days after we published that information, Goldman Sachs finally put out a sell rating on the stock of Coinbase. The news came from Goldman Sachs before the market opened this morning.On Coinbase’s first day of trading on April 14, 2021, it closed at a share price of $328.28, giving it a market capitalization of $85.8 billion. About a month and a half after Coinbase went public, on May 24, 2021, Goldman Sachs’ analyst Will Nance initiated coverage of the stock with a buy rating and a forecast for a 30 percent gain in the stock. From Goldman Sachs’ initial buy rating on May 24, 2021 to May 10, 2022, the day before Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock from a buy to neutral, Coinbase went from a closing price of $225.30 to a closing price of $72.99 – a decline of 68 percent.Should any analyst with common sense have tempered his enthusiasm to the public when the stock had declined by 40 percent? Perhaps by 50 percent? No, it took a decline of 68 percent in the shares of Coinbase to finally get a neutral rating from Goldman.And it took our horror stories on Wednesday and a Moody’s credit downgrade on the debt of Coinbase on Thursday of last week to finally get a sell rating on Coinbase from Goldman Sachs this morning.Moody’s credit downgrade noted how the revenues of Coinbase are tied to the price of cryptocurrencies:“Coinbase’s revenue model is tied to trading volumes, transaction activity per user and overall crypto asset prices, said Moody’s. Coinbase’s customers pay it a percentage of the notional value of trades that are matched on its platform, a fee structure that can be very lucrative in a rising market coupled with high transaction volume, as was the case in 2021. However, Moody’s indicated that when crypto asset prices decline, the notional traded amount (price of the traded instrument multiplied by the traded volume) and transaction revenue generally decline too, unless trading volume increases commensurately….”Analysts at JPMorgan and Citigroup don’t look much smarter when it comes to providing guidance to investors on Coinbase. One day after Goldman Sachs put out a buy rating on Coinbase last year, JPMorgan analyst Kenneth Worthington initiated coverage with an “overweight” (code for “buy”) rating. Worthington shared his view that “We see the cryptomarkets as durable and growing, and expect Coinbase has the opportunity to influence and benefit from this market growth as it innovates.”

Why This Bitcoin Crash Is A 'Crypto Ice Age' — Bear markets have grown almost routine for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices. Since its 2009 launch, Bitcoin's price has tumbled more than 50% six times. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, in a June 14 letter announcing an 18% staff cut, offered assurance despite the latest Bitcoin crash and walloping of other crypto prices. Armstrong said the cryptocurrency exchange "has survived through four major crypto winters" and is taking the steps needed to do so again. Yet this storm is on an entirely different level. "It's a crypto ice age," Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev told IBD. "I think this is going to be very deep, very prolonged, and many cryptocurrencies will not survive."The blowup of supposed "stablecoin" TerraUSD, wiping out $40 billion in market value, has accelerated a deleveraging wave that has yet to run its course. This month, crypto lending platform Celsius Network, which oversaw $20 billion in crypto deposits and loans, halted withdrawals as it faced a liquidity crunch. Both Terra, a blockchain payment and savings network, and Celsius offered double-digit interest payments that depended on bullish crypto scenarios. But the collapse of those Wild West business models is less a cause than a symptom of crypto's unraveling. The real reason thecryptocurrency market is imploding: Bitcoin and the other roughly 19,000 digital currencies are up against their first Federal Reserve tightening cycle to stem an inflation outbreak.For most of their existence, cryptocurrencies have enjoyed the balmiest of monetary conditions. The period since Bitcoin's launch has mostly seen the Fed trying to prop up demand. Over that time, the Fed bought up $6.5 trillion worth of Treasuries and government-backed mortgage securities. That suppressed rates in a bid to encourage risk-taking, boost asset values and stimulate demand through wealth gains. The bulk of those Fed purchases — $4.5 trillion — came after the coronavirus lockdown cratered the economy in March 2020. Alongside multiple rounds of fiscal stimulus, ultra-easy Fed policy worked only too well. All that monetary fuel supercharged the vaccine-enabled economic reopening and touched off the biggest bout of inflation in 40 years.Now the reversal of unprecedented Fed stimulus is deflating most asset values. The surge in the 10-year Treasury yield has hit growth stocks in particular. Their future earnings streams are less valuable when discounted to the present based on a higher risk-free rate of return. That helps explain why the tech-heavy Nasdaq has underperformed the broad market.But when it comes to valuing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, there are no future cash flows to discount.The Bitcoin crash has "debunked" the idea that it offers a hedge vs. inflation, like digital gold, Deutsche Bank economists Marion Laboure and Galina Pozdnyakova wrote in May. Rather than trading like gold, the ups and downs of cryptocurrency prices have correlated with the Nasdaq to a "staggering" degree, they wrote.Yet cryptocurrency's roller-coaster ride makes the Nasdaq's volatility seem tame. Through June 23, the Nasdaq is down nearly 31% from its Nov. 22 intraday high. Bitcoin, which peaked on Nov. 10, has dived 70%.In recent days, this Bitcoin price crash crossed a line that previous bear markets in cryptocurrency prices didn't even approach.Bitcoin tumbled as much as 75% from November's record $68,990.90 to the June 18 low near $17,800. That briefly undercut its last major peak near $19,600 in December 2017. At its worst, in early 2015, Bitcoin's low was nearly 40% higher than the previous peak.Bitcoin bounced back above $21,000 late last week, but has drifted below $21,000. That's just below the average $21,000 purchase price, Mizuho's Dolev says.Wiping out Bitcoin's gains over the past 4.5 years is challenging the notion that long-term holders can't lose. That will test the faith that ultimately determines the value of all cryptocurrencies.

How the SEC threw a wrench in bank regulators’ crypto custody efforts — An accounting bulletin from the Securities and Exchange Commission has complicated bank regulators’ plans to clarify how institutions should treat digital assets they hold in custody. For months, banks have awaited their regulators’ promised guidance on how to hold virtual assets on behalf of clients — but that conversation has recently gotten a lot more tricky. SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121, issued in March, requires most SEC registrants that hold crypto assets for their clients to record that risk on their balance sheets as a liability. That has set off a flurry of talks between regulators and banks. It’ll be difficult for regulators to move forward in giving banks clarity until that hurdle with the SEC is cleared, experts say. Despite what banks say are widespread consequences, bank regulators have mostly said they’re still analyzing the impact of SAB No. 121. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell hinted last week that bank regulators are working on the issue, although he declined to provide more details. “I don’t have an answer for you,” Powell said in response to a question from Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., on how banking regulators are dealing with SAB No. 121. “But that’s certainly something we’re focusing on very closely right now.” “The FDIC is working closely with the other banking agencies to better understand the risks associated with custodial arrangements involving crypto assets,” an FDIC spokesperson said in a statement. “As part of this process, we are assessing SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 (SAB 121), including its applicability and potential impact on the financial reporting and regulatory capital requirements of banking organizations that engage in custodial activities covered by the bulletin.”Banks, meanwhile, have argued that the rule would effectively shut them out of the business of providing cryptocurrency custody services because of how prudential regulators tally how assets offset liabilities on their balance sheets. If those digital assets are on banks’ balance sheets as a liability, banks could have to reserve against those liabilities, making it uneconomical for many banks to offer crypto custody.

How much does it cost to orchestrate a cyber attack in 2022? - How much does it cost to orchestrate a cyber attack in 2022? Truthfully, not a lot. For less than $100, you can probably subscribe to a lifetime’s supply of cyber attacks on the targets of your choosing. Really. Better still, the sign-up process couldn’t be simpler these days. All you’ll need is an email address and a payment card (or cryptocurrency). No dark web, balaclavas and voice-changers, nor direct human interaction with criminals required. Specifically, we’re talking about DDoS here — distributed denial of service attacks. These aim to shut down a website or online resource by overwhelming it with bandwidth-bursting requests, so that legitimate users can’t get access. Although a relatively primitive weapon, DDoS attacks have taken down a number of different high-profile targets in recent years, including forcing the New Zealand stock exchange NZX offline in 2020. Clearly, I should point out that DDoS attacks are illegal in a number of ways in a number of different countries, and are a poor way of making friends in today’s digital economy. However, offering stress testing of DDoS protection services is completely legal. As a result there’s been a proliferation in companies offering DDoS “stress testing” to anyone who wants it, without everyone necessarily thoroughly verifying that the person conducting the “stress test” is in fact whoever owns the website or online service being tested. All you’ll need to operate an out-of-the-box DDoS service is to have the target’s IP address — which can easily be acquired by having an employee of the target visit a website, for example. As a sign of how unaware the mainstream (regulators, banks etc) is of these “stress testing services”, some of the sites I visited offer quite mainstream payment solutions, such as PayPal and Skrill. The number one problem with running online black market sites has always been taking payment from customers. Historically, banks and payment networks like Visa and Mastercard have called the shots on whether you get to operate or not. This is why cryptocurrency has been such a massive facilitator of shady online activity. But frankly, I’ve seen sites for trading video game items that are better regulated than some of these DDoS providers. The next question might be why. Why has the price and availability of DDoS attacks become so cheap? Has DDoS been through an extended bear market due to an outbreak of global peace in cyber space?Well, not quite. The prevailing reason appears to be supply. Unlike legitimate cloud services — such as website hosting or application stack services which are best operated at scale via a smaller number of fungible servers — DDoS benefits from being (per the name) distributed.A few million smaller devices each sending ten requests a minute will be much harder to stop than billions of requests all coming from the same place, as that former bears more resemblance to legitimate human traffic. And, happily, it turns out that there’s been a Cambrian explosion in small, internet-connected, easy-to-hack devices with minimal security and software patching. I’m talking about Internet of Things devices. The reality is that for all their advantages, smart devices are also a botnetter’s dream. And while I’m not directly suggesting that your IoT doorbell/home sound system/baby monitor is spying on you and your family, it may well be up to other unsavoury online activity (more generally, please don’t buy an internet-connected child monitors orjacuzzis, and please note that some IoT doorbell providers do sell or pass on the footage they collect).

 Are banks holding too much capital ... or too little? - Following another round of Federal Reserve stress testing in which banks withstood a financial doomsday scenario with relative ease, a debate has reemerged about the calibration of capital requirements.At the heart of the discourse is a fundamental disagreement about the ultimate goal of minimum capital requirements. On the one hand, requiring banks to hold capital ensures their solvency and keeps credit available through the business cycle. On the other hand, more capital retention means less money can be lent out, thus limiting the benefits that such lending can provide to the economy. “That's the question: What's the right level of safety versus support for the economy?” said Randal Quarles, former Fed vice chair for supervision. This is an age-old conundrum, but one that was largely hypothetical in the early days of the 2008 financial crisis. When the economy — and specifically the banking system — was reeling from the collapse of the mortgage market, the utility of higher capital requirements was apparent, and the Dodd-Frank Act made enhanced capital requirements less of an option for regulators or banks. But several factors have made this debate more relevant today than at any time since that crisis. One of those factors is the anticipated confirmation of Michael Barr as the Biden administration’s pick for vice chair for supervision at the Fed — the central bank’s point person on precisely these kinds of supervisory questions. Barr is expected to be confirmed by the Senate this summer, and he will assume the role with the final implementation steps of the Basel III global standards looming next year and in the context of a slowing U.S. economy and a bare-knuckle fight against inflation. While it might seem like this would be a good time for banks to hold more capital, Quarles said instead this should be a time when banks should be freer to lend.“The folks who prioritize safety say the current environment is particularly the time when we need to worry about capital and make sure that banks are resilient,” Quarles said. “I think that is getting the balance wrong, and I think that raising capital levels now would be a contributing factor as we move towards a recession.”

 FINRA ‘secret agreement’ investigation probes Wells Fargo case -There was no “secret agreement” between Wells Fargo’s attorney and FINRA that improperly removed a potential arbitrator from a client complaint case at his request. The regulator simply agreed with and complied with that request, in a manner that an outside law firm deems proper.That was the confusing takeaway from an independent review commissioned by FINRA. At issue: whether its Dispute Resolution Services unit followed FINRA’s arbitrator selection guidelines in a case that a state judge in Atlanta vacated in the clients’ favor based on a finding that Wells Fargo and its attorney had “manipulated” the process. FINRA disclosedthe results of law firm Lowenstein Sandler’s investigation on June 29 after appointingpartner Christopher Gerold, the former president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, to lead the review earlier this year. Wells Fargo Clearing Services is currently appealing the January court decision, which questioned “the entire fairness” of FINRA arbitration.Far from examining any implications for investor protection or capital markets stemming from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Belinda Edwards’ ruling, the law firm’s study asserts that “the primary question in this investigation was whether [the attorney] had an agreement with FINRA to automatically remove certain arbitrators from arbitrator selection lists in his matters.” On that point, the law firm states that it found no evidence that there was any such agreement and that “FINRA personnel generally adhered to the policies and procedures” and took actions they “intended to be fair and reasonable at each step” of arbitrator selection in the case. The regulator has pledged to make certain changes to the process recommended in the report.“FINRA welcomes the opportunity to make the results of the independent review public, as we recognize the critical importance of maintaining the trust of all parties in the arbitration forum,” CEO Robert Cook said in a statement. “FINRA management agrees with the recommendations and commits to promptly deliver a plan for implementation to the board. This report will also inform our ongoing evaluation of how best to continue modernizing the [Dispute Resolution Service] arbitration system to serve all stakeholders in an evolving, complex investing environment.”Within the report, however, the investigation revealed many complexities about the claim filed five years ago by ex-Wells Fargo clients Brian Leggett and Bryson Holdings. The current case has links to an earlier, separate one from 2011 involving attorney Terry R. Weiss and a subsequent Bloomberg News column in which arbitrator Fred Pinckney went public with concerns about that 2011 case. Between 2010 and April 2022, Pinckney hasn’t presided over any other cases, according to statistics included in the law firm’s report. After Pinckney appeared in a pool of 35 potential arbitrators for the Leggett claim, the attorney defending Wells Fargo, Weiss, asked FINRA in July 2017 to take him out of the running, the report states.

 Waters demands regulators 'escalate' efforts to police Wells Fargo - The Democratic chair of the House Financial Services Committee is calling on the nation's financial regulators to "escalate" their scrutiny and punishment of Wells Fargo, pointing to the bank’s "history of repeat offenses." In a letter Tuesday, Rep. Maxine Waters of California urged top officials at bank regulatory agencies and beyond to crack down harder on the San Francisco-based megabank, which has been dogged by government investigations and allegations of consumer abuses for the better part of a decade. "As I have made clear in the past, Congress has given regulators like yourselves significant tools to properly penalize Wells Fargo for its continuous wrongdoing," Waters wrote in the letter, which was addressed to top officials at the Federal Reserve, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “The need for warnings and ‘cost of doing business fines’ have long passed,” House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters wrote in a letter about Wells Fargo to various regulatory agencies.Bloomberg "Wells Fargo and other mega-financial institutions must face real consequences to curb their recidivism," Waters wrote. Waters pointed to recent regulatory actions, including a $250 million civil money penalty assessed by the OCC last fall, as well as to media reports outlining missteps by Wells Fargo. Waters' plea came on the heels of a similar letter by Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, in May. Rather than writing to regulators, however, Brown addressed his letter to Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf, demanding that the chief executive address the bank's compliance shortcomings "once and for all." A Wells Fargo spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday that the bank was "disappointed to see Chairwoman Waters' letter, which does nothing but rehash legacy issues that occurred under prior leaders who left the company years ago and repeat the unproven allegations of recent news reports that did not present the full facts."

U.S. Chamber, bank trades ask CFPB to rescind anti-discrimination policy -The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and three bank trade groups are calling for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to rescind a new policy that seeks to identify and root out discrimination in all consumer financial products. Four trade groups sent letters Tuesday to CFPB Director Rohit Chopra asking him to reverse the anti-discrimination policy enacted in March. Under the new policy, the CFPB for the first time said that discrimination on the basis of age, race, sex and other factors — regardless of intent — violates the federal prohibition on “unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices," known as UDAAP. The CFPB enacted the policy by rewriting its supervisory and examination manual. Eric Halperin, the CFPB’s enforcement chief, also wrote in a blog post in March that the bureau “will fight to end discrimination in the financial sector.”The American Bankers Association, Consumer Bankers Association and Independent Community Bankers of America and the Chamber released a white paper detailing why the CFPB’s anti-discrimination policy exceeds legal authority. . The Chamber called the policy “unlawful,” because the bureau did not provide any notice-and-comment schedule as required by the Administrative Procedure Act. The Chamber also launched a six-figure ad campaign Tuesday alleging that Chopra “has no accountability,” and is engaged in a “radical agenda and reckless approach,” in which he “changes rules by fiat.” The trade groups said the CFPB exceeded its authority by extending fair-lending laws beyond the bounds set by Congress. The policy change marked a significant departure from anti-discrimination practices in the past that traditionally have focused almost exclusively on mortgage lending. Congress has passed laws outlawing discrimination in housing, credit and employment — but not in all financial products. The Chamber said the CFPB’s policy opens the door to “uncertain and excessive regulation in the financial marketplace.”

Red states' pushback on guns, abortion, climate puts banks in bind -From abortion to climate change to guns, larger banks face the prospect of a growing backlash from Republican-led states over their stances on environmental and social issues. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn Roe v. Wade is only the latest example of the industry’s increasingly fraught political position in state capitals. On one side, banks are under pressure from outside activists, including some shareholders, as well as many of their own employees, to take progressive stances on climate change, gun control and abortion rights. On the other side, conservative officials in GOP strongholds are testing banks’ willingness to step into such debates by threatening to hurt their bottom line. Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research at the investment bank BTIG, said these competing forces create a “goldilocks dynamic.” “As banks move to assuage ESG concerns, they are at the same time, in an almost inversely proportional way, leading to a weakening of support from their traditional allies in the GOP,” Boltansky said in an interview. “It’s never going to be enough or the right temperature for both sides.” The goldilocks dynamic was apparent last Friday after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, ending women’s right to abortion nationwide. Soon after, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs all made it known that they were following the lead of Citigroup, which has said it will reimburse employees who travel out of state to get abortions. None of the five banks commented on the substance of the court’s ruling. Nonetheless, they face the possibility of a backlash in conservative states that are moving quickly to ban abortion.

Banks hit back at merchants over inflation's role in swipe-fee debate -Banks are hitting back at retailers over which side is being harmed by inflation — part of their long-running fight about the future of interchange fees.Under the Durbin amendment, which was part of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, banks and credit unions with less than $10 billion of assets are exempt from a cap on debit-card interchange fees.But that asset threshold has never been adjusted for inflation, the Electronic Payments Coalition noted this week. Based on 2011 dollars, the current cutoff is now $7.7 billion, according to the group, whose members include both banks and card networks. “Many credit unions and community banks must now adhere to the interchange cap, though they would have been exempt if the asset limit were adjusted for inflation,” Jeff Tassey, chairman of the board of the Electronic Payments Coalition, said in a press release Wednesday.“Artificially capping interchange, and not adjusting the cap for inflation, reduces the funds available for smaller financial institutions to provide critical banking services like card rewards and data security for customers as well as risk and fraud protection for merchants,” Tassey added.Merchants have seized on the highest inflation rate in 40 years to argue that so-called swipe fees on debit and credit card purchases are too high. Because the charges, which retailers pay to banks, are capped based on a percentage of the transaction size, they rise as price tags climb.But the Electronic Payments Coalition cites data saying that the credit-card interchange rate, which is unconstrained by the Durbin amendment, held steady at 1.8% between 2016 and 2021. Visa and Mastercard hiked one component of those fees earlier this year.The debit-card interchange rate declined from 0.79% to 0.78% between 2014 and 2019, according to the coalition.

FTC sues Walmart for allegedly ignoring scams in money transfers -The Federal Trade Commission is suing Walmart for allegedly ignoring fraudsters’ use of its money transfer services, alleging that negligence by the retail giant cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars. Walmart knew that telemarketers and scammers were persuading people to send money through the retail chain, but it failed to train employees to detect fraud, and it didn’t make changes to prevent scam transactions, the FTC alleged in a lawsuit Tuesday. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer sends money transfers through partners like MoneyGram, Ria and Western Union. Records from those companies indicate that Walmart locations processed some $197.3 million in transfers that led to complaints, along with $1.3 billion in related transactions that may also have been fraud-induced, the FTC said. In response to a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission, Walmart defended its anti-fraud efforts and accused the agency of distorting the facts.Bloomberg “While scammers used its money transfer services to make off with cash, Walmart looked the other way and pocketed millions in fees,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a press release. In a statement, Walmart called the lawsuit “factually flawed and legally baseless” and noted that it was approved by a “narrowly divided” agency. The FTC voted 3-2 to approve the lawsuit, with the agency’s two Republican commissioners voting against bringing the action. “Claiming an unprecedented expansion of the FTC’s authority, the agency seeks to blame Walmart for fraud that the agency already attributed to another company while that company was under the federal government’s direct supervision,” Walmart said. Walmart’s statement did not name the other company that it faulted, but in a separate letter to the FTC, a lawyer for the retail chain pointed to problems with MoneyGram’s anti-fraud interdiction system.

CFPB terminates Payactiv’s sandbox approval order - The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has rescinded an order that granted Payactiv regulatory leeway to experiment with earned wage access products after the two sides differed over the way the products were described to the public.The CFPB granted Payactiv, a financial services company based in San Jose, California, a so-called sandbox approval order in December 2020. This special regulatory treatment provided the company with temporary exemption from liability under the Truth in Lending Act and Regulation Z — federal consumer financial laws that require the disclosure of consumer credit terms and costs.The CFPB informed Payactiv on June 3 that it was considering terminating the approval order in light of public statements the company made wrongly suggesting CFPB endorsement of its EWA products. The agency announced the termination in a press release Thursday.“Payactiv has worked cooperatively with the bureau to ensure that our description of the approval order aligned with the bureau’s concerns about avoiding any implication of endorsement. As a result of those discussions, we modified our descriptions early last year to state that Payactiv had an ‘approval order from CFPB’ in lieu of describing Payactiv as ‘CFPB-approved,’” according to a press release from Payactiv. In the end, Payactiv requested on June 21 that the order be terminated. The 2020 order only applied to Payactiv’s existing products, and changes to the fee model for its current products would have required modifications to the order itself. By seeking the termination of its participation in the sandbox program, Payactiv says it enabled itself to make product changes effectively and flexibly without waiting for the CFPB’s review.

States can play hardball with credit reporting bureaus, CFPB says -The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday gave states permission to enforce their own credit reporting laws that may be broader or tougher than federal ones. The approval comes as the bureau's director, Rohit Chopra, is expected to take on Facebook for its consumer data collection practices and the agency's new policies on anti-discrimination provoked backlash this week from bank trade groups. In a press release, the agency said this latest interpretive rule was prompted by a pendinglawsuit filed against the state of New Jersey for allegedly passing a law on credit reporting that went beyond what the federal regulations require. States should retain "substantial flexibility to pass laws involving consumer reporting to reflect emerging problems affecting their local economies and citizens," the CFPB said in the 16-page filing, where it noted that Congress had empowered it to lead the enforcement of the 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act. The FCRA is supposed to limit what can go into consumers' credit reports, protect consumers' privacy and right to see the reports and ensure the reports' accuracy. "With limited preemption exceptions, states have the flexibility to preserve fair and competitive credit reporting markets by enacting state-level laws that are stricter than the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)," the CFPB said in a statement.

 Five ways the CFPB could rein in Facebook - Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is laying the groundwork to rein in Facebook and other Big Tech companies with expanded oversight — and potentially a public rebuke — on how they collect and sell consumer data. Meta Platforms’ Facebook has long been in Chopra’s sights. He wrote a scathing rebuke of what he called Facebook’s “illegal data practices” in 2019 while serving on the Federal Trade Commission. At the time, Chopra lamented that the FTC’s $5 billion settlement with Facebook for privacy violations was too small given the social media giant’s status as a repeat offender of regulatory orders. Chopra wanted CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg to be held personally liable and has called for more restrictions on the tech giant’s ad-driven practices.Since taking control of the CFPB in October, Chopra has made several moves to bolster the CFPB’s authority to designate Facebook or any other Big Tech firm as posing a risk to consumers.“It’s clearly one of Director Chopra’s desires to bring the Big Tech companies within the purview of the CFPB’s regulatory oversight,” said Jenny Lee, a partner at ArentFox Schiff. “It’s a new emphasis and there are a half a dozen ways to go after Big Tech.”For the past few months, Chopra has laid out an arsenal of tools against large financial firms that were informed by his analysis of the FTC’s Facebook settlement. He has dug into the CFPB’s broad authority, found obscure new mechanisms to use and highlighted existing Dodd-Frank Act rules to shine a light on Facebook’s consumer practices.

Freddie Mac: Mortgage Serious Delinquency Rate decreased in May - Freddie Mac reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate in May was 0.80%, down from 0.85% April. Freddie's rate is down year-over-year from 2.01% in May 2021.Freddie's serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 4.20% following the housing bubble and peaked at 3.17% in August 2020 during the pandemic.These are mortgage loans that are "three monthly payments or more past due or in foreclosure".Mortgages in forbearance are being counted as delinquent in this monthly report but are not 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 (if) they are employed. The serious delinquency rate was at 0.60% just prior to the pandemic - almost back.

Fannie Mae: Mortgage Serious Delinquency Rate Decreased in May -Fannie Mae reported that the Single-Family Serious Delinquency decreased to 0.87% in May from 0.94% in April. The serious delinquency rate is down from 2.24% in May 2021. This is almost back to pre-pandemic levels.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), 2.86% are seriously delinquent (down from 2.98% in April). For loans made in 2005 through 2008 (1% of portfolio),4.67% are seriously delinquent(down from 4.88%), For recent loans, originated in 2009 through 2021 (97% of portfolio), 0.69% are seriously delinquent (down from 0.74%). 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.The pandemic related increase in delinquencies was very different from the increase in delinquencies following the housing bubble. Lending standards had been fairly solid over the previous decade, and most of these homeowners had equity in their homes - and the vast majority of these homeowners have been able to restructure their loans once they were employed.

MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest Weekly Survey - From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey Mortgage applications increased 0.7 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending June 24, 2022. This week’s results include an adjustment for the observance of the Juneteenth holiday.... The Refinance Index increased 2 percent from the previous week and was 80 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 21 percent compared with the previous week and was 24 percent lower than the same week one year ago.“Mortgage rates continue to experience large swings. After increasing 65 basis points during the past three weeks, the 30-year fixed rate declined 14 basis points last week to 5.84 percent. Rates are still significantly higher than they were a year ago, when the 30-year fixed rate was at 3.2 percent,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “The decline in mortgage rates led to a slight increase in refinancing, driven by an uptick in conventional loans. However, refinances are still 80 percent lower than a year ago and more than 60 percent below the historical average.”, “Overall purchase activity has weakened in recent months due to the quick jump in mortgage rates, high home prices, and growing economic uncertainty. Purchase applications were essentially flat last week but were supported by a 6 percent increase in government loans. The average purchase loan amount declined to $413,500, which is an ongoing downward trend since it hit a record $460,000 in March 2022.”...The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased to 5.84 percent from 5.98 percent, with points decreasing to 0.64 from 0.77 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans. The first graph shows the refinance index since 1990.

FHFA House Price Index: Up 1.6% in April -The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released its U.S. House Price Index (HPI) for April. Here is the opening of the press release:– House prices rose nationwide in April, up 1.6 percent from the previous month, according to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI®). House prices rose 18.8 percent from April 2021 to April 2022. The previously reported 1.5 percent price change for March 2022 was revised upward to 1.6 percent.For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from March 2022 to April 2022 ranged from +0.3 percent in the East South Central division to +2.5 percent in the West South Central division. The 12-month changes were all positive, ranging from+14.1 percent in the Middle Atlantic division to +23.5 percent in the South Atlantic division."House price appreciation continues to remain elevated in April," said Will Doerner, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist in FHFA's Division of Research and Statistics. "The inventory of homes on the market remains low, which has continued to keep upward pressure on sales prices. Increasing mortgage rates have yet to offset demand enough to deter the strong price gains happening across the country."The chart below illustrates the monthly HPI series, which is not adjusted for inflation, along with a real (inflation-adjusted) series using the Consumer Price Index: All Items Less Shelter.

Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Increased 20.4% Year-over-year in April --Note: S&P hasn't updated their data yet. From Diana Olick at CNBC: Home price increases slowed for the first time in months in April, says S&P Case-Shiller Prices rose 20.4% nationally in April compared with the same month a year ago, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index. In March, home prices grew 20.6%. ...The 10-city composite annual increase was 19.7%, up from 19.5% in March. The 20-city composite posted a 21.2% annual gain, up from 21.1% in the previous month.This was slightly below expectation.Note that this monthly home price index release was for April, and "April" is a 3-month average of February, March and April closing prices. February closing prices include some contracts signed last December, so there is a significant lag to this data.

House prices continued to surge through April; expect no meaningful moderation in the CPI anytime soon - House prices increases continued to go through the roof as of April, as reported this morning in both the Case Shiller and FHFA house price indexes. The Case Shiller national index rose another 2.1% for the month and 20.4% YoY, just 0.1% below last month’s biggest YoY% gain ever, while the FHFA purchase only index rose 1.6% for the month, and 18.8% YoY, below its peaks of 19.3% in February, and 19.4% last July. The YoY% changes for both for the past 5 years are shown below: Here is a longer term view, demonstrating that the current surge in house prices is the biggest in the past 30 years, surpassing even the housing bubble: Owners’ Equivalent Rent (x2 for scale, black) is also shown above. As I have pointed out many times, OER follows house price indexes with roughly a 12-18 month lag. OER has also risen to a 30 year record YoY high, and can be expected to accelerate further. For further context, here is the YoY% change in median new home sales price from the Census Bureau in the past 5 years: While I can’t show you graphically the YoY% change in prices in existing homes from the NAR, since they only allow FRED to show one year, below are the YoY% changes for every month in median existing home sales prices for the past 13 months: Since the NAR data is not seasonally adjusted, the YoY% change is the only valid way to measure. Last month the existing home sales increase gave some hope that house price gains were moderating. That still apppears to be the case with regard to new homes. But there is very little evidence of moderation in either house price index. And since OER plus rents contribute a full 1/3rd of the entire value of the CPI, and can be expected to accelerate further, I see very little reason to believe that, absent the Fed creating a recession, consumer inflation is going to abate meaningfully anytime soon.

Comments on April Case-Shiller and FHFA House Price Increases – McBride - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Case-Shiller National Index up 20.4% Year-over-year in April Excerpt: This graph below shows existing home months-of-supply (inverted, from the NAR) vs. the seasonally adjusted month-to-month price change in the Case-Shiller National Index (both since January 1999 through April 2022).Note that the months-of-supply is not seasonally adjusted.There is a clear relationship, and this is no surprise (but interesting to graph). If months-of-supply is high, prices decline. If months-of-supply is low (like now), prices rise quickly.In April, the months-of-supply was at 2.2 months, and the Case-Shiller National Index (SA) increased 1.50% month-over-month. The black arrow points to the April 2022 dot. In the May existing home sales report, the NAR reported months-of-supply increased to 2.6 months.Since inventory is now increasing quickly (but still low), we should expect price increases to slow. The normal level of inventory is probably in the 4 to 6 months range, and we will have to see a significant increase in inventory to sharply slow price increases, and that is why I’m focused on inventory!This was slightly below expectations. There is a significant lag to this data, see: When will House Price Growth Slow? Since Case-Shiller is a 3-month average, and this report was for April (includes February and March closings), this included price increases when mortgage rates were significantly lower than today. This report includes some homes with contracts signed last December (that closed in February)!There is much more in the article.

Worst Housing Affordability" since 1991 excluding Bubble; Real House Prices and Price-to-Rent Ratio in April - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Worst Housing Affordability" since 1991 excluding Bubble Excerpt: I’ve put together my own affordability index - since 1976 - that is similar to the FirstAm approach (more of a house price index adjusted by mortgage rates and the median household income).I used median income from the Census Bureau (estimated 2021 and 2022), assumed a 15% down payment, and used a 2% estimate for property taxes, insurance and maintenance. This is probably low for high property tax states like New Jersey and Texas, and too high for lower property tax states. If we were including condos, we’d also include HOA fees too (this is excluded).For house prices, I used the Case-Shiller National Index, Seasonally Adjusted (SA). Also, for the down payment - there wasn’t a significant difference between 15% and 20%. For mortgage rates, I used the Freddie Mac PMMS (30-year fixed rates).So here is what the index looks like (lower is more affordable like the FirstAm index):Note that by this index, during the early ‘80s, homes were very unaffordable due to the very high mortgage rates. During the housing bubble, houses were also less affordable using 30-year mortgage rates, however, during the bubble, there were many “affordability products” that allowed borrowers to be qualified at the teaser rate (usually around 1%) that made houses seem more affordable. In general, this would suggest houses are the least affordable since the housing bubble. And excluding the bubble - with all the “affordability products” - this is the worst affordability since 1989.Look down to the second graph below (real house prices) and look what happened after 1989. It took more than a decade to return to 1989 prices in real terms.Also, in April, the average 30-year mortgage rates were around 5.2%, and currently mortgage rates are close to 6.0% - so we already know the “Affordability Price Index” will increase further over the next couple of months (meaning houses are even less affordable). There is much more in the article.

NAR: Pending Home Sales Increased 0.7% in May - From the NAR: Pending Home Sales Edge Higher 0.7% in May - Pending home sales crept higher in May, ending a six-month streak of declines, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Regionally, month-over-month results were mixed as the Northeast and South experienced increases while the Midwest and West posted decreases. Year-over-year contract activity slid in all four major regions. The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings, inched up 0.7% to 99.9 in May. Year-over-year, transactions dropped 13.6%. An index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001. "Despite the small gain in pending sales from the prior month, the housing market is clearly undergoing a transition," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "Contract signings are down sizably from a year ago because of much higher mortgage rates." ... The Northeast PHSI jumped 15.4% compared to last month to 86.7, down 11.9% from May 2021. The Midwest index retreated 1.7% to 98.6 in May, a decline of 8.8% from a year ago. The South PHSI increased 0.2% to 119.0 in May, a 13.8% drop from the previous year. The West index contracted 5.0% in May to 81.6, down 19.8% from May 2021. This was above expectations of a 2.0% decrease for this index. Note: Contract signings usually lead sales by about 45 to 60 days, so this would usually be for closed sales in June and July.

Housing Bubble Getting Ready to Pop: Pending Sales Plunge in June, Inventory Jumps, Price Reductions Spike amid Holy-Moly Mortgage Rates by Wolf Richter - For the last two years, the story was that there’s no inventory for sale, that there was a housing shortage, and that’s why prices were skyrocketing. Then there were other folks like me that pointed out over and over again that people weren’t putting their old homes on the market after they’d bought a new home, and that these people now owned two or three homes and that they were going to ride up the hottest real estate market ever where prices soared 20% or 30% or more per year, and then they’d sell those vacant homes which no one had ever counted as vacant.And because they already lived in a home, they could sell their vacant homes without having to buy another home. This is the “shadow inventory” that is now coming on the market, just when mortgage rates have spiked, and sales are plunging. And to get things moving, price reductions are spiking.Active listings jumped in June by 20% from May, and by 19% from a year ago, the second year-over-year increase in a row, after an 8% jump in May, and both were the first year-over-year increases since June 2019. There were about 98,000 more homes listed for sale in June than a year ago, according to data from the National Association of Realtors today (data at realtor.com): ONE, pending sales in June plunged by 16% year-over-year, after the 12% drop in May, and the 9% drop in April, as potential buyers lost interest in sky-high home prices and holy-moly mortgage rates. These are listings in various stages of the sales process, but before the deal closes. June was the 10th month in a row of year-over-year declines. Back in June, the NAR had reported that “closed” sales in May also dropped for the 10th month in a row. And this doesn’t bode well for closed sales in June: TWO, new listings rose in June to 562,000 homes, the second highest June in recent years, behind only June 2019. And interestingly, new listings rose in June, when in normal years they peaked in May and dropped in June. I circled the prior Junes (data via realtor.com). Price reductions spiked by 50% in June from May and about doubled year-over-year, as sellers are trying to get buyers to show up and take a look as foot traffic has dropped and bidding wars have receded into fond memories. This is a sudden reset. But more sellers are coming to grips with a new reality: Prices have to go where the buyers are, and buyers are around somewhere, but they’re a lot lower (data via realtor.com): Holy-moly mortgage rates – so called because that’s what people utter between their teeth when they first see the mortgage payment for a home they want to buy – are hovering around 6% for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, roughly double of where they’d been in 2020 (data via realtor.com).

Housing: Inventory will Tell the Tale; Altos Research Reports Inventory Above Peak in 2021 --Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing: Inventory will Tell the Tale . Brief excerpt: The first question I’m always asked about housing is What will happen with house prices? and then When will House Price Growth Slow? The exact impact on prices is uncertain (although I tried to answer both questions in the above links), but I believe one thing is certain: inventory will tell the tale!That is why I watch inventory closely. ...This morning Altos Research released inventory data as of June 24th showing that current inventory is above the peak in 2021....Here is a graph of the inventory change vs 2021, 2020 (milestone 3 above) and 2019 (milestone 4). The blue line is the year-over-year data, the red line is compared to two years ago, and dashed purple is compared to 2019.Two years ago (in 2020) inventory was declining all year, so the two-year comparison will get easier all year. Based on recent increases in inventory, my current estimate is inventory will be up compared to 2020 in Q3 of this year (in the next few months), and back to 2019 levels at the beginning of 2023.Inventory will tell the tale!

 Realtor.com Reports Weekly Inventory Up 25% Year-over-year - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Realtor.com Reports Weekly Inventory Up 25% Year-over-year. Excerpt: Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report released this morning from Chief Economist Danielle Hale: Weekly Housing Trends View — Data Week Ending June 25, 2022.. Note: They have data on list prices, new listings and more, but this focus is on inventory. Active inventory continued to grow, rising 25% above one year ago. With more homeowners deciding to sell just as higher mortgage rates and prices are taking a big bite out of homebuyer purchasing power, the number of homes actively available to shoppers has made a quick about-face. Inventory was roughly even with last year’s levels at the beginning of May and the gains have mounted each week with this most recent week seeing five homes on the market for every four that a buyer at this time last year would have seen. Still, our June Housing Trends Report showed that the active listings count remained less than half its June 2019 level and just shy of two-thirds its June 2020 mark. Put another way, today’s shoppers have more options, but the market needs even more before the selection is on par with the pre-pandemic or even early-pandemic housing market. ..And here is a monthly graph from Realtor.com released today that shows their estimate of active inventory over the last six years. Note that inventory was declining rapidly for most of 2020, and it is very likely that inventory will be up compared to 2020 in Q3. (June 2022 is for mid-June, and inventory has increased further over the last two weeks). There is much more in the article.

Rent Increases Up Sharply Year-over-year, Pace is slowing --Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Rent Increases Up Sharply Year-over-year, Pace is slowingA brief excerpt:Here is a graph of the year-over-year (YoY) change for these measures since January 2015. All of these measures are through April 2022 (Apartment List through June 2022).Note that new lease measures (Zillow, Apartment List) dipped early in the pandemic, whereas the BLS measures were steady. Then new leases took off, and the BLS measures are picking up....The Zillow measure is up 15.9% YoY in May, down from 16.6% YoY in April. This is down from a peak of 17.2% YoY in February.The ApartmentList measure is up 14.1% YoY as of June, down from 15.4% in May. This is down from the peak of 17.8% YoY last December.Clearly rents are still increasing, and we should expect this to continue to spill over into measures of inflation in 2022. The Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER) was up 5.1% YoY in May, from 4.8% YoY in April - and will likely increase further in the coming months.My suspicion is rent increases will slow over the coming months as the pace of household formation slows, and more supply comes on the market. There is much more in the article.

Construction Spending Decreased 0.1% in May --From the Census Bureau reported that overall construction spending increased:; Construction spending during May 2022 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,779.8 billion, 0.1 percent below the revised April estimate of $1,782.5 billion. The May figure is 9.7 percent above the May 2021 estimate of $1,621.9 billion. Private spending increased and public spending decreased:Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,436.0 billion, virtually unchanged from the revised April estimate of $1,435.9 billion. ...In May, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $343.8 billion, 0.8 percent below the revised April estimate of $346.6 billion.This graph shows private residential and nonresidential construction spending, and public spending, since 1993. Note: nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted.Residential (red) spending is 38% above the bubble peak (in nominal terms - not adjusted for inflation).Non-residential (blue) spending is 20% above the bubble era peak in January 2008 (nominal dollars).Public construction spending is 6% 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 19.0%. Non-residential spending is up 3.7% year-over-year. Public spending is down 2.7% year-over-year.This was below consensus expectations of a 0.4% increase in spending; however, construction spending for the previous three months was revised up sharply.

Las Vegas May 2022: Visitor Traffic Down 6.6% Compared to 2019 - Note: I like using Las Vegas as a measure of recovery for both leisure (visitors) and business (conventions). From the Las Vegas Visitor Authority: May 2022 Las Vegas Visitor Statistics: Visitation exceeded 3.4M visitors in May, surpassing last May by 19.8% and approx. 7% shy of May 2019.Overall hotel occupancy reached 82.6%, 11.7 pts ahead of last May and down 8.2 pts vs. May 2019. Weekend occupancy again was in the 90's (91.9%, up 4.1 pts YoY and down 4.5 pts vs. May 2019) while Midweek occupancy exceeded 78% (up 16.0 pts YoY and down 9.3 pts vs. May 2019).Following last month's record‐breaking ADR, May saw another month with ADR reaching nearly $176, 38.7% ahead of last May and over 25% above May 2019 while RevPAR exceeded $145 for the month, significantly ahead of May 2021 (+61.6%) and 13.8% over May 2019.The first graph shows visitor traffic for 2019 (dark blue), 2020 (light blue), 2021 (yellow) and 2022 (red)Visitor traffic was down 6.6% compared to the same month in 2019. Visitor traffic was up 20% compared to last May.The second graph shows convention traffic.Convention traffic was down 24.9% compared to May 2019. Note: There was almost no convention traffic from April 2020 through May 2021.

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Down 4.8% Compared to Same Week in 2019 --From CoStar: STR: US Hotel Revenue Per Available Room Achieves All-Time Weekly High U.S. hotel revenue per available room (RevPAR) reached an all-time weekly high on a nominal basis and a pandemic-era high on an inflation-adjusted basis, according to STR‘s latest data through June 18. June 12-18, 2022 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019*):
• Occupancy: 71.8% (-4.8%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): $155.02 (+14.9%)
• evenue per available room (RevPAR): $111.29 (+9.4%)
*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.median, and dashed light blue is for 2021. Dashed purple is 2019 (STR is comparing to a strong year for hotels). The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is above the median rate for the previous 20 years (Blue).Note: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.The 4-week average of the occupancy rate will increase over the summer.

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Down 4.1% Compared to Same Week in 2019 - From CoStar: STR: US Hotels Set Another Record for Revenue Per Available Room U.S. hotel performance continued to climb with another weekly record established for revenue per available room (RevPAR) on a nominal basis, according to STR‘s latest data through 25 June. June 19-25, 2022 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019*):

• • Occupancy: 72.3% (-4.1%)
• • Average daily rate (ADR): $157.05 (+17.1%)
• • Revenue per available room (RevPAR): $113.55 (+12.3%)

*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. Dashed purple is 2019 (STR is comparing to a strong year for hotels). The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is at the median rate for the previous 20 years (Blue).The 4-week average of the occupancy rate will increase seasonally over the next couple of months.

6,500 US Flights Delayed Sunday Amid Continued Travel Chaos Ahead Of Fourth Of July Weekend -- While airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) blame each other for soaring flight delays and cancellations that have made traveling across the country a living nightmare, flight disruptions show no signs of abating as the situation worsens ahead of the July Fourth holiday weekend when travel demand will increase. On Sunday, 6,700 flights were delayed, and nearly 900 were canceled across the US, according to data from FlightAware. Flight disruptions were particularly disruptive over the Juneteenth and Father's Day weekend when tens of thousands of flights were delayed or canceled -- forcing many to sleep in airports for more than 24 hours. On Friday, airline industry group Airlines for America, which represents the country's largest airlines (American Airlines, Delta, United, Southwest, JetBlue and Alaska Airlines as well as shippers FedEx and UPS), blamed the FAA's own understaffing is "crippling" East Coast air traffic.United Airlines recently slashed flights from Newark Liberty International Airport, citing the airport's construction and air traffic control problems. But it's not just FAA staffing issues and infrastructure woes. Airlines have grappled with pilot shortages after travel demand jumped following the reopening of the economy post-COVID lockdowns. The industry is short 12,000 pilots, United's CEO Scott Kirby recently pointed out. He warned: "there's no quick fix." To alleviate congestion, United, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Alaska Airlines, and Spirit Airlines have all reduced flights this summer. Some carriers are even pulling flights from smaller airports. The blame for this summer's travel mess in the skies is across the board. Airlines are dealing with a historic pilot shortage, while the FAA doesn't have enough staff amid a very robust demand period for travel despite soaring ticket prices. Internet searches for "why is my flight delayed" have spiked to a record high amid all the travel chaos.

Nearly 48M Americans to travel July 4th weekend as flight chaos continues — As one of the busiest travel weekends of the year approaches, recent issues with the nation’s top airline carriers could make for a bumpy ride for millions of passengers.So far Monday, more than 650 domestic flights have been canceled, according to Flight Aware.It comes as AAA predicts 47.9 million Americans will hit the road or take to the skies over the Independence Day long holiday weekend from June 30 to July 4. It’s a 3.7% increase from last year, bringing travel volumes just shy of those seen in 2019.“The volume of travelers we expect to see over Independence Day is a definite sign that summer travel is kicking into high gear,” said Paula Twidale, senior vice president of AAA Travel. “People are ready for a break and despite things costing more, they are finding ways to still take that much-needed vacation.”Tens of thousands of passengers spent their weekend at the airport on standby waiting in long lines to hear whether or not they’d make it to their final destination.Flight delays cost both passengers and airlines a lot of money. Delays cost an airline around $74 a minute, according to airlines.org. That’s about $4,500 an hour, which doesn’t include if the plane gets stuck on the tarmac for three or more hours.Airlines that defy the tarmac delay rules can be fined up to $27,500 for each passenger on board the affected flight. So, if there’s an average of 200 people on a flight, that would cost the airline around $5.5 million.When it comes to passengers, it costs about $47 an hour of their time. To put it in perspective, passengers lost nearly $28 billion in 2018, and that was before the pandemic and the recent travel chaos.The Department of Transportation says that airlines are not required to compensate passengers for a delay or cancellation, but most will book passengers on their next available flight, let them reschedule, or issue a refund for the inconvenience.It’s not only delays and cancellations that are upsetting. Passengers say the airlines are understaffed and customer service is being affected.Airlines across the U.S. warned customers that service would be cut by 10% to 15% this summer. Airlines blamed COVID-19-related pilot shortages and lately pointed the finger at the Federal Aviation Administration, saying there aren’t enough employees to man the airports or the control towers.

More than 300 flights canceled, 3K flights delayed at start of holiday weekend - More than 300 flights have been canceled nationwide as of early Friday afternoon as the U.S. enters one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. An additional 3,000 flights have been delayed on Friday as airlines continue to struggle to have enough staffing to meet demand, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. Thousands of cancellations and delays are expected throughout the Fourth of July weekend, with demand for air travel currently at its highest level since before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Almost 500 flights were canceled and more than 5,000 flights were delayed on Thursday, according to FlightAware.A pilot shortage has forced airlines to cancel and delay flights recently, and millions of seats have been made unavailable as a result. Airlines have placed blame on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for being short-staffed and lacking a staffing plan for the summer when demand for travel increases. The FAA has responded that the stimulus payments the airlines received as part of COVID-19 relief packages should have taken care of the staffing shortages ahead of the public returning to normal activities.

TSA reports highest airport volume since February 2020 The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported its highest airport volume since February 2020 as the nation gears up for what is expected to be a challenging weekend of holiday travel.“BREAKING NEWS: @TSA officers screened 2,490,490 people at airport security checkpoints nationwide yesterday, Friday, July 1. It was the highest checkpoint volume since Feb. 11, 2020, when 2,507,588 people were screened. We are back to pre-pandemic checkpoint volume,” Lisa Farbstein, a spokeswoman for the TSA, tweeted.Data from the flight tracking website FlightAware shows that, by noon Saturday, more than 550 flights within, into or out of the United States had been canceled while more than 2,200 have been delayed.By Wednesday, 1,800 flights had already been canceled for the week at that point.The cancellations and delays come as the airline industry tries to keep pace with renewed travel demand following earlier, restrictive stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and after a number of pilots retired or were furloughed.

Glitch in American Airlines platform lets pilots drop thousands of flights A glitch in an American Airlines platform for trading flights allowed pilots to drop thousands of trips throughout July on Friday, the airline’s pilots’ union told CNBC on Saturday. American Airlines said in a statement to The Hill that the technical glitch permitted certain trading transactions to be processed that should not have, but most flights that were affected have been reinstated. “We already have restored the vast majority of the affected trips and do not anticipate any operational impact because of this issue,” American said in the statement. The union, the Allied Pilots Association, told CNBC that up to 12,000 flights in July lacked a captain, first officer or both after the glitch allowed pilots to drop flights. The union did not immediately return a request from The Hill for comment. Pilots often drop or pick up flights, but getting time off is more difficult during the summer and holidays as demand for air travel rises, CNBC reported. The Transportation Security Administration reported its busiest travel day on Friday since February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Americans’ views of economy, finances worsen: poll - Three-quarters of Americans rate the current condition of the economy as fairly bad or very bad, and a majority are concerned about their ability to afford day-to-day expenses, according to a new CBS News-YouGov poll.The proportion of Americans who view the state of the economy as fairly bad or worse has grown for each of the past two months, rising from 63 percent in April to 75 percent in the latest poll.Republicans were more likely to have a negative view of the national economy, with just nine percent saying it is at least fairly good. Thirty-six percent of Democrats and 20 percent of independents viewed the economy as at least fairly good.The increased pessimism comes after inflation rates in May surpassed economists expectations, with annual inflation hitting a 40-year high of 8.6 percent. Rising oil, food and shelter costs largely fueled May’s inflation spike. Those price hikes have left many Americans feeling unsure of their ability to retire, take vacation or even afford day-to-day items, according to the poll.One-third of respondents said they were very concerned about their ability to afford basic goods and services while 32 percent said they were somewhat concerned. Seventy-three percent expressed at least some concern for their ability to save money.Just one in ten Americans said they were very confident in their plans for retirement, while 41 percent said t hey were very concerned.

Consumer Confidence Down Again in June The headline number of 98.7 was a decrease of 4.5 from the final reading of 103.2 for May.The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® decreased in June, following a decline in May. The Index fell to 98.7 (1985=100)—down 4.5 points from 103.2 in May—and now stands at its lowest level since February 2021 (Index, 95.2). The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions—declined marginally to 147.1 from 147.4 last month. TheExpectations Index—based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—decreased sharply to 66.4 from 73.7 and is at its lowest level since March 2013 (Index, 63.7).“Consumer confidence fell for a second consecutive month in June,” “While the Present Situation Index was relatively unchanged, the Expectations Index continued its recent downward trajectory—falling to its lowest point in nearly a decade. Consumers’ grimmer outlook was driven by increasing concerns about inflation, in particular rising gas and food prices. Expectations have now fallen well below a reading of 80, suggesting weaker growth in the second half of 2022 as well as growing risk of recession by yearend.”“Purchasing intentions for cars, homes, and major appliances held relatively steady—but intentions have cooled since the start of the year and this trend is likely to continue as the Fed aggressively raises interest rates to tame inflation. Meanwhile, vacation plans softened further as rising prices took their toll. Looking ahead over the next six months, consumer spending and economic growth are likely to continue facing strong headwinds from further inflation and rate hikes.” Read moreThe chart below is another attempt to evaluate the historical context for this index as a coincident indicator of the economy. Toward this end, we have highlighted recessions and included GDP. The regression through the index data shows the long-term trend and highlights the extreme volatility of this indicator. Statisticians may assign little significance to a regression through this sort of data. But the slope resembles the regression trend for real GDP shown below, and it is a more revealing gauge of relative confidence than the 1985 level of 100 that the Conference Board cites as a point of reference.

Personal Income increased 0.5% in May; Spending increased 0.2% - The BEA released the Personal Income and Outlays report for May: Personal income increased $113.4 billion (0.5 percent) in May, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $96.5 billion (0.5 percent) andpersonal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $32.7 billion (0.2 percent). Real DPI decreased 0.1 percent in May and Real PCE decreased 0.4 percent; goods decreased 1.6 percent and services increased 0.3 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.6 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.3 percent (The May PCE price index increased 6.3 percent year-over-year (YoY), unchanged from 6.3 percent YoY in April. The PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 4.7 percent YoY, down from 4.9% in April. The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through May 2022 (2012 dollars). The dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE. Personal income was at expectations, and the increase in PCE was below expectations.Inflation was at expectations.Using the two-month method to estimate Q1 PCE growth, PCE was increasing at a 1.6% annual rate in Q2 2022. (Using the mid-month method, PCE was increasing at 0.7%).

Real Disposable Income Per Capita Down Again in May - With the release of this morning's report on May's Personal Incomes and Outlays, we can now take a closer look at "Real" Disposable Personal Income Per Capita. At two decimal places, the nominal .051% month-over-month change in disposable income is cut to -0.08% when we adjust for inflation. This is a decrease from last month's 0.45% nominal and a decrease from the 0.21% real change. The year-over-year metrics are 2.5% nominal and -3.61% real.Post-Great recession, the trend was one of steady growth, but generally flattened out in late 2015 with increases in 2012 and 2013. As a result of COVID pandemic stimulus measures, major spikes can be seen in April 2020, January 2021 (a December 2020 payment), and March 2021. The first chart shows both the nominal per capita disposable income and the real (inflation-adjusted) equivalent since 2000. This indicator was significantly disrupted by the bizarre but predictable oscillation caused by 2012 year-end tax strategies in expectation of tax hikes in 2013 and more recently, by COVID stimulus. The BEA uses the average dollar value in 2012 for inflation adjustment. But the 2012 peg is arbitrary and unintuitive. For a more natural comparison, let's compare the nominal and real growth in per-capita disposable income since 2000. Nominal disposable income is up 117% since then. But the real purchasing power of those dollars is up 37.4%.

Consumer Spending Shifting Back to Services from Stimulus-Binge on Goods. Inflation Eats into Incomes - by Wolf Richter - Consumers have been shifting spending from goods back to services since last year, following the stimulus-fueled spending binge on goods into the summer of 2021, and the collapse in spending on discretionary services during the pandemic. Given the magnitude of inflation these days, we will discuss all income and spending measures here in inflation-adjusted (or “real”) terms.Spending on services rose in May, but spending on goods fell – all adjusted for inflation. The decline in spending on goods was in part driven by the decline in inflation-adjusted spending on gasoline, where the price spike is now destroying some demand, as measured in barrels per day. This economic phenomenon of “demand destruction” by spiking prices is also visible in used vehicles, and some other goods. Spending on durable goods continues to be handicapped by the ongoing shortage of new vehicles.And overall spending, adjusted for inflation, dipped 0.4% in May from April, the first month-to-month dip in five months, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis today, but was up 2.1% from the stimulus fueled binge a year ago, and was up by 5.2% from May 2019. It remains below the pre-pandemic trend (green line): “Real” spending on services – healthcare, housing, education, air fares, hotels, rental cars, entertainment and sports events, haircuts, all types of repairs, subscriptions for communications, internet, and streaming services, etc. – rose by 0.3% in May from April, and by 4.7% year-over-year, and by 1.2% from May 2019, having now edged past the pre-pandemic high for the first time. But it remains well below pre-pandemic trend (green line in the chart below).As consumer spending patterns continued to normalize, the share of spending on services rose to 61.9% of total spending, the highest since before the pandemic, and up from the 59% range during the stimulus-fueled goods-spending binge last spring. But consumers have some way to go: The share of spending on services remains below the 64% range that prevailed during normal times.In terms of inflation, this shift in demand from goods to services is also showing up in the CPIs for durable goods, where some of the blistering heat is getting less hot, and in the CPI for services, which has started to spike:Inflation-adjusted spending on nondurable goods – food, fuel, household supplies, etc. – declined by 0.6% in May from April, and was down by 1.0% from the stimulus-miracle spike in May 2021. It was still up by 10.8% from May 2019, and is reverting to pre-pandemic trend (green line)Inflation-adjusted spending on durable goods fell by 3.5% in May from April, and was down by 5.6% from the fading stimulus miracle in May 2021, but was still up by 21.1% from May 2019, and remains above pre-pandemic trend.The biggest component in spending on durable goods is new and used vehicles. Spending on new vehicles is limited by new vehicle shortages – consumers cannot buy what dealers don’t have – and new-vehicle inventories remain desperately low, and sales are way down because of these shortages.

California plans to send 'inflation relief' payments of up to $1,050. Will other states follow? --Record high inflation and gas prices have many Americans hoping for financial relief.And in California, that's exactly what approximately 23 million residentsstand to get, thanks to the state's new budget deal, which is slated to give qualifying taxpayers new direct payments. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders agreed on a $17 billion relief package that includes $9.5 billion in inflation relief funds. Those estimated 23 million California taxpayers will receive between $200 and $1,050 by early next year. "Millions of Californians will be receiving up to $1,050 as part of a NEW middle class tax rebate," Newsom tweeted on Sunday. "That's more money in your pocket to help you fill your gas tank and put food on the table," he wrote. Those with up to $75,000 in income, or $150,000 if married and filing jointly, will receive up to $350 per tax filer, plus $350 if they have one or more dependent. Thus, joint filers with at least one dependent stand to receive the highest possible sum of $1,050.California filers with incomes above that first tier, but less than $125,000 in income if single or $250,000 if married and filing jointly, may receive $250 per filer, plus another $250 if they have at least one dependent. Those with incomes above that second tier but below another set of thresholds — individuals with less than $250,000 in income, or $500,000 if filing jointly — may receive $200 per filer, plus another $200 if they have any dependents.

Average Transaction Price for New Vehicles Hits Record $45,844 in June, as Consumer Still Pay No-Matter-What, amid Inventory Shortages, Record Per-Unit Gross Profits at Dealers by Wolf Richter - The average transaction price (ATP) of new vehicles sold by dealers to retail customers in June hit a new breath-taking record high of $45,844, up by 14.5% from a year ago, and beating the prior record set in May, according to estimates by J.D. Power, even as the pace of new vehicle deliveries to retail customers in June is expected to have plunged by 18% from a year ago, while many dealers were short or out of the models that would sell in large numbers, as automakers continue to struggle with semiconductor shortages, triggering production shortfalls. With overall inventories near historic lows, and barely improved from the desperate levels last year, prices continued to surge, driven by historically low incentives from automakers and by addendum stickers from dealers, but also by the prioritization of the most expensive trim packages and models by automakers, and that’s how the ATP jumped to a new record. Since June 2019, the ATP has spiked by 36%, or by over ten grand! The chart shows ATPs for December and June of each year. Note the pre-pandemic seasonality, where the ATP hit a high in December but dropped from there to June every year. But in June 2020, the ATP was level with December for the first time. From then on, the ATP just spiked without regard to seasonality, including this June. The green line connects the Decembers: June started out with new vehicle inventories at desperately low levels as automakers continued to struggle with the semiconductor shortages that will now drag into 2023. Months ago, many automakers stopped taking orders for certain models for the 2022 model year, where waiting lists were so huge that they cannot be built this year, given the supply constraints. For example, Ford stopped taking orders and reservations for the 2022 Maverick baby-truck (hybrid), the F-150 Lightning (EV), and the Mustang Mach-E (EV). So June started out with 1.13 million new vehicles in inventory on dealer lots and in transit, down by 70%, or by 2.68 million vehicles, from the beginning of June 2019, according to separate reporting from Cox Automotive, based on its Dealertrack data. In all of 2019, the new vehicle inventory averaged 3.66 million vehicles, with many models simply out of stock and not even orderable. Starting a few months ago, an additional inventory problem cropped up: Customers, mauled by spiking gasoline prices, started switching to more fuel efficient cars and compact SUVs that no one was prepared for, and dealers ran out. So, record per-vehicle gross profits at dealers. The combination of enough demand that cannot be built due to the semiconductor shortages and these historically low inventory levels that resulted in record high ATPs allowed dealers to make record per-vehicle gross profits. Total gross profit per vehicle delivered – which includes gross profit from the vehicle plus the profit from finance and insurance sales (F&I) – jumped to a record of $5,123, up by $1,174 from the already sky-high levels of June 2021, according to J.D. Power estimates. This per-vehicle gross profit at dealers is over 2.5 times of what it was in the normal times of June 2019.

US Durable Goods Orders Unexpectedly Jumped In May - With PMIs sinking rapidly and macro surprise indices crashing, analysts remained optimistic of a continued rise (albeit a small 0.1% MoM) in US durable goods orders in preliminary May data. It turns out they were 'under'-optimistic as durable goods orders surged 0.7% MoM (with a small downward revision from +0.5% to +0.4% MoM in April).That is the 3rd straight monthly increase in orders and pushes them up 12.0% YoY.Ex Transports, orders rose 0.7% MoM - beating expectations of +0.3%.The value of core capital goods orders, a proxy for investment in equipment that excludes aircraft and military hardware, rose 0.5% after a 0.3% gain a month earlier.Finally, Shipments soared by 0.8% MoM - 4 times the 0.2% MoM expected. None of this data helps the current 'growth scare dominates inflation fears' narrative... as 'good news' is now 'bad news'.

US manufacturing shows resilience despite rising interest rates (Reuters) - New orders for U.S.-made capital goods and shipments increased solidly in May, pointing to sustained strength in business spending on equipment in the second quarter, but rising interest rates and tighter financial conditions could slow momentum. The nearly broad rise in orders reported by the Commerce Department on Monday occurred despite deteriorating business and consumer sentiment as well as heightened fears of a recession. The gains partly reflected higher prices. The Federal Reserve is aggressively tightening monetary policy to quell inflation. "There's some inflation behind the increase in orders, but, nevertheless, there are a lot of dollars flowing through the economy right now," Orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, rose 0.5% last month. These so-called core capital goods orders gained 0.3% in April. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast core capital goods orders would climb 0.3%. Those orders were up 10.2% on a year-on-year basis in May. Last month's increase reflected a 1.1% rise in machinery orders. There was also strong demand for primary metals as well as computers and electronic products. But orders for electrical equipment, appliances and components fell 0.9%, while demand for fabricated metal products was unchanged. The better-than-expected increase in core capital goods orders underscored underlying strength in manufacturing, which accounts for 12% of the economy, despite weak factory surveys. A survey from S&P Global last week showed business confidence dove in June to the lowest level since September 2020. Demand for goods remains strong even as spending is reverting back to services. Production also continues to be underpinned by businesses still rebuilding inventories, even as some major retailers like Walmart and Target have reported that they are carrying too much merchandise. "We've seen two of the largest inventory builds on record in the past two quarters, but, taken in the context of still solid sales, inventories are not yet at a concerning level in our view," "We take the rebuild in inventories as a signal that supply chain problems are slowly easing."

Dallas Fed Manufacturing: Growth Decelerates in June - The Dallas Fed released its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS) for June. The latest general business activity index came in at -17.7, down 10.4 from last month. All figures are seasonally adjusted.Here is an excerpt from the latest report:Growth in Texas factory activity decelerated sharply in June, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, fell from 18.8 to 2.3, reaching its lowest reading since May 2020.Expectations regarding future manufacturing were notably less optimistic than in May. The future production index remained only slightly positive, retreating from 19.9 to 4.0. The future general business activity index pushed further into negative territory, falling 20 points to -26.0. Other measures of future manufacturing activity also declined, though most remained positive.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 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. Here is a snapshot of the complete TMOS.

Dallas Fed Plunges As Respondents Unleash Unprecedented Slamdown Of "Disastrous" Biden Administration -After an unexpected rise in US durable goods orders (in May) and pending home sales (in May), the Dallas Fed's Manufacturing Survey (in June) plunged to its lowest since May 2020. The survey was expected to rise modestly from -7.3 to -6.5, but plunged to -17.7. New Orders crashed into negative territory and employment weakened significantly.The comments from survey respondents are perhaps most enlightening of the reality facing many businesses in America: foreign dependence, cost inflation, over-regulation, and Biden energy policies...

• As a country, we are not looking at the future and establishing relationships with emerging countries like we should to ease the dependency on Chinese products and services. This will hurt us in the long run.
• Everything we buy and sell comes and goes by truck, if we can get a truck at any price. Inflation will continue until the country is self-sufficient in oil and gas. The current political policy may not change until 2024. Therefore, inflation will be our consistent companion for a while, then stagflation!
• There is increased concern over Mexican manufacturers gaining more business in the U.S. due to not having the Section 232 tariffs.
• We see the environment for the oil industry becoming even worse than the previous months. Biden is promoting a very caustic attitude toward the oil industry, which doesn’t help the country in any way.
• "We’ll all be lucky to have a job with two more years of this disaster."
• "You can’t ignore the economic fundamentals leading to a likely recession, and the administration [in Washington] is either stubborn or as paralyzed as a deer in headlights"
• "Government overspending and transfer programs have inflated the money supply while resulting in unchecked corruption and waste. We will be paying that bill for generations, and what a colossal waste of resources and missed opportunity."

 Richmond Fed Manufacturing: Additional Declines in June -Fifth District manufacturing activity declined in June, according to the most recent survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The composite manufacturing index stood at -19 in June compared to -9 in May. The complete data series behind today's Richmond Fed manufacturing report, which dates from November 1993, is available here.Here is a snapshot of the complete Richmond Fed Manufacturing Composite series.Here is an excerpt from the latest Richmond Fed manufacturing overview:Fifth District manufacturing firms reported another decline in activity in June, according to the most recent survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The composite manufacturing index fell from −9 in May to −19 in June, as two of its three component indexes dropped further into negative territory. The indexes for shipments and volume of new orders declined from −14 and −16 in May to −29 and −38 in June, respectively. The third component, the employment index, rose to 23 from 8 in May.Link to Report Here is a somewhat closer look at the index since the turn of the century.

ISM® Manufacturing index Decreased to 53.0% in June - The ISM manufacturing index indicated expansion. The PMI® was at 53.0% in June, down from 56.1% in May. The employment index was at 47.3%, down from 49.6% last month, and the new orders index was at 49.2%, down from 55.1%. From ISM: Manufacturing PMI® at 53% June 2022 Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® “The June Manufacturing PMI® registered 53 percent, down 3.1 percentage points from the reading of 56.1 percent in May. This figure indicates expansion in the overall economy for the 25th month in a row after a contraction in April and May 2020. This is the lowest Manufacturing PMI® reading since June 2020, when it registered 52.4 percent. The New Orders Index reading of 49.2 percent is 5.9 percentage points lower than the 55.1 percent recorded in May. The Production Index reading of 54.9 percent is a 0.7-percentage point increase compared to May’s figure of 54.2 percent. The Prices Index registered 78.5 percent, down 3.7 percentage points compared to the May figure of 82.2 percent. The Backlog of Orders Index registered 53.2 percent, 5.5 percentage points below the May reading of 58.7 percent.The Employment Index contracted for a second straight month at 47.3 percent, 2.3 percentage points lower than the 49.6 percent recorded in May. The Supplier Deliveries Index reading of 57.3 percent is 8.4 percentage points lower than the May figure of 65.7 percent. The Inventories Index registered 56 percent, 0.1 percentage point higher than the May reading of 55.9 percent. The New Export Orders Index reading of 50.7 percent is down 2.2 percentage points compared to May’s figure of 52.9 percent. The Imports Index climbed into expansion territory, up 2 percentage points to 50.7 percent from 48.7 percent in May.” This suggests manufacturing expanded at a slower pace in June than in May. This was below the consensus forecast, and the employment index was weak again in June.

Bulging Warehouses, 28,000 Idle Containers Herald New Supply Woe - Public attention has waned two years into the crisis that disrupted global supply chains, giving the impression that everything is back to normal. On the ground, the US’s busiest port complex is still battling bottlenecks across the board. Responsible for 42% of all containerized trade with Asia, the US’s largest hubs of Los Angeles and Long Beach in Southern California are dealing with an influx of cargo as retailers stock up on back-to-school and holiday goods that’s coinciding with the easing of the lockdowns in China. All this is happening just as US railroads and warehouses remain clogged and thousands of dockworker contracts across the West Coast are set to expire this week.

West Coast Rail Networks Clogged As Supply Chain Normalization Delayed --The key question is when supply chain congestion eases in the US. The question to that answer is not yet, as a new Bloomberg report shows the US' largest containerized seaport in Los Angeles and Long Beach in Southern California (responsible for 42% of all containerized trade with Asia) has been hit with worsening rail delays. Dwell times for rail-bound containers have been steadily increasing since February and are back to levels not seen since the major port bottlenecks of summer 2021. The Port of Los Angeles has recently enlisted help from the White House to clear a backlog of rail-bound containers that's tripled since February, taking up space on its docks and causing congestion. As of Monday, there were more than 28,000 rail-container units on the ground, about two-thirds of which had been waiting to be picked up for nine days or more. –Bloomberg Increasing rail congestion comes as thousands of dockworker contracts across the West Coast are about to expire following unsuccessful negotiations between labor unions and major railroads. If dockworkers or railroad workers strike, normalizing supply chains would be delayed. There's also the risk of China's reopening, and the backlog of goods headed in containers for US West Coast ports could further snarl supply chains. Bloomberg also outlines that trucking woes and lack of warehouse space exacerbate bottlenecks for rail networks. More than half of the truck gates at the Port of Los Angeles are still going unused on average due in part to the inconsistent staffing and operation hours at the terminals and distribution centers outside of the port, on top of the lack of space at warehouses. Moving about 70% of the US's freight tonnage, truckers don't feel encouraged to go in during off-peak hours because parts of the supply chain often don't operate around the clock, said Matt Schrap, chief executive officer of the Harbor Trucking Association. Before the bottlenecks emerged, truckers could pick up containers in the early morning and then store them at truck yards until space opened up at warehouses. But these sites are now "full of empty containers and chassis, and land has become an extreme premium." "More trucks aren't going to necessarily solve the thing -- it's a productivity issue," The vacancy rate at Southern California facilities is now around 0.3%, with the lack of availability particularly acute in the Inland Empire counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, . During normal times, the vacancy rate stood as high as 5%, he added. "We can't build these facilities fast enough, and even though we boast 2 billion square feet from the shores of the Pacific now out to the desert region of Southern California, we've got to turn that cargo out faster and have enough space under roof to manage all of these consumer and manufacturing products,"

As U.S. West Coast Port Labor Contract Expiry Looms, Both Sides Vow to Keep Talking -(Reuters) -The union and employers negotiating a new labor contract for more than 22,000 U.S. West Coast port workers said high-stakes talks that are being closely watched by industry and the White House will continue after the agreement expires late on Friday. "Cargo will keep moving, and normal operations will continue at the ports until an agreement can be reached," the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) employer group and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) said in a joint statement. "Both sides understand the strategic importance of the ports to the local, regional and US economies, and are mindful of the need to finalize a new coast-wide contract as soon as possible," PMA and ILWU said just hours ahead of the contract expiration at 5 p.m. PDT Friday (0000 GMT Saturday). Earlier on Friday, more than 150 industry groups implored U.S. President Joe Biden to push for a smooth and swift resolution to the labor talks covering 29 Pacific Coast ports stretching from California to Washington State. Groups representing industries from agriculture and apparel to trucking and toys requested that Biden work with PMA and ILWU to extend the current contract, commit to ongoing good-faith negotiations, and avoid any activity that would cause further disruptions. The contract has been on Biden's radar for months, and he took the unusual step of meeting with the ILWU and PMA in Los Angeles on June 10. Disruptions at the West Coast ocean trade gateways that handle almost 40% of U.S. imports could roil the nation's already battered supply chains, stoke inflation and threaten a weakening economy. Any work slowdown or stoppages at those ports could send transportation costs even higher, exacerbating pressure on an economy that is sinking Biden's approval ratings.

Commissioners look for slice of state's $500M for Appalachia - Columbiana County Commissioners Roy Paparodis and Mike Halleck both said Wednesday a new law which makes $500 million available to Appalachian communities in Ohio will help local governments and residents in the county.Paparodis said he’s excited, calling the legislation one of the biggest investments into local communities. Halleck said the commissioners are looking forward to whatever projects come up for the good of the county.Both he and Paparodis traveled to Columbus Tuesday for the signing of House Bill 377 into law by Gov. Mike DeWine.According to a press release issued by the governor’s office, DeWine proposed the “OhioBuilds — Small Communities, Big Impact — A Plan for Appalachia” in April as a way to invest in Appalachian communities in 32 counties across Ohio, including Columbiana, Mahoning, Carroll and Jefferson counties.The idea behind the funding is to “help unite Appalachian communities on transformational local projects with three priorities: infrastructure, including downtown development; health care, such as investments in school- or community-based services to address physical and behavioral health; and workforce development, including public-private partnerships to build and coordinate job training.“OhioBuilds — Small Communities, Big Impact — A Plan for Appalachia” includes a $50 million planning phase for Appalachian communities and regional partnerships to develop plans incorporating the three priorities.“Following the planning, $450 million in implementation grants will be awarded to help communities and regional groups carry out projects that rejuvenate the region and stimulate economic growth,” the press release said.The grant process will be administered by the Governor’s Office of Appalachia within the Ohio Department of Development. Funding will be available through multiple planning and development application rounds until all funds have been awarded.Both Halleck and Paparodis said more information about the program will be released in the coming weeks.

CVS, Rite Aid ration emergency contraceptives after demand spikes - A surge in demand in recent days for emergency contraception pills, which prompted rationing by some chain drugstores to avoid shortages, revealed the depth of fear among U.S. women after the Supreme Court upended the 50-year-old right to abortion.Emergency contraception is a single pill taken within three days of unprotected sex to prevent a pregnancy and is not related to abortion. Yet CVS temporarily rationed orders of the pills — sold under the names Plan B and Aftera, as well as generics — amid a spike in demand since the Friday ruling. Rite Aid also limited purchases.Emergency contraception can be purchased at a pharmacy without a prescription from a doctor. It typically costs under $50, and much less for generics. That made it a popular avenue in recent days for women who felt their options for reproductive health are under threat by the conservative Supreme Court, said advocates.“People are scrambling to feel like they can exercise control where things feel chaotic, and it is a way to try to plan where otherwise something that normally feels stable, like the rule of law, does not feel stable,” said Nicole Huberfeld, a professor of law, ethics and human rights at Boston University. “All of these things are sort of snowballing right now.” There also is considerable confusion about how emergency contraceptives work, as opposed to abortion pills.Part of the fog has been caused by the Food and Drug Administration label that has accompanied the emergency contraceptive pill since 2006; the label says it blocks release of eggs before fertilization but also adds the medication can prevent fertilized eggs from implanting. Researchers have since rebutted that statement. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in a footnoted paper on its website, says, “Review of the evidence suggests that emergency contraception is unlikely to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg.” The FDA has previously acknowledged “emerging evidence” suggesting the drug did not prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. It has said label changes are typically sought by manufacturers. The agency did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Surge in U.S. Demand for Dutch Abortion Pills After Roe V. Wade Decision (Reuters) - Demand for a Dutch service offering abortion pills surged more than fourfold after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, a women's rights campaigner said on Thursday. Requests for help via the Access Aid website, which offers abortion consultations remotely and ships medication from overseas to women in the United States, jumped from roughly 600 to 700 to more than 4,000, Rebecca Gomperts, a physician, told Reuters in an interview. "After the Supreme Court decision, we've seen an incredible increase in visitors to the websites, but also requests for help," she said. The United States' highest court last week overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had guaranteed the constitutional right of women to obtain abortions. More women are expected to turn to remote services as U.S. states look to limit access to abortion. Gomperts thinks the ban will ultimately not prevent women from obtaining abortions in the United States, but will make it more difficult for the poor. "The (abortion) medicines are going to be available. The problem is it will be harder for women to find the services," she said. Access Aid offers online consultations with European doctors who write prescriptions for abortion medication for women up to 10 weeks pregnant. The pills are mailed from an Indian pharmacy, which, along with the doctors, is beyond the reach of U.S. federal and state law enforcement. "I'm complying with the Austrian law and with the medical and ethical regulations, and I feel it's my moral obligation and duty to help women in need," said Gomperts, who is registered as a doctor in Austria. "These laws only have effect on the most vulnerable people that don’t have access to the internet, that don’t speak English, (that are) illegal immigrants" she added. The Dutch doctor made international headlines in the early 2000s when her foundation Women on Waves launched a boat offering abortion services in international waters to women in countries where abortion was illegal.

Judge blocks Louisiana trigger law banning abortion -A Louisiana judge blocked enforcement on Monday of statewide abortion ban designed to automatically go into effect when Roe fell. Two abortion rights groups on Monday filed a challenge to Louisiana’s trigger law, which went into effect following the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that struck down the federal right to abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights and Boies Schiller Flexner LLP requested emergency relief allowing providers in the state to continue providing abortions and patients to access the procedure. In an email after the judge’s decision Monday, the Center for Reproductive Rights said, “Abortion care will resume in the state and a hearing has been set for July 8th.” “Louisiana’s court made the right call today to swiftly block this unjust ban from taking effect. It is incredibly welcome news during a very dark time in our history,” the Center for Reproductive Rights Senior Staff Attorney Jenny Ma said in a statement. “This means that Louisiana patients will still be able to access the essential health care they need—every second that abortion is accessible counts. While the fight is far from over, we will do everything in our power to preserve abortion access in Louisiana and across the country.” The groups, filing on behalf of organizations such as Hope Medical Group for Women and Medical Students for Choice, asked the court to review the state’s trigger laws and determine what options exist for lifesaving care that requires aborting a pregnancy. “In a stunning state of affairs, the day Dobbs was issued, state and local officials issued conflicting statements about whether and which trigger laws were actually in effect and thus what conduct—if any—was prohibited. Due process requires more,” the groups wrote in a statement Monday. “There is tremendous urgency around this petition and emergency motion as the Dobbs decision has precipitated a tidal wave of canceled appointments and the withdrawal of critical services in states with trigger laws throughout the nation, perhaps none more so than in Louisiana where the trigger laws are immediately effective,” they added.

Utah judge grants temporary block of state’s abortion ban --Utah 3rd District Judge Andrew Stone granted a request by Planned Parenthood of Utah on Monday for a temporary restraining order against a state law banning most abortions. The temporary restraining order will allow abortions to continue to be performed as they were before the Supreme Court decision and will last for 14 days, according to Utah’s KSL News. Planned Parenthood of Utah filed a joint lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah on Saturday seeking to block a Utah state law known as S. B. 174. The law was passed in 2020 and is an example of an abortion “trigger” law intended to ban all abortions if and when the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision. The Supreme Court took that step on Friday. The groups suing argue that the law violates the Utah Constitution, calling it “catastrophic” in their lawsuit. Utah S. B. 174 bans abortions except in cases of rape, incest or severe fetal “brain abnormality” and excludes the removal of ectopic pregnancies or “a dead unborn child” from its definition of an abortion. A person who performs an abortion under Utah’s new law could face up to 15 years in prison as well as significant fines, although women who seek abortions would not be convicted.

Ohio Top Court Lets Six-Week Abortion Ban Remain in Effect (Reuters) -The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday declined to block the Republican-led state from enforcing a ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court last week overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The state's top court denied an emergency request by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to prevent Ohio from enforcing the 2019 law after the U.S. Supreme Court brought an end to the federal constitutional right to abortion. The decision came amid a flurry of litigation by abortion rights groups seeking to preserve the ability of women to terminate pregnancies, after the historic ruling by the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court. That ruling gave states the authority to deny, limit or allow abortions. In Ohio, the now-in-effect law lowered the gestational age limit from 22 weeks, the clinics said. Abortion rights groups have since last week challenged laws in 11 states, with judges in Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, Texas and Utah preventing restrictions or bans from being enforced. A Mississippi judge will hear a challenge to a ban on Tuesday. The Ohio law, S.B. 23, bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity is first detected, which occurs about six weeks into pregnancies, a point at which many women do not know they are pregnant, lawyers for the clinics said. The measure, which Republican Governor Mike DeWine signed into law, was previously blocked in the federal courts. But hours after the Supreme Court's decision, a federal judge dissolved the injunction preventing its enforcement.

10-year-old girl denied abortion in Ohio -A 10-year-old girl was denied an abortion in Ohio after the Supreme Court ruled last week that it was overturning Roe v. Wade, demonstrating the tangible impacts that the high court’s decision is having on patients seeking access to the medical procedure.A child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indiana, after receiving a 10-year-old patient who was six weeks and three days pregnant, the Indianapolis Star reported. That patient is now heading west to Indiana given that an abortion ban in Ohio, which prohibits the medical procedure when fetal cardiac activity begins, around six weeks, had become effective quickly after the high court issued its decision.

At least 46 migrants found dead in tractor-trailer near San Antonio -- At least 46 migrants were found dead in a refrigerated tractor-trailer near San Antonio, Texas, on Monday night, according to local officials. Another 16 migrants were taken to the hospital for critical care, including four children, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said at a Monday night press conference. A majority of the migrants transported to local hospitals were too weak to get out of the truck, Hood added. “It is our hope and prayer that the conditions of those who were transported will improve as we speak,” the fire chief said. Three individuals were arrested in connection to the incident, San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) Chief William McManus said at the press conference. The case was turned over to the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations team for a federal investigation. Dozens of police and emergency personnel teams responded around 6 p.m. to a major road near San Antonio to find a parked tractor-trailer truck next to a set of railroad tracks. Hood said the tractor-trailer was a refrigerated unit, but the air conditioning system was not working. The migrants inside the truck were “hot to the touch” and suffering from heat exhaustion without any available water. Several outlets reported Monday the incident appeared to be one of the worst cases of migrant deaths at the southern border.

New York May Ban Concealed Guns in Many Places, Including Times Square (Reuters) -New York lawmakers began revamping gun laws on Friday that would ban guns from a long list of "sensitive places," including Times Square, after the U.S. Supreme Court said the state's restrictive gun-license rules were unconstitutional. The emergency legislative session began on Thursday, a week after the Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled for the first time that the U.S. Constitution grants an individual right to carry weapons in public for self-defense. New York's Democratic leaders have lambasted the ruling, saying there will be more gun violence if there are more people carrying guns, while also conceding they must now loosen the state's permit scheme, codified over a century ago. The court also allowed that people could be banned from carrying their weapons in certain "sensitive places," but warned lawmakers against applying the label too broadly. The court also made it easier for pro-gun groups to have a gun regulation overturned, ruling that a weapons regulation was likely unconstitutional if it was not similar to the sort of regulations around in the 18th century, when the Constitution's Second Amendment was ratified. In the early hours of Friday, the state government released the text of a bill https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2022-07/EXTRAORDINARY_SESSION1-CONCEALED_CARRY_IMPROVEMENT_ACT-BILL.pdf that included a list of proposed sensitive places. It included government buildings, medical facilities, places of worship, libraries, playgrounds, parks, zoos, schools, colleges, summer camps, addiction-support centers, homeless shelters, nursing homes, public transit including the New York City subway, places where alcohol or marijuana is consumed, museums, theaters, stadiums and other venues, polling places and Times Square.

California late start law aims to make school less of a yawn -- Beginning this fall high schools in the nation’s most populous state can’t start before 8:30 a.m. and middle schools can’t start before 8 a.m. under a 2019 first-in-the-nation law forbidding earlier start times. Similar proposals are before lawmakers in New Jersey and Massachusetts.Advocates say teens do better on school work when they're more alert, and predict even broader effects: a reduction in suicides and teen car accidents and improved physical and mental health.“We know that teenagers are the most sleep-deprived age group, and the cause is our own public policy,” said Joy Wake, who helped lead the efforts of the “Start School Later” group in California.The average start time for the nation's high schools was 8 a.m. in 2017-18 but about 42% started before then, including 10% that began classes before 7:30 a.m., according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Middle school start times in 2011-12, the most recent available from NCES, were similar.That's too early for adolescents whose bodies are wired to stay up later than at other ages because of a later release of the sleep hormone melatonin, scientists say. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that middle and high schools start at 8:30 a.m. or later. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends eight–10 hours of sleep per night for 13- to 18-year-olds. After finishing eighth grade and doing all of ninth grade remotely because of COVID-19 closures, Hansika said it was hard enough to transition from the shortened, less structured days to more challenging courses in a new school without also battling to stay alert. Remote learning allowed her to sleep until signing in for school in her robe and to take naps after classes ended around 12:30 p.m. That changed when schools reopened this past year.“Being sleep deprived in some parts of the year was also a problem for me so there’s a lot of factors that come together,” she said. She doesn't anticipate staying up any later because of the shift next year.

Detroit begins a school reorganization which leaves children and parents in the lurch -The Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) school board is implementing a reorganization of Detroit schools following a contentious vote on May 10. The agreement follows a series of community meetings in which parents and educators voiced anger and opposition. School Superintendent Nikolai Vitti incorporated some changes in the final plan, nevertheless Detroit’s schoolchildren will continue to be confined to unsafe buildings with deteriorating educational opportunities. The Facility Master Plan entirely ignores the people who teach, drive buses, and provide critical support services. Focused simply on buildings, it fails there too. There will be five new schools and others which gain air conditioning, but critically, the deal fails to upgrade all HVAC systems for air conditioning and protection from the aerosolized COVID virus. Moreover, the school board will end the mask mandate June 30. Some community schools will be closed, further devastating impoverished neighborhoods. Class size levels will increase. And teachers and staff will continue to be underpaid and under-resourced. The plan is financed by $700 million from Michigan’s $6 billion federal COVID relief and is a one-time infusion to the Detroit schools. The plan document acknowledges that the measure is a band-aid, stating, “With continued rising costs, our Facility Master Plan proposes the most immediate investment needs totaling $700M out of a $2.1 billion need [emphasis in the original].” In 2015-16, educators mounted a series of sickouts—in defiance of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) and the Democratic Party politicians—demanding attention to the prevalence of mold, crumbling ceilings, buckling pavements and rodents common in the city schools. After the union squashed the protests, the district soldiered on, making only the most minimal improvements.

New York City teachers denounce savage school cuts - In a major escalation of the social crisis in New York City, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams and the Democratic Party-controlled City Council have imposed a minimum of $215 million in cuts to the city’s public schools. The Fiscal Year 2023 budget, which begins in July, for the city is $101 billion, $31 billion of which are earmarked for education spending. Adams has said he will cut another $150 million to the education budget next year. The total size of the budget cuts has still not been revealed. City Comptroller Brad Lander estimates it could be $469 million and told the City Council, “Dozens of schools are seeing cuts of over $1 million.” Other estimates say the cuts could be over $1 billion. Of the 1,600 schools in the system, 1,035 will see cuts. Schools Chancellor David Banks claimed no educator would lose his or her job. Instead, teachers will be “excessed,” meaning they will be paid until they find another position in the Department of Education (DOE). If an educator cannot be hired, they will be removed from the system. “These cuts will destroy communities,” one educator told the WSWS. Some schools will excess over a dozen educators each, eliminating art and music classes and reducing other programs, leading to larger class sizes. Adams and his enablers on the City Council have pointed to the 9.5 percent decline in student enrollment to justify their savage cuts. For more than two years of the pandemic, the DOE has refused to release and actively lied about enrollment figures in the schools. Even if it were true, however, the decline in enrollment is entirely due to the criminal response of the Democrats and Republicans to the pandemic, which prioritized corporate profit over human life. Eric Adams and his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, with the connivance of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), abandoned all mitigations against the spread of the disease in schools, including social distancing, testing and adequate quarantining. Across the country, more than 200,000 children have lost a parent or caregiver; at least 1,257 children under the age of 18 have died; and hundreds of thousands are suffering from Long COVID. Add to that the number of working class families who became homeless due to surging rent costs or just could not manage to get their children to school, and it is no surprise that large numbers of students in New York City and districts across the US fell through the cracks.

Los Angeles teachers face looming austerity as contract set to expire - With the contract between the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and the Los Angeles, California public schools expiring June 30, teachers, school nurses, school librarians and other staff should be forewarned that in these so-called “negotiations” they face two opponents, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and their own union. The coming contract will be the fourth contract since the six-day strike of January 2019. In each of these struggles the UTLA leadership has represented the interests not of educators and students, but of big business, the LAUSD and the Democratic Party. UTLA, which bargains for 35,000 educators, nurses, librarians and other public school employees in Los Angeles, California is negotiating a new two-year contract with the LAUSD, attended by 600,000 students, making it the second largest school district in the US. The current contract struggle takes place in the context of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has seriously impacted the lives of students and educators, and also war, rampaging inflation and impending recession. Teachers are making enormous personal sacrifices, as they work under enormous pressure, compounded by the COVID pandemic and the lack of any safety measures in public schools. During the first year of the pandemic the retirement rate increased 26 percent. In addition, at least 55 percent are considering early retirement. Schools are hemorrhaging staff largely due to an insufficient living wage and educators are experiencing “burnout.” This is taking place despite the recent estimate of a $33 billion budget surplus for California’s TK-12 public schools. UTLA’s bargaining proposals presented last May are based on a platform released last February named “Beyond Recovery,” a so-called “social justice” approach, supposedly based on consultations between parents and teachers. UTLA president Cecily Myart Cruz explained that after supposedly recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, the school system had to move on. The union has advanced a series of demands, largely for public show, that it has no intention of seriously fighting for. For the most part the demands raised by the union are subject to interpretation or are so general as to be meaningless. They include fully staffed schools, measures to attract and retain educators, higher pay and better working conditions, equitable access for all students, lower class sizes, more learning time, fewer standardized tests, ethnic studies, special ed, equitable access to technology, safe schools, opposition to criminalizing students, healthy green public schools, support for students, families and communities (homeless, food insecurity), equitable school funding. The teachers union is also demanding a 20 percent wage increase over two years with 10 percent per year. In 2021 the UTLA negotiated a 5 percent one-year raise. If achieved, these raises would barely match current and anticipated rates of price inflation in Southern California.

COVID-19 relief funds should not be used to ‘harden’ schools - It is perhaps inevitable that political leaders, looking for ways to “harden schools” against mass shootings after the horror of Uvalde, would set their sights on the federal funds dedicated to helping schools and students recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced last week that she is putting $100 million toward school security, using in part the money provided to the state through the American Rescue Plan’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, known as ESSER. And 15 U.S. senators are backing a bill that would make it easier to redirect unspent ESSER funds allocated to local school districts for such things as locks, panic buttons, room security systems, video surveillance, and hiring and paying the salaries of armed school-resource officers. “Currently, our schools nationwide have over $100 billion in unspent COVID-relief funds they cannot use for school security,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said in a statement.There are two problems with that statement. One, there appears to be nothing stopping states or districts from using the money on security. While the spending is intended to be connected to COVID, some districts are already investing in school safety. Pasco County, Fla., for instance, has a $30,000 line item in its ESSER spending plan for bullet-proof vests. And Reynolds’ plan for Iowa reflects her intent to use the state’s share of the money for safety measures.Second, the fact that billions in COVID-relief dollars have not been spent so far doesn’t mean that districts haven’t committed to using that money before the program ends in late 2024. FutureEd’s analysis of more than 5,000 local spending plans compiled by the Burbio data-services firm and covering three-quarters of the nation’s students shows that school districts are projected to spend as much as $10 billion on ventilation upgrades and another $5 billion on other repairs. Most of these projects are just getting underway and may require extensions for spending beyond the September 2024 deadline.Likewise, many districts have committed billions more to hiring additional teachers, tutors and mental health professionals through 2024. Only a fraction of those salary and benefit costs have been paid so far. If that money were redirected to metal detectors and security guards, students would lose out on the academic and social-emotional support they need.Which raises a final point: Districts across the country are using ESSER funds to bring psychologists, therapists and social workers into schools to help students suffering from anxiety and depression after the pandemic. This infusion of support comes at a time when political leaders of all stripes acknowledge the role that mental health plays in school shootings like those at Uvalde, Parkland, and Sandy Hook. Indeed, the gun safety bill signed into law includes money for school mental health support and services. Replacing mental health professionals with armed security guards will do nothing to address the underlying problems that contribute to these tragedies. And hardening schools, including arming teachers, could be counterproductive if not dangerous, three education leaders explained in a recent essay. In this fraught, post-pandemic environment, politicians would be wise to let local education leaders determine what their students need.

 Parents Want Politics Out of the Classrooms - The country’s public school system has always reflected the state of politics in America, for better or for worse. But over the last three years, federal, state and local governments have injected politics into the K-12 system in unprecedented ways – spurred in large part by disparate responses to schooling and safety during the coronavirus pandemic and by those who would force schools to adopt policies in line with their culture war du jour. Now, with education playing an elevated role in the looming midterm elections, political influence in schools is the No. 1 concern among parents. A new survey shows that 68% of parents worry some or a lot about having politicians who are not educators making decisions about what happens in the classroom – the biggest concern reported overall and one that far outweighs their concern over someone in the family contracting COVID-19 or being able to pay bills. Connected to their worries about political influence in schools, the survey found that the next three biggest concerns for parents centered on their children’s happiness and well-being, their children experiencing stress and anxiety and their children being exposed to violence at school. The survey, “Hidden in Plain Sight: A Way Forward for Equity-Centered Family Engagement,” also polled teachers and principals and found that their biggest concerns were the same. In total, 70% worry about politicians who are not involved in education making decisions about school curriculum, and 64% harbor the same concerns about parents who are not involved in education making decisions about school curriculum.“But significant barriers remain as the system is designed to keep parents and teachers apart,” says Bibb Hubbard, founder and president of Learning Heroes, an education research organization focused on elevating parental involvement, which conducted the survey. “We must listen to parents and educators and put the structures and supports in place we know will return dividends in student outcomes, educator retention and family engagement.” Notably, while parents say they want the opportunity to express their feelings around some of the issues that have dominated the news, the survey found that only 19% have voiced concerns about school curriculum at a school board meeting, 17% have provided feedback on recommended books and 12% have requested their child be excused from an assignment this school year.

Georgetown's Ex-Tennis Coach Gets 2-1/2 Years in Prison in U.S. College Scandal (Reuters) - A former Georgetown University tennis coach was sentenced on Friday to 2-1/2 years in prison for helping children of wealthy parents get into the school in exchange for nearly $3.5 million in bribes as part of a vast college admissions fraud scheme. Gordon Ernst, Georgetown's former head tennis coach, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston after pleading guilty in October to conspiracy and bribery charges arising from the U.S. college admissions scandal. It was the longest sentence to result to date from the "Operation Varsity Blues" investigation, which exposed how wealthy families went to extremes to secure spots for their children at competitive schools including Stanford, Yale and the University of Southern California. Ernst must also serve an additional six months of home confinement upon release and forfeit $3.43 million. His lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. Prosecutors allege that dozens of wealthy parents conspired with California college admissions consultant William "Rick" Singer to rig college entrance exams and secure the admission of students as fake athletic recruits through bribery. Fifty-four people have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial since 2019, including Singer and actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. Prosecutors said Ernst over a decade accepted more bribes than any other coach in the case in exchange for designating 22 students as tennis recruits at Georgetown in Washington, D.C., including 19 children of Singer's clients. Those paying bribes included Douglas Hodge, the former chief executive of bond manager Pimco, who was sentenced to nine months in prison in 2020.

$8.1B in student loan relief has been approved under revamped program\ – Roughly 145,000 federal student loan borrowers have received $8.1 billion in relief thanks to changes to a federal loan forgiveness program, the latest data from the Education Department shows.The Wall Street Journal reports that $8.1 billion in debt relief has been approved since October when the Education Department rolled out a number of changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF, was created in 2007 with the intention of helping employees with nonprofit and government agencies have their student loans forgiven after ten years of payments (120 total payments). The overall approval rate among applicants has been low – just 1 in 5 of the 1.3 million borrowers pursuing debt discharge through PSLF were on track to see relief by 2026, according to a September 2021 report from The Washington Post.In 2021, the U.S. Department of Education announced a change that temporarily waives specific PSLF requirements to grant borrowers credit toward loan cancellation regardless of their federal loan type or if they had been enrolled in a specific payment plan. This waiver is currently set to expire after October 31, 2022.A recent report from the Student Borrower Protection Center found over nine million public service workers likely qualify for debt cancellation through the PSLF program, but have yet to file the paperwork to start the process. California, Texas, Florida, and New York have the most public service workers with student loan debt, according to SBPC.As explained above, PSLF is intended to give eligible public service employees debt forgiveness after a set number of payments are made.Eligible borrowers must:

• Be employed by a U.S. federal, state, local, or tribal government or not-for-profit organization (federal service includes U.S. military service)
• Work full-time for that agency or organization
• Have Direct Loans (or consolidate other federal student loans into a Direct Loan)
• Make 120 qualifying payments

 Medical contrast dye shortage forces delays in diagnostic and surgical procedures - Disruptions to the global supply chain, greatly intensified since the start of the pandemic, have affected multiple industries including the health care sector, which is currently suffering from severe shortages of Omnipaque. Omnipaque, the brand name of Iohexol, is an iodine-based dye that is used to create contrast in soft tissue scans. It is a critical tool in CT scans and diagnostic procedures, as well as in preparation for surgeries. Iohexol is crucial to diagnosing and treating strokes, aneurysms and cardiac conditions, and is an essential resource for hospitals. Initial reports anticipated an 80 percent reduction of the supply of Omnipaque for approximately two months. Within the last month, hospitals in North America were sent scrambling for this critical resource and carefully rationing it, delaying diagnosis and treatment for medical conditions. While the shortage was originally expected to abate within the next couple of weeks as production has resumed, hospitals are preparing for sustained shortages through the summer. The shortages of Omnipaque are a devastating exposure of the irrationality of capitalist production, and a testament to the brutality of a profit-driven health care system. Furthermore, this shortage revealed the weakness of a nationally based Zero-COVID policy, as it was used to intensify international pressure against the Shanghai lockdown. On May 16, the American Hospital Association (AHA) wrote a letter to General Electric (GE), which manufactures half of the global supply of Omnipaque, requesting that hospitals that specialize in strokes and cardiac conditions be prioritized in distribution. In the same letter, the AHA places blame for the shortages on China and the Zero-COVID policy. “The recent shutdown of the GE production plant in Shanghai due to COVID-19 raises significant concerns about Omnipaque product availability. Those concerns were exacerbated by the fact that the vast majority of Omnipaque products are produced only at GE’s Shanghai plant.”

Study finds increased risk of neurodegenerative disorders among COVID-19 positive patients -COVID-19 positive outpatients are at an increased risk of neurodegenerative disorders compared with individuals who tested negative for the virus, a new study presented today at the 8^th European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Congress has shown.¹ The study, which analysed the health records of over half of the Danish population, found that those who had tested positive for COVID-19 were at an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and ischaemic stroke.Out of the 919,731 individuals that tested for COVID-19 within the study, researchers found that the 43,375 people who tested positive had a 3.5 times increased risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, 2.6 times with Parkinson’s disease, 2.7 times with ischaemic stroke and a 4.8 times increased with intracerebral haemorrhage (bleeding in the brain). While neuroinflammation may contribute to an accelerated development of neurodegenerative disorders, the authors also highlighted implications of the scientific focus on long-term sequelae after COVID-19.The study analysed in- and outpatients in Denmark between February 2020 and November 2021, as well as influenza patients from the corresponding pre-pandemic period. Researchers used statistical techniques to calculate relative risk, and results were stratified for hospitalisation status, age, sex, and comorbidities. More than two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the precise nature and evolution of the effects of COVID-19 on neurological disorders remained uncharacterised. Previous studies have established an association with neurological syndromes, but until now it is unknown whether COVID-19 also influences the incidence of specific neurological diseases and whether it differs from other respiratory infections”.The increased risk of most neurological diseases was, however, no higher in COVID-19 positive patients than in people who had been diagnosed with influenza or other respiratory illnesses. COVID-19 patients did have a 1.7 times increased risk of ischaemic stroke in comparison to influenza and bacterial pneumonia inpatients over 80 years of age.The frequency of other neurodegenerative illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, Guillain-Barré syndrome and narcolepsy did not increase after COVID-19, influenza, or pneumonia.

FDA panel recommends changing Covid shots to fight omicron this fall - The Food and Drug Administration's panel of independent vaccine experts on Tuesday voted 19 to 2 to recommend new Covid-19 shots that target the omicron variant this fall, when public health officials are expecting a new wave of infections.It is the first time the panel has proposed that vaccine makers modify the shots to target a different variant. The FDA will likely accept the committee's recommendation and authorize a vaccine change. However, the panel did not make a recommendation on which omicron subvariant the shots should target. Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson all developed their vaccines against the original Covid strain that first emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019. But as the virus has rapidly evolved over the course of the pandemic, the vaccines have become less effective at protecting against infection and mild illness, though they are still generally protecting against severe disease. The vaccines target the spike protein the virus uses to invade human cells. However, the shots have trouble recognizing and attacking the spike the more it mutates away from the original version of the virus. The omicron variant is the most dramatic example yet with more than 30 mutations. That is one of the central reasons why omicron caused such a massive wave of infections last winter despite the fact that masses of people were fully vaccinated.Omicron continues to mutate into more contagious subvariants. Dr. Peter Marks, who heads the FDA's vaccine division, said the U.S. faces a Covid outbreak this fall and winter as the virus evolves, vaccine immunity wanes and people spend more time indoors where Covid can spread much easier than outdoors."For that reason, we have to give serious consideration to a booster campaign this fall to help protect us," Marks told the committee. "The better the match of the vaccine to the circulating strain, we believe may correspond to improved vaccine effectiveness and potentially to a better durability of protection."

COVID-19 variant boosters won’t need new clinical trials for clearance, FDA says - - COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers won’t need to conduct new clinical trials as they develop booster shots targeting the most recent variants of the virus, a Food and Drug Administration official told Reuters. The agency will use clinical trials of variant-specific boosters developed earlier in the pandemic, manufacturing data, and animal studies to evaluate the shots.The omicron variant of the virus has developed into multiple lineages. Right now, the BA.4 and BA.5 variants are the most widespread in the United States. The FDA said Thursdaythat the next set of booster shots should be against those versions of the virus. But pharmaceutical companies have been testing shots targeting BA.1, an earlier omicron lineage. Early data from Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech shows that those shots generate a strong immune response against the omicron virus — including the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages, although to a lesser extent than BA.1.Pfizer has also tested a BA.4- and BA.5-specific booster in mice, and they presented that data during an FDA committee meeting this week.Relying on existing data will let the FDA and COVID-19 vaccine makers move more quickly to make booster shots available. But the virus is still spreading rapidly, and they may not be ready in time to stave off a BA.4 / 5 wave.The FDA said it hopes to have new COVID-19 boosters available this fall. “This fall we have to go all out on our booster campaign,” said Peter Marks, head of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

CDC: New Omicron Subvariants BA.4, BA.5 Take Over as Dominant Coronavirus Strains -A pair of omicron subvariants that only recently started circulating in the U.S. have taken over as the dominant coronavirus strains, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.BA.4 and BA.5 were responsible for a total of 52% of new coronavirus cases last week, according to updated CDC estimates. That’s up from 37% of cases the week prior and 24% the week before that. At the start of May, the pair only accounted for 1% of new infections. They take over the spot from BA.2.12.1, which only became the dominant strain last month.The highly transmissible pair is also increasing globally, according to the World Health Organization.“The rise in prevalence of BA.4 and BA.5 has coincided with a rise in cases in several WHO regions,” the organization said in a recent report. “In some countries, the rise in cases has also led to a surge in hospitalizations and ICU admissions; however, the current evidence available does not indicate a change in severity associated with any of the three omicron descendent lineages BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5.”Moderna last week reported that its omicron-specific coronavirus shot generates a strong immune response against BA.4 and BA.5. Pfizer said that its version of the updated shot also neutralizes BA.4 and BA.5.The rapid rise of subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 is just the latest example of the quickly changing coronavirus scene that is keeping experts on their toes. In the hopes of having vaccines that match the circulating strains, the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine committee meets Tuesday to vote on updating coronavirus booster shots to target the omicron variant.Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine official, told the committee on Tuesday that the fast evolution of the virus is “relatively troubling.” He said that waning immunity paired with new variants “increases our risk of a major COVID-19 outbreak.”“And for that reason, we have to give serious consideration to a booster campaign this fall to help protect us during this period from another COVID-19 surge,” Marks said. Coronavirus cases in the U.S. have plateaued at roughly 100,000 new cases on average each day for over a month. While the number is lower than previously surges, it’s still higher than previous lulls. Coronavirus deaths remain under 300 on average each day while hospitalizations have been increasing slightly.

CDC: Majority of Americans Should Be Wearing Masks Indoors or Considering it -The majority of Americans should be wearing masks while indoors in public spaces or considering the measure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Thursday, more than 22% of the population resides in counties where they should be wearing masks in indoor settings and nearly 36% are in counties where they should consider the measure based on their risk for severe COVID-19.The CDC determines the percentages through its COVID-19 community levels – a measure determined by new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and hospital capacities.The U.S. is averaging fewer than 100,000 new coronavirus cases per day, which is a slight decrease from last week. But the decline comes as two omicron subvariants appear poised to take over as the dominant strains circulating and COVID-19 transmission levels remain high across most of the country.BA.4 and BA.5 were responsible for roughly 35% of new infections last week, according to CDC estimates. The highly transmissible subvariants only started showing signs of substantial spread in the U.S. last month.While the pair of subvariants don’t yet appear to cause more severe disease, COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising in the U.S. Coronavirus-related deaths, however, have not shown a similar increase and remain under 300 on average per day. Even while cases and hospitalizations increased, there has been no widespread return to masking and much of the country’s attention has shifted to other concerns, like abortion access and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants fuel yet another global surge of COVID-19 infections - The COVID-19 pandemic is once again spiraling out of control in a growing number of countries, driven by the highly contagious and immune-evading Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. North America, Europe, Brazil, India and Australia are at the epicenter of the latest broad-based surge. After reaching a low of 466,297 daily new cases on May 30, the global seven-day average of daily new cases now stands at 661,420. The number of official new infections is growing despite the widespread dismantling of surveillance and reporting of COVID-19 metrics, with test positivity rates rising in each of these countries and regions. The sudden rise in test positivity rates means that unreported infections are occurring faster than those being documented by public health departments. For instance, in the United States, where BA.4 and BA.5 account for more than 35 percent of sequenced cases, the seven-day average of daily new cases has risen by roughly 10 percent over the past week, reaching 109,105 daily new cases on Sunday. However, the test positivity rate has been continuously over 10 percent since mid-May and continues to rise. After several weeks in which the average daily death toll stood between 300 and 350 per day, it has now climbed to 420, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard. Portugal, which experienced its second largest wave of infections during the pandemic in early June due to BA.5, also saw its positivity rate exceed 50 percent by June 1. Eighty-six percent of Portugal’s population is fully vaccinated, and 65 percent have had at least one booster shot, yet daily new deaths have surpassed the peak reached during the first Omicron wave over the winter. This highlights the critical fact that COVID-19 vaccines alone will not stem repeated assaults on the population. Test positivity rates are skyrocketing across the rest of Europe, with Spain reaching 30 percent, France surpassing 20 percent and Germany exceeding 40 percent by mid-June. Brazil is in the midst of its fourth wave, while the fascistic Bolsonaro government has effectively ended all pandemic emergency measures. Testing has, for the most part, come to a standstill. In the UK, the seven-day average of daily new cases has jumped fourfold from a low of 4,754 per day on June 2 to 19,695 infections per day today, while hospitalizations have surged 27 percent in three weeks, and the death toll has begun to turn upwards once again. As in many countries, the elderly will face the brunt of this assault. Most completed their vaccinations several months ago, and they have limited immunity against infection, with their age and medical condition placing them at risk for severe consequences.

The Secrets of Covid ‘Brain Fog’ Are Starting to Lift -For the past 20 years, Michelle Monje, a neuro-oncologist, had been trying to understand the neurobiology behind chemotherapy-induced cognitive symptoms—similarly known as “chemo fog.” When Covid-19 emerged as a major immune-activating virus, she worried about the potential for similar disruption. “Very quickly, as reports of cognitive impairment started to come out, it was clear that it was a very similar syndrome,” she says. “The same symptoms of impaired attention, memory, speed of information processing, dis-executive function—it really clinically looks just like the ‘chemo fog’ that people experienced and that we’d been studying.” In September 2020, Monje reached out to Iwasaki, an immunologist. Her group had already established a mouse model of Covid-19, thanks to their Biosafety Level 3 clearance to work with the virus. A mouse model is engineered as a close stand-in for a human, and this experiment was meant to mimic the experience of a person with a mild Covid-19 infection. Using a viral vector, Iwasaki’s group introduced the human ACE2 receptor into cells in the trachea and lungs of the mice. This receptor is the point of entry for the Covid-causing virus, allowing it to bind to the cell. Then they shot a bit of virus up the mice’s noses to cause infection, controlling the amount and delivery so that the virus was limited to the respiratory system. For the mice, this infection cleared up within one week, and they did not lose weight. Once the mice had been infected with the virus, the scientists assessed the levels of cytokines in their blood and cerebrospinal fluid (the liquid surrounding the brain) at seven days and seven weeks after infection. Cytokines are markers secreted by the immune system, and they are critical in regulating inflammation. Not only were certain cytokines elevated in the cerebrospinal fluid at both time periods, but the scientists saw an increase of microglia reactivity in the subcortical white matter of the brain—the squishy white tissue rife with nerve fibers that makes up over half of the brain’s volume. That was another sign of potential trouble. Microglia are sort of like the central nervous system’s hungry scavengers. They are immune cells that clean up the brain by chomping on dead and unwanted neural debris, among other important functions. “There’s a unique subpopulation of microglia in the white matter called axon tract microglia,” Monje says. These have a specific genetic signature, she continues, and “are exquisitely sensitive to a wide range of insults,” like inflammatory or toxic stimuli. In response to these stimuli, microglia can become perpetually reactive. One consequence is that they can begin eating away at needed neurons or other brain cells, which further disrupts the brain’s homeostasis. In the case of Covid-19, the scientists found that this reactivity persisted even at seven weeks after infection. Monje’s team had seen similar elevation in this activity following chemotherapy and in brain samples from human patients who were infected with Covid-19. In the hippocampus (the area of the brain closely associated with memory), this overenthusiastic cleanup effort can deter the creation of new neurons, which are linked to maintaining healthy memory.

Pfizer Asks for Formal U.S. Approval of Oral COVID Treatment Paxlovid -- Pfizer Inc said on Thursday it is seeking full U.S. approval for its oral COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid, which is currently available under an emergency use authorization (EUA). Pfizer said it submitted a New Drug Application for Paxlovid to the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of COVID-19 in vaccinated and unvaccinated people at high risk for progression to severe illness. That is basically consistent with the drug's current EUA, which Pfizer said covers 50% to 60% of the U.S. population, citing estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The two-drug treatment taken for five days beginning shortly after onset of COVID symptoms reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 88% in non-hospitalized, high-risk adult patients in Pfizer's clinical trial, which did not included vaccinated people. Data from a study in Israel earlier this month showed Paxlovid reduced COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients 65 years and older, but was not found to prevent severe illness among younger adults. More than 1.6 million courses of Paxlovid have been administered in the United States, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Fauci says he is experiencing ‘rebound’ of COVID symptoms after Paxlovid treatment - Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases doctor, said he is experiencing a rebound of COVID-19 symptoms after taking Pfizer’s antiviral drug Paxlovid. Fauci, 81, contracted COVID-19 earlier this month, and while his symptoms were initially “minimal,” he was prescribed a five-day course of Paxlovid when they worsened because of his age. Paxlovid is the leading treatment for COVID-19, and is used to prevent the risk for severe disease in high-risk people who test positive, including the unvaccinated and the elderly. The drug was made available under an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in December 2021. Speaking during a Foreign Policy global health summit on Tuesday, Fauci said he tested negative for three days in a row after he finished taking Paxlovid. But then on the fourth day, Fauci said he tested positive again, a phenomenon that’s referred to as a “Paxlovid rebound.” Scores of patients have reported a similar experience, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month warned health providers to be on the lookout for a “rebound” in Paxlovid patients between two and eight days after an initial recovery. However, a rebound doesn’t mean a person is re-infected. Officials and experts have said they think it’s part of the “natural history” of the virus, and can occur regardless of a person’s vaccination status. Fauci said that he felt “really poorly,” and his symptoms felt much worse in the day or two following the rebound, and he started a second course of Paxlovid. According to the CDC, there is currently no evidence that additional Paxlovid treatment is needed when there’s a suspected rebound. The Food and Drug Administration similarly stated that “there is no evidence of benefit at this time for a longer course of treatment … or repeating a treatment course of Paxlovid in patients with recurrent COVID-19 symptoms following completion of a treatment course.”

Fauci says he's taking 2nd course of Paxlovid after experiencing rebound with the antiviral treatment - After testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that he has joined a growing group of people experiencing a Paxlovid rebound, following treatment with Pfizer's antiviral. Fauci, 81, said that when he first tested positive two weeks ago, he had very minimal symptoms. However, when he began to feel worse, "given [his] age," he was prescribed Paxlovid. Other than fatigue and a bit of congestion, Fauci reported that he felt "really quite well," and after his five-day course of Paxlovid, he tested negative with a rapid test. However, after testing negative for three consecutive days, Fauci said he decided to take one more test out of precaution and subsequently found himself positive again on the fourth day. "It was sort of what people are referring to as a Paxlovid rebound," Fauci said during a remote interview with the Foreign Policy Global Health Forum on Tuesday. Over the course of the next day, he began to feel "really poorly," and "much worse than in the first go around," he added. Paxlovid is authorized in the U.S. for people with mild-to-moderate symptoms of COVID-19, who are at significant risk of progressing to severe illness. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked doctors to be on the lookout for the seemingly rare, but increasingly reported phenomenon. "Paxlovid continues to be recommended for early-stage treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 among persons at high risk for progression to severe disease," the CDC wrote in a health alert in May. The rebounding phenomenon, which is described as a recurrence of COVID-19 symptoms or the development of a new positive viral test after having tested negative, has been found to occur between two and eight days after initial recovery. A brief return of COVID-19 symptoms may be part of the "natural history" of the virus, officials wrote, and may occur in some people, regardless of treatment with Paxlovid or vaccination status.

What is COVID-19 'rebound'? CDC explains phenomenon affecting Dr Fauci -- Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday that he experienced a recurrence of symptoms after taking the Pfizer’s oral antiviral medication Paxlovid as a treatment for COVID-19.Fauci, also the current director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had initially experienced only mild symptoms upon becoming infected with COVID-19 in mid-June, he said Tuesday at the Foreign Policy’s Global Health Forum.“When [the symptoms] increased, given my age, I went on Paxlovid for five days and I felt really quite well, really just a bit of rhinorrhea and fatigue,” said Fauci, 81.After finishing his course of Paxlovid, Fauci claimed he tested negative for COVID-19 on antigen tests for three days in a row. But on the fourth day, he again tested positive. He also began to experience worsening symptoms. “It was sort of what people are referring to as a ‘Paxlovid rebound,’” Fauci said.The phenomenon that Fauci mentioned — also known as COVID-19 rebound — has been acknowledged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In May, the CDC issued an advisory on the potential recurrence of symptoms and possibly a “new positive viral test after having tested negative” within two to eight days of finishing a five-day course of Paxlovid.The agency noted, however, that the resurgence of symptoms “may be part of the natural history of SARS-CoV-2 … infection in some persons, independent of treatment with Paxlovid and regardless of vaccination status.”The CDC added that Paxlovid is still believed to be an effective treatment in the early stages of COVID-19 infection among those at higher risk for severe illness. Still, the agency has not found evidence that a second round of Paxlovid — like the one Fauci is taking — is necessary among those suffering from “COVID-19 rebound.”Fauci, meanwhile, said Tuesday that he’s feeling “reasonably good,” but “not completely without symptoms.”He had also said suggested the phenomenon is becoming “more and more typical, the more clinical experience we get.”

A reinfection red flag: Why a new report is so troubling –Dr. Eric Topol - A new report on Covid reinfections is quite concerning. It’s currently a preprint but these same authors with access to the US largest healthcare system, the Veteran Affairs, have published numerous eye-opening studies during the pandemic, in leading peer-review journals, on topics which include Long Covid cardiovascular outcomes, diabetes, breakthrough infections, the toll on mental health, and kidney disease. I have not previously seen any substantive differences from their preprints compared with the final publications. So with that context let’s look at their findings from >250,000 people with 1 infection, ~39,000 people with 2 or more infections, and nearly 5.4 million uninfected controls. It’s the first study to characterize the risks of reinfection.The first finding is the comparison of people with reinfections vs those with only 1 infection. Note the doubling of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular, and lung adverse outcomes, 3-fold risk of hospitalization, and impact on other health domains. The absolute excess burden is shown on the right panel.Next is the durability of these adverse outcomes for this same comparison (reinfections vs 1 infection) in 30-day increments, indicating that much of the hit was up front, but persistent increased risk was evident for most endpoints throughout the 6 months follow-up (above the line of 1.0, hazard ratio, in the left hand panel).Finally, there is the “dose-response” effect of multiple reinfections. By that I mean with additional episodes of Covid, for every outcome there was a stepwise increased risk, both relative (left panel) and absolute (right panel). Obviously these findings are worrisome since reinfection was quite rare before the Omicron wave hit, at 1% or less through the Delta variant wave. But now reinfections have become much more common. Why? The Omicron BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 have progressively increased immune escape and there is limited cross-immunity with BA.1, the Omicron version that about half of Americans got infected with early in 2022. We await an independent replication of these reinfection findings, but I note much of what these authors have thus far published from the Veterans Affairs information resource has indeed been replicated.

24 Oregon counties, including Multnomah, enter high risk for COVID spread – OPB -COVID19-cases in Oregon continue to increase, as do hospitalizations, but health officials say the numbers so far are manageable compared to previous waves. Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designated nine Oregon counties as being in a high risk for COVID spread. By Friday, that number jumped to 24, including the state’s most populous county, Multnomah.The agency suggests people living in high-risk counties wear masks indoors in public spaces. Multnomah County had already recommended residents wear masks indoors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevent designated 25 of Oregon's 36 counties as being in the high risk for COVID-19 spread on Friday, July 1, 2022.Even so, state health officials said the high COVID cases aren’t a cause for alarm.“The good news amongst all of that COVID in the community is that we’re not seeing a large increase in hospitalizations,” state epidemiologist Dr. Dean Sidelinger said. “A slow trend up over the last week or so, but not a huge trend up.”On Wednesday, the state reported 1,875 positive cases, a 305-case increase from the previous Wednesday. Altogether, from June 23-29, the state counted 11,324 positive cases, a 563-case increase from the week before.From June 23-29, there were 2,550 people hospitalized with COVID — up 419 people from the week before.While those numbers are the highest they’ve been since early March, they’re not enough to burden Oregon’s hospital system, Sidelinger said.“We still have over 300 people in the hospital with COVID right now, and people in the hospital for other reasons, and some catching up on care,” he said. “Our hospitals are not empty, and not by any means not busy. But we’re not at a point where we’re near those levels that really strained the capacity.”

Oregon wastewater data shows far more people have COVID than is apparent through testing - A rise in home testing and decrease in disease severity have masked a large increase in COVID-19 infections in Oregon, but the state’s poop doesn’t lie. Last month, a new COVID-19 variant from the omicron family spread across Oregon, causing a seventh wave of infections.On paper, this seventh wave hasn’t looked particularly impressive, peaking in late May at about 1,500 new cases reported per day. But data from sewage samples collected at wastewater treatment plants across the state suggests that the BA2 omicron variant is silently causing far more infections than are showing up in state testing tallies.“Wastewater across the state is more or less at record highs or near record highs,” said Tyler Radniecki, an associate professor of environmental engineering who is leading the wastewater sampling research effort at Oregon State University.The OSU project is part of a nationwide COVID-19 wastewater surveillance effort. The viral concentrations in Oregon during the current surge look similar to what the team saw during the peaks of the delta surge last August and the first omicron surge in January.

COVID viral load up 3% in Twin Cities wastewater and 9 counties deemed high risk - The COVID-19 viral load in Twin Cities wastewater increased 3% over the past week ahead of the July 4 holiday. While small, it was the second straight increase in the amount of viral material found in sewage at the Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant in St. Paul. Levels remained five times lower than they were during the January peak of Minnesota's winter omicron COVID-19 wave, though. COVID-19 hospitalizations in Minnesota also rose back above 400 late this week after declining to a low of 361 on June 18. Many of the 401 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Thursday involved people who had been admitted for other purposes and only discovered their infections upon routine screening. But the total included 41 people receiving intensive care, up from 26 five days earlier. July has been a low-point in COVID-19 activity over the past two-plus years of the pandemic, but it also marked the start of gradual increases. In 2020, health officials were closely monitoring summer outbreaks in bars and group settings as sources of transmission. In 2021, the state encountered a fast-spreading delta coronavirus variant that spread quickly and by fall was causing a higher rate of severe illness among younger, unvaccinated adults. Health officials are confident that Minnesota is better positioned against COVID-19 this summer with strong supplies of antiviral treatments and high rates of immunity through recent infections and vaccinations. However, apathy is a concern. Only 48% of Minnesota's most vulnerable seniors are up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations, meaning they have received the initial doses plus boosters when recommended.

N.Korea blames 'alien things' near border with S.Korea for COVID outbreak - (Reuters) - North Korea claimed on Friday the country's first COVID outbreak began with patients touching "alien things" near the border with South Korea, apparently shifting blame to the neighbour for the wave of infections that hit the isolated country. Announcing its probe results, the North ordered its people to "vigilantly deal with alien things coming by wind and other climate phenomena and balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders." According to the state media KCNA, an 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old kindergartener who contacted the unidentified materials "in a hill around barracks and residential quarters" in the eastern county of Kumgang in early April showed symptoms and later tested positive for the coronavirus. "The investigation results showed that several persons coming from the area of Ipho-ri in Kumgang County of Kangwon Province to the capital city in mid-April were in fever and a sharp increase of fever cases was witnessed among their contacts," the state media said. The KCNA said all other fever cases reported in the country till mid-April were due to other diseases, but it did not elaborate. North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea had for decades flown balloons carrying leaflets and humanitarian aid across the heavily fortified border. read more The government of former President Moon Jae-in barred the campaigns in 2020, citing safety concerns of residents on the border, but activists called the ban an attempt to whitewash Pyongyang and silence critics amid efforts to improve cross-border ties.

 Russia scraps remaining COVID restrictions - Russia said on Friday it was ending all restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19, including the requirement to wear masks, citing a steady decline in deaths from the virus. However, it did not rule out reintroducing restrictive measures if the situation deteriorates. Consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said it was "suspending previously introduced restrictions, including the mask regime, a ban on public catering at night, and a number of other measures". It said the dynamics of the virus were consistent with global trends and 93% of confirmed cases were mild or asymptomatic. Since the start of the pandemic in Russia in April 2020, over 800,000 people have died from coronavirus or causes related to COVID-19, Reuters calculations show, with the country recording over 18 million infections.

 CDC Assists with Meningococcal Disease Outbreak Investigation in Florida -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues its collaboration with the Florida Department of Health to investigate one of the worst outbreaks of meningococcal disease among gay and bisexual men in U.S. history. At least 24 cases and 6 deaths among gay and bisexual men have been reported. In response to this outbreak, CDC is recommending gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men get a meningococcal vaccine (MenACWY) if they live in Florida, or talk with their healthcare provider about getting vaccinated if they are traveling to Florida. CDC is also emphasizing the importance of routine MenACWY vaccination for people with HIV. “Getting vaccinated against meningococcal disease is the best way to prevent this serious illness, which can quickly become deadly,” said José R. Romero, M.D., Director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “Because of the outbreak in Florida, and the number of Pride events being held across the state in coming weeks, it’s important that gay and bisexual men who live in Florida get vaccinated, and those traveling to Florida talk to their healthcare provider about getting a MenACWY vaccine.” People can find a meningococcal vaccine by contacting their doctor’s office, pharmacy, community health center, or local health department. Insurance providers should pay for meningococcal vaccination for those whom it is recommended for during an outbreak. In Florida, anyone can get a MenACWY vaccine at no cost at any county health department during the outbreak. Seek medical attention right away if you have symptoms of meningococcal disease. Symptoms can appear suddenly and include high fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea/vomiting, or a dark purple rash. Symptoms can first appear as a flu-like illness, but typically worsen very quickly. People spread meningococcal bacteria to others by sharing respiratory and throat secretions (saliva or spit). Generally, it takes close or lengthy contact, such as kissing or being near someone coughing, to spread these bacteria.

An Ancient Killer Is Rapidly Becoming Resistant to Antibiotics, Scientists Warn - Typhoid fever might be rare in developed countries, but this ancient threat, thought to have been around for millennia, is still very much a danger in our modern world.According to new research, the bacterium that causes typhoid fever is evolving extensive drug resistance, and it's rapidly replacing strains that aren't resistant.Currently, antibiotics are the only way to effectively treat typhoid, which is caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S Typhi). Yet over the past three decades, the bacterium's resistance to oral antibiotics has been growing and spreading.Sequencing the genomes of 3,489 S Typhi strains contracted from 2014 to 2019 in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, researchers found a recent rise in extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Typhi. XDR Typhi is not only impervious to frontline antibiotics, like ampicillin, chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, but it is also growing resistant to newer antibiotics, like fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins.Even worse, these strains are spreading globally at a rapid rate.While most XDR Typhi cases stem from south Asia, researchers have identified nearly 200 instances of international spread since 1990. Most strains have been exported to Southeast Asia, as well as East and Southern Africa, but typhoid superbugs have also been found in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada."The speed at which highly-resistant strains of S. Typhi have emerged and spread in recent years is a real cause for concern, and highlights the need to urgently expand prevention measures, particularly in countries at greatest risk," says infectious disease specialist Jason Andrews from Stanford University. Scientists have been warning about drug-resistant typhoid for years now, but the new research is the largest genome analysis on the bacterium to date.

UK COVID-19 cases rising again, as monkeypox spreads and Polio re-emerges - A third wave of infection from strains of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2—Britain’s fifth COVID wave—is pushing infection, hospitalisation and death rates up again. Last week, according to Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures, 334 people were killed, nearly 6,000 people were admitted to hospital and an estimated 1.7 million people were suffering from some level of infection. This is around 1 in 35 of the population, although there are regional variations with Scotland reporting 1 in 20 infected and Northern Ireland 1 in 30. Rates of infection were on average up by 23 percent on the previous week. Nearly two and half years after the World Health Organisation issued a public health emergency warning about a novel coronavirus, the WHO estimates 15 million people have been killed by COVID-19. Most of these deaths were avoidable and can be directly attributed to the refusal of governments worldwide to pursue the necessary policy of COVID elimination. Nearly 200,000 deaths have occurred in the UK. Despite relatively high levels of vaccination, over 53 million have received at least one dose and over 50 million have had at least three jabs, COVID-19 remains a potentially deadly and debilitating disease. The current wave is largely due to the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron, now reported to make up more than half of new cases. Transmission of the new variants is likely to have been accelerated by the British monarch’s platinum jubilee. Millions of people attended mass events between June 2 and 5 and COVID prevalence increased by 43 percent in the following week. Professor Tim Spector of the ZOE Covid symptom study app told the Independent, “We’re heading towards a quarter of a million cases a day. The question is whether it stops and comes back again, everyone is predicting an autumn wave but I don’t think anyone predicted this summer wave—that’s the difference. “None of the modelling allowed for this, it didn’t take into account the effect of BA.5 variant which is dominant now.” Mathematics lecturer Kit Yates told the Independent SAGE scientific advisory group June 17, “It is pretty much official from the latest ONS data that the UK has entered the next wave of COVID. It is most concerning to see that there has been an increase in COVID infections in older age groups and in the 50-59 age group who have not been offered another booster yet.”

Monkeypox cases surge as WHO decides not to declare a global emergency - The World Health Organization has decided not to declare monkeypox a global emergency despite a rapid rise in cases in Europe, electing instead to describe it as an “evolving health threat.”The announcement Saturday comes after the WHO’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee met last week to discuss whether the monkeypox outbreak should be labeled a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC, which would have marshaled new funding and spurred governments into action. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the committee shared “serious concerns about the scale and speed of the current outbreak,” which, he said, spans more than 50 countries, with some 3,000 cases since early May.The committee agreed the outbreak requires “coordinated action” to stop the further spread of the monkeypox virus using public health measures, including surveillance, contact-tracing, isolation and care of patients.But there were differing views among committee members about whether the event yet constituted a health emergency of international concern — which is the highest level of alert the WHO can issue. The coronavirus, which causes covid-19, was labeled a PHEIC following a similar meeting in January 2020.“Everybody’s tired of the covid pandemic and nobody wants to hear about another sort of infectious-disease outbreak. But the point is, is that we’re sort of on the cusp of containment among men who have sex with men … And to get us to where we need to go, we need global coordination and a global commitment,” said Gregg Gonsalves, aninfectious-disease expert at the Yale School of Public Health, who believes monkeypox should be declared a global emergency now. Monkeypox is spread through close contact and has so far primarily affected men who have sex with men. It begins with flu-like symptoms before fluid-filled lumps or lesions appear on the skin, which can leave behind permanent scarring. Health officials say that the latest outbreak has frequently brought genital rashes, and while most cases are mild and patients recover in three weeks, the virus can be fatal and is more of a risk to pregnant people or those with weakened immune systems.

Virginia Dept. of Health announces 5 more presumed cases of monkeypox The Virginia Department of Health announced five additional presumed cases of monkeypox in the state. The new cases bring Virginia’s total number to eight cases since May. “Multiple countries, including the United States, are currently experiencing a monkeypox outbreak. To date, most, but not all, cases have occurred in persons who identify as gay, bisexual, or men who have sex with men (MSM). Few hospitalizations and one death have been reported globally in this outbreak thus far,” VDH said. The new cases include three men from northern Virginia, one man from eastern Virginia and one man from the southwest region. VDH said they were all exposed to other people with monkeypox, and they are currently isolated. VDH will continue to monitor their close contacts. Although there is no approved treatment in the US for monkeypox, there are some treatment options. “As with many viral illnesses, treatment mainly involves supportive care and relief of symptoms. For patients who have severe illness or are at high risk of developing severe illness, treatments can be accessed through the federal government with VDH coordination. Two vaccines are also available through the federal government as postexposure prophylaxis for people who had close contact with a person with monkeypox and are at highest risk of exposure,” VDH said.

First monkeypox case reported in Pittsburgh - A person tested positive for the monkeypox virus in Pittsburgh for the first time during the latest outbreak. According to the CDC, there are around 350 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the U.S., eight of which are in Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania Health Department, a southwestern Pennsylvania resident who was receiving care in Pittsburgh tested positive for monkeypox. The seven other cases are in Philadelphia. The Allegheny County Health Department said that no Allegheny County residents have tested positive for monkeypox. Dr. Stacy Lane, the founder of Central Outreach Wellness Center, said the state health department confirmed one of the wellness center's patients tested positive on Tuesday. "The real concern is that it can be disfiguring and scarring and it does have some mortality, it's minimal," said Dr. Lane. Dr. Lane said the virus is often transmitted by skin-to-skin, including sexual contact. She said many cases have been among gay and bisexual men. "A lot of this transmission is happening in the gay men's population but also on dance floors, rave parties, things like that. It's a lot of skin-to-skin contact so anywhere people are dancing bumping into each other," she said.

Monkeypox cases in Chicago jump to 42 but it remains rare --Chicago has 42 diagnosed monkeypox cases, the city’s top doctor said Monday.That’s an increase from the 27 cases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting for all of Illinois. Dr. Allison Arwady, shared the update with the City Council’s health committee.“At this point, it is rare, and we’ve not had any deaths associated with it, and it does not spread easily,” Arwady said.Monkeypox is a viral illness that typically begins with flu-like symptoms and swelling of the lymph nodes before progressing to a rash on the face and body. The illness typically lasts two to four weeks. According to the CDC, monkeypox cannot be spread by people who don’t have symptoms.The illness doesn’t spread through casual contact like COVID-19 can, Arwady said. “This is close contact. Skin to skin. Touching somebody’s rashes or sores. Potentially sharing bedding or towels. Kissing, coughing, sneezing,” she said. The CDC was reporting 244 cases in the United States as of Monday, though apparently not all of the new Chicago cases had been added. The outbreak is most severe in parts of western Europe, though cases have been reported across the globe.

Monkeypox outbreak in U.S. is bigger than the CDC reports - NPR - On June 13, a man in New York began to feel ill."He starts to experience swollen lymph nodes and rectal discomfort," The man suspects he might have monkeypox. He's a scientist, and knowledgeable about the signs and symptoms. So the man goes to his doctor and asks for a monkeypox test. The doctor decides, instead, to test the man for common sexually transmitted diseases. All those come back negative."A few days later, the pain worsens," So he goes to the urgent care and again asks for a monkeypox test. This time, the provider prescribes him antibiotics for a bacterial infection. "The pain becomes so bad, and starts to interfere with his sleep," "So this past Sunday, he goes to the emergency room of a big academic hospital in New York." At this point the man has a growth inside his rectum, which is a symptom of monkeypox. At the hospital, he sees both an ER doctor and an infectious disease specialist. Again, the man asks for a monkeypox test. But the specialist rebuffs the request and says "a monkeypox test isn't indicated," Makofane says. Instead, the doctor speculates that the man might have colon cancer. A few days later, he develops skin lesions — another key sign of monkeypox. On the surface, the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. doesn't look that bad, especially compared with other countries. Since the international epidemic began in May, the U.S. has recorded 201 cases of monkeypox. In contrast, the U.K. has nearly 800 cases. Spain and Germany both have more than 500.But in the U.S., the official case count is misleading, Makofane and other scientists tell NPR. The outbreak is bigger — perhaps much bigger — than the case count suggests.For many of the confirmed cases, health officials don't know how the person caught the virus. Those infected haven't traveled or come into contact with another infected person. That means the virus is spreading in some communities and cities, cryptically."The fact that we can't reconstruct the transmission chain means that we are likely missing a lot of links in that chain," Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University, says. "And that means that those infected people haven't had the opportunity to receive medicines to help them recover faster and not develop severe symptoms."But it also means that they're possibly spreading the virus without knowledge of the fact that they're infected," she adds.In other words: "We have no concept of the scale of the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S.," says biologist Joseph Osmundson at New York University. "

Scientists assess potential of monkeypox transmission at mass gatherings --In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers assessed the potential of monkeypox transmission at mass gatherings. In the present study, researchers explored the likelihood of monkeypox transmission at settings and venues of mass gatherings that would facilitate infection spread. Many social and mass gatherings such as music festivals like Glastonbury in the UK, the Zurich Street Parade in Switzerland, and Summerfest in Wisconsin are held in the summers and have an attendance of between 200,000 and 850,000 people. Since restrictions related to COVID-19 were imposed in 2020 and 2021 led to either event cancellation or restricted attendance, these events are expected to be highly attended in 2022. Social contact surveys showed that the average number of contacts recorded on a Saturday in Germany was 19.5 while in the UK it was 20.3. Additionally, social mixing patterns observed at an event were calculated using video analysis. An experiment that measured the direct contact incidents in an indoor mass gathering of almost 1,100 attendees revealed contacts with 8.9 to 14.1 distinct persons for more than 15 minutes and five minutes, respectively.The team investigated the potential of monkeypox transmission among humans in a mass gathering under several scenarios, considering the number of close contacts. The researchers assumed that one infectious individual attending such a mass event would have two to 10 contacts including family and friends as well as five to 50 other contacts. In this scenario, the R₀ was calculated using estimates of the SAR for unvaccinated individuals. The team also employed SAR estimates for household persons for close contacts as well as non-household persons for contacts with fellow attendees. The simulations performed showed that the SAR for unvaccinated close contacts was 7.57 and that for unvaccinated other contacts was 2.69. The simulation results showed that the mean R₀ could increase to 2.1 for individuals having a high number of close as well as other contacts. Notably, R₀ could be more than one for an infectious person who had contact with more than 30 individuals, even if that person had close contact with only two or three persons. Moreover, having contact with eight to 10 people could result in more than one secondary infection case even if the person had less than 15 other contacts.

Monkeypox case count rises to more than 3,400 globally, WHO says - (Reuters) - More than 3,400 confirmed monkeypox cases and one death were reported to the World Health Organization as of last Wednesday, with a majority of them from Europe, the agency said in an update on Monday. WHO said that since June 17, 1,310 new cases were reported to the agency, with eight new countries reporting monkeypox cases. Monkeypox is not yet a global health emergency, WHO ruled last week, although WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was deeply concerned about the outbreak.

The Monkeypox Crisis Is Secretly Spiraling in Virus Epicenter of Nigeria —The two sons of Destiny, a 48-year-old Nigerian businessman whose nephew had recently contracted the monkeypox virus, are already showing similar symptoms. They have swollen lymph nodes, which started a couple of days after they developed a fever. Despite the rash on their bodies morphing into pus-filled pimples that have scabbed over, Destiny believes his sons are only feeling the effect of the heat wave sweeping Nigeria’s southeastern Cross River State, where they live. He has prevented his sons—both in their early twenties—from visiting the hospital, believing that the rash “will go away after some time.” “In less than a week, everything will be gone,” Destiny told The Daily Beast just outside his home in the town of Akamkpa in the southern region of Cross River. “We’ve started applying calamine lotion [a medication commonly used to treat mild itchiness] on it and we’ll soon start seeing results.” Monkeypox, a viral zoonotic disease caused by a virus transmitted from animals to humans, was first discovered among monkeys kept for research in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) back in 1958, and later in humans in the same country in 1970. The disease is currently endemic in rodent and monkey populations in West and Central Africa, including in Nigeria, where cases are surging and causing flu-like symptoms and rashes in infected people. Recently, the virus has cropped up in Europe and the U.S., raising alarm that the illness could soon spiral into a pandemic. Few around Destiny’s compound seem to believe the disease really exists. As was the case with some COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, many believe it's another “so-called” illness conceived by the West for the purpose of introducing vaccines that will reduce the population in Africa. It’s the kind of belief that is already hampering coronavirus vaccination in Nigeria, with only close to 17 million in a country of 200 million people fully inoculated. “America has started again with another talk of infectious disease outbreak,” one of Destiny’s neighbors murmured as he heard Destiny speaking to The Daily Beast. “They [Americans] saw that Africans didn’t buy into their COVID scam and so introduced this one [monkeypox] to scare people.” But as many very close to Destiny live in denial, signs that the disease lives very close to them are glaring. A woman who developed a rash and swollen lymph nodes on her body blamed the occurrence on a “spiritual attack” by her enemies, according to her younger sister, and had to run to the home of a traditional medicine practitioner about 200km (120 miles) away for treatment. No one, her sibling said, has seen or heard from her since. Another 80-year-old man who died a week ago was said to have had symptoms of monkeypox, but did not seek medical attention. “Many people are scared that if they come to hospitals and are diagnosed with the disease, they could be separated from their families and quarantined for a long time,” Dr. Collins Anyachi of the Department of Family Medicine at the university teaching hospital (UCTH) in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, told The Daily Beast. “They’d rather prefer to patronize patent medicine dealers or traditional medicine practitioners who’d only prescribe medicines or herbs and tell them that they’ll get well in a few days.”

Damage from Air Pollutants You Won’t Hear About from Your Doctor - Last year, the WHO revised its global air quality guidelines, recognising air pollution as “the single biggest environmental threat to human health” and noting that “[t]he burden of disease resulting from air pollution also imposes a significant economic burden” (WHO 2021). But the burden of disease is not the only economic cost arising from poor air quality. An increasing body of work shows that exposure to air pollution, even at the relatively low concentrations found in developed countries, can have meaningful impacts on both physical and cognitive performance. Though not diagnosable as diseases, these effects of air pollution have meaningful impacts on our economic output and well-being. Some of the ‘non-health’ effects of air pollution are nearly contemporaneous with the pollution exposure itself and represent short-term reductions in performance measured relative to days or areas with less pollution. Other impacts are detectable many years after exposure and manifest as accrued physiological damage significant enough to affect behaviour, but below the threshold that would lead to a medical diagnosis. From a policymaking perspective, the findings from this literature imply that even small improvements from relatively low baseline levels of air pollution exposure may have substantial economy-wide implications.A significant body of evidence has established the effects of air pollution on diagnosable health outcomes, ranging from breathing problems and low birth weights to hospitalisations and deaths. But the burden of disease is not the only economic cost arising from poor air quality. This column discusses an emerging body of work that suggests air pollution may have significant effects on day-to-day functioning, economic output, and individual wellbeing in cities around the world, even for people with none of the observable health problems typically attributed to pollution exposure.

 What are PFAS, and why is the EPA warning about them in drinking water? An environmental health scientist explains - You may be hearing that term in the news as the federal government considers new rules and guidelines for the chemicals. Even if the acronym is new to you, you’re probably already familiar with what PFAS do. That’s because they’re found in everything from nonstick cookware to carpets to ski wax.PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are a large group of human-made chemicals – currently estimated to be around 9,000 individual chemical compounds – that are used widely in consumer products and industry. They can make products resistant to water, grease and stains and protect against fire.Waterproof outdoor apparel and cosmetics, stain-resistant upholstery and carpets, food packaging that is designed to prevent liquid or grease from leaking through, and certain firefighting equipment often contain PFAS. In fact,one recent study found that most products labeled stain- or water-resistant contained PFAS, and another study found that this is even true among products labeled as “nontoxic” or “green.” PFAS are also found in unexpected places like high-performance ski and snowboard waxes, floor waxes and medical devices.At first glance, PFAS sound pretty useful, so you might be wondering “what’s the big deal?”The short answer is that PFAS are harmful to human health and the environment.Some of the very same chemical properties that make PFAS attractive in products also mean these chemicals will persist in the environment for generations. Because of the widespread use of PFAS, these chemicals are now present in water, soil and living organisms and can be found across almost every part of the planet, including Arctic glaciers, marine mammals, remote communities living on subsistence diets, and in 98% of the American public.The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued new warnings about their risk in drinking water even at very low levels.Once people are exposed to PFAS, the chemicals remain in their bodies for a long time – months to years, depending on the specific compound – and they can accumulate over time. Research consistently demonstrates that PFAS are associated with a variety of adverse health effects. A recent review by a panel of experts looking at research on PFAS toxicity concluded with a high degree of certainty that PFAS contribute to thyroid disease, elevated cholesterol, liver damage and kidney and testicular cancer.Further, they concluded with a high degree of certainty that PFAS also affect babies exposed in utero by increasing their likelihood of being born at a lower birth weight and responding less effectively to vaccines, while impairing women’s mammary gland development, which may adversely impact a mom’s ability to breastfeed.

EPA: Flame retardant chemical poses unreasonable risk - A controversial substance once commonly used as a flame retardant poses outsize risks to both human health and the environment, according to EPA, in a decision that formalizes a new “whole chemical” approach to assessing the dangers of a compound. Cyclic aliphatic bromide cluster, typically stylized as HBCD, presents “an unreasonable risk of injury” to workers throughout a range of uses from import and processing to commercial use and disposal, EPA determined. Additionally, the agency emphasized that HBCD poses a threat to aquatic and sediment-dwelling organisms, disrupting hatching growth for fish in particular. HBCD is present in common items including building insulation, furniture and electronics, and its health impacts include possible reproductive, developmental and neurological damage. Industry has largely phased out the chemical due to blowback over its health and environmental concerns, which are so stark that the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants has moved to phase it out. The United States is not a party to that agreement, but industries have nonetheless sought alternatives to HBCD, even as the chemical has remained persistent at waste sites and in long-term products like building insulation. And in a break from risk evaluations released under the Trump administration, the HBCD findings reflect a single determination for a chemical, rather than individual conclusions about different uses. That dramatic change will allow EPA to crack down more easily on the chemical, even if it does not pose a major danger through every avenue explored by the agency, including to the broader public.

Residents outraged after former Governor Snyder and others responsible for Flint water poisoning let off the hook by Michigan Supreme Court - A ruling by the Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday has resulted in the dismissal of all criminal charges against those responsible for the water poisoning of the population of Flint. The ruling of the majority of the Michigan justices stated that criminal charges against eight officials cannot stand due the restricted scope of a judge sitting as a one-man grand jury in the case. The court found that a single-judge grand jury has no authority to issue indictments but can only be used to investigate, subpoena and issue warrants. Hours after the decision, attorneys for former Republican Governor Rick Snyder moved to dismiss all charges against him. As of this writing, neither Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer nor Attorney General Dana Nessel had commented on the ruling, which effectively shuts the door on prosecuting those responsible for a massive social crime—which resulted in at least 100 deaths, miscarriages, emotional and mental developmental problems in children and countless lifelong illnesses. The switch by government officials, Democratic and Republican alike, to the toxic Flint River in 2014 without adding anti-corrosion treatment was, until the COVID-19 pandemic, the biggest public health catastrophe in US history. The record shows that the Democratic Party on all levels has aided, abetted and covered up for a monumental social crime. Despite campaign promises in 2018 to hold those responsible for the poisoning of Flint’s water accountable, Whitmer entered the governor’s mansion and effectively wiped the slate clean by dropping all criminal cases, including involuntary manslaughter, more than three years since the first charges were filed.

2.2 million people in America live without access to running water and basic plumbing: report - Brenda and hundreds of other Navajo families live in an area too remote to be reached by traditional water lines. So when Brenda's husband injured his foot at work, the lack of running water at home to clean it caused gangrene to develop. He received successful treatment at a hospital 50 miles away. But Brenda's lack of water meant that she couldn't make and sell tamales to fill the financial void left by her husband, the primary breadwinner, being out of work. She had no money to bring him home immediately to their home in Smith Lake, New Mexico. So he slept on the street.Brenda's situation isn't unique. More than 2.2 million people in America still live without running water and basic plumbing in their homes, and tens of millions more without adequate sanitation, according to a new report released today by Los Angeles-based nonprofit DigDeep, which works to provide clean water to all parts of the United States.The millions of people who are adversely affected by the water access gap are overwhelmingly from communities of color, with indigenous households 19 times more likely than white households to live without running water and Black and Latino households twice as likely, DigDeep's founder and chief executive officer George McGraw told Insider. "There's a reason why every Girl Scout troop or soccer team or church group have been raising money for wells in Malawi, but they don't know that there are people in their own state, in their own county, in their own town who don't have running water at home," McGraw said.

Biden, NOAA pledge to step up fight against illegal fishing - President Joe Biden today signed a national security memorandum aimed at putting an end to illegal fishing and the labor abuses associated with it. The president’s memo targeted illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and asked NOAA to step up its work to combat the use of forced labor on fishing fleets and in the seafood supply chain. Toward that end, the White House said NOAA would issue a proposed rule that would allow the agency to broaden the scope of activities it can consider when it identifies nations that engage in illegal fishing. Shortly after the White House announced the plan this afternoon, NOAA said it would seek public comment on a new rule. “NOAA is committed to strengthening the suite of tools we use to combat all forms of IUU fishing and counter the use of forced labor in the seafood supply chain,” said NOAA Fisheries Chief Janet Coit. In a statement, the White House called IUU fishing “among the greatest threats to ocean health” and “a significant cause of global overfishing, contributing to the collapse or decline of fisheries that are critical to the economic growth, food systems, and ecosystems of numerous countries around the world.” “IUU fishing often involves forced labor, human trafficking, and other crimes and human rights abuses,” the White House said. “Left unchecked, IUU fishing and associated labor abuses undermine U.S. economic competitiveness, national security, fisheries sustainability, and the livelihoods and human rights of fishers around the world and will exacerbate the environmental and socioeconomic effects of climate change.” Among other things, the Biden administration said the U.S. government will work with Canada and the United Kingdom to launch an IUU Fishing Action Alliance to improve monitoring and surveillance of fisheries and to “build new partnerships that will hold bad actors accountable.”

Man fighting for life in ICU after contracting flesh-eating bacteria on Gulf coast– While flesh-eating bacteria might not be the first thing on your mind when you head to the beach, doctors say it’s something you should be aware of.This year, a deadly type of flesh-eating bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus is showing up sooner than in past summers.Dr. Stephen Castleberry at West Calcasieu Cameron Hospital said he is seeing the bacteria show up four to six weeks earlier than in years’ past. He said the infection can turn into septic shock overnight, with health care workers rushing to save lives and limbs.“This infection is something that will go from a fun day at the beach to an extremely painful wound within hours,” Castleberry said. That’s exactly what happened to Jessie Abshire, who is now recovering in the ICU after contracting the flesh-eating bacteria while crabbing in Cameron Parish, located along Louisiana’s coastline.Jessie Abshire’s wife, Belinda Abshire, said the family was crabbing in ankle-deep water for just a few hours “at most.”“Who would have thought we had gone crabbing in ankle-deep water, and then two days later, you almost die in the hospital,” Belinda Abshire said.Belinda Abshire is sharing her husband’s near-death experience in hopes it saves even one other person from suffering like he has. Jessie Abshire’s family said they are thankful for what doctors are calling a “miraculous recovery” after they feared he would die.“[He is] getting better slowly each day,” said Jessie Abshire’s daughter, Amanda Savoie. “We’ve got a long road ahead of us.”While Vibrio vulnificus can also affect the intestinal tract, doctors worry most about the bacteria entering the skin and bloodstream through open wounds, including the smallest of cuts and scrapes. Castleberry said people who are immunocompromised or have any preexisting conditions are the most at-risk for serious illness, but the bacteria can infect anyone.“Any break in the skin, even a several-day-old tattoo, a small cut that you may not even recognize beforehand,” Castleberry said. “Anytime you’re in brackish water, gulf water, during these times of the month, it doesn’t hurt to wash off after you leave the beach. If you have any type of fresh wound, don’t go in the water.”

North Dakotans are outraged as Bill Gates, the largest private farmland owner in the US, apparently buys a $13.5 million potato farm --The billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, America's largest farmland owner, apparently bought a potato farm in North Dakota, and local residents aren't too happy about it."I've gotten a big earful on this from clear across the state, it's not even from that neighborhood," Doug Goehring, the state's agricultural commissioner, told a local NBC affiliate this week. "Those people are upset, but there are others that are just livid about this."The $13.5 million sale in November of roughly 2,100 acres in the northeast corner of the state was first sleuthed and reported byAgWeek's Mikkel Pates earlier this month.Pates wrote that while "nobody involved in the deal seems eager to talk about it," public records connected Gates and the buyer, Red River Trust.Then, on Tuesday, the North Dakota attorney general's office sent a letter to the Red River Trust notifying a trustee, Peter Headley, of a Depression-era rule barring companies, LLCs, and trusts from farming and ranching activities in the state."Our office needs to confirm how your company uses this land and whether this use meets any of the statutory exceptions," the letter said.Representatives for Gates did not immediately respond to messages from Insider requesting comment.At about $6,000 per acre, the potato farm cost roughly half of what Gates reportedly spent on highly coveted soil closer to his home in Washington.But that's just a portion of the vast holdings Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, own from sea to shining sea.The Land Report found in 2021 that the Gateses had 242,000 acres of farmland, 1,234 acres of recreational land, and 25,750 acres of land in transition from farmland to residential and commercial use (think suburban development).The North Dakota purchase would put those total holdings at more than 270,000 acres, though it's not clear how the property is being divided following Gates and French Gates' divorce last year.

U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Two Separate Bayer Glyphosate Appeals in One Week Jerri-Lynn Scofield --The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear an appeal of an $87 million judgment against Bayer AG awarded in a California lawsuit to Alberta and Alva Pilliod, who contracted cancer after three decades of use of Bayer’s Roundup herbicide, according to Reuters, U.S. Supreme Court again nixes Bayer challenge to weedkiller suits. Roundup is the most widely used herbicide in the world and was originally developed by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in a disastrous 2018 deal.This is the second time within a week that the Court has refused to consider a Bayer appeal of a similar lawsuit. Last week, the Court upheld a $25 million award to Edwin Hardeman, another California resident and Roundup user, who also developed cancer (see my earlier post, 9th Circuit Upholds $25 Million Judgement Against Monsanto for Glyphosate Liability, which discusses the first case Bayer had petitioned the Court to review). The Court’s decisions not to hear Bayer’s appeals may have been swayed by an amicus brief in which the solicitor general filed an amicus brief on behalf of the United States, urging the Court not to hear the case.These decisions leave Bayer potentially exposed to billions of dollars in additional Roundup liability, Thousands of glyphosate lawsuits have been filed against Bayer (see Federal Judge Nixes Part of Glyphosate Settlement That Would Allow a Panel of Scientific “Experts”, Rather Than Juries, to Decide Whether the Chemical is Carcinogenic for Future Claims; and Bayer Agrees to $10.9 Billion Glyphosate Settlement).In its March annual report, Bayer said the company had resolved about 107,000 cases out of about 138,000 cases overall, according to Reuters in U.S. Supreme Court again nixes Bayer challenge to weedkiller suits.The Supreme Court’s two latest rulings have no bearing on these settlements.Today’s Supreme Court decision triggers a provision by which Bayer committed to increase its litigation reserves in the event that either the Supreme Court declined to hear its glyphosate appeals, or ruled against the company after hearing its appeal. Per Reuters in U.S. Supreme Court again nixes Bayer challenge to weedkiller suits;In July 2021, Bayer took an additional litigation provision of $4.5 billion in case of an unfavorable ruling by the Supreme Court or in case the justices declined to consider its appeal. The provision came on top of $11.6 billion it previously set aside for settlements and litigation over the matter.

Goats released in New York City park to eat invasive weeds - (Reuters) - More than a dozen goats journeyed to Riverside Park in New York City on Wednesday to feast on weeds, a chemical-free way to remove invasive species while adding to the joys of nature. The furry visitors arrived in Manhattan from Green Goats farm in Rhinebeck, New York, earlier in the day to gobble up overgrown brush - even species dangerous to humans, like poison ivy. "Have you seen this slope over here? I am told it is the steepest river bank east of the Palisades," said John Herrold, interim president and chief executive of the Riverside Park Conservancy. "Imagine trying to keep your balance while you're pulling out invasive plants so that you can plant native species that will better hold the soil and provide better habitat for the wildlife." Goats are an ingenious approach to weed removal, harnessing their natural hunger for leafy greens as the primary mechanism behind the task, which traditionally involves pollutant chemicals. "They love this stuff," said Herrold. "They eat poison ivy, they eat the porcelain berry, they eat the multiflora rose and that's what we're trying to get rid of." Of the 20 goats, four will call Riverside Park home through the end of summer, eating their way through two acres of the park.

NPS begins 'massive' project to fix Tidal Basin's aging sea walls - The National Park Service has launched the first phase of a project that calls for repairing the deteriorating sea walls and shoreline landscape along the historic Tidal Basin and West Potomac Park on the National Mall. The park service described the project as “massive” but said it was necessary as age, high water and poor drainage have taken a toll on the walls, making them no longer structurally sound and a threat to visitor safety. “Without improvements, the walls will continue to deteriorate and fail, which will lead to walkways buckling and soil eroding,” NPS said in a statement today. To get the project started, the agency said it had awarded a $5.7 million contract “to begin the planning and compliance process,” using funds generated from the Great American Outdoors Act. “The sea walls are a critical component to protecting the longevity of our nation’s treasures, such as the Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorials,” said National Mall and Memorial Parks Superintendent Jeff Reinbold. In the statement, Reinbold said the park service plans to incorporate “climate resiliency measures” into the new design as a way to “ensure these special places are protected for generations to come.” Among other things, the project will include new foundations to support height extensions for the walls if they’re needed to handle storm surges, the agency said. NPS said the project would also decrease the amount of time spent by employees on “reactive maintenance duties,” including cleaning up debris from high tides that flow over the walls and replacing cherry blossom tress that suffer or die when their roots become too saturated.

BLM plan would rebuild boardwalk, protect Utah dinosaur tracks - The Bureau of Land Management is proposing a new plan to rebuild a boardwalk at Utah’s Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite after a previous attempt resulted in permanent damage to priceless fossil beds. BLM today released a draft environmental assessment (EA) outlining a plan that would carefully mark dinosaur tracks and other paleontological resources for work crews that would only be allowed to proceed under the oversight of a BLM or contracted paleontologist.BLM is asking for public input on the proposed plan in the draft EA, and comments will be accepted through July 26.“The maintenance and restoration of these interpretive walkways are necessary to properly protect and manage the paleontological resources at this important site,” BLM Moab Field Manager Nicollee Gaddis-Wyatt said in a statement. “We are committed to meaningful public engagement on this project moving forward.”The goal of the revised plan in the draft EA is to replace the wooden boardwalk with a “tubular steel and concrete” walkway along a carefully marked pathway approved by paleontologists that protects the ancient resources, including more than 200 tracks dating back millions of years to the early Cretaceous time period.That was not the case in January, when BLM construction workers removing the wooden boardwalk drove over fossil beds with a backhoe and other heavy equipment, according to damage assessment conducted by Brent Breithaupt, a bureau paleontologist based in Cheyenne, Wyo., who visited the site in early February (E&E News PM, March 30). BLM in late January halted the project to replace the boardwalk near the dinosaur tracks while it assessed the damage that had been reported by visitors to the site.

 Houseboats Trapped On Lake Mead As Water Levels Fall Closer To "Dead Pool" Status - Lake Mead's water levels are plunging so fast that houseboats on the nation's largest reservoir are getting stuck because there's not enough water in some parts. One houseboat was stranded for three weeks after the water quickly dropped earlier this month. Thankfully, YouTubers — Sin City Outdoors of Las Vegas and HeavyDSparks of Salt Lake City — came out with a military jet boat and documented when they pulled the beached houseboat back into the water. Dave Sparks and his team arrived Thursday and secured permission from the National Park Service to conduct the recovery operation of the houseboat. Persistent drought conditions have pushed Lake Mead to the lowest point since the artificial reservoir was filled nearly a century ago. Water levels have been falling this year, down to 1,043 feet above sea level -- and 148 feet from "dead pool," which is the point water would no longer pass through Hoover Dam to supply California, Arizona, and Mexico. A graph might not do justice to visualizing just how fast the water level has fallen. So here are three pictures of a sunken speedboat in the lake and the corresponding date. Just in May, the boat was partially submerged. Now there's no water. Other YouTubers have headed to Lake Mead as well because they know the apocalyptic scenes of a dried-out lake would generate views. Here's more footage of Lake Mead -- maybe the body of water (or whatever is left) should be called Desert Mead.

Extreme heat puts workers in danger. A new report calls for action. - Every year, heat causes at least 170,000 work-related injuries and as many as 2,000 fatalities. It’s one of the top five causes of workplace injuries and deaths, and summers are getting hotter. Despite the growing risk of heat, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the agency responsible for regulating safe working conditions, has not taken action to protect workers from heat. That’s according to a new report from Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer advocacy organization calling on OSHA to implement standards to reduce heat-related injuries and illnesses. The report’s authors say an immediate, short-term regulation known as an Emergency Temporary Standard could reduce those injuries by 30 percent. “Given the danger, OSHA must create an emergency safety rule to do its job of protecting workers,” said Dr. Juley Fulcher, Public Citizen’s health and safety advocate and the author of the report. Exposure to extreme heat can cause serious injuries and illnesses including heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and acute kidney injury. This June, heat waves around the world smashed historic records. Since 2011, Public Citizen and other advocacy groups have been pushing OSHA to create both temporary standards to address heat-related injuries and a permanent rule. Last year, OSHA began working on a new heat standard, but it could be years before the rule is implemented, hence the need for an Emergency Temporary Standard. “Rulemaking takes time, and it’s critical that we get it right,” said Doug Parker, Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA. “We will continue to improve our efforts and explore opportunities to help employers and workers decrease the risk of heat exposure.” According to the report, employers should be required to adopt a range of practices, including temperature thresholds, rest breaks, and hydration requirements. Based on analysis of data from California after the state implemented similar guidelines, Public Citizen estimates that up to 50,000 workplace injuries could be eliminated each year. Between 2011 and 2020, OSHA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that heat was responsible for roughly 340 injuries and 40 deaths per year but are likely “vast underestimates.” Public Citizen estimates that the true figures are closer to 170,000 injuries and 2000 deaths each year. Workers of color and low-income workers, who often lack health coverage and do not qualify for workers’ compensation, face the highest risk of heat-related injury and death. According to the report, the lowest paid workers experience five times as many heat-related injuries as the highest paid workers. “Today’s heat waves are just another indication of how extreme heat due to the climate crisis is endangering workers, especially immigrant farm workers,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. This story has been updated to include additional quotes.

Tropical Storm “Bonnie” forms, heavy rains expected to cause floods and mudslides in Nicaragua and Costa Rica - Tropical Storm “Bonnie” formed at 13:15 UTC on July 1, 2022, as the 2nd named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season. Heavy rainfall is likely across portions of Nicaragua and Costa Rica today into Saturday, July 2. Areas of life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides are expected. Tropical storm conditions are expected on San Andres today, along the Caribbean coasts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua within the Tropical Storm Warning areas by this evening, and along the Pacific coasts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua overnight and early Saturday. At 15:00 UTC on July 1, the center of Tropical Storm “Bonnie” was located about 315 km (195 miles) ESE of Bluefields, Nicaragua.1 The storm had maximum sustained winds of 65 km/h (45 mph) and was moving W at 31 km/h (20 mph). Its minimum central pressure was 1 005 hPa. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for San Andres, Colombia; Limon, Costa Rica northward to Sandy Bay Sirpi, Nicaragua; Cabo Blanco, Costa Rica northward to the border of Nicaragua and Honduras. Interests elsewhere along both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, as well as the Pacific coasts of El Salvador, Guatemala, and southern Mexico, should monitor the progress of this system, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. tropical storm bonnie nhc fcst 15z july 1 2022 On the forecast track, the system will move across the southwestern Caribbean Sea today, cross southern Nicaragua or northern Costa Rica tonight, and emerge over the eastern Pacific Ocean on Saturday. The system will then move offshore of but parallel to the coasts of El Salvador, Guatemala, and southern Mexico Saturday through Monday. Bonnie is expected to strengthen before it makes landfall tonight. After landfall, short term weakening is forecast on Saturday, but Bonnie is expected to restrengthen later this weekend and early next week over the eastern Pacific.

Parts of NE China activate highest weather alert, urge citizens to stay away from rivers and dangerous mountains - Parth of northeastern China, including Beijing, issued flood and geological hazard alerts on June 26, 2022, ahead of the heaviest rainstorm of the season expected to hit the region from June 26 to 28. China’s National Meteorological Center (CNMC) predicted heavy rainfalls from 14:00 LT on June 26 to 14:00 LT on June 27 across 10 areas, including Beijing, North China’s Tianjin, Hebei and East China’s Shandong, Northeast China’s Liaoning, Northwest China’s Shaanxi, Central China’s Henan and Hubei, as well as Southwest China’s Sichuan and Chongqing.1 Apart from downpours of up to 150 mm (5.9 inches), these areas may also face strong winds, thunderstorms, and hail. The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters on Sunday initiated emergency response operations for flood control in these areas, urging early disaster prediction and timely public evacuation. According to the provincial meteorological department, Liaoning is expected to see the heaviest rainstorms this year on June 27 and 28, which are likely to trigger disasters such as mountain torrents, landslides, and mudslides. From 14:00 LT on June 27 to 14:00 LT on June 28, rainstorms are expected in parts of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi and Tibet.2 On June 28, eight cities in northeast China’s Liaoning Province activated level IV emergency response against heavy downpours, while the local railway authorities suspended the operation of 44 passenger trains.3 In Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning, primary and secondary schools, as well as kindergartens, were closed on Monday due to the forecast of heavy downpours. Rainfall up to 200 mm (7.87 inches) is forecast to slash from south to north, with the maximum hourly precipitation intensity of 70 mm (2.75 inches).

Rivers overflow, bridges collapse after heavy rains hit northwest Turkey - Heavy rains hit northwest Turkey on Monday, June 27, 2022, causing river to overflow and bridges to collapse. While initial reports mentioned no fatalities, the country’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Tuesday that 2 people are missing. One of the missing men is a digger operator who was swept away by floods in Duzce province and the other a resident in a village in Kastamonu province, Soylu said. Ahead of the floods, the Turkish State Meteorological Services (TSMS) and the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) issued a ‘red code,’ the highest emergency alert for weather-related incidents, for Kastamonu. Later on Monday, AFAD renewed its warning to residents of Kastamonu and the nearby provinces of Zonguldak, Karabük, Bartın and Sinop, calling those on the path of floods to move to safer higher ground and not to park their vehicles near the streams. AFAD said the risk was particularly high for the Kastamonu districts of Inebolu, Bozkurt, Abana, Çatalzeytin, Küre, Pınarbaşı, Şenpazar and Cide, central Karabük and Karabük’s Ovacık and Safranbolu districts, Zonguldak’s Devrek and Gökçebey, central Bartın and Sinop’s Ayancık district. The rains affected 6 provinces along the Black Sea, but the worst appears to be the Inebolu district in Kastamonu Province where a stream overflowed its banks, inundating residential areas, damaging parks and a marketplace.1 Basement floors of houses were filled with floodwaters, while the local municipality warned the owners of shops on the first floors of buildings not to open, the Daily Sabah reports. Locals were also urged not to approach the banks and to take shelter on the upper floors of buildings if their first and basement floor residences are at risk. Downpours continued into Monday and also caused sporadic power outages. Two iron pedestrian bridges over the stream collapsed in the floods. The floods also led to the closure of a road connecting the district to central Kastamonu.

Bangladesh hit by one of the worst floodings ever seen - The Watchers (videos) An estimated 7.2 million people have been affected and are in desperate need of shelter and emergency relief after heavy monsoon rains hit Bangladesh, causing record-breaking floods. From early June, torrential rain and upstream water have completely submerged around 94% of the town of Sunamganj and 84% of Sylhet districts, in northeastern Bangladesh, bordering the Meghalaya state of India.1 Parts of Meghalaya have experienced the highest amount of rainfall in decades, which has led to the overflowing of large river systems running between India and Bangladesh and completely swallowing surrounding areas. “We have never seen this sort of flooding in our living memories in that region,” said Bangladesh Red Crescent Society Secretary General Kazi Shofiqul Azam. “Hundreds of thousands of people took refuge as their houses went under water and almost all their neighborhoods inundated. Large parts of Sunamganj and Sylhet were completely cut off due to severe disruption of road communication and power cuts.”“Within just a month, Sylhet and Sunamganj have been flooded and the scale of devastation this time is so much more than the previous ones. We are scaling up our operations alongside Bangladesh Red Crescent due the urgency of the situation,” IFRC Head of Bangladesh Country Delegation Sanjeev Kafley said. As predicted, the cumulative amount of rain exceeded 122 years record in NE Bangladesh area and it is worse than the 1998 and 2004 floods as it struck at a time when the people were recovering from the earlier flood that hit in late May, it swept away homes and inundated farmlands, forcing families to seek shelter on higher ground.2 The conditions inside evacuation shelters are challenging with overcrowding, disruption to power supplies leading to lack of lighting, insufficient safe spaces for women and children as well as damage to the water supplies, latrines and other sanitation facilities which are inadequate for the sheltering population.

Bigger floods endanger millions of people living on $2 a day - Flood risk around the world is rising as the planet warms, and millions of people living in poverty are in danger because of it. A study published yesterday in the journal Nature Communications found that at least 170 million people worldwide face both extreme flood risk and extreme poverty. By the World Bank’s definition, that’s people living on less than $1.90 a day. The new research, led by World Bank economist Jun Rentschler, overlays global flood maps with global poverty data. The researchers started with the concept of the “100-year flood” — that’s an event with a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year. By definition, these events are uncommon. But depending on where and how they occur, a 100-year flood might be more severe in some places than in others. For instance, even a minor deluge might be a relatively rare event in the middle of the Mojave Desert. But a city like Miami, which floods frequently, would have a much higher threshold for an event that constitutes a 100-year flood. The researchers decided to map out places around the world where a 100-year flood would produce at least a half a foot of water — an extreme inundation, capable of causing serious damage. They accounted for floods of all major types, including coastal flooding, river flooding and floods caused by extreme rainfall. Altogether, they found that around 1.81 billion people worldwide live in places exposed to extreme flood risks — about a quarter of the planet’s population. Around 88 percent live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Next, the researchers mapped out communities living in poverty around the globe, using data from the World Bank. They found that millions of people live with both high flood risk and severe poverty. The exact number varies depending on the definition of poverty used. When the bar is those living on less than $1.90 a day, it’s around 170 million people worldwide. At $3.20 a day, it’s around 467 million people. At $5.50 per day, that number rises to 780 million people.

Massive landslide hits Tupul Railway Station, leaves at least 45 missing, India - (videos) A massive landslide hit Manipur’s Noney district late Wednesday, June 29, 2022, extensively damaging local topography and completely blocking the Iljei River.The slide also impacted the Tupul Railway Station construction site, killing at least 7 people and leaving 45 others missing. The station is located roughly 15 km (9.3 miles) SE of the town of Noney.A company of the Territorial Army was stationed there as protection for a railway line being constructed from Jiribam to the state’s capital, Imphal.¹Indian Army said full-scale rescue operations are in progress, adding that 13 individuals have been saved until 05:30 LT, June 30. Unfortunately, poor weather conditions and fresh landslides are hindering SAR operations.“In all, there were about 81 people. The chances of survival of the remaining 55 people are very thin considering the fact that the landslide occurred around 2 a.m.,” Haulianlal Guite, district magistrate of Noney district in Manipur, where the accident occurred, told Reuters by telephone.² The district administration has indicated the situation could worsen and urged people to evacuate the area.“The flow of the Ijei river (which passes through the Noney district) has also been obstructed by the debris, creating a dam-like storage condition which if breached will wreak havoc to the low lying areas of Noney District Head Quarter,” N oney Deputy Commissioner Haulianlal Guite said.

Nepal to move Everest base camp from melting glacier - Nepal is preparing to move its Everest base camp because global warming and human activity are making it unsafe. The camp, used by up to 1,500 people in the spring climbing season, is situated on the rapidly thinning Khumbu glacier. A new site is to be found at a lower altitude, where there is no year-round ice, an official told the BBC. Researchers say melt-water destabilises the glacier, and climbers say crevasses are increasingly appearing at base camp while they sleep. "We are now preparing for the relocation and we will soon begin consultation with all stakeholders," Taranath Adhikari, director general of Nepal's tourism department, told the BBC. "It is basically about adapting to the changes we are seeing at the base camp and it has become essential for the sustainability of the mountaineering business itself." The camp currently sits at an altitude of 5,364m. The new one will be 200m to 400m lower, Mr Adhikari said. The plans follow the recommendations of a committee formed by Nepal's government to facilitate and monitor mountaineering in the Everest region. Google Earth image of Everest base camp and the Khubu glacier 1px transparent line The Khumbu glacier, like many other glaciers in the Himalayas, is rapidly melting and thinning in the wake of global warming, scientists have found. A study by researchers from Leeds University in 2018 showed that the segment close to base camp was thinning at a rate of 1m per year. Most of the glacier is covered by rocky debris, but there are also areas of exposed ice, called ice cliffs, and it is the melting of the ice cliffs that most destabilises the glacier, one of the researchers, Scott Watson, told the BBC. "When ice cliffs melt like that, the debris of boulder and rocks that are on the top of the ice cliffs move and fall and then the melting also creates water bodies," he said. "So we see increased rock falls and movement of melt-water on the surface of the glaciers that can be hazardous." Mr Watson said the glacier was losing 9.5 million cubic metres of water per year.

Cold spell hits southeast Australia, widespread frosts at mid-elevations - A cold spell is affecting southeast Australia this week, with widespread frosts at mid-elevations.While the capital Canberra dropped to -6 °C (21.2 °F) on June 28, Hillston Airport recorded -4 °C (24.8 °F), marking its coldest June temperature on record. The temperature at Hillston was also just 0.6 °C (1.08 °F) from the all-time low.

Record-breaking June temperatures engulf Japan, authorities warn of power shortages - Record-breaking June temperatures engulf Japan, authorities warn of power shortages - Record-breaking June temperatures are engulfing Japan, prompting authorities to issue heatstroke advisories and warn of power outages. Unusually high temperatures for the time of the year are expected to last at least until early July. Capital Tokyo registered 35.7 °C (96 °F) on June 27, 2022, making it its daily record high. The city has also had temperatures above 35 °C (95 °F) for three days in a row, making it the first time for June since records started in 1875, meteorologist Sayaka Mori said. Numerous temperatures were also broken in Japan on June 25. Three observation spots had all-time record highs, while 61 spots had June records or record-ties. The temperatures in Isesaki rose to 40.2 °C (104.3 °F), making it the national high for the month of June. The previous record was 39.8 °C (103.6 °F) set on June 24, 2011. On the same day, Tokyo registered 35.4 °C (96 °F), making it the earliest 35 °C (95 °F) day since records began in 1875. On June 24, the city of Tokamachi, located in one of Japan’s snowiest regions, recorded 37.1 °C (99 °F), making it the highest temperature ever recorded there. In Nobeoka, the temperature on June 23 rose to 36.1 °C (97 °F), making it its highest June temperature since records started in 1961. Japan’s all-time high temperature record is 41.1 °C (106 °F), set in Kimagaya on July 23, 2018.

 Extreme heatwave engulfs Iran, main cities record hottest June day since records began - Extreme heatwave conditions are affecting Iran, with most of the country’s main cities recording their hottest June day since records began.June temperature records were broken on June 28 in Tehran when 42 °C (107.6 °F) was recorded. Monthly records were also broken in Esfahan where 42.1 °C (107.7 °F) was registerd, Mashhad with 41.6 °C (106.8 °F), Shahrud with 40.4 °C (104.7 °F) and Bojnourd with 41.8 °C (107.2 °F).On June 28, Sabzevar recorded 44.7 °C (112.4 °F), missing the all-time June record by just 0.1 °C (0.18 °F), while Yazd recorded 43.8 °C (110.8 °F), missing the June record by 0.2 °C (0.3 °F).Daytime June temperatures in Tehran usually reach highs of around 34 °C (93 °F), dropping to an average minimum temperature of around 22 °C (72 °F) at night.In recent times the highest recorded temperature in June has been 41 °C (105°F), with the lowest recorded temperature 11 °C (51 °F).

Peru's Machu Picchu threatened by wildfire -Peruvian firefighters were fighting to contain a forest fire near the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu on Thursday, as the blaze threatened to close in on the ancient city high in the Andean mountains. The fire, which had engulfed an area about half the size of Vatican City, was started on Tuesday by farmers burning grass and debris to prepare to sow new crops. As of Wednesday, about 20 hectares (49 acres) had been affected by the fire, the mayor of the nearby city of Cusco said. Machu Picchu, a complex of stone structures sitting atop a mountain, was built more than 500 years ago by the Incas, whose empire controlled large swaths of South America from what is today southern Ecuador to central Chile. The fire's remoteness has hindered firefighters' efforts. "We have already been fighting the forest fire for two days and it has not been possible to get it under control, given the area is quite inaccessible," said Roberto Abarca, director of the Cusco risk management and security office. The breathtaking ruins, which have made the surrounding Cusco region Peru's top tourist destination, are considered one of the new seven wonders of the world.

Alaska: Record wildfires occurring after hot start to summer - It's been a concerning hot and dry start to summer in southern Alaska. Anchorage is experiencing its second-warmest June, according to climate scientist Brian Brettschneider. And with only 0.07 inches of rain this month in Anchorage, southern Alaska's parched wilderness has become fuel for wildfires. The year is on trend to be one of the largest fire seasons on record. "There's been about a million and a half acres burned so far this year in Alaska. In a typical year, it's a little over a million acres for the entire season, Brettschneider outlined. "We're already 50% higher than that." Fire season in Alaska typically starts the last week of May and runs through mid-August. Several things advanced the early-season wildfires, according to Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at University of Alaska-Fairbanks. The region had limited snow over the winter, which caused quick snow melt and dry vegetation. Thoman added thunderstorms in late May are also to blame because lightning sparked wildfires across southwest Alaska. Lightning ignited the largest fire currently burning in the state, the Lime Complex, consuming more than 500,000 acres. Its location in the tundra is unusual, because the area usually doesn't burn this early in the season, Brettschneider pointed out. Zav Grabinski, a fire science communications specialist confirmed, "We're seeing a trend," of more frequent, large fires. Recent years of hot weather have led to larger fires in northern latitudes. This year's season had a similar start to record wildfire years like 2004 and 2015. "From 2000-2020, we saw about two and a half times more fire acres than the previous two decades," Grabinski said. "Not only are we getting warmer summers, but we're also seeing quite a trend of increased lightning, especially in interior Alaska."

Satellites watch record-breaking wildfires burn across Alaska - A hot, dry start to summer has sparked a record number of wildfires in southern Alaska, and weather satellites are tracking the development of the blazes from space. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) geostationary satellites have captured striking images of the fires burning across south-central and southwestern Alaska since early June. Lightning strikes from thunderstorms are sparking these early-season wildfires, which are then feeding on dry vegetation from a mild winter, according to a statement from NOAA. "This year has been an unusually active fire season in the region, with abnormally warm and dry conditions that led to more than 300 wildfires igniting in recent weeks," NOAA officials wrote. As of Thursday (June 30), 157 active fires were burning across Alaska. In just one month, wildfires in the state have burned more than 1.6 million acres — a threshold that Alaska has not reached this early in the fire season in decades. The blazes include the East Fork Fire in the western part of the state near the Yukon Delta is one of the largest tundra fires on record and has burned more than 250,000 acres since May 31. Meanwhile, the Lime Complex Fire in the southwestern region of the state is even larger, spreading across more than 600,000 acres. The smoke and debris from the fires have compromised air quality, leading the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to issue warnings for numerous regions in the state, according to the statement.

Nevada County fire prompts evacuations near Rice’s Crossing - A vegetation fire that started Tuesday in the area of Rice’s Crossing in Nevada County burned several structures and was threatening hundreds more, authorities said. The fire, dubbed the Rice’s Fire, scorched 510 acres as of 6:30 p.m. and forced evacuations near Rice’s Crossing and Cranston roads near North San Juan in the county, officials with Cal Fire’s Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit said. The fire was 0% contained and was threatening more than 500 structures and “critical infrastructure,” including Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power lines, “water delivery systems” and South Yuba State Park, Cal Fire Unit Chief Brian Estes said during a Tuesday evening news conference. Cal Fire officials said they received reports of destroyed structures but did not immediately have a confirmed figure, Estes said. The fire was burning in brush, oak and heavy timber between the south fork of the Yuba River and the main Yuba River drainage, Estes said. The fire was first reported at about 2 p.m. Estes said “there were some efforts by locals” to put out the fire when it first broke out, but the confluence of weather conditions — including temperatures in the high 90s, low humidity and south-westerly winds — spread the flames. The fire was moving at a moderate rate of speed and the incident commander reported multiple spot fires, Cal Fire officials said. Between 40 and 50 fire engines, seven hand crews, seven bulldozers, up to 10 air tankers and five helicopters were battling the fire on Tuesday, Estes said.

Wednesday Update: Rice’s Fire increases to over 900 acres - Cal Fire held a briefing on the Rices Fire at the Nevada County Fairgrounds Wednesday afternoon.The fire has increased to “just” over 900 acres and is still at 0% containment, Cal Fire Unit Chief Brian Estes said, though firefighters hope that containment percentage increases by tonight.A morning press release from Cal Fire stated “full containment” could be expected by July 1. Estes called that “optimistic at this point.” “Today, the fire exhibited active fire behavior with wind driven runs and single tree spotting and long range spotting,” the release states.The reports states 520 structures are threatened while 4 have been destroyed, though, assessment is ongoing, the release states.One firefighter was injuried fighting the fire, according to the release.Cal Fire says 640 personnel are fighting this fire, along with 80 engines, 20 water tenders, 11 dozers and 15 hand crews. Reports that structures have been destroyed, but no specifics. Our law enforcement units will remain in the area throughout the night providing extra patrol to the evacuated areas.Road closures remain in effect on Birchville Rd at Highway 49 and Pleasant Valley Rd at Bridgeport.

Fierce local battles over power lines are a bottleneck for clean energy deployment - For the past six years, energy companies and Maine residents have been in a fierce stand-off over the construction of a 53-mile power line extension that would deliver 1,200 megawatts of renewable hydroelectric power from Canada to Massachusetts, which is enough to power approximately 1.2 million homes.For two-thirds of the distance, the electricity would follow a transmission line corridor which already exists. But without the 53-mile, 54-foot-wide extension, the $1 billion construction project is a at an impasse.The power line has already received all of its state and federal permits. But in a state-wide vote in November, Maine voters rejected the project. Now, the constitutionality of that referendum vote is being battled out in court and will be decided this summer, according to Anthony W. Buxton, the lawyer representing the power companies that want to complete the transmission line. If the Maine court system rules that the referendum vote was unconstitutional, then the energy companies involved can continue construction.Concerned citizens opposing the construction of the transmission line organized together in a group called, "Say NO to NECEC," which is an acronym for the name of the project, the New England Clean Energy Connect. The head of that opposition group is 46 year-old Sandi Howard, an an 8th generation Mainer who lives in the region on her family's property. She is a professor of music at Keene State College and has led commercial whitewater and outdoor adventures for 26 years.Howard says Mainers don't trust the utility company because, among other reasons, Maine is one of the states suffering the worst increase in outage duration, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data. Also, "Mainers want to protect its environment and way of life," Howard told CNBC. If the power line were to be constructed, "there would be a dramatic impact to Maine's natural resources, scenic character, economic impact to Maine's four-season recreational tourism industry," she said.Also, she said opponents to the project are concerned about the health of the local ecosystem. For example, "the last stronghold of native brook trout are in western Maine, an area devoid of large scale infrastructure. Clearing the tree canopy for this transmission line will heat the waters in the habitat, which is critical for their survival," Howard told CNBC.But it's not just citizens like Howard who oppose the construction of the power line. Incumbent energy companies have of business on the line. In Maine alone, power companies have spent collectively $94.5 million lobbying both for and against the extension through investments in political action committees, according to spending data shared with CNBC by the Maine Ethics Commission, an independent state agency responsible for monitoring Maine's campaign finance laws."This battle is the Lexington or Concord of the existential war to defeat global warming," Buxton told CNBC. "If fossil fuel interests can block 1,200 megawatts of fully permitted, renewable hydroelectricity to help New England reach zero carbon, our future is hot and bleak."

World methane emissions are heading in the wrong direction, study says - Kayrros, a firm that analyzes satellite data, says methane emissions from fossil fuels have intensified, rising faster than the rebound in oil, gas and coal production since the easing of the coronavirus pandemic — a development the firm called “worrisome.” 10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint In a report issued Monday, Kayrros said methane emissions have climbed despite the launch of the Global Methane Pledge at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, last fall. The firm said that “global methane emissions so far appear to be going in the wrong direction.” “This is an alarm call for the fossil fuel industry,” said Antoine Halff, co-founder and chief analyst at Kayrros. About 110 countries have signed on to the Global Methane Pledge, vowing to cut methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas whose climate warming power is more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years. In the Permian Basin, the most prolific U.S. oil and gas basin, methane emissions in the first quarter of 2022 jumped 33 percent from the previous quarter, and soared by 47 percent from the first quarter a year earlier. The increase in methane emissions outstripped oil and gas output, thus increasing the methane intensity. The emissions in the first three months of this year also exceeded emissions in the fourth quarter of 2019 — before the pandemic hit. Halff said there wasn’t a concrete explanation for the change in methane intensity, but he suggested it could come from the rapid increase in oil and gas drilling over the past few months, including by drillers who might pay less attention to methane releases. The Kayrros report also said the number of U.S. natural gas super-emitters — the unusually rapid bursts of methane after a leakage incident — has jumped back to 70, the levels reached before the pandemic. At the current pace, the number of super-emitters will reach 168 this year in the United States, with 59 percent coming from the Permian Basin. Emissions also climbed in the Appalachian coal fields. Production from the region’s coal mines fell in 2020 amid lower demand because of the pandemic. But methane emissions were slower to decline then, and “as production started to bounce back in 2021, emissions grew faster,” the report says. Production grew 13 percent in 2021, but methane emissions rose 20 percent in the same period.

U.S. Supreme Court Limits Federal Power to Curb Carbon Emissions - (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday imposed limits on the federal government's authority to issue sweeping regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants in a ruling that will undermine President Joe Biden's plans to tackle climate change. The court's 6-3 ruling restricted the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal- and gas-fired power plants under the landmark Clean Air Act anti-pollution law. Biden's administration is currently working on new regulations.

WEST VIRGINIA ET AL. v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL (pdf) Syllabus and Opinion of the Court www.supremecourt.gov

Supreme Court climate ruling may chill regulation - EPA is left with fewer options to curb planet-warming emissions after the Supreme Court today hobbled the agency’s powers in a landmark climate decision.The court’s 6-3 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, which breaks down along ideological lines, states that the Clean Air Act did not give the agency authority to craft a broad power plant emissions rule like the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, and the majority — led by Chief Justice John Roberts — applied the regulation-chilling “major questions” doctrine to reach its conclusion.Roberts wrote that the doctrine “took hold because it refers to an identifiable body of law that has developed over a series of significant cases all addressing a particular and recurring problem: agencies asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted. Scholars and jurists have recognized the common threads between those decisions.” He continued: “So have we.” Justice Elena Kagan, who penned the liberal justices’ dissent, criticized her conservative colleagues’ interpretation of the doctrine. She said the case law on the doctrine demonstrates that it should be used in cases where an agency is clearly operating outside of its lane and where the action at issue would conflict with a “broader design” by Congress. “But that is not true here,” Kagan wrote. “The Clean Power Plan falls within EPA’s wheelhouse, and it fits perfectly … with all the Clean Air Act’s provisions. That the Plan addresses major issues of public policy does not upend the analysis. Congress wanted EPA to do just that.” In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Samuel Alito, applauded the application of the doctrine. “When Congress seems slow to solve problems, it may be only natural that those in the Executive Branch might seek to take matters into their own hands,” Gorsuch wrote. “But the Constitution does not authorize agencies to use pen-and-phone regulations as substitutes for laws passed by the people’s representatives.”Oral argument in West Virginia took place on the same day that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued an alarming report on the impact of gloabl warming — and said governments aren’t doing enough to stop it (Climatewire, March 1).With its ruling today, the Supreme Court removed one of EPA’s most significant methods of curbing carbon pollution from the power sector, the second-biggest contributor of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Democrats: Supreme Court ‘sentenced our planet to death’ - Democrats are fretting about the planet’s future, and their climate policy ambitions, after the Supreme Court this morning scaled back the Biden administration’s authority to regulate power plant greenhouse gas emissions. The court, in a 6-3 ruling, said EPA does not have the broad authority it sought to use with the Obama-era Clean Power Plan to force the kind of emissions reductions that could be achieved by switching from coal-fired generation to cleaner sources of power. Democrats, green groups and the clean energy industry view the decision as a major blow to President Joe Biden’s goal of decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 and to the scientific imperative of drastically slashing emissions by 2050. It also comes amid an increasingly fierce partisan battle on Capitol Hill about a court heavily shaped by President Donald Trump’s nominees. House Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) called the ruling “an alarming display of hubris.” “Today’s decision makes a mockery of the clear separation of powers outlined in our Constitution and subverts decades of settled law,” Pallone said in a statement. “The Clean Air Act is emphatically clear that EPA has both the authority and the obligation to protect public health and regulate dangerous air pollution like greenhouse gases.” The case, West Virginia v. EPA, stemmed from a federal court ruling that struck down the Trump administration’s scaled back replacement for the Clean Power Plan. Trump’s EPA, the lower court ruled, had interpreted its Clean Air Act authority too narrowly. The Supreme Court took up the case after a petition from Republican states and coal companies, a move that surprised legal observers, since the Biden administration had said it would not go back to the Clean Power Plan. The decision today hinges on the major questions doctrine, the idea that sweeping regulations that are of “vast economic and political significance” should have more direct authority from Congress. “A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s majority opinion. The National Mining Association, to that end, today said the case was not about climate change, but rather “the authority of government agencies and the economic impacts to the states and all Americans when that authority is abused.” Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle tracked the case closely and filed briefs, viewing it as hugely consequential for the future of U.S. climate policy. For Republicans, it’s a victory in a long-running war over EPA’s regulatory authority. “If Congress had intended to give EPA such sweeping authority to transform an entire sector of our economy, Congress would have done so explicitly,” Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who led a GOP amicus brief in the case, said in a statement. “Today’s decision by the Supreme Court is welcome news and further proves that EPA overstepped its authority by imposing enormously burdensome regulations on states to reconfigure our electric grid despite Congress’s rejection,” Capito said.

What the Supreme Court ruled the EPA can and can’t do - A Thursday ruling by the Supreme Court significantly curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to restrict emissions from power plants under a 2014 rule, but the agency still retains other tools to curb emissions — for now. In the 6-3 ruling in West Virginia vs. EPA, the court’s conservative majority found that the EPA lacked the authority to enforce an Obama-era power plant rule without specific congressional approval. Although the ruling disallows that specific approach without lawmakers signing off, the agency still has its broader authority to regulate power plant outputs to cut emissions under the Clean Air Act. The problem, from the point of view of those who want the EPA to cut emissions, is that in most cases they are less efficient and more expensive in a political and regulatory environment where every second counts. Following the ruling, the agency “still has a number of pathways to do its job to protect public health and the environment, including by limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants,” Dena Adler, a research scholar at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, told The Hill in an email. But she and other sources agreed there are important limitations now for the EPA that weren’t there before. Thursday’s ruling specifically applies to the EPA’s 2015 Clean Power Plan, which had a goal of so-called generation-shifting, or accelerating the shift from coal-fired power to renewable energy and natural gas. “That’s a significant constraint, because it was the EPA’s first choice for a reason,” said Jack Lienke, regulatory policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity. “It reflects how the power grid actually operates and the fact that electricity is fungible.” In the wake of the ruling, the EPA has many of the same arrows in its quiver as before to address pollutants from power plants, but “the tools the EPA has are probably inadequate,”

'I will take action': Biden responds to SCOTUS climate ruling - President Joe Biden today said he would exercise all legal options to continue fighting climate change after the Supreme Court took a major EPA regulatory option off the table.The president said he had directed his legal team, EPA and the Justice Department to review the court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, which said the federal government could not broadly regulate carbon pollution from the power sector, the second-largest contributor of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.“We cannot and will not ignore the danger to public health and existential threat the climate crisis poses,” Biden said in a statement. “The science confirms what we all see with our own eyes — the wildfires, droughts, extreme heat, and intense storms are endangering our lives and livelihoods.He continued: “I will take action.”The president has recently spoken out against other court rulings, including its decision last week to overturn nearly 50 years of legal precedent recognizing the constitutional right to abortion access.Biden’s EPA plans to propose by March 2023 its own power plant rule to replace the Clean Power Plan — which the Supreme Court today determined exceeded the agency’s authority, even though the regulation is not currently in effect (Greenwire, June 30).A final Biden power plant rule is expected by 2024, which means the president would need to win a second term to defend the regulation in court.The utility sector met the Clean Power Plan’s goal — a 32 percent reduction in carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 — a decade early, even without the regulation.EPA still has authority to curb emissions in other ways, including curtailing pollution from the transportation sector, which is the largest source of U.S. emissions.Conservative groups have challenged those efforts, however, including in lawsuits that raise claims under the major questions doctrine, which the Supreme Court used t oday to limit EPA’s control over power plant emissions (Greenwire, April 11).

Drax Eyeing California as Site of New Biomass Carbon Capture Plant - British biomass giant Drax is lobbying the Californian government to play host to its first ever “carbon negative” power plant outside of the UK, despite concerns about the sustainability of the energy source.Drax has long-standing plans to launch the world’s largest bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) plant in North Yorkshire, but the former coal-fired power generator now appears to have California in its sights.BECCS is a controversial technology that captures carbon dioxide from burning organic matter and buries it underground. While advocates promote it as a “carbon negative” climate solution, experts and campaigners have arguedthat BECCS is technically unproven, and that the practice poses risks for biodiversity, land and food security.In a submissionon Thursday to California’s Draft 2022 Scoping Plan – the state’s climate strategy – Drax argued the U.S. would make an “ideal location” to build its first BECCS project outside the UK, but would require significant political support in the form of government subsidies.The news has been met with criticism from anti-biomass campaigners, with Gary Hughes from Biofuelwatch arguing that the plan is already favourable towards carbon capture, and that Drax was “riding roughshod” over the fears raised by environmental justice campaigners around emissions, air pollution and biodiversity impacts.“Drax is trying to take advantage of the policy landscape to see if the plant comes to fruition,” Hughes said. “Even though this isn’t a concrete proposal, it could prove a conceptual win for Drax,” he added. “It wants California to promote BECCS – and if it can say the ‘global climate leader’ California is on board, they think others will follow.”

Calif. may rely on carbon capture to meet 2045 net-zero goal - California must capture carbon from factory smokestacks and directly from the air to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2045, according to a draft plan from a key state agency. The plan — from staff at the California Air Resources Board — estimates that about one-third of the needed emissions reductions in 2045 would come from greenhouse gas removal techniques. That assessment is stoking controversy in a state that sees itself as a national leader in fighting climate change, with concerns about the feasibility of carbon capture and whether it harms lower-income neighborhoods. “The threats posed by climate change to our communities, lands and environment, health, and the economy signify an all-hands-on-deck moment for California,” CARB Chair Liane Randolph said last week as staff presented the plan to the board for the first time. “This plan puts all tools on the table.” The “scoping plan” details how the state will hit net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, and includes both carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, and pulling carbon from the atmosphere, known as direct air capture. The board directed staff to add to the plan more specifics on CCS, including where it might be used, and potential health impacts. Important questions include whether modeling is overstating CCS’s potential, and what is the next step to determine whether “we can safely and sustainably deploy this technology,” Randolph said. The board is expected to vote on a final plan later this year.

KeyState Natural Gas Synthesis gets investment from OGCI Climate Investments - Pennsylvania's only carbon capture and storage project, KeyState Natural Gas Synthesis, has gotten a big boost from its first outside investor, OGCI Climate Investments. KeyState is in the planning stages of a $900 million project in West and East Keating Townships, Clinton County, that will use natural gas produced on site for the production of ammonia, urea and potentially hydrogen and at the same time capture and permanently store the carbon from the natural gas. It'll be a few years before the operation is up and running, likely at the end of 2025 or early 2026. But when complete it'll be a front-and-center example of how carbon capture and storage can be carried out, using natural gas, in Pennsylvania. KeyState has been working toward that goal and, for the past two years, with OGCI Climate Investments, a $1 billion investment fund of a dozen large oil and gas companies like Royal Dutch Shell plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., to chart the industry's low-carbon future. OGCI's investment in KeyState, the dollar value of which isn't being disclosed, will fund the prefront-end engineering and design for the natural gas synthesis plant and study the resources KeyState has on its 7,000-acre site for carbon storage. Plans for the carbon storage has expanded along with interest in the project, with the potential capacity to store 300,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas linked to climate change. Perry Babb, CEO of KeyState, said that having OGCI participate in the process had led to not only the financial commitment, but also having their technical expertise shape the project. "It speaks a lot to who they are and what their mission is," Babb said of OGCI. OGCI's investment is also the first from the outside, which is a key vote of confidence in the project and its capability. "It's a huge validation to the market that they're our partner at this phase of the game," Babb said of OGCI's funding. "KeyState has the potential to enable CCS (carbon capture and storage) in Pennsylvania, as well as the vertically integrated model as an example of the circular lower-carbon economy," said Betty Pun, technology principal, process engineering and carbon capture at OGCI Climate Investments. "Not only does the project deliver emissions reductions directly, but we also see a role for KeyState as a catalyst for CCS hub development in the region." KeyState has already begun the next phase of fundraising. OGCI has an option to participate in the next phase of funding. Babb said KeyState's project is much better because of their involvement. OGCI's assistance has also helped realize an increase in the potential carbon storage portion of the KeyState project, a topic of great interest as the world moves toward decarbonization and the issue of what to do with the carbon emissions in heavily industrialization, energy production and power generation. The earlier plan had been to store about 100,000 tons a year of carbon on the site, which would already make KeyState the first commercial carbon storage project in Pennsylvania and Appalachia.

Exxon, Shell, CNOOC To Develop CCS Project In China - ExxonMobil, Shell, CNOOC, and the Guangdong Provincial Development & Reform Commission have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to evaluate the potential for a world-scale carbon capture and storage project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the Dayawan Petrochemical Industrial Park in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China. In addition to assessing the commercial opportunity for carbon capture and storage in one of China’s largest industrial areas, the companies will also evaluate the carbon policy systems in China and propose policies for consideration that would support the deployment of carbon capture and storage in Dayawan Petrochemical Industrial Park. Initial assessments of the project indicate the potential to capture up to 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year from Dayawan’s industrial sector, supporting China’s ambition of carbon neutrality by 2060. The project could also serve as a model for the chemical industry as one of the first petrochemical projects to be decarbonized. While renewable technologies are important to help reach society’s net-zero objectives, carbon capture and storage is a safe, proven, and consistent technology that can enable some of the highest-emitting sectors such as manufacturing, power generation, refining, petrochemical, steel, and cement industries to reduce their emissions. ExxonMobil is also pursuing strategic investments in biofuels and hydrogen to bring those lower-emissions energy technologies to scale for hard-to-decarbonize sectors of the global economy, by leveraging the skills, knowledge, and scale of the business.

DOE: Here's what's happened to EV, renewable, fossil jobs - -Much of the fossil fuel industry continued to hemorrhage jobs last year, even as employment in the electric car sector increased dramatically, according to a report today from the Department of Energy. Released this morning, the 2022 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) is compiled annually using public labor statistics and analyzes virtually every established energy sector, from energy efficiency and electric power generation to motor vehicles, fuels production and transmission, distribution and storage. This year’s report considered how the nation’s energy workforces fared in 2021 and found that most of them grew at a modest clip: Overall, energy sector jobs were up 4 percent, with electric vehicles being a standout. Employment in the electric car sector exploded 26 percent, while jobs related to hybrid cars rose 20 percent. In comparison, electric vehicle jobs grew only 8 percent in the prior year’s report. Still, energy industries have yet to fully recover from the drubbing they took during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 840,000 energy-related positions vanished by the end of 2020. In 2021, less than half of that total — around 300,000 — reappeared, according to the report. In many corners of the fossil fuel industry, workforces grew slimmer. Jobs in coal and petroleum fuels — including extraction, manufacturing but excluding power generation — fell by almost 12 percent and over 6 percent, respectively, in 2021, resulting in roughly 46,000 lost positions. Only natural gas saw a rebound, with jobs growing 1.6 percent. The shrinkage of coal and petroleum jobs last year was a continuation from 2020. According to DOE, coal lost 15,000 positions in 2020, and petroleum shed 120,318. Natural gas lost almost 66,000 jobs in 2020 before last year’s rebound.

Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods concerned abrupt energy transition will raise gas prices - Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods warns that an abrupt transition to renewable energy will cause society to "pay a high price."The national average price for a gallon of gasoline is currently nearly $5, causing strife for all drivers, according to AAA.In an interview with CNBC's David Faber, Woods cautioned against a government policy that fails to balance the current demand for affordable energy with the need for lower emissions. He said that underinvestment in the oil and gas industry correlates to higher prices. Instead, Woods continued his calls for a price on carbon to create a market incentive for lowering emissions.In addition to impacting families who depend on affordable energy, Woods said that rising oil and gas prices have already pushed consumers in Europe to use other fossil fuels, like coal, rather than renewable energy. Sherlina Nageer is an American activist in Guyana, where Exxon Mobil recently invested $10 billion in a fourth offshore oil production project. She told Faber that all oil development should stop, saying, “the negatives in the long term outweigh whatever positives may be reaped in the short term.”Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, stressed the importance of transitioning away from fossil fuels. She cautioned, "If we don't fix climate change, it will fix us."When Faber asked Woods what Exxon Mobil will look like in 10 years, he predicted that the company may continue to participate in oil and gas exploration, although it will also engage in renewable energy solutions like biofuels. As Exxon Mobil navigates the energy transition, Woods emphasized his commitment to balancing existing demands for affordable energy with "the needs of the future as well, which is lower emissions."Funds for climate justice flow to groups around the U.S. - Fourteen environmental justice organizations from around the United States have begun to receive money under the Justice40 initiative, a business accelerator announced Wednesday. The Justice40 Accelerator said the groups will receive some $3 million for work ranging from solar training in Detroit, to renovating homes to better withstand extreme weather, to a community market where farmers can sell their produce.The Justice40 initiative is a Biden administration pledge to improve the environment in disadvantaged communities and help them prepare for climate change. It promises to funnel 40% of all investments in climate and environment to communities that live with the highest environmental burdens — diesel soot, lead water pipes, lack of access to green spaces to name a few.In many such communities, there are groups that have worked for years to remedy conditions, usually on shoestring budgets.“It lets us know that our work is not in vain,” said Eric Simpson, a farmer and owner of New Eden Ecosystem in West Point, Georgia. The West Georgia Farmers Cooperative will build a community hub where farmers can sell their crops and products they make from them.“It’s rewarding,” said Donele Wilkins, founder and executive director of the Green Door Initiative, a Detroit-based group that does environmental workforce development. Money, she said has been “kind of elusive, so to be able to tap into it is helpful.”Wilkins said her group plans to keep working to increase access to solar energy in affordable housing and create jobs installing and maintaining solar panels with the $200,000 they were awarded from Department of Energy.Both groups wrangled the funding with help from the Justice40 Accelerator, created by a coalition of environmental and climate nonprofits led by The Solutions Project to help smaller community organizations navigate the federal funding process.

 'Defining challenge': NATO names climate as major threat - For the first time, NATO is updating its strategic plans to treat climate change as a major threat. In documents published yesterday as allied leaders gathered in Madrid, NATO declared that the 30-member alliance — which soon will include Finland and Sweden — aspires to become the “leading international organisation” on climate security, including the need to curb greenhouse gases. Rising temperatures will threaten global stability, the alliance warned, and also degrade militaries’ capabilities to fight wars and respond to disasters. “Climate change is a defining challenge of our time, with a profound impact on Allied security,” NATO wrote in its new strategic planning documents. “It is a crisis and threat multiplier. It can exacerbate conflict, fragility and geopolitical competition.” That approach marks a drastic change from the last time NATO updated its guiding principles. The most recent Strategic Concept, as the documents are officially known, was issued in 2010 and included only a single, glancing mention of climate change. Now, NATO is framing climate change as a problem that cuts across its core missions. “The Alliance will lead efforts to assess the impact of climate change on defence and security and address those challenges,” according to the new Strategic Concept. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has returned NATO to the geopolitical spotlight. Originally founded as a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union, the bloc grew less relevant after the Cold War as European countries cut military spending and the United States waged war in the Middle East. The rise of China — and divisions between Europe and the United States on how to handle that — further diluted the alliance’s importance. Now, NATO is regaining its relevance as a military alliance — and potentially as a forum for international cooperation — as countries look to collectively counter Russian aggression. NATO leaders are putting a new emphasis on energy security and supply chains. And President Joe Biden said yesterday the United States would station additional troops and fighter jets in European NATO countries. “We’re proving that NATO is more needed now than it ever has been, and it’s as important as it has ever been,” Biden said yesterday, shortly before leaders approved the new Strategic Concept. The latest plans come after NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last week released what he called a “sobering” assessment of climate change’s impacts on the alliance. The bottom line, he wrote, is that the West will have to “transform fundamentally our approach to security and defence.”

G7 to Allow Fossil Fuel Financing If Climate Pledges Kept -Group of Seven nations are set to allow some exceptional public financing of overseas fossil-fuel projects to continue provided that the investments are consistent with prior climate-change agreements, according to people familiar with the matter. The final text of the leaders’ statement, due to be published Tuesday at the conclusion of a three-day summit in Germany, will temporarily allow public investments in gas projects in limited circumstances given the current energy crisis. At the same time, it will reaffirm that commitments such as those agreed on at the COP26 climate summit in November need to be stuck to, the people said. The agreement is a compromise after days of intense negotiations among diplomats as some G-7 countries race to replace Russian energy, with Europe in particular struggling to secure alternative sources of gas. Summit host Germany was pushing to allow investments in gas, and has warned that Russia’s moves to limit supply risk a Lehman-like collapse in the energy markets, with Europe’s largest economy facing the unprecedented prospect of businesses and consumers running out of power. “On paper there is no backtracking from the COP26 commitment, but the ultimate proof lies in the real investment choices that G-7 countries will make over the next weeks and months,” said Luca Bergamaschi, executive director of the climate change think tank ECCO. Germany has responded to the cuts by reviving coal plants and providing financing to secure gas supplies from countries such as Qatar, while continuing with its long-standing plans to phase out nuclear energy. The World Nuclear Association, an industry lobby group, is urging the G-7 to boost access to nuclear technologies. The summit conclusion is a step back from a commitment G-7 ministers made in May, when they acknowledged for the first time that fossil-fuel subsidies were incompatible with the Paris Agreement and would end international public finance for gas projects by the end of 2022. However, back then they also acknowledged that investment in the LNG sector was a necessary response to the current crisis “in a manner consistent with our climate objectives and without creating lock-in effects.” The International Energy Agency has said that no new oil and gas projects should be developed if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Climate Hypocrisy Ensures Global Warming – -- Rich country governments claim the high moral ground on climate action. But many deny their far greater responsibility for both historic and contemporary greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, once acknowledged by the Kyoto Protocol.Worse, responsibility has not been matched by commensurate efforts, especially by the largest rich economies in the G7, which dominates the G20. Its continued control of international economic resources and policymaking blocks progress on climate justice.“That is the greatest injustice of climate change: that those who bear the least responsibility for climate change are the ones who will suffer the most”, says Mary Robinson, former Eire President and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.On a per capita basis, the US and close allies – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Canada – produce more than a hundred times the planet-warming greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of some African countries.The African population produced about 1.1 metric tonnes of carbon (dioxide equivalent) emissions per person in 2019, under a quarter of the 4.7 tonnes global average. The US emitted 16.1 tonnes – nearly four times the global average.GHG emissions accumulate over time and trap heat, warming the planet. The US has emitted over a quarter of all GHG emissions since the 1750s, while Europe accounts for 33%. By contrast, Africa, South America and India contributed about 3% each, while China contributed 12.7%.Wealth inequalities worsen climate injustice. The world’s richest 5% were responsible for 37% of GHG emissions growth during 1990-2015, while the bottom half of the world’s population accounted for 7%!Poor regions and people take the brunt of global warming. The tropical zone is much more vulnerable to rapid climate change. Most of these countries and communities bear little responsibility for the GHG emissions worsening global warming, but also have the least means to cope and protect themselves. Thus, climate justice demands wealthy nations – most responsible for cumulative and current GHG emissions – not only reduce the harm they cause, but also help those with less means to cope.

Humans Are Doomed to Go Extinct - As a paleontologist, I take the long view. Mammal species tend to come and go rather rapidly, appearing, flourishing and disappearing in a million years or so. The fossil record indicates that Homo sapiens has been around for 315,000 years or so, but for most of that time, the species was rare—so rare, in fact, that it came close to extinction, perhaps more than once. Thus were sown the seeds of humanity’s doom: the current population has grown, very rapidly, from something much smaller. The result is that, as a species, H. sapiens is extraordinarily samey. There is more genetic variation in a few troupes of wild chimpanzees than in the entire human population. Lack of genetic variation is never good for species survival.What is more, over the past few decades, the quality of human sperm has declined massively, possibly leading to lower birth rates, for reasons nobody is really sure about. Pollution—a by-product of human degradation of the environment—is one possible factor. Another might be stress, which, I suggest, could be triggered by living in close proximity to other people for a long period. For most of human evolution, people rode light on the land, living in scattered bands. The habit of living in cities, practically on top of one another (literally so, in an apartment block) is a very recent habit. a time in the progress of any species, even ones that seem to be thriving, when extinction will be inevitable, no matter what they might do to avert it. The cause of extinction is usually a delayed reaction to habitat loss. The species most at risk are those that dominate particular habitat patches at the expense of others, who tend to migrate elsewhere, and are therefore spread more thinly. Humans occupy more or less the whole planet, and with our sequestration of a large wedge of the productivity of this planetwide habitat patch, we are dominant within it.H. sapiens might therefore already be a dead species walking. The signs are already there for those willing to see them. When the habitat becomes degraded such that there are fewer resources to go around; when fertility starts to decline; when the birth rate sinks below the death rate; and when genetic resources are limited—the only way is down. The question is “How fast?” I suspect that the human population is set not just for shrinkage but collapse—and soon. To paraphrase Lehrer, if we are going to write about human extinction, we’d better start writing now.

Natural gas used in homes contains hazardous air pollutants: Policymakers and individuals can act to mitigate potential health risks from natural gas - Every day, millions of Americans rely on natural gas to power appliances such as kitchen stoves, furnaces, and water heaters, but until now very little data existed on the chemical makeup of the gas once it reaches consumers. A new study finds that natural gas used in homes throughout the Greater Boston area contains varying levels of volatile organic chemicals that when leaked are known to be toxic, linked to cancer, and can form secondary health-damaging pollutants such as particulate matter and ozone. "It is well-established that natural gas is a major source of methane that's driving climate change," said Drew Michanowicz, Visiting Scientist at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE and Senior Scientist at PSE Healthy Energy. "But most people haven't really considered that our homes are where the pipeline ends and that when natural gas leaks it can contain health-damaging air pollutants in addition to climate pollutants."Researchers conducted a hazard identification study, which evaluated whether air pollutants are present in unburned natural gas, but did not evaluate human exposure to those pollutants. Between December 2019 and May 2021, researchers collected over 200 unburned natural gas samples from 69 unique kitchen stoves and building pipelines across Greater Boston. From these samples, researchers detected 296 unique chemical compounds, 21 of which are federally designated as hazardous air pollutants. They also measured the concentration of odorants in consumer-grade natural gas -- the chemicals that give gas its characteristic smell -- and found that leaks containing about 20 parts per million methane may not have enough odorant for people to detect them. Policy Actions:

• Gas pipeline companies could be required to measure and report more detailed information on the composition of natural gas, specifically differentiating non-methane volatile organic compounds such as benzene and toluene.
• Gas utility providers could be required to routinely measure and report natural gas odorant content to customers similar to informational postings often produced by interstate gas pipeline companies.
• State regulations could require direct measurement of leaked, unburned natural gas in ambient air to be included in emissions inventories and to better determine public health risks.
• The Consumer Product Safety Commission has the authority to set performance standards for gas stoves and ventilation hoods to limit air pollutant emissions.
• Home inspectors and contractors could be required to perform natural gas-appliance leak detection surveys or to measure for ppm-range methane, similar to radon tests done prior to the completion of a real estate transaction.
• Given the importance of odorants in detecting gas leaks, federal natural gas odorization regulations could be updated so that natural gas is odorized to meet much lower detection levels than the current 1/5th the lower explosion limit (detectable at ~1% methane).

Anderson utilities: CenterPoint energy Indiana customers bills to rise - Homeowners in southern Indiana will see their electricity bills rise, again, in the coming years after the state approved a utility’s request to build a new power plant — one the utility says will rarely operate.The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission on Tuesday gave the thumbs up to CenterPoint Energy to build two new natural gas combustion turbines in place of one of its former coal plants. The approval also means that the utility can ask to increase rates so customers are left covering the cost.Consumer advocates that pushed for denial of the project said they are disheartened and frustrated by the IURC’s blessing.“This outrageous decision approves unneeded and expensive fossil gas power plants that will significantly raise the cost of electricity for CenterPoint customers,” said Kerwin Olson, executive director of the Citizens Action Coalition.The project is estimated to cost $334 million in total, according to the IURC release. That could mean a $23 per month increase to the bill of a homeowner who uses 1,000-kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to testimony CenterPoint filed as part of its proposal last year.That total cost, however, is already reflects $10 million increase from when it was originally proposed, given costs of materials and inflation. Advocates say they worry that those costs will continue to creep up as the build begins.

PG&E seeks more time to apply for nuclear subsidy program -– Energy services company PG&E Corp on Tuesday asked the US Department of Energy for a 75-day deadline extension to apply for federal funds that could keep its California nuclear power plant open.In a letter to the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, the utility said “an extension is needed to give PG&E time to collect and analyze information and prepare an application.”The first phase of the $ 6 billion funding, called the civilian nuclear credit program, aims to save nuclear power plants that are expected to retire. The Biden administration wants to keep those facilities online because the industry generates more than half of the country’s carbon-free electricity.PG&E Diablo Canyon power plant is expected to close in 2025, but California Governor Gavin Newsom in April said the state was willing to keep it running to bolster reliability.In the letter, PG&E said it supports the DOE’s proposal to remove the requirement that facilities receiving funding derive more than half of their revenue in the competitive el ectricity market, a qualification that may have blocked Diablo’s eligibility.

Austin Master Services responds to complaint - Martins Ferry Times Leader - Austin Master Services, an environmental services firm specializing in radiological waste remediation, submitted its response to Martins Ferry City Council related to the verified complaint submitted by the Concerned Ohio River Residents group. “The team at Austin Master Services has been very receptive and cooperative in developing this response,” Martins Ferry Mayor John Davies said. “Their willingness to meet and discuss this matter has been very helpful as we continue our efforts to ensure the highest levels of quality among our water system.”According to a statement provided by Chris Martin of Agility PR Services, the Austin Master Services response includes clarification of the facility location regarding the Martins Ferry Source Water Protection Plan, the group’s designation of the facility and the processes that occur on site, secondary containment systems within the facility, perceived waste ponds, underground sources of contamination, and fire control.“Austin Master Services operates according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Chief’s Order and works with governmental agencies who have jurisdiction over their process and facility. The CORR group has no jurisdiction or oversight and continues to attempt to create issues when all authorized inquiries have resulted in a lack of findings,” said Martin, spokesperson for Austin Master Services. The Martins Ferry Austin Master facility is located in a former steel mill along First Street and processes waste from Gas and oil drilling and fracking operations. The Concerned Ohio River Residents group has expressed concern that radioactive contaminants from the facility may impact the city’s water source.

Commissioners did their job - Marietta Times -Kudos to the Washington County Commissioners for stepping up on behalf of their constituents on the issue of injection wells. All three commissioners (President Charlie Schilling, Jamie Booth, and Kevin Ritter) were in attendance at the June 2 meeting regarding the proposed additional injection well in Little Hocking, which was scheduled by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management).At that meeting 34 people offered comments and questions about the proposed injection well #2 –not one person spoke in favor of the application, which was submitted by an out-of-state company.The format of the meeting which was set by ODNR officials, made a mockery of the term, “public meeting.”There was no opportunity to get questions answered; when one of us asked the ODNR official who presided over the meeting about the format, he replied, “There will be no dialogue.”One of the major reasons that ODNR even agreed to a public meeting was that the county commissioners requested it.After the public meeting Commission President Charlie Schilling, arranged a meeting with the director of ODNR and officials from the Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management at their offices in Columbus.At this June 16 meeting Mr. Schilling asserted his interest in obtaining answers to the many questions from his constituents about the proposed injection well and the whole process of public review of injection well applications.He was able to extract a commitment from these officials for modifying the format of public meetings on injection wells so that questions can be addressed and for informing relevant county commissioners and township trustees when an application for an injection well is first submitted to ODNR (in the case of the application in question the applicant submitted documents in March 2021; ODNR reviewed the application for a full year before making the public announcement about the application, and gave the public–including public officials–30 days to respond).Fracking waste, aka brine water, contains carcinogenic substances, chemical toxic metals, and when they are injected into permeable rock, they can migrate up to abandoned oil and gas wells. This seepage of brine waste has led to the damage and destruction of oil and gas production wells. Leaking injection wells can also contaminate aquifers (containing drinking water), rivers and lakes, thereby pose serious threats to human health. Washington County has had enough with serving as the trash heap for fracking waste from eastern Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Coretrax Completes World Record Project at 3 Wells in Utica Shale - Coretrax describes itself as a global well integrity and production optimization expert. Last week the company announced it had completed a world record-breaking project in the Utica Basin. Coretrax successfully deployed its ReLineMNS system across three wells and expanded a total of more than 27,000 feet of tubulars (pipelines) across the campaign. With one of the expandable liners reaching 9,000 feet in its expansion, all installations smashed the previously held record of 7,243 feet by at least 1,000 feet.

Ascent Resources enters bolt-on acquisition of Utica shale assets - Ascent Resources LLC, Oklahoma City, has agreed to acquire all Utica shale assets in Ohio from an undisclosed seller for $270 million.The acquisition expands the private company’s asset base in the Ohio Utica shale play by about 26,800 net acres and increases net production by about 60 MMcfed, the company said in a release July 1. Ascent already holds working interests in a material portion of the acquired production, it continued.The deal comes with an inventory of identified drilling locations in both the Utica and Marcellus, and requires no incremental overhead or external financing, the company said. Ascent Resources currently holds a contiguous acreage position of about 337,000 net leasehold acres, including about 73,000 mineral acres, in the core of the southern Utica Shale, primarily in Belmont, Jefferson, Guernsey, Harrison, and Noble counties Ohio. The company also owns royalty interests in about 5,700 mineral acres being developed by third-party operators.

Gulfport Energy considers merger with Encino Energy – Bloomberg -Gulfport Energy is considering merging with closely held Encino Energy after discussions with rival oil and gas explorer Ascent Resources collapsed, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Gulfport and Encino have discussed a stock-based deal, according to the report, which said talks are at an early stage and a deal is not imminent. Gulfport, which emerged from bankruptcy last year, is active in Ohio's Utica shale, where Encino also has operations after an affiliate bought Chesapeake Energy's operations in the basin for ~$1.9B in 2018. Bloomberg reported in March that Gulfport had discussed merging with Ascent in a deal that would value the combined company at ~$8B.

Duke Energy seeks regulatory review of natural gas rates - Duke Energy Ohio announced Thursday it is requesting the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio review its natural gas rates, which it plans to increase. The company says the regulatory review request is because of infrastructure improvements to enhance service to customers. Duke Energy Ohio is a natural gas service provider to more than 450,000 customers in nine counties in Ohio, including Butler, Warren and Hamilton counties. It is also the main electric provider in these areas. The company is seeking approval to increase its current natural gas base rates by approximately $48.8 million. “Under the company’s proposal, residential customers who use an average of 57 Ccf (100 cubic feet) per month will see a $6.08 — or 6.7% — increase on their monthly natural gas bills, from $90.14 to $96.22,” Duke officials said. “This proposed increase will vary depending on the amount of natural gas a customer uses, a customer’s rate type and the prevailing cost of the natural gas commodity,” the company stated in a news release.

PA Enviro Left Fails to Block On-Site Water Recycling for Fracking | Marcellus Drilling News - The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a final regulation over the weekend–at the specific direction of the PA legislature–that allows shale drillers to operate temporary waste process facilities at shale pads and other locations. The regs, called Residual Waste General Permit WMGR163, are aimed at allowing Marcellus (and Utica) drillers to clean up and use brine and wastewater coming from the ground so it can be reused for fracking. The new provision cuts down on the need for freshwater in fracking. Predictably, anti-fossil fuelers are not happy.

Gas Piped Into Homes Contains Benzene and Other Risky Chemicals, Study Finds - The natural gas delivered to homes contains low concentrations of several chemicals linked to cancer, a new study found. Researchers also found inconsistent levels of odorants — substances that give natural gas its characteristic “rotten egg” smell — which could increase the risk of small leaks going undetected. The study, which was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, adds to a growing body of research that links the delivery and use of natural gas to detrimental consequences for public health and the climate. Most prior research has documented the pollutants present where oil and gas extraction takes place, but there are “fewer studies as you work your way down the supply chain,” said Drew Michanowicz, the lead author of the study, looking at “where we actually use it, in our homes.” Over 16 months, researchers led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health collected 234 samples of unburned natural gas from 69 homes in the Boston metropolitan area that received natural gas from three suppliers. They found 21 “air toxics” — an Environmental Protection Agency classification of hazardous pollutants known or suspected to cause cancer, birth defects or adverse environmental effects — including benzene, which was detected in 95 percent of the samples. Short-term exposure to high levels of benzene in particular could lead to drowsiness, dizziness, headaches and irritation of the eyes and skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Longer-term exposure can increase the risk of blood disorders and certain cancers like leukemia. The highly flammable chemical is colorless or light yellow, and is found in products made from coal and oil including plastics, resins and nylon fibers, and also some types of rubbers, dyes and pesticides. It is also regularly found in vehicle exhaust, tobacco smoke and gasoline. The concentrations of benzene that the researchers found in the natural gas samples were “much lower compared to the amount in gasoline,” Dr. Michanowicz said on Friday during a conference call with reporters. Even so, he said, the finding is concerning since “natural gas is used so widely in society and in our indoor spaces.”

Equitrans requests 4-year Mountain Valley pipeline extension - Equitrans Midstream Corp. has requested a 4-year extension from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to place its 303-mile Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline into service. Its current deadline is Oct. 13, 2022. The project is 94% complete but has been delayed by multiple legal challenges and regulatory issues. Equitrans says it still plans to finish construction in second-half 2023. Mountain Valley would carry 2 bcfd of natural gas from production in northern West Virginia through Virginia to an interconnect near the North Carolina border. Aboveground infrastructure has been completed and Mountain Valley says it has been actively addressing steps necessary to restore required permits from the US Army Corps of Engineers, Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management. It plans to submit its species analysis to the Fish and Wildlife Service in early July 2022. Earlier this year, FERC issued an order amending the project’s certificate to permit Mountain Valley to (OGJ Online, Apr. 11, 2022):

• • Change the crossing for 183 waterbodies and wetlands at 120 locations from open-cut to trenchless.
• • Slightly shift the permanent right-of-way at mileposts 0.70 and 230.8 to avoid one wetland and one waterbody, respectively.
• • Conduct 24-hr construction activities at eight trenchless crossings.

FERC conditioned the amendment order on Mountain Valley completing construction by the Oct. 13, 2022. Ongoing litigation and remand proceedings related to several permits and authorizations, however, prompted Mountain Valley to request an extension to Oct. 13, 2026, to place the pipeline into service. The project remains fully subscribed under binding long-term agreements. Initial plans called for Mountain Valley’s completion in fourth-quarter 2018 at a cost of $3.7 billion. Its estimated cost has since grown to $6.6 billion. Equitrans owns 48% of the project. Partners include NextEra Energy Inc., Consolidated Edison Inc., AltaGas Ltd., and RGC Resources Inc.

 D.C. Circuit rejects NEPA challenge to Va. pipeline expansion - Federal judges yesterday dismissed environmentalists’ challenge of a key approval for an extension of the embattled Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline.In its ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had made adequate determinations on the Southgate extension’s financial and environmental impacts.“Because the Commission’s decisions on both scores were reasonable and supported by substantial evidence, we deny the petition for review,” wrote Judge Robert Wilkins, who was appointed during the Obama administration.Wilkins was joined in his decision by Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, another Obama appointee, and Judge Justin Walker, a Trump pick.During oral arguments earlier this year, the panel of judges seemed inclined to side with FERC and the pipeline developer in the fight over Southgate, which would lengthen Mountain Valley’s 304-mile route through West Virginia and Virginia another 75 miles into North Carolina (Energywire, Jan. 20).The Sierra Club and environmental challengers had argued — as now-FERC Chair Richard Glick did in an earlier dissent — that FERC should not have granted Southgate, which is an extension of an existing pipeline, a higher rate of return usually given to new projects that require investors to absorb additional risk.Challengers also claimed that FERC fell short of its requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act when it analyzed Southgate’s sedimentation and erosion impacts.The D.C. Circuit disagreed on both counts.“NEPA does not mandate that the Commission formulate a specific mitigation plan, only that it discuss mitigation ‘in sufficient detail to ensure that environmental consequences have been fairly evaluated,’” Wilkins wrote.Despite yesterday’s D.C. Circuit decision, Mountain Valley still faces “strong headwinds” inside and outside of the courts, the Sierra Club said in a statement yesterday.“Unfortunately, today’s decision will hit vulnerable communities the hardest and sacrifice our water quality, all for the benefit of wealthy investors,” said Caroline Hansley, Sierra Club senior campaign representative. “This project is not needed and is years behind schedule — with no completion in sight, billions over budget, and still lacking multiple necessary permits.”Backers of the project have said the project is essential for energy security and reliability (Energywire, April 11).Mountain Valley has recently lost key permits in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the D.C. Circuit is currently considering a challenge to FERC’s decision to extend the main project’s certificate (Energywire, April 8).Other natural gas pipelines — like the Atlantic Coast project, which would have followed a route similar to Mountain Valley’s — have recently been canceled after suffering comparable setbacks. Mountain Valley developers last week asked the commission for four more years to complete the project, citing “ongoing litigation” (Energywire, June 27).

Kinder Morgan’s TGP receives FERC approval for producer-certified gas pooling service proposal - Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC (TGP), a Kinder Morgan Inc. subsidiary, received approval July 1 for its producer-certified gas (PCG), or responsibly sourced gas (RSG), aggregation pooling service from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The service is now available at all pooling points across the TGP system. Kinder Morgan said in a release July 1. PCG is conventional natural gas sourced from production facilities that have been certified by a qualified third party to meet certain environmental, social and governance standards that typically focus on management practices for methane emissions, water usage, and community relations, according to Kinder Morgan. The service is designed to enable shippers on TGP to purchase and sell PCG supply at non-physical pooling locations, ultimately serving end-users, utilities, power plants and LNG facilities connected to the TGP system. Parties who have obtained certifications from qualified third-party organizations are supplying the PCG needed for the pooling service, and the supply is expected to grow, the company continued. TGP is an 11,760-mile pipeline system that transports natural gas supplied from the northeast US to end-use demand markets including New York City and Boston in the Northeast, the Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast, and Mexico.

Technicals Drive Natural Gas Futures Rebound as Cash Rises on Lingering Heat - An early slide along the Nymex natural gas futures curve gave way to a technical bounce midday, ultimately boosting the July contract by 28.1 cents to a $6.501/MMBtu settlement. August futures climbed 26.5 cents to $6.546. Spot gas prices also were mostly higher after the weekend, even as temperatures moderated from the unusually high levels seen last week. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. picked up 10.5 cents to reach $6.085. With the expiration of the July futures contract looming on Tuesday, some renewed volatility hit the market as traders weighed a suite of fundamentals that were both partly bullish/partly bearish. On the weather front, after a steamy June, outlooks showed cooler weather ahead. NatGasWeather said weather systems and associated cool fronts are forecast to sweep across the interior United States through the middle of the week. Highs in the 70s and 80s are expected across the region, including deep into Texas. There should be some regionally strong demand over the West Coast, as well as South Texas and the Southeastern coast. However, national demand is expected to hold near normal levels during this time. By the end of the week, though, the hot upper ridge is expected to spring back, according to NatGasWeather. Heat is seen gaining in coverage over much of the country, and continuing through at least July 10. The forecast views the pattern as “relatively bullish,” but said it would be more intimidating if not for the ongoing outage at the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility. The outage, which leaves 2 Bcf/d of gas available to meet demand or inject into storage, is working to limit the impact of widespread above-normal temperatures. However, NatGasWeather noted that the projected heat still should prevent storage deficits from improving through the first half of July. Therefore, it expects deficits to remain near 340 Bcf. “As we’ve been stating, the more days with above-normal temperatures in July and August, the shorter the duration the Freeport LNG outage will have to improve supplies,” the forecaster said. “As such, while the near-term impacts to prices from Freeport going offline led to strong selling, if heat holds most days through August, deficits will still have an opportunity to increase ahead of winter if the outage doesn’t extend past 90 days.” Production, meanwhile, remains key to price direction as the market looks for signs of sustained growth, according to Aegis Hedging Solutions LLC. Output hit a year-to-date high of 97.36 Bcf/d over the weekend, but top-day data indicated a retreat on Monday.

July Nymex Natural Gas Contract Loses Momentum, but Still Expires Nickel Higher - Natural gas futures extended their rally as a hotter long-range forecast, a dip in production and bullish technical momentum lifted the prompt month ahead of expiration. The July Nymex contract rolled off the board at $6.551/MMBtu, up 5.0 cents on the day. The August contract, which moves to the front of the Nymex curve on Wednesday, settled 2.4 cents higher at $6.570. Spot gas prices also strengthened, with hefty gains of 50 cents or so across several U.S. locations. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. climbed 39.5 cents to $6.480. Fresh off a 28.1-cent jump for futures on Monday, bulls were eager to keep the momentum going at the start of Tuesday’s session. Fundamentals lent a hand in boosting the July 2022 contract on its final day on the Nymex strip. The prompt month surged to a $6.765 intraday high before a sell-off in the last half hour of trading. Weather data remained supportive by trending hotter for the July 1-12 period, according to NatGasWeather. The forecaster said a strong upper high pressure is expected to rule most of the Lower 48, with daytime temperatures reaching the upper 80s to 100s for strong national demand. Although the midday model run gave back a small amount of projected demand, the pattern still leaned bullish overall. Tropical Disturbance Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) was monitoring a tropical disturbance in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM). As of Tuesday afternoon, the system had a 40% chance of cyclone formation in the next 48 hours as it remained unorganized. However, some additional development is possible as it moves slowly westward or west-southwestward and approaches the Texas coast in the next two days.

U.S. natgas down 1% as Freeport LNG outage leaves more fuel for storage (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures fell about 1% on Wednesday on expectations last week's storage build will be near normal despite hotter than usual weather as the Freeport liquefied natural gas export plant left more fuel available for utilities to stockpile for next winter. Prices dropped despite a drop in daily output this week and hotter weather forecasts through early July. Analysts forecast U.S. utilities added 74 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas to storage during the week ended June 24, about even with 73 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2017-2021) average increase of 73 bcf. On its first day as the front month, gas futures for August delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 7.2 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $6.498 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). With the U.S. Federal Reserve expected to keep raising interest rates, investors pared risky assets further, and open interest in NYMEX futures NG-TOT fell on Tuesday to its lowest since July 2016 for a second day in a row. So far this year, U.S. gas futures are up about 75% as much higher prices in Europe and Asia feed strong demand for U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine stoked fears Moscow might cut gas supplies to Europe. Gas was trading around $42 per mmBtu in Europe and $37 in Asia. Data provider Refinitiv said average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states slid to 95.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in June from 95.2 bcfd in May, off the monthly record of 96.1 bcfd in December 2021. Daily output on Wednesday was on track to drop 2.1 bcfd over the past four days to a preliminary two-week low of 94.0 bcfd. It hit a six-month high of 96.1 bcfd on Saturday. Preliminary data is often revised later in the day. With hotter weather coming, Refinitiv projected average U.S. gas demand including exports would rise from 94.2 bcfd this week to 95.5 bcfd next week; that forecast was lower than Refinitiv's outlook on Tuesday. The amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants dropped from an average of 12.5 bcfd in May to 11.2 bcfd so far in June and off the monthly record of 12.9 bcfd in March. The June 8 outage at Freeport LNG's plant in Texas is expected to last about three months. Freeport, the second-biggest U.S. LNG export plant, was consuming about 2 bcfd of gas before it shut, so a 90-day outage would leave around 180 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas available to the U.S. market.

Above-average 82 Bcf build in weekly US gas storage thins deficit, weakens futures - US natural gas working stocks increased by 82 Bcf during the week ended June 24, reducing the deficit to the five-year average to its lowest point yet this injection season and helping plunge natural gas futures to a three-month low. Storage inventories rose to 2.251 Tcf in the week ended June 24, the US Energy Information Administration reported on June 30. The weekly build outpaced even the highest estimate received in an S&P Global Commodity Insights' survey of analysts, which called for a 72 Bcf weekly injection. Survey responses ranged from a low of 65 Bcf to a high of 79 Bcf, a far narrower range than those observed in recent weeks. The injection was more than the 73 Bcf build reported during both the corresponding week in 2021 and the five-year average, according to EIA data. As a result, stocks were 296 Bcf, or 11.6%, below the year-ago level of 2.547 Tcf and 322 Bcf, or 12.5% lower than the five-year average of 2.573 Tcf. The storage deficit to the five-year average last fell below 13% in February, making the most recent report the lowest level since injection season began. June has seen a tug-of-war emerge for the balance between supply and demand as market watchers attempt to reconcile growing production, weak LNG feedgas demand, and record-breaking heat waves that have spiked gas-fired power demand. The uncertainty has kept NYMEX Henry Hub futures in a holding pattern in recent trading, with the contract settling within a tight $6-$7/MMBtu range over the last eight sessions. The above-average June 30 weekly storage report helped break the stalemate, with NYMEX Henry Hub August plummeting to levels not seen since late March. The prompt-month contract closed at $5.424/MMBtu on June 30, down $1.074 from its prior-day settlement, preliminary data from CME Group showed.

Natural Gas Futures Take Beating, Drop $1-Plus on Storage, Freeport News -- Natural gas futures took one (actually two) on the chin Thursday as a larger-than-expected storage injection and an update regarding the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) outage sent prices tumbling to levels not seen in months. The August Nymex futures contract plummeted $1.074 to $5.424/MMBtu. September lost $1.101 cents to land at $5.392. Spot gas prices also softened as rains were expected along the Texas coast for the remainder of the week, driving cooling demand lower. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. fell 38.0 cents to $6.230. After a relatively quiet opening for Thursday’s trading session, the latest government inventory data quickly changed the game. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported another larger-than-expected 82 Bcf injection into storage, confirming looser balances as a result of an explosion at the Freeport liquefied natural gas export terminal. The bearish EIA surprise – the second in a row – quickly sent prices crashing lower. Within a half hour of the report, August futures had fallen as low as $5.967. Bespoke Weather Services, which had called for a 75 Bcf injection, said the latest data seemingly confirms that more gas is getting into storage than its data and those by others is detecting. The 82 Bcf injection surpassed the highest of expectations ahead of the EIA report by 2 Bcf. Major surveys showed a range of estimates from 68 Bcf to 80 Bcf. The median of 12 estimates submitted to Bloomberg as of early Thursday was a 75 Bcf build, while a Reuters poll produced a median increase of 74 Bcf. A Wall Street Journal poll averaged a 75 Bcf injection. The EIA’s latest figure also bested both last year’s and the five-year average increase of 73 Bcf. Total working gas in storage as of June 24 was 2,251 Bcf, which is 296 Bcf below the year-earlier level and 322 Bcf below the five-year average, according to EIA. Around midday, the gas market got knocked around again when the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued a Notice of Proposed Safety Order to Freeport LNG in response to a preliminary investigation into the June 8 explosion. In addition to the preliminary findings of the investigation, the PHMSA order outlined measures Freeport must complete before returning to service. The order did not indicate whether the project could be off longer than Freeport has suggested. The facility was expecting a return to partial service within three months, with a full restart by year’s end. However, bears appeared to take the news and run with it, with even more aggressive selling into the close.

U.S. natgas jumps 6% after big loss on hot weather, technical bounce (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures jumped about 6% on Friday ahead of the long three-day U.S. July 4 holiday weekend due to a technical bounce following a big price drop in the prior session and forecasts for hotter weather and higher demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. "Today’s ... price jump higher is somewhat a result of calmer minds taking over the market, as the front month attempts to balance out some of yesterday’s move," analysts at Gelber & Associates said, noting the price rise was justified by forecasts for higher air conditioning and liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand. Friday's price rise came after futures plunged 17% on Thursday following the release of a federal report that analysts said would keep Freeport LNG's export plant in Texas shut for longer than the three months the company has forecast. U.S. pipeline safety regulators said they found unsafe conditions at Freeport and will not allow the plant to restart until an outside analysis is complete. "Based on the latest report, it would suggest that Freeport's restart date will be significantly pushed back by more than the initial three-month shutdown period," Freeport, the second-biggest U.S. LNG export plant, was consuming about 2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas before it shut on June 8. So long as the plant remains shut, that gas will remain in the United States and allow utilities to boost the country's low stockpiles ahead of next winter. Having that extra gas has already caused U.S. prices to drop over 40% from a near 14-year high over $9 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in early June just before the Freeport outage. Front-month gas futures for August delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) rose 30.6 cents, or 5.6%, to settle at $5.730 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). On Thursday, the contract closed at its lowest since March 29. Since gas futures started trading on the NYMEX in 1990, the contract has closed down over 15% in 11 sessions, including Thursday. In the prior 10 sessions, the contract averaged a 4% gain the next day. Despite recent declines, the front-month was still up about 54% so far this year as much higher prices in Europe and Asia fed strong demand for U.S. LNG exports. Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine stoked fears Moscow would cut gas supplies to Europe. Gas was trading around $45 per mmBtu in Europe and $39 in Asia. Data provider Refinitiv said gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states held at a preliminary 95.1 bcfd on the first day of July, the same as the average for June. That compares with a monthly record of 96.1 bcfd in December 2021. The amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants rose to a preliminary 11.5 bcfd on the first day of July with several plants running near full capacity, up from an average of 11.2 bcfd in June.

US Drilling Total Slides on Drop in Natural Gas Activity - The U.S. natural gas rig count fell four units to 153 during the week ended Friday (July 1), offsetting a one-rig increase in the oil patch to drop the overall domestic tally three units to 750, the latest numbers from Baker Hughes Co. (BKR) show. The 750 active U.S. rigs as of Friday compares with 475 rigs running in the year-earlier period, according to the BKR numbers, which are partly based on data from Enverus. Land drilling declined by four units in the United States week/week, while the Gulf of Mexico added one rig to raise its total to 16. Declines of three horizontal rigs and two vertical rigs were partially offset by a two-rig increase in directional drilling, the BKR data show. In Canada, seven natural gas-directed rigs and five oil-directed rigs were added. That lifted the Canadian rig count 12 units overall to 166 for the week, up from 136 in the year-ago period. Broken down by major region, the Cana Woodford saw a five-rig decrease week/week, lowering its total to 27, versus 17 a year ago. Four rigs exited in the Eagle Ford Shale, while the Marcellus and Utica shales each posted one-rig declines. On the other side of the ledger, the Ardmore Woodford and Arkoma Woodford each added a rig, according to the BKR data. Counting by state, Texas dropped two rigs week/week, while Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah each dropped one. Louisiana and New Mexico each added a rig. Earlier in the week, OPEC-plus affirmed its intentions to ramp up production in July and August. The cartel is targeting output growth of 648,000 b/d both months. Should OPEC-plus meet its target, its average crude generation would climb to nearly 44 million b/d by August, on par with pre-pandemic levels.

Williams makes FID on Louisiana Energy Gateway project - Williams, Tulsa, Okla., reached a positive final investment decision on Louisiana Energy Gateway (LEG), a project designed to gather 1.8 bcfd of Haynesville natural gas and connect it to Transco natural gas pipeline system markets and Gulf Coast LNG markets.The project is expected to go into service late 2024, the company said in a June 29 release.With the project, Williams will offer “an infrastructure solution that integrates real time emissions monitoring and emissions reduction strategies,” said Chad Zamarin, senior vice-president, corporate strategic development. The project is positioned to incorporate carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a further decarbonizing solution for natural gas production in the play, he continued.Earlier this year, Williams signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Quantum Energy Partners to form a joint venture enabling Quantum to become an equity investor and partner in the project. As part of its Haynesville expansion, Williams’ March 2022 deal to acquire the Haynesville gas gathering and processing assets of Quantum’s Trace Midstream for $950 million included a long-term capacity commitment by Trace customer and Quantum affiliate Rockcliff Energy in support of Williams’ LEG project (OGJ Online, Mar. 14, 2022).

LNG explosion shines light on 42-year-old gas rules - The last time the federal government wrote regulations for the liquefied natural gas industry was 1980, and the idea of chilling natural gas to subzero temperatures and loading it onto ships was a novelty in the United States. Forty-two years later, the LNG industry is growing rapidly — along with local pollution, climate-warming methane emissions, and the risk of fires and explosions to communities. By the end of this year, the Transportation Department’s pipeline safety regulator may have new guidelines for the industry. But the process is fraught with uncertainty: It has failed once before, in 2016, and the industry is already lining up to argue for a light-handed approach. In the meantime, near-misses and environmental problems highlight the risk. Most recently, a fireball at a plant near Freeport, Texas, touched off a fire that burned for 40 minutes, led to the temporary closure of the plant and knocked about 20 percent of U.S. export capacity offline for months, disrupting the United States’ plan to replace Russian gas in Europe (Energywire, June 15). “It’s important to remember that LNG poses unique safety risks, often above and beyond those posed by other hydrocarbon transportation, due to the high pressure and density,” Seven LNG plants are currently operating, handling billions of cubic feet of methane every day and making the United States the leading exporter of natural gas. More than a dozen new plants or production lines are planned or under construction. The United States exported nearly 10 billion cubic feet of LNG per day last year, up from essentially nothing in 2015. The industry has indicated that it is open to new rules from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), but is already setting expectations. The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas is calling for flexible, “nimble” regulations and a “holistic” approach that “exchanges expertise and innovation between safety officials and industry.” “We absolutely will be submitting comments” on the upcoming proposed rules, said Daphne Magnuson, spokesperson for the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, an industry group that is part of the Natural Gas Supply Association. Any complaints from the industry that new protections could slow development or reduce exports could now have increased salience. Russia’s invasion and bombardment of Ukraine, and the sanctions imposed in response, have positioned U.S. LNG as a way for Europe to replace Russian gas. And the Biden administration has promised to help. Environmental groups and others, however, are increasingly fighting natural gas exports from the United States, pointing to international calls from scientists that fossil fuel use must rapidly decline if the world is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Freeport LNG Outage Proves Need to Boost Natural Gas Output, Says Huntsman CEO - Barring an increase in domestic natural gas production, the United States should stay the course with regard to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export volumes, the top executive at global chemical manufacturer Huntsman Corp. told NGI.“I don’t think we should be exporting any more LNG than we are today if we’re not going to, conversely, produce more on the supply side,” CEO Peter Huntsman said. He cited the aftermath of the Freeport LNG explosion early this month as “real-time market evidence” of the need to produce more gas domestically. After Freeport LNG Development LP said the export facility would be offline for a longer period than initially expected, gas prices dropped because domestic supply is increasing as a result, Huntsman explained. More supply available to U.S. consumers lowers gas prices, he said.Exporting more LNG, given current U.S. gas production would negatively affect “American competitiveness, American jobs, and American revenue.”The global petrochemicals industry is grappling with the past year’s sharp overall rise in natural gas prices on multiple fronts, Huntsman said.In addition to relying largely on natural gas-fired power, the industry uses natural gas liquids (NGL) for raw materials, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC). ACC’s Martha Moore, managing director for economics and statistics, told NGI that more than two-thirds of the total energy the chemical industry consumes, both in fuel and feedstock, is derived from natural gas and NGL production. The industry in 2020 used nearly 2.7 Tcf of natural gas, or 8% of total U.S. production, she said. It also consumed 2.2 quadrillion Btu of NGL and liquefied petroleum gas, primarily sourced from natural gas processors, for feedstocks, she added. “About three-quarters of the industry’s natural gas consumption was used for fuel and power, with the remaining quarter used as feedstock,” Moore said. Huntsman pointed out the higher raw materials costs “will put a tremendous amount of inflationary pressure on our pricing. It makes us globally less competitive, and it means that we’re chewing up more money in raw materials and not in research and development.”Furthermore, the inflationary ripple effect, he noted, reaches far and wide, given the breadth of products that integrate petrochemicals: airplanes, automobiles, clothing, food packaging, houses, refrigerators, solar panels, windmills and much more.“And so when that inflationary bubble goes in, it ultimately hits the consumers as it is right now.”

Report: Last Decade Has Seen Too Many Methane Gas Leaks -A new report found in the last decade, there have been nearly 2,600 methane gas pipeline incidents in the U.S. serious enough to require reporting to the federal government; one leak every roughly 40 hours.Of those incidents, 850 resulted in fires, and more than 325 in an explosion, killing more than 100 people and injuring more than 600. Deirdre Cummings, consumer program director for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, said Massachusetts knows the dangers of gas leaks all too well. She pointed to the 2018 Merrimack Valley gas explosions at Columbia Gas in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover. There was one death, 22 hospitalizations and 50,000 residents were evacuated."Unfortunately, what we found in this report is that house explosions and leaking pipelines aren't isolated incidences," Cummings reported. "They're the result of an energy system that pipes dangerous, explosive gas across the country, and actually through our neighborhoods. "She argued it is time to move away from gas in this country and toward safer and cleaner renewable and geothermal energy. According to the report, emissions from the 2,600 leaks over the last decade are equivalent to 2.4 million passenger cars driven for a year.Randi Soltysiak, spokesperson for Mothers Out Front, noted in Somerville, residents fought for two years to get energy company Eversource to fix a string of leaks blamed for killing all the trees along a half-mile stretch of a major corridor for pedestrians, bikes, cars, trucks, buses and trains."In addition to causing explosions, gas leaks are associated with asthma," Soltysiak pointed out. "And can cause other problems for human health and well-being by killing trees, resulting in hotter cities with worse air quality."She added regulatory reforms are needed as well to transition away from methane gas. Research shows methane emissions from gas infrastructure and use in U.S. cities are underestimated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and in Boston, methane emissions are six times higher than reports from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.

Industry Insiders Question Louisiana Regulators Over Cleanup on ExxonMobil Land, Amid Corruption Claims and Pollution Fears – DeSmog - If you had ventured down a dirt road running through remote marshland along the Gulf Coast in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, at just the right time back in late February, you might have come across a pit of gray muck. Down in that pit, you’d find a contractor welding a steel cap about the size of a dinner plate onto a stub of pipe jutting up from the mud below. That pipe was the last visible sign of an old oil and gas wastewater well that once dropped over a half-mile deep into the earth, now plugged up and sealed by contractors hired by the state.For decades, oil and gas companies disposed of millions of barrels of waste down that hole, ringed with cement and steel, dubbing the wastewater well Freshwater City SWD 01, according to state records. Experts told DeSmog the well was defective and that using it put underground supplies of drinking water in the area at risk.“It’s a mess,” said Cornell engineering professor Anthony Ingraffea, who reviewed public well records provided by DeSmog and found that Freshwater City was riddled with flaws. That means the process of “abandoning” the old well creates new problems. “If they just do the usual plugging job, and now there’s a suspicion that this well was leaking over some period of time and contaminating the water supply,” he said, “you’ve lost the opportunity to do the diagnosis.”Properly plugging and abandoning oil and gas wells is vital to protect the environment and stop methane leaks – but for decades, oil operators have often slipped away without paying to clean up, leaving millions of deteriorating abandoned wells across the U.S.

Biden’s Inner Circle Debates Future of Offshore Drilling - — President Biden’s top aides are weighing whether to ban new oil and gas drilling off America’s coasts, a move that would elate climate activists but could leave the administration vulnerable to Republican accusations that it is exacerbating an energy crunch as gas prices soar. By law, the Department of Interior is required to release a plan for new oil and gas leases in federal waters every five years. Deb Haaland, the Interior secretary, has promised Congress a draft of the Biden plan will be available by June 30. With the administration acutely aware that inflation and high prices at the pump are weighing on voters ahead of November’s midterm elections, the White House is shaping the plan, two administration officials said. Discussions about whether and where to allow drilling are being led by Bruce Reed, the deputy chief of staff, and include chief of staff Ron Klain and longtime adviser Steve Ricchetti, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deliberations. “The Biden administration is in a difficult place,” said Sara Rollet Gosman, a professor of environment and energy law at the University of Arkansas. “If the Department of the Interior decides to eliminate offshore lease sales or to offer only a few sales, it does the right thing for the climate. But it also gives ammunition to fossil fuel companies to argue that President Biden doesn’t care about high gas prices.” Several people familiar with the administration’s decision-making said it is likely to block new drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the face of widespread bipartisan opposition from members of Congress and leaders from coastal states. The eastern Gulf of Mexico has been closed to drilling since 1995. Still under consideration is whether to continue to allow lease sales in parts of the Arctic Ocean as well as the western and central Gulf of Mexico. As a candidate, Mr. Biden pledged to end new drilling on public lands and in federal waters. Environmental activists have argued offshore drilling has no place in a clean energy future. They are pressuring the administration to prohibit drilling throughout the entire outer continental shelf to reduce the United States’ contribution to climate change. “We’ve been very clear in our conversations with Interior that we expect the president to uphold his campaign commitment to ending new leasing,” said Diane Hoskins, a campaign director at Oceana, an environmental advocacy organization.

Biden administration punts on whether to open up more offshore drilling - The Biden administration is punting a decision on whether to open up more lease sales for offshore drilling. In a statement issued Friday, the administration said it is still working on a plan, and that when issued it could include as many as 11 specific lease sales for offshore oil and gas drilling or as few as zero. An Interior Department official said equal consideration is being given to scenarios with zero sales, some sales or all 11 sales. The statement and department’s proposal for the program’s future was issued one day after a previous five-year offshore drilling plan expired. That plan had been finalized by the Obama administration. The sales under consideration include an area in the Cook Inlet near Alaska, and as many as 10 sales in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the country’s offshore drilling currently happens. Earlier this year, the department canceled a planned lease sale in Cook Inlet, citing lack of industry interest. The move comes as the administration grapples with the politics of high gasoline prices, which recently reached as high as $5 per gallon nationally. It also follows a major Supreme Court decision curbing the Environmental Protection Agency’s powers to regulate the climate contributions of power plants. And it comes as Democrats are still trying to sell their social and climate agenda to swing vote Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who is generally supportive of fossil fuels. Manchin, in a statement, said he was “pleased” that the department released its proposal, but “disappointed” that the zero-sale option is being considered. “I hope the Administration will ultimately greenlight a plan that will expand domestic energy production, done in the cleanest way possible, while also taking the necessary steps to get our offshore leasing program back on track to give the necessary market signals to provide price relief for every American,” he said. If the Biden administration eventually decides not to hold any new lease sales, the move will not affect offshore drilling that is currently underway, but it will prevent new drilling in the future. It can take several years for offshore leases to bring new oil to the market, and so whatever decision it ultimately makes will not immediately impact oil supplies.

Activity In Tropics Emerges As Next Big Hurricane Could Send Gas Prices To "Apocalyptic" Levels -- Three tropical disturbances are being closely monitored for development in the Atlantic as fears mount that above-average storms could wreak havoc on oil/gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico and send gas prices at the pump to "apocalyptic" heights. "The lull in the tropics has come to an end as we're now watching three different areas for development from the Gulf of Mexico to the central Atlantic," The Weather Channel reports. The first system is an area of low pressure in the northern Gulf of Mexico and is expected to track westward early this week and could dump heavy rains along with parts of the Texas coast. Even though the storm has low probabilities of formation over the next 2-5 days, the system is situated near the Gulf Coast (PADD 3), which has the highest concentration of US refineries. The second is a disturbance located 900 miles east-southeast of the southern Windward Islands and has a 70% chance of cyclone formation in 2 days with probabilities at 90% for five days. Called Invest 94L, the storm is expected the strengthen as it enters the Caribbean Sea this week. Behind Invest 94L is a tropical wave with a 20% probability of developing into a storm over the next five days. The elevated tropical activity comes as OPIS energy analysis global head Tom Kloza told Fox Bussiness," if we have an active tropical season" that impacts domestic refining efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, then it could send gas prices to "apocalyptic" heights.

Oil Tanker Is Stopped by U.S. in Transit From Russian Port to New Orleans – WSJ - U.S. authorities have stopped a ship traveling from Russia to Louisiana with a cargo of fuel products, say people familiar with the matter.The Daytona tanker is owned by Greek shipowner TMS Tankers Ltd. and was chartered by Vitol, a commodity trading house based in Switzerland. It sailed from Russia’s Taman peninsula in the Black Sea in early June carrying fuel oil and vacuum gasoil, the data showed, and was planning to arrive in New Orleans on Sunday.

Ship from Russia, carrying oil, arrives in New Orleans area, despite federal sanctions - U.S. authorities intercepted a New Orleans-bound ship from Russia on suspicion that its cargo might violate a federal ban on Russian oil imports enacted after that country invaded Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Daytona tanker is now moored in the Mississippi River at St. Rose, near the community’s volunteer fire department. On Wednesday afternoon there appeared to be no activity on board. The ship’s intended destination was unclear. A Port of New Orleans spokesperson said it was headed for the Valero terminal in St. Charles Parish. A representative for Valero didn’t return a message Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s press office didn’t respond to an email Wednesday. But, according to The Journal, the ship was carrying fuel oil and vacuum gasoil, and was scheduled to dock somewhere in or near New Orleans earlier this week. Vacuum gasoil is refined into gasoline and diesel, the Journal report said. A representative for the company that chartered Daytona told The Journal that it fully complies with all laws, including federal sanctions. The government’s March embargo banned imports of Russian crude oil, petroleum, liquefied natural gas and coal. The Journal report said the ship was being checked by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. At issue is whether Daytona’s load originated in Russia, or if the ship was passing through with cargo from another country. A terminal on Russia’s Taman peninsula in the Black Sea transports products from Russia and Kazakhstan, according to The Journal, though the report said tracking data indicated Daytona’s cargo came from Russia. The U.S. ban does not include products from Kazakhstan.

Strained gasoline supplies lead American fuelmakers to maximize output— It may not be quite throwing caution to the winds, but the prospect of hefty profits and supply that may not stretch to meet consumer demand is enticing U.S. refiners to run at a 21-month high, testing equipment limits to sustain high rates without breakdowns. Gasoline stockpiles remain the lowest seasonally in seven years. A major breakdown when supplies are constrained by several years of closures that wiped out more than a million barrels of capacity could be disastrous. Stockpiles would shrink further and already high pump prices could surge higher, causing some drivers to curtail or reduce travel plans. “Running hard increases general stress on a unit, increasing the risk of an unplanned outage,” said Robert Campbell, head of oil products research at London consultancy Energy Aspects Ltd. Some sites delayed maintenance to the fall and even to early next year to prevent shutting any unit vital to producing more fuel at a time when supplies are tight and profit margins are high. The risk: Running hard, particularly in summer heat, wears units down faster, reducing the time between turnarounds and increasing the cost of repairs when they do finally get taken down for maintenance. Most immediately, high run rates risk abrupt breakdowns that could force a refiner to seek replacement products that cost more to buy than make. That would almost guarantee a spike in pump prices. Genscape’s Wood Mackenzie has reported multiple instances in June of crude units, gasoline-making FCC units and reformers that make high-octane gasoline blendstock suddenly reducing production with no maintenance planned or abruptly shutting down for a day or more. “When the weather is hot, cooling tower efficiency is reduced and everything needs the cooling,” Campbell said. In the week ended June 24, refinery runs were the highest since January 2020. Capacity utilization was 95%, highest since September 2019. East Coast and Gulf Coast oil processing plants ran at about 98%. Some refineries, according to people familiar with operations, are running above nameplate capacity to squeeze out every drop of product they can. On the positive side, the pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $4.84 Thursday, according to AAA, down from a record $5.016 on June 13. Meanwhile, crude oil, which also influences gasoline prices, posted its first monthly decline this year in June. Contributing to the urgency to run hard while the market is favorable: US consumer spending fell in May for the first time in 2022 and prior months were revised lower. “There’s risk when you run at the top of your engineering design rates and refiners know that,” ;

U.S. emergency oil reserve draws by 6.9 mln barrels to lowest since 1986 - U.S. crude inventory in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) fell by 6.9 million barrels in the week to June 24, according to data from the Department of Energy. Stockpiles in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) fell to 497.9 million barrels, the lowest since April 1986.

Permian Highway Pipeline takes FID on expansion project -Permian Highway Pipeline LLC (PHP) made a positive final investment decision (FID) to proceed with expansion after securing binding firm transportation agreements for all available capacity, Kinder Morgan Inc. said in a release June 29. A binding open season for shipper commitments was held earlier this year (OGJ Online, Apr. 26, 2022). The project, which will increase PHP’s capacity by about 550 MMcfd, will involve primarily additional compression on PHP to increase natural gas deliveries from the Waha area to multiple mainline connections, Katy, Tex., and various US Gulf Coast markets. Pending the timely receipt of required approvals, the target in-service date is Nov. 1, 2023. The expansion will not only foster future natural gas production growth in West Texas and provide liquefaction plants along the Texas Gulf Coast with supply, but it will provide access to premium priced markets and transportation flow assurance, which are critical to minimizing flared volumes, said Jamie Welch, president and chief executive officer, Kinetik. PHP is jointly owned by subsidiaries of Kinder Morgan Inc., Kinetik Holdings Inc., and ExxonMobil, with an ownership interest of 26.7%, 53.3%, and 20%, respectively.

More Oil Workers Being Trained to Operate in Permian -More oil workers are being trained to operate in the Permian, suggesting that the industry is working on resolving labor constraints that had been holding back production growth. That’s what energy and environmental geo-analytics company Kayrros stated in its latest oil market note, which was sent to Rigzone on Saturday, adding that the number of workers active in the Permian has dramatically increased since the invasion of Ukraine in late February. “A recent peak followed by a slight decline appears to show workers being temporarily gathered in the field for training,” Kayrros stated in the market note. “This would indicate that the industry is rebuilding its workforce and may soon overcome the widely reported labor shortages that had been holding back development and oil production,” Kayrros added in the note. A graph included in the market note highlighting Kayrros oilfield worker activity in the Permian basin, which contains data stretching back to the beginning of this year, shows that the number of people/unique IDs in the region surpassed 5,000 this month, before dipping to between 4,500 and 5,000. The graph, which shows that this figure has been climbing throughout the year, highlights that the number of people/unique IDs in the Permian was sitting under 3,500 back in January. Kayrros also outlined in the note that the number of frac crews active in the Permian passed the 100 mark last week for the first time since the start of the Covid pandemic, according to preliminary data. Across other major tight oil basins, the aggregate number of horizontal well completions continues to creep up too, and recently reached its highest level since the early days of the pandemic in 2020, Kayrros stated in the market note.

World’s Biggest Oil Field, Permian Basin, Faces New Air-Pollution Curbs – Bloomberg --The Biden administration is considering triggering tougher anti-smog requirements that could curb drilling across parts of the Permian Basin, the world’s biggest oil field that straddles Texas and New Mexico. The Environmental Protection Agency is weighing labeling parts of the Permian Basin as violating federal air quality standards for ozone -- a designation that would force state regulators to develop plans for cracking down on that smog-forming pollution. The move, outlined in a regulatory notice, could spur new permitting requirements and scrutiny of drilling operations.Ozone levels in the basin have surpassed a federal standard “for the last several years -- really since the fracking boom took off in the Permian,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. The conservation group formally petitioned EPA for the so-called non-attainment designation in March 2021 and, roughly six months later, warned the agency it intended to sue to force action. The designation “basically says you’ve got to clean up this mess or the consequences are going to get even more severe as far as restricting your ability to permit more pollution and more development,” he said. While Texas does not have monitors taking ozone readings on its side of the Permian, monitors just over the border in the Eddy and Lea counties of New Mexico have recorded average ground-level ozone levels exceeding the 2015 standard of 70 parts per billion several years running. Even at low levels, ozone can worsen asthma, emphysema and other respiratory illnesses. If the region is deemed in violation, state regulators would have three years to develop plans for lowering ozone levels, including by preventing new industrial facilities from worsening air quality and ensuring existing sites deploy technology to keep pollution at bay. The resulting uncertainty could constrain energy development in the region, said Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association. “Creating uncertainty on permitting and inserting unnecessary regulatory barriers will only negatively impact the production necessary to meet the needs of consumers."

Rising number of earthquakes in Texas ‘linked to oil and gas production’ - A rising number of earthquakes recorded in West Texas can be linked tooil and gas production in the region, new research has found.Since 2009, earthquakes have been rapidly rising in the Delaware Basin - a prolific oil-producing region in West Texas and New Mexico, according to researchers at The University of Texas.The authors of the study published in Seismological Research Lettersanalysed data that tracked seismicity and oil and gas production in the region from 2017 to 2020. They found that 68 per cent of earthquakes above magnitude 1.5 were “highly associated” with one or more oil and gas production activities.. These activities were hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking - a process that uses pressurised fluid to create and enlarge fractures in the rock to increase the flow of oil and gas - and the disposal of what is referred to as “formation water” into geological formations. Formation water is produced with oil and gas, it is then disposed of by injecting it into geological formations, the researchers said. Alexandros Savvaidis, a researcher at the University of Texas and the study’s co-author, said these production activities are known to increase “subsurface pore pressure”, a mechanism for triggering earthquakes. “This paper shows that we now know a lot about how oil and gas activities and seismic activity are connected,” Mr Savvaidis said. “The modelling techniques could help oil and gas producers and regulators identify potential risks and adjust production and disposal activity to decrease them.”

68 Percent Of Earthquakes In West Texas Linked To Oil And Gas Production, Study Finds - A recent rise in the number of earthquakes experienced in Texas over the last decade are likely due to oil and gas production, including the highly contentious fracking, suggests a new study. Tracking all of the earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 and above from 2017 to 2020, the study found almost 70 percent of them were directly linked to activity in oil and gas, whether it be direct hydraulic fracturing, or dumping the wastewater into geological formations. The research, which was published in Seismological Research Letters, should act help production companies to reduce their impact on the environment and seismological activity, according to the researchers. “This paper shows that we now know a lot about how oil and gas activities and seismic activity are connected,” said co-author Alexandros Savvaidis in a statement. “The modeling techniques could help oil and gas producers and regulators identify potential risks and adjust production and disposal activity to decrease them.” Hydraulic fracturing is the process of extracting natural gas and oil from often deep pockets under the Earth’s surface by pumping fluids down wells, which causes fractures in the rock formations adjacent to them. The pressure then forces the fluid – now called formation water – back up and sand or another incompressible material is pushed into the cracks to keep them open. Doing so increases the yield of resources the company can get out of wells. Hydraulic fracturing is a sore subject across the US and the rest of the world, for relatively good reason. Fracking, as it’s known by many, uses vast amounts of energy and leaks gas into the environment, alongside producing toxic chemicals in the formation water, which is tough to get rid of. In this study, researchers scanned around 5,000 earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 or above in the Delaware Basin, West Texas, looking for correlations between fracking, formation water disposal, or other factors. Of these earthquakes, 43 percent were linked to injection of formation water into shallow sedimentary formations; 12 percent were linked to injection into formations below fracking depth; and a further 13 percent were directly linked to fracturing rock using hydraulic fluids. Combined, the overall process accounts for 68 percent of all earthquakes in the region. One particular earthquake in Mentone, Texas in 2020 (magnitude 5.0) occurred in a region known for injection of formation water into deep rock pockets.

Frackers Push Into Once-Dead Shale Patches as Oil Nears $100 a Barrel - The Wall Street Journal - Spurred by the highest oil prices in years, shale companies are moving drilling rigs back into oil fields that were all but abandoned a few years ago.Private oil producers are leading an industry return to places like the Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma and the DJ Basin in Colorado, where drilling had almost completely stopped in mid-2020 when those areas became unprofitable because of lower oil prices. The average number of active drilling rigs in the Anadarko Basin has surged from the pandemic low of seven to 46, according to energy data analytics firm Enverus.

 US Shale Producers Seeking to Boost Oil Production Through Re-Fracking - Shale oil producers in the United States are resorting to “re-fracking” to boost the country’s oil output, as well as generate additional profits without having to make significant new investments. Re-fracking refers to the practice of an oil company returning to old shale oil and gas wells that were fracked in the past, but are no longer in production. The process allows oil producers to take advantage of the higher than $100 per barrel oil price while also creating a higher output with a smaller investment, rather than having to develop an entirely new well. “You go back and find where you maybe under-completed and under-fracked in the beginning,” Catherine Oster, who manages Devon Energy’s midcontinent properties, told Reuters. “We’ve made the infrastructure investment. As you learn about your resource, you get those technical learnings” that help decide which wells will benefit from a second shot. Garrett Fowler, chief operating officer for ResFrac, which helps producers optimize the technique, has seen inquiries for re-fracking double in recent times compared to previous years. The process can increase oil flows from aging wells by two to three times, he said. Experts estimate re-fracking to potentially be up to 40 percent cheaper compared to new wells.

High pressure fracking again being used by US oil companies - Amidst the rise of "re-fracs" in the U.S. as part of the efforts to boost domestic oil production, American shale oil producers are successfully returning to existing wells and giving them a second, high-pressure blast. The re-fracs, which are increasingly popular as shale oil producers look to take advantage of $100 per barrel crude, without making large investments in new wells and fields, were triggered by the global oil shortage, causing U.S. President Joe Biden to call upon shale producers to spend more of their profits on increasing output. However, the firms have been under pressure from their shareholders to focus on returns, rather than production growth. Since January, shortages of steel, diesel and workers have doubled oilfield inflation, making re-fracing even more attractive as a discounted way of increasing production. According to experts, re-fracing can be up to 40 percent cheaper than drilling a new well. It can also double or triple oil flows from aging wells, said Garrett Fowler, chief operating officer for ResFrac, a firm that helps producers install re-fracing, which has seen about twice as many inquiries compared to prior years. For oil producers, re-fracs can add output to existing pipelines while being affordable, as their shorter completion time can be scheduled between work on new wells, said Catherine Oster, head of Devon Energy's mid-continent properties. "You go back and find where you may be under-completed and under-fracked in the beginning," she added, as quoted by Reuters. ResFrac's Fowler said the most common re-frac method is to place a steel liner inside the original well bore and then blast holes through the steel casing to access the reservoir, and in some cases, the process uses half as much steel and frac sand, compared to drilling a new well. U.S. oil production remains about one million barrels per day (bpd) below the 12.8 million bpd peak, with output being limited by the rapid decline of shale wells. Flat spending could restrain output to current levels.

Fracking Fluid And Chemicals Market Growth 2022 Growing Rapidly With Recent Developments, Industry Share, Trends, Demand, Revenue, Key Findings And Latest Technology - Kenneth Research recently added a report on ' Fracking Fluid and Chemicals Market ' which offers a complete evaluation of the market and its growth prospects along with new business opportunities in the industry. The report contains the market size and annual growth rate for a forecast period between 2022 and 2031.U.S. Market recovers fast; In a release on May 4th 2021, the U.S. Bureau and Economic Analsysis and U.S. Census Bureau mentions the recovery in the U.S. International trade in March 2021. Exports in the country reached $200 billion, up by $12.4 billion in Feb 2021. Following the continuous incremental trend, imports tallied at $274.5 billion, picked up by $16.4 billion in Feb 2021. However, as COVID19 still haunts the economies across the globe, year-over-year (y-o-y) avergae exports in the U.S. declined by $7.0 billion from March 2020 till March 2021 whilest imports increased by $20.7 billion during the same time. This definitely shows how the market is trying to recover back and this will have a direct impact on the Healthcare/ICT/Chemical industries, creating a huge demand for Fracking Fluid and Chemicals Market products. Moreover, amongst all the continents that used pesticides, Asia registered as the largest user of pesticides by attaining a share of 52.4% in the year 2018. It was followed by the Americas, Europe, Africa and Oceania with 32.3%, 11.6%, 2% and 1.7% respectively. The statistics also stated that China was the largest user of pesticides amongst all the nations worldwide, utilizing 1,763,000 tonnes of pesticides for agricultural use. Proppants and chemical additives to release natural gas or petroleum for extraction. It has changed the overall global energy landscape and this process relies on fracking fluids. A mixture of chemicals and fluids is used to fracture the non-conventional and conventional formation of older gas and oil fields those having higher production rate. There are many factors which act as drivers for the market such as continued use of hydraulic fracturing to get fuel from unconventional energy sources such as tight sand stone, coalbed methane etc. Other key drivers of the field include rising global natural gas prices, the need to fill the gap between supply and demand of oil and gas reserves. Continuous R&D is taking place in the field which is resulting in the development of better products such as development of eco friendly chemicals, waterless fracturing foam etc. Some of the restraints of the market which are hindering its growth are problems related to environmental safety, health hazards occurring due to it and technical complexities which are based on geological conditions.

Biden administration to hold its first oil drilling lease sales on federal lands -The Biden administration is set to hold lease sales for new oil and gas drilling on public lands starting this week and, for the first time, it will implement new regulations for producers. The oil auctions will effectively be the administration’s first, since the only other lease sale it has held was tossed in court on environmental grounds. But neither industry nor green groups are particularly pleased with the sales, as industry wanted more land and fewer stipulations while many climate hawks wanted no lease sales at all. The Biden administration is expected this week to auction off parcels of federally owned land for drilling in seven Western states. The sale in Wyoming is expected to be by far the largest, with 130,000 acres available for lease, while the next largest comes in at just a few thousand acres. The other sales will take place in Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. When it announced the sales in April, the Interior Department said it was shrinking the overall land it was making available by 80 percent compared to the total amount of land it originally considered for the sale. The department also announced that it would hike fees that oil companies pay to the government for the oil they extract, raising royalty rates from the 12.5 percent imposed on previous sales to 18.75 percent for the new sales.

 Biden administration oil, gas auctions kick off with thin industry response (Reuters) - The Biden administration's first sale of oil and gas drilling rights on federal land garnered thin industry interest on June 29 .while environmental groups filed two separate lawsuits seeking to invalidate the results.The sales, which will continue on June 30 and cover eight states, were viewed as a test of oil industry demand for federal acreage amid soaring fuel prices and calls from President Joe Biden to increase domestic output.The first day of bidding on 120,000 acres in Wyoming wrapped up with no bids on more than a third of the 105 parcels offered, according to online auction platform EnergyNet. Of the $12.5 million in high bids generated on June 29, $8.9 million was for a single 1,480-acre parcel in Converse County.

Biden faces major climate decision: ConocoPhillips’s Willow project on Alaska’s North Slope - — On the fifth day of the gas leak, Bruce Nukapigak loaded 14 relatives into three cars and fled through a blizzard toward the nearest town of Deadhorse. He passed his old caribou hunting campsite — now hemmed in by oil pipelines — and drove over the concrete bridge built by the energy giantConocoPhillips, where he used to set nets for salmon in an Arctic stream.Nukapigak, a 37-year-old power-plant operator, took pride in the fact that his remote hometown at the top of the world helped supply the country’s energy. But he had lived through oil disasters before — his infant son was airlifted from the village during a blowout a decade earlier — and he knew a knife’s edge could separate routine work from catastrophe.“I understand this country needs energy. And we provide it,” he said. “But all the bad stuff that comes with it — we’re left to fend for ourselves when it happens.”The dilemma Nukapigak wrestled with as he sped over the tundra in March is now facing the Biden administration, in what could soon become one of the administration’s most significant environmental decisions. At a time of soaring gas prices and mounting climate emergencies, the administration is weighing a proposal by ConocoPhillips for the next major phase in Arctic oil exploration: a network of new drilling pads that would further encircle Nuiqsut with oil infrastructure.The $6 billion endeavor, known as the Willow project, includes hundreds of miles of roads and pipelines, airstrips, a gravel mine, and a major new processing facility — all in the middle of pristine Arctic tundra and wetland, on the nation’s single largest block of public land.The decision will directly test how the administration is weighing pressure to deepen America’s ability to produce oil — at a moment that high energy prices, in part because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, represent a major political threat to Biden and economic threat to the country — against a desire to make progress curbing climate change and bolstering environmental protection.Last year, a federal judge blocked construction permits for the project, approved during the final year of the Trump administration, because the government failed to assess how burning the oil pulled from the ground would warm the planet.The Biden administration, which defended the Willow project in court, will soon complete a new environmental review. Conservation groups are warning that the impact from the project’s emissions — even if a scaled-down version is approved — could be larger than the Trump administration ever considered. A ConocoPhillips official last year told investors that the Willow infrastructure could ultimately help unlock 3 billion barrels of oil — far more than the 586 million barrels that the Bureau of Land Management used to evaluate its climate impact.

DOE: Major LNG project 'would not increase' CO2 - A proposed liquefied natural gas project in Alaska would not raise greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new federal environmental review that assumes LNG exports elsewhere will continue to meet demand even if the planned pipeline and terminal aren’t built. The draft supplemental environmental impact statement was originally seen as a hurdle for the project, which includes building 800 miles of pipeline and an export facility in Nikiski, Alaska, to move LNG to primarily Asian markets. The Trump administration greenlighted exports from the proposed terminal in mid-2020, but the Biden administration announced nearly a year ago that it would conduct a supplemental analysis (Energywire, July 6, 2021). Backers of the proposed project cheered the review’s findings, asserting that they “validate previous federal authorizations.”The review “affirms what I and many Alaskans have been arguing for years: Natural gas is a proven source of desperately needed energy that also presents the opportunity to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said in a statement, adding that “this report bolsters the case for the Alaska LNG Project, which remains the only West Coast U.S. LNG export project that has secured all of its federal permits.” The Department of Energy’s draft SEIS includes a life-cycle analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions tied to the project’s LNG exports. It finds that “exporting [liquefied natural gas] from the North Slope would not increase GHG emissions when providing the same services to society,” as the No Action Alternative, a scenario where the Alaska LNG project is not developed. Under a scenario where the Alaska project does not proceed, DOE said it modeled greenhouse gas emissions linked with LNG produced and supplied from the Lower 48, noting that “energy demand from foreign markets would remain and would need to be fulfilled from an alternate source under that scenario.” “Overall, life cycle [greenhouse gas] emissions under the Proposed Action, including emissions from construction and operation of project activities, as well as upstream production and downstream processing, transport, and end-use, would be no higher than under the No Action Alternative,” the report said. The analysis, issued on June 24, also said project construction and operation “would contribute incrementally to global climate change.”

DOE keeps hiring oil industry public relations firm - The Department of Energy retained a global public relations firm with longstanding fossil fuel ties, continuing a practice that ramped up during the Trump administration.The global firm Edelman in April signed a $500,000 contract to promote the new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which the Biden administration established with infrastructure law funding and billed as “a turbocharger of our net-zero future.”The Edelman deal has drawn scrutiny from critics who have long been skeptical of the prominent firm. DOE has paid the PR firm more than $14 million since 2018, according to USAspending.gov, a public database.Edelman, meanwhile, has long trumpeted its commitment to climate action.“Edelman works with a broad range of clients in many industries and global markets, including clients across the energy sector,” said a company spokesperson in 2015. “As previously reported, we do not accept client assignments that aim to deny climate change.”Such statements have made the firm a target of watchdogs and activists, who don’t hesitate to point out when they see Edelman being hypocritical. Working for the trade group American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers was one of the company’s recent infractions in the view of critics. “Edelman is really leading the charge on protecting old energy at the same time they are promoting new energy,” said Duncan Meisel, director at Clean Creatives, a group that has petitioned public relations firms and ad agencies to cut ties with oil companies and their trade groups.

U.S. retreats from pledge to end gas investments - Dozens of countries rallied around phasing out fossil fuel financing during global climate negotiations seven months ago. Yesterday, those efforts were weakened by the world’s most powerful economies. The shift illustrates how the fear of losing access to energy imports — due to Russia’s war against Ukraine — is testing the commitment of countries that have been among the most vocal advocates of curbing climate change. Leaders of the Group of Seven nations — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, France and Japan — agreed to support public investments in the natural gas sector “as a temporary response” to the abrupt shortfall in global gas supplies created by the pariah status of Russian fossil fuels. The move announced yesterday at the end of the G-7 summit in Germany threatens to undermine commitments announced by the United States and more than 30 other countries at the climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, to stop spending public money on international fossil fuel projects by the end of this year (Climatewire, Nov. 4, 2021). A communiqué released by G-7 leaders sought to soften those concerns by saying its support for continuing gas investments would be “implemented in a manner consistent with our climate objectives and without creating lock-in effects.” “On one hand there is a strong affirmation of the objectives of the Paris Agreement and of domestic [climate] ambitions, but those ambitions threaten to be undermined by continued support for gas investments,” said Luca Bergamaschi, executive director of ECCO, an Italian climate change think tank. Gas projects can take years to construct, he added, a timeline that raises questions about the emissions impacts of building liquefied natural gas facilities or pipelines that can be used for decades to come. That may not matter to G-7 leaders if the investments are directed outside their borders, since that would not defy their commitments to largely decarbonize their transport and power systems by 2030 and 2035, respectively.

New UK Oil Tax Raises Risk of Energy Shortages -The UK government’s decision to impose a 65 percent tax rate on the nation’s offshore energy providers will do long-term damage to the industry and raise the risk of future energy shortages, industry body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) has told the government. In a letter sent to the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer on behalf of the offshore energy industry, OEUK Chief Executive Deirdre Michie warned that the new tax risks driving away UK oil and gas investment. Michie also outlined that the government’s climate ambitions would not be helped by the tax. A government consultation on how the new tax will work closed just before midnight on June 28. The new tax imposes a 25 percent surcharge on the profits made by companies producing oil and gas on the UK continental shelf, in addition to the 40 percent tax rate they were paying, OEUK highlighted in a statement posted on its website accompanying the letter. The total effective tax rate is 65 percent, meaning the total tax rate is over three times greater than any other UK sector, OEUK noted. OEUK highlighted that the UK gets 75 percent of its total energy from oil and gas and that the nation’s oil and gas operators collectively produce about a third of the nation’s gas and the equivalent of three-quarters of its oil. Production from those existing oil and gas fields is predicted to dwindle rapidly in the next few years without further investment as they age and become depleted, OEUK warned. “This is a tough tax for our industry, and it could reduce our ability to invest in the UK’s future energy supplies just as energy security is moving to the heart of national security,” Michie said in an OEUK statement. “Right now, the world is at risk of shortages and price rises that will have huge impacts on consumers and on our economy, so we should be doing all we can to maximize our own supplies, not deterring investment with new taxes,” Michie added. “We all want to move quickly to a cleaner energy future, but our ambitions must be grounded in realism if we are to avoid dramatically increasing our reliance on imported energy in the short term. It’s why we continue to raise concerns about the impact of the levy on the UK’s energy security, economy and thousands of jobs,” Michie went on to say.

Fracking firms could share in UK fossil fuel tax breaks worth billions - Fracking companies are likely to be eligible for tax breaks, potentially worth billions, that the government is extending to oil and gas companies to encourage new exploration of fossil fuel resources. Combined with high gas prices, the extra funding – which amounts to a subsidy, according to campaigners – could provide a strong incentive to restart fracking operations if a moratorium in the UK is lifted, which could happen as early as this week. Oil and gas companies will benefit from a loophole in the government’s windfall tax, which allows exemptions for companies that invest in the exploration of new fossil fuel resources. Legal advice provided to the campaigning group Uplift suggests fracking companies would also be eligible for this incentive, based on the way the windfall tax – officially known as the energy profits levy – is currently written. Tessa Khan, the director of Uplift, said: “Despite a historic cost of living crisis, the government is trying to rush through yet another massive subsidy for oil and gas companies. The energy levy is supposed to ease the burden of rising energy bills for UK households, but this investment loophole allows companies to slash their tax bill if they build more polluting, unsustainable oil and gas projects. “It is outrageous that fracking companies may be able to benefit from this subsidy, when fracking – like all oil and gas drilling – does nothing to ensure safe, affordable energy for people in the UK.” The Labour party said the loophole meant oil and gas companies would receive 20 times more in taxpayer incentives than renewable energy firms are eligible for. Labour’s analysis of government data shows that about £4bn could flow to oil and gas companies via the loophole in the windfall tax and “super-deduction” tax credits. According to Labour’s analysis, the new rules mean that for every £100 an oil and gas company invests in the North Sea, the company receives £91.50 from the taxpayer. For every £100 invested in renewable energy, the renewables company receives £25, but that will fall to £4.50 from April 2023.

Fracking ban could be axed in days in potential boost to our gas supplies, source says -The ban on fracking could be lifted within days if a scientific review finds the risk of earth tremors can be minimised. The British Geological Survey is due to report to ministers on whether new techniques could limit the potential effects of fracking for natural gas. The ban was imposed in 2019 over concerns about earth tremors and the impact on the Government's net zero emissions target. A Government source said safety concerns remained paramount, but added: 'The war in Ukraine has shifted the dial on this. The ban on fracking was imposed in 2019 over concerns about earth tremors and the impact on the Government's net zero emissions target. The industry looked set to be wound up in the UK earlier this year, with fracking firm Cuadrilla ordered to fill in its last two remaining wells in Lancashire. Pictured: The Cuadrilla fracking site in Blackpool 'Russia's actions have made security of supply a bigger issue. And... gas produced here will have a lower carbon footprint than gas we are importing.' Britain has vast reserves of shale gas underground. Some experts say 10 per cent of the resources would make the UK self-sufficient in energy for 50 years. The new report has been completed but is now being peer-reviewed in the United States, where fracking is a major industry, before being handed to ministers. Tory MP Lee Anderson said ministers could reduce opposition by offering steep discounts on people's bills. Mr Anderson, a former coal miner, said: 'I'm very pro-fracking - we should be making the most of our natural resources if it can be done safely. 'If the United States hadn't gone for fracking a few years ago then the whole world would be in trouble now. We could be enjoying the same low prices as them. 'Of course it has to be safe but we also have to be offering massive financial incentives to local communities - I think if you did that you would see a lot of opposition melt away.'

Shell Chief Says World Heading for Turbulent Period -The world is heading for a “turbulent period” as tightening supplies of liquefied natural gas and oil exacerbate a global energy crunch, Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said. Speaking in Singapore, the CEO painted a bleak picture of an energy supply that will struggle to replace large swathes of Russian oil and gas that still flow into Europe. “There will be more LNG supply coming into Europe, but will there be a lot of extra new LNG supply to plug the gap? I don’t think so,” Van Beurden, 64, said Wednesday. The world is grappling with a natural gas shortage amid supply disruptions from Russia to the US, and strong demand for the power plant fuel as economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Moscow has curbed gas supplies via a key pipeline to Europe amid escalating tensions related to the war in Ukraine, and that has governments across the continent preparing for a total shutdown of shipments. “Spare capacity is very low, demand is still recovering,” he said. “So with that, also the uncertainties with the war in Ukraine and sanctions that may come from it, there is a fair chance we will be facing a turbulent period.” Russia accounts for about a third of Europe’s natural gas imports through the Nord Stream pipeline, he said. Europe could extract as much as 50 billion cubic meters of additional gas a year from the controversial Groningen gas field in The Netherlands, but that would be a measure of last resort for the Dutch government, Van Beurden said. Output from the field has been restricted for years because of earthquakes triggered by drilling for gas. The outlook for oil isn’t much rosier, with Van Beurden saying spare capacity from OPEC was lower than most believed or hoped. Still, demand has reached pre-pandemic levels and will continue to increase for years to come.

Germany sees possible Russian 'blockade' of key gas pipeline -(AP) — Germany's vice chancellor said Thursday he suspects that Russia may not resume natural gas deliveries to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline after planned maintenance work in July, complicating the outlook for this winter. Russia reduced gas flows to Germany, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia this month, just as European Union countries scramble to refill storage facilities with the fuel used to generate electricity, power industry and heat homes in the winter. Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom has blamed a technical problem for the reduction in gas flowing through Nord Stream 1, which runs under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. The company said equipment being refurbished in Canada was stuck there because of Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. German leaders have rejected that explanation and called the reductions a political move. Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who is also Germany’s economy and climate minister and responsible for energy, said a “blockade” of the pipeline is possible starting July 11, when regular maintenance work is due to start. In previous summers, the work has entailed shutting the for about 10 days, he said. “But given the pattern we have seen, it wouldn't be so super-surprising if some little technical detail is found and then they say, ‘We can’t switch it on again; now we found something during maintenance and that's it,'” Habeck told a forum organized by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. “So the situation is certainly tight,” he said, stressing the importance of filling storage and getting liquefied natural gas terminals up and running. At present, Germany is continuing to store gas, albeit at about half the rate it was before deliveries through Nord Stream 1 were reduced, the vice chancellor said. A week ago, Habeck activated the second phase of Germany's three-stage emergency plan for natural gas supplies, warning that Europe’s biggest economy faced a “crisis” and storage targets for the winter were at risk.

Total shutdown of Russian gas pipelines to Europe 'is not inconceivable' - The Group of 7 nations need to brace for a complete shutdown of Russian gas pipelines in the near term, and it could have severe consequences for Europe's economy, one analyst warned."The G-7 have to prepare for a shutdown of gas. The G-7 can deal with a cutback on oil. There are other supplies that could be gotten around the world, but the gas could be shut off and that would have consequences," said Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told CNBC on Monday."Russia already has cut back substantially on gas flowing to Germany and through Ukraine, so shutting down the pipelines is not inconceivable. Russia also sells some LNG to Europe but not that much," he said in an email after the interview."The total cut-off of Russian supplies would prompt gas rationing at least for the short term," he said. "Russian supplies would be partially offset by increased LNG imports, increased supplies from Norway and Algeria, fuel-switching to coal, and conservation measures."Gazprom, Russia's state-backed energy supplier, has reduced its gas flows toEurope by about 60% over the past few weeks. The move prompted Germany, Italy, Austria and the Netherlands to all indicate they could turn back to coal once again.His comments came as the leaders of the G-7 wealthiest nations met in Munich, Germany, for their latest summit. As global pressure continues to pile on Russia over its assault on Ukraine, Europe is facing "a very tight situation," Schott told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia" on Monday."They're playing for time. The more there is a hostility against Russia, the more Putin threatens and perhaps acts to cut off more gas to Europe. I see that coming sooner rather than later," he added.European leaders have been growing increasingly concerned about the possibility of a total shutdown of gas supplies from Russia.Germany declared recently it is moving to the so-called "alert level" of its emergency gas plan, as reduced Russian flows exacerbate fears of a winter supply shortage.On Thursday, Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced that Germany would move to stage two of its three-stage plan — an indication that Europe's largest economy now sees a high risk of long-term gas supply shortages. The EU receives roughly 40% of its gas via Russian pipelines and is trying to rapidly reduce its reliance on Russian hydrocarbons in response to the Kremlin's months-long onslaught in Ukraine.

IEA: Europe Will Have To Cut Gas Usage By Nearly One-Third - In the first quarter of next year, the countries of the European Union will have to cut their usage of natural gas by up to 30% in preparation for a complete stoppage of Russian gas flows, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA Director Fatih Birol on Tuesday said that “a complete cut-off of Russian gas supplies to Europe could result in storage fill levels being well below average ahead of the winter, leaving the EU in a very vulnerable position.” “In the current context, I wouldn’t exclude a complete cut-off of gas exports to Europe from Russia,” he stated. Citing technical issues related to the Nord Stream pipeline, Russia earlier in June cut flows of gas to Germany by 60%. Plans to boost natural gas storage filling in Europe would not withstand a full Russian cut-off if it were to happen between now and the fourth quarter of this year. By the first of November, the European Union should have its gas storage filled to 90%; however, a complete Russian cut-off would reduce that significantly, leading to another surge in natural gas prices, which have already tripled year-on-year, according to Bloomberg, citing figures from the ICE Endex. European natural gas prices remained steady from Monday to Tuesday, in part due to a resumption of the flow of Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline, which was undergoing maintenance. The pipeline has a 31.5-billion-cubic-meter capacity, Bloomberg reports. On Tuesday, Dutch front-month gas futures dropped 0.2% at the close. Also steadying natural gas prices in Europe on Tuesday were new estimations for demand, which could see a drop due to sunnier weather that can better support solar energy. This is not enough to calm nerves in Germany. Last week, German officials warned that the country is under threat of having to ration gas usage, which would have a devastating effect on the economy. German Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck said the country had entered the “second alert level” of its emergency gas plan.

Prelude LNG Shipments Disrupted Until Mid-July Over Pay Spat - Shell’s massive Prelude FLNG simply can’t catch a break as the company announced that shipments from the facility will be disrupted until at least mid-July. Shell stated that shipments of the chilled fuel from the Prelude FLNG would be disrupted until at least mid-July due to work bans by unions fighting for better pay. "We have issued a notice to customers that cargoes will be impacted until at least mid-July due to the industrial action," a Shell spokesperson told Reuters. Since the very start of LNG production Prelude has had issues cropping up. Namely, the first problem in the facility occurred in February 2020 when an electrical trip caused Shell to shut down production. It was not brought back online until January 2021. Then, the facility experienced an unplanned event that resulted in a complete loss of power at the facility on December 2, 2021, which led to unreliable and intermittent power availability over three days. Inspectors determined that Shell did not have a sufficient understanding of the risks of the power system on the facility, including failure of mechanisms, interdependencies, and recovery. That meant that Prelude FLNG would be out for most of the first quarter of 2022. In late March, Australian watchdog NOPSEMA closed the investigation into the latest issues that caused Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility to halt production, clearing the path for restart. Shell finally resumed shipping liquefied natural gas from the Prelude FLNG facility in April. Shell completed the loading of the 170,000-cbm GasLog Partners-owned Methane Becki Anne LNG carrier that left the Prelude FLNG site on April 10 and started its journey towards Kogas’ Tongyeong LNG import facility in South Korea. This latest issue means that the Prelude FLNG facility was able to work for less than three months without disruption after a four-month long shutdown.

G7 Weighs Russia Oil Price Cap - Group of Seven nations are discussing a cap on the price of Russian oil that would work by imposing restrictions on insurance and shipping, according to people familiar with the matter. The potential mechanism would only allow the transportation of Russian crude and petroleum products sold below an agreed threshold, the people said. Discussions among G-7 leaders and officials are ongoing, and an agreement has yet to be reached, they said. President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and its economic fallout are the key topics under discussion at a three-day summit under way in the Bavarian Alps. G-7 states are seeking ways to limit the Kremlin’s energy revenue while mitigating the impact on their own economies amid surging inflation and efforts to curb a reliance on Russian oil and gas. While a mechanism is on the agenda and the concept could be agreed in principle, it is not yet clear whether leaders will be able to pin down specific details, such as the level of the price cap, before the summit’s end, two of the people said. European Council President Charles Michel confirmed that leaders were planning to discuss the proposed cap in detail, but that there were “many challenges” to be overcome. “We are ready to take a decision together with our partners, but we want to make sure that what we decide will have the negative effect on Russia and not a negative effect on ourselves,” Michel told reporters at the summit. A German government official told reporters on Saturday that while the questions that needed solving were not trivial, the group was at least on a path to finding an agreement. The US is also confident a resolution will be found, a senior Biden administration official said. The European Union agreed last month to introduce a ban on insurance related to the transportation of Russian oil, and any move to add on a waiver would require the backing of all 27 member states. Some officials have raised concerns about re-opening that legal text as it took weeks to agree in the first place. Still, incorporating a new transportation ban in any mechanism could help to soften objections linked to weakening the insurance ban.

G7 Set To Impose "Price Caps" On Russian Oil; Unclear What This Actually Does - In the latest bizarro move by western nations meant to hurt Russia, but will blow back and help Putin get even richer while impoverishing western motorists with even higher gas prices, G7 leaders meeting at a Bavarian Alp summit, plan to impose a “price cap” on Russian oil as the group works to curb Moscow’s ability to finance its war in Ukraine, the FT reported. The latest sanction follows news that the same G7 will also impose an import ban on Russian gold, which western nations already can't buy, and which will only push even more physical gold into the willing hands of India and China while pushing global prices higher. Talks were set to continue on Monday, having begun on Sunday in the luxury resort of Schloss Elmau, where leaders want to enlist a range of countries beyond the G7 to put a ceiling on the price paid for Russian oil. It isn't exactly clear just what such a cap would achieve since western nations have already "agreed" to ban Russian oil imports some time in 2023 (or maybe that was 2024... or 2025), but according to the FT, leaders hope a cap will limit the benefits of the soaring price of crude to the Kremlin. Of course, that won't work since non-G7 member states will pay Moscow anything it wants to be paid and as such the price cap will only demonstrate to the world just how meaningless G7 "unity" is in world where the two largest nations - India and China - side with Russia. The idea of an oil price cap comes as the high price of crude means Russia’s revenues from oil exports have surged declined despite western restrictions on Russian oil imports. Concern is also mounting that attempts to ban ships carrying Russian oil from accessing western insurance markets this year could drive global oil prices to unprecedented levels. The International Energy Agency warns it could contribute to the shutdown of more than a quarter of Russia’s pre-invasion production. Under the price-capping scheme, Europe would limit the availability of shipping and insurance services that enable the worldwide transport of Russian oil, mandating that the services would only be available if the price ceiling was observed by the importer. A similar restriction on the availability of US financial services could give the scheme added impact. Obviously, this naive proposal has had the full backing of the Biden admin and recent comments by German officials suggested Berlin was also coming around to the idea. Officials said that Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister, told fellow G7 leaders that energy price caps were needed because “we must reduce the amount of money going to Russia and get rid of one of the main causes of inflation”. While it is understandable that Europe is angry that its actions have helped Russia claim a record current account surplus, even as the US current account deficit hits an all time high... ... it is not at all understandable how a self-imposed "price cap" by European nations - who have already made buying of Russian oil effectively illegal - and which needs to be implemented by all nations in the world and won't be with China and India holding out, will achieve anything. In any case, the FT reports that on Monday, the caps will be debated by a broader group when the leaders of Germany, the US, UK, France, Italy, Japan and Canada are joined by “partner” countries invited to the summit. These include India, which has become a big buyer of discounted Russian oil since the invasion of Ukraine, as well as Argentina, South Africa, Senegal and Indonesia.

Russia-Ukraine war: G7 leaders mull untried plan to manipulate oil prices --Leaders of the Group of 7 nations said they would stop buying gold from Moscow and discussed a new American proposal to undercut its oil revenues, even as Russian forces rained missiles on Kyiv for the first time in weeks. The dueling escalation underscored how the war in Ukraine has consumed global politics and the world economy. President Biden and the British government said members of the Group of 7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States — would move on Tuesday to ban imports of Russian gold. Representatives for the assembled countries were also negotiating toward an agreement to buy Russian oil only at a steep discount. American officials see both the gold import ban and the possible oil price cap as ways to undercut key sources of revenue for Moscow’s war effort and further isolate it from the international financial system. Such a push was a theme at the meeting, both publicly and behind the scenes, as leaders sought to project solidarity with Ukraine. As the fighting in Ukraine grinds into its fifth month, the leaders of Group of 7 countries — the world’s wealthiest large democracies — are seeking to maintain unity against Russia in the face of the war’s growing toll on the global economy. Western sanctions intended to create pain for Russia have sent food and energy prices skyrocketing across the world, even as Moscow’s war machine has shown little sign of slowing down. Russia appeared to be sending a message of defiance to the G7 leaders on Sunday morning, when it unleashed a new round of missiles at an apartment building in Kyiv, killing at least one person. The top three floors of the nine-story building were reported destroyed. Rescuers were able to pull a 7-year-old girl from the rubble, but her father was killed and her mother, a Russian citizen, was injured, the authorities said. Before a working lunch meeting, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada were overheard by reporters mocking Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, joking that they should take their shirts off — a jab at Mr. Putin’s penchant for horseback riding. The first step in renewing the group’s solidarity came before the summit formally began, with the announcement of the ban on gold imports from Russia. US banned oil and gas from Russia, and Europe will prohibit most Russian oil while reducing gas imports by the end of the year. The United States, the European Union and their allies have also placed sanctions on Russian officials and other members of the elite and imposed punishments on Russian banks, airlines and other companies.

“G7 Aims to Hurt Russia with Price Cap on Oil Exports” - by Yves Smith - We are taking the liberty of hoisting the title of the Financial Times story on this new-improved-but-still-as-delusional West-is-gonna-punch-Russia-in-the-nose-but-good sanctions scheme. Quite honestly, I thought surely someone would put this one out of its misery. But it seems there is never an idea so bad that it won’t be put into practice. So the US and EU are really mad that their sanctions have backfired. They are paying even more for oil and gas. They are even madder that Russia structures its taxes so they come mainly from foreign oil sales, so that the Russian government is awash with receipts.¹ The EU and US making all kinds of noises that they will shellack Russia by going cold turkey on Russian oil and gas. But that’s proven to be sheer bluster. The US said it was going to embargo Russian oil but quietly backed away from that idea.² Europe can’t replace Russian gas by this winter; it was going to fake its way to that end by maxing out on storage by the fall and then pretending that getting through the winter on previously-purchased Russian gas was the same as not getting through the winter with Russian gas. Similarly, it took quite a while to conclude the sixth EU sanctions package, the centerpiece of which was a Russia oil embargo. Hungary resisted fiercely because all its oil from Russia is via pipeline, so it can’t finesse its origin, unlike oil carried by tanker. So the compromise, agreed at the end of May, was a “partial ban’, supposedly 2/3 immediately via banning all oil via tankers, and 90% by year end, with the only exception as of then being pipeline gas delivered through the southern segment of the Druzhba pipeline. It appears that no one in the G7 got the memo that “Just say no” means going without, which as we can see, the West is willing to do only optically. Avoiding being seen with your favorite guy and then shagging him in a closet doesn’t work. From the Financial Times:G7 leaders meeting for a summit in the Bavarian Alps are seeking a deal to impose a “price cap” on Russian oil as the group works to curb Moscow’s ability to finance its war in Ukraine…They hope a cap will limit the benefits of the soaring price of crude to the Kremlin war machine while cushioning the impact of higher energy prices on western economies.The proposal has been strongly promoted by the US and recent comments by German officials suggested Berlin was also coming around to the idea.Officials said that Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister, told fellow G7 leaders that energy price caps were needed because “we must reduce the amount of money going to Russia and get rid of one of the main causes of inflation”.On Monday, the caps will be debated by a broader group when the leaders of Germany, the US, UK, France, Italy, Japan and Canada are joined by “partner” countries invited to the summit. These include India, which has become a big buyer of discounted Russian oil since the invasion of Ukraine, as well as Argentina, South Africa, Senegal and Indonesia.I can’t imagine India will go along. India has pointedly resisted Western pressures to join in the “punish Russia” enterprise. Russia also just agreed to allow major Indian retailers to open stores in Russia. And the global South has also been very much put off by the open display of racism and colonial attitudes. If the G7 was offering important inducements like food shipments, that might be enough to turn them, but Russia is more likely to be a key provider of needed commodities than the G7. So why are they supposed to go along? Because the West wants their help? Charitably assuming this deal gets done, it can go one of two ways. One is that it’s a damp squib, except for Russia stopping deliveries of pipeline oil to Europe, assuming they are on a floating rather than fixed price contract. That would hurt Hungary, which has made the mistake of trying to be sane (i.e., maybe the real point is to punish Hungary). Since pretty much no other oil is supposedly going to Europe, how can oil that it theoretically not (much) arriving be subject to price caps? Similarly, according to the EIA, the US is not getting any oil from Russia:

Oil Gains On The Day But Loses For The Month As JPMorgan Worries About $380 Per Barrel Prices - - Ahead of the U.S. holiday weekend and with a force majeure in Libya benefitting oil prices, crude on Friday eked out gains; however, it posted a third consecutive weekly loss and ended June down 8 percent on the month. Brent settled up $2.60 at $111.63 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate settled up $2.67 at $108.43 per barrel; for the week, Brent lost 1.3 percent while WTI rose 0.8 percent. Reuters calculated that a planned strike among Norway's oil and gas workers next week could cut the country's overall petroleum output by around 8 percent or 320,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, unless a last-minute agreement is reached. Potentially further exacerbating a tight market is India, whose government on Friday increased levies on shipments of gasoline and diesel as part of a drive to control a worsening currency deficit. "The ability of the complex to post a strong advance today in the face of significant U.S. dollar strength and a weak equity trade suggests some refocus on tight oil supplies." Friday also saw a continuation of the criticism against Europe's planned oil cap against Russia for invading Ukraine, with JPMorgan Chase & Co worrying that global oil prices could reach a "stratospheric" $380 per barrel if Russia decides to enact retaliatory crude output cuts. JPMorgan analysts wrote that Moscow could afford to slash daily crude production by 5 million barrels without excessively damaging the economy, and that a 3 million barrel cut to daily supplies would push benchmark London crude prices to $190, while 5 million could result in $380 crude. They added, "The most obvious and likely risk with a price cap is that Russia might chose not to participate and instead retaliate by reducing exports; it is likely that the government could retaliate by cutting output as a way to inflict pain on the West. "The tightness of the global oil market is on Russia's side."

Oil Market Confronts US And EU Policymakers With Daunting Choices: Kemp - With global inventories steadily falling and spare capacity eroding, the oil market resembles a geological fault line in which stress is quietly accumulating and will eventually be relieved by an earthquake of as yet unknown magnitude. The most likely stress relief will come from a deceleration in oil consumption as a result of a recession or mid-cycle manufacturing slowdown in the major oil consuming economies of North America, Europe and Asia.Economic growth is already slowing in the United States and faltering in Europe and China under the combined impact of accelerating inflation, rising interest rates and coronavirus controls. Financial conditions are tightening rapidly as central banks raise interest rates and commercial banks enforce tougher lending standards.Unlike previous cyclical slowdowns, central banks are likely to continue tightening financial conditions as the economy slows to snuff out inflation.The alternative is for a sharp acceleration of production ― meaning more output from OPEC members, U.S. shale producers, other non-OPEC suppliers, or currently sanctioned countries. Most OPEC members are already producing at full capacity, with the exception of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.The precise amount of spare capacity available in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is disputed given the secrecy which surrounds their production systems. But it is unlikely to be much more than around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) based on historic production rates (“Can Saudi Aramco Meet Its Oil Production Promises?”, Bloomberg, June 29).U.S. shale producers are already increasing drilling rates, which will translate into higher production over the next 6-12 months, once the wells have been drilled, fractured and linked up to pipeline systems.The largest shale producers remain committed to restraining output growth to avoid flooding the market and return capital to shareholders, which is likely to limit growth from this source.Non-OPEC non-shale producers (NONS) are expected to increase production by under 1 million bpd in both 2022 and 2023 (“EIA forecasts growing liquid fuels production in Brazil, Canada and China”, EIA, June 17).The only other source of increased production would come from easing sanctions on Venezuela, Iran or Russia, which could add several million barrels daily to the market depending on which sanctions were relaxed.Brent’s spot price and calendar spreads are sending contrasting signals about the tightness of oil supplies, implying the market is storing up volatility which is likely to be unleashed over the next few months. Front-month futures prices are high, but not extremely so once adjusted for inflation, lying in the 85th percentile for all months since 1990 and the 78th percentile for all months since 2000. The implication is the market is short of petroleum but the shortfall is not (yet) critical and expected to be resolved relatively easily by an increase in production, a reduction in consumption, or both. But Brent’s six-month calendar spread, usually seen as a clearer signal about the balance between production, consumption, inventories and spare capacity, is trading near record levels. Brent spreads are signalling the market is already exceptionally tight, with shortages becoming critical and difficult to relieve without a massive increase in output, a recession-driven fall in consumption, or both. Other calendar spreads, including the very short-term dated Brent spreads for cargoes scheduled to load in the next few weeks, and Murban crude futures, the benchmark in Asia, are already at record levels. The tightness in some of these short-term spreads is likely exaggerated by squeezes, so the price structures should be interpreted with care, but squeezes would not be possible if the market was not under-supplied. Critical calendar spreads are signalling an extreme shortage of crude - even though the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is discharging 1 million barrels per day until the end of October.

Who's Still Buying Fossil Fuels From Russia? - Despite looming sanctions and import bans, Russia exported $97.7 billion worth of fossil fuels in the first 100 days since its invasion of Ukraine, at an average of $977 million per day. So, which fossil fuels are being exported by Russia, and who is importing these fuels?The infographic below, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte and Govind Bhutada, tracks the biggest importers of Russia’s fossil fuel exports during the first 100 days of the war based on data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). The global energy market has seen several cyclical shocks over the last few years.The gradual decline in upstream oil and gas investment followed by pandemic-induced production cuts led to a drop in supply, while people consumed more energy as economies reopened and winters got colder. Consequently, fossil fuel demand was rising even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which exacerbated the market shock.Russia is the third-largest producer and second-largest exporter of crude oil. In the 100 days since the invasion, oil was by far Russia’s most valuable fossil fuel export, accounting for $48 billion or roughly half of the total export revenue.While Russian crude oil is shipped on tankers, a network of pipelines transports Russian gas to Europe. In fact, Russia accounts for 41% of all natural gas imports to the EU, and some countries are almost exclusively dependent on Russian gas. Of the $25 billion exported in pipeline gas, 85% went to the EU.The EU bloc accounted for 61% of Russia’s fossil fuel export revenue during the 100-day period. Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands—members of both the EU and NATO—were among the largest importers, with only China surpassing them. China overtook Germany as the largest importer, importing nearly 2 million barrels of discounted Russian oil per day in May—up 55% relative to a year ago. Similarly, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia as China’s largest oil supplier.The biggest increase in imports came from India, buying 18% of all Russian oil exports during the 100-day period. A significant amount of the oil that goes to India is re-exported as refined products to the U.S. and Europe, which are trying to become independent of Russian imports.In response to the invasion of Ukraine, several countries have taken strict action against Russia through sanctions on exports, including fossil fuels. The U.S. and Sweden have banned Russian fossil fuel imports entirely, with monthly import volumes down 100% and 99% in May relative to when the invasion began, respectively.

IEA: Global refinery capacity increases gather pace in 2023 | Oil & Gas Journal - After posting its first decline in 30 years during 2021, global refining capacity will increase 1 million b/d this year and a further 1.6 million b/d in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. This is a result of 4.1 million b/d of new capacity coming online, offset by 1.6 million b/d of permanent shutdowns. The closures are front-loaded, with 1.1 million b/d set to shut in 2022. Still, the pace of capacity shutdowns is slowing somewhat, compared to 1.8 million b/d in 2021. Over 2022 and 2023, net capacity growth is slightly less than in 2019, but is among the fastest rates for net additions observed over the last two decades, according to IEA data. East of Suez delivers 70% of global net additions in 2022-23, led by major projects in the Middle East and China. After 4 years of capacity decline, the Atlantic Basin will finally see net growth, thanks to African and North American projects. “When looking at a 5-year period of 2019-23, the role of East of Suez is even more prominent – it delivers all the growth globally, offsetting the net 700,000 b/d decline in the Atlantic Basin. China alone accounts for almost 70% of global net additions in 2019-2023, even as the rate of the capacity additions in the country slows in 2022-23. Excluding China, global capacity additions during 2019-2023 amount to just 1 million b/d,” IEA said. Among additions, 2.8 million b/d are greenfield sites, while the rest is expansion projects at existing refineries. Five projects, including mega-refineries in Nigeria and Kuwait and large sites in China and Mexico, contribute 2.3 million b/d, which is just over half of total gross additions. “Assumed start-up dates for these particularly big projects mostly reflect the initial launch of the first train where the projects consist of several trains. There is also the usual degree of uncertainty around the start-up dates due to operational issues, logistical challenges, and supply chain disruptions, among other various unforeseen circumstances affecting the planned timing of projects,” IEA said.

Concerns grow that India is back door into Europe for Russian oil - The Asian nation’s willingness to snap up Russian crude at discounts of up to 30% has undermined efforts from the US, Europe and the UK to deplete Vladimir Putin’s war coffers by curtailing imports. Russia raked in $20bn from oil exports in May, bouncing back to pre-invasion levels. Now, concerns are growing that India is being used as a potential back door into Europe for Russian oil supplies,given the surge in imports. Before the invasion of Ukraine, India’s imports of Russian oil were negligible due to high freight costs. But recently, imports of Russian oil to India have increased. Vadinar’s owner, Nayara, purchased Russian oil in March – just before international restrictions on its exports were introduced – after a gap of a year, buying about 1.8m barrels from Trafigura, Reuters reported.The volumes that India has been buying and exporting, however, suggest that some of the refined Russian crude may ultimately be used in Europe’s filling stations. It is not clear where the Russian crude brought into Vadinar on the SCF Primorye will be used. Vadinar’s owner’s declined to comment on the shipment or whether it was shipping Russian oil to Europe.In May, India imported about 800,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia in Mayand the rating agency Fitch predicts that imports could soon increase further to 1m barrels per day, or 20% of India’s total imports. India, China and the United Arab Emirates have picked up the slack as Russian crude oil imports into the EU fell by 18% in May.Putin told the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) business summit this week that “Russian oil supplies to China and India are growing noticeably”.India’s 1.4 billion-strong population gives it reason to seek cheap supplies. But it’s a dangerous political game. “India is walking a tightrope,” said Alan Gelder, the vice-president of refining, chemicals and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie. “If you take too much, you do not want the west to sanction the rest of your economy.”The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat received 27% of its oil from Russia in May, up from 5% in April. The centre said about 20% of exported cargoes from Jamnagar left for the Suez canal, indicating that they were heading to Europe or the US. Shipments were made to France, Italy and the UK. However, there is no evidence that these shipments included Russian oil.The UK has committed to phasing out Russian oil by the end of the year. Britain did not import any petrol before the war but diesel accounted for 18% of total demand. While trading Russian oil remains legal, the stigma attached to it means some international companies involved in fuel supplies may attempt to mask its origins. Some energy firms rushed to cut shipments from Russia but industry watchers said some drivers in the south-east of England were still likely to be filling up with diesel refined in Russia.State processors of oil are attempting to secure six-month supply contacts for Russian crude to India, Bloomberg reported this month. The trio of state refiners – Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum – declined to answer questions on whether they were importing Russian oil or exporting it to Europe.Industry sources said tracking shipments of Russian oil to Europe via India is proving very difficult. “You’ll find that several shipments of crude will arrive at a port from different countries and be blended together. Tracking a hydrocarbon is basically impossible.”There are several tactics shippers are using to hide the origin of Russian oil, sources said. Financially, paying in Chinese currency – rather than the industry standard dollar – is an option. Yuan-rouble trading volumes have surged 1,067% since February’s invasion of Ukraine. Transfers of oil cargoes from ship-to-ship have also spiked, suggesting oil is being switched from Russian flagged-vessels to other ships. Increasing numbers of vessels have been “going dark” by switching off their automative identification systems as thousands of gallons of the black stuff are transferred on the waves.A third, more niche option to hide Russian transactions is to cut out using a currency and trade oil directly for other products, such as gold, food or weapons. Iran has previously taken payment from trading partners in gold rather than dollars.“If a country or oil operator wants to hide the source of crude or oil products, it can very easily do so,”

Petroleum Products: India's petroleum products' export falls 1% in May after rising 22% in April - Export of petroleum products fell 1% in May over the year after rising 22% in April as demand soared in the domestic market, according to the oil ministry data. India exported 5.7 million metric tonnes (MMT) of petroleum products in May, 6% higher than in April but 1% lower than in May 2021. Imports increased 14% to 3.2 MMT in May over the year, compared to 3.8 MMT in April. Net export contracted 0.4 MMT during the month over the year. Indian refiners have been working overtime to meet the soaring fuel demand. The average run at Indian refineries has jumped to 110% in May from 93% a year. Declining net export of refined fuel suggests the domestic market, where demand soared 24% over the year in May, is gobbling most of the output. Diesel and petrol make up three-fourths of India’s petroleum products exports in volume terms while LPG comprises 40% of the imported fuels. In value terms, exports nearly doubled to $6.5 billion over the year in May while imports rose nearly two-thirds to $2.3 billion. Refiners processed 5.35 million barrels per day (mb/d) of crude in May, compared to 4.49 mb/d a year earlier. Refiners are enjoying near-record margins on petrol and diesel these days due to a combination of strong demand, lower global refinery capacity, and loss of Russian exports. Indian state-run refiners buy refined fuels from private refiners to meet the domestic demand they can’t meet on their own.

Mangaluru: Indian Coast Guard monitoring oil spill from cargo ship that sunk- Indian Coast Guard has continued to monitor the situation around the grounded merchant ship MV Princess Miral of New Mangalore for any probable leakage of oil from the ship. The ship had sunk two days ago. The State administration along with other stakeholders is also coordinating for shore line cleanup in case of any oil spill.Constant surveillance has been undertaken by Coast Guard aircraft and ships in the area around the vessel and onshore for pollution response since June 21. A fully equipped Pollution Control Vessel, ICGS Samudra Pavak from Porbandar, arrived on Saturday morning off New Mangalore and joined the Pollution Response operation at sea along with ICG ships and aircraft. As on date, 9 ships of Coast Guard and resource agencies, 3 Coast Guard aircraft are on task for assessment and monitoring the sea area of New Mangalore. These assets are continuing the necessary preventive measures. Netravati river is in close proximity of the vessel which is grounded close to shore. Therefore as a precautionary measure, the river mouth has been barricaded from the seawards side using inflatable booms so as to prevent containment of the river in case of any leakage of oil from the ship. Coast Guard Pollution Response team and experts are continuously analysing the situation and also assisting State Administration and New Mangalore Port Authorities by conducting Pollution Response and shore line cleanup training sessions and mock drills.

Fuel yet to be removed from ship - While the Coast Guard continues to keep an eye for oil spill, if any, from the sunken merchant vessel Princess Miral near Batpady, the district administration continued its mock drill to prevent the spread of oil spill along the coast for the second day on Sunday. There was no headway in defuelling the ship. The Coast Guard has positioned its fully-equipped Pollution Control Vessel, ICGS Samudra Pavak, which sailed out from Porbandar, for pollution response operation at sea. Nine ships of the Coast Guard and resource agencies and three Coast Guard aircraft are also being used for assessment and monitoring the area of the incident. As the sunken vessel is close to the shore in Batpady, the Coast Guard has barricaded the Netravathi river mouth from the seaward side using inflatable booms to prevent the spread of oil spill, if any. On the ground, the district administration continued its mock shore clean-up drill on Sunday on Ullal Beach. Apart from personnel from the State Disaster Response Force and National Disaster Response Force, Firemen, Home Guards, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and personnel from MRPL, ONGC and other strategic firms were involved in the mock drill. Local fishermen too were involved in the exercise. The mock drill was conducted by trained staff of Coast Guard.

Kolkata port continues to bear loss as Bangladeshi ship blocks berth at NSD - It’s been over three months now since a Bangladeshi container ship capsized inside the Netaji Subhas Docks (NSD) in Kolkata but the possibility to salvage it and clear the berth in the near future looks bleak. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (SMP), Kolkata, has already lost several crores over the last 90-odd-days as it is unable to use the berth. “The owners of the vessel have abandoned it. It’s a legal issue now. We have got in touch with the insurers of the ship and other agencies to resolve the issue. We can’t go ahead and salvage the ship. After all, she is not our property. Under the circumstances, only the insurers can engage salvage agencies to recover the vessel and pay us demurrage charges. Such a situation is unprecedented in the long history of the port,” an SMP, Kolkata spokesperson said. Around 9 a.m. on March 24, MV Marintrust 01 loaded 165 containers at Berth 5 NSD. The gross weight was 3,089 tonnes. The ship was to sail for Chittagong on March 25. Around 10.40 a.m., the ship keeled to Port (left side) and capsized. The incident took barely 15 minutes. Most containers remained on the vessel while a few sank and others had to be tethered with ropes to keep them from floating away. SMP, Kolkata also adopted measures to contain an oil spill if any. “The port is not involved with the incident in any way. We are just the facilitator. The cargo was loaded by an agency under the guidance of the ship’s master and other crew. If the placement of the containers was wrong, the master and the agency involved will have to share blame. However, a thorough inquiry will only be possible once the vessel is salvaged. All 15 crew members are still in Kolkata and their statements will be important once the ship is salvaged,” a port official said. Bangladesh has been trying its best to get the crew back home but Indian authorities are firm. “That may have been possible had the owners not abandoned the ship. Now, the crew is the only link. SMP, Kolkata that is suffering a loss of revenue daily due to blockage of the berth can’t be expected to spend several crores to salvage the wreck without being compensated,” an Indian official said.

Pakistan’s fuel oil imports hit 4-yr high as it struggles to buy LNG -- Pakistan’s monthly fuel oil imports are set to hit a four-year high in June, Refinitiv data showed, as the country struggles to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) for power generation amid a heatwave that is driving demand. The resurgence in residue fuel demand at power plants underscores the energy crisis faced by the South Asian country and slows its efforts to switch to cleaner fuel. Pakistan had cut fuel oil imports since the second half of 2018 as LNG prices were low, but it had to at times switch back to oil since July 2021 because of sky-high LNG prices. The country’s fuel oil imports could climb to about 700,000 tonnes this month, after hitting 630,000 tonnes in May, according to Refinitiv estimates. Imports last peaked at 680,000 tonnes in May 2018 and 741,000 tonnes in June 2017. A spokesman for Pakistan’s energy ministry cited global prices as the reason for the surge in fuel oil imports. The trend is set to continue in July too, as Pakistan State Oil (PSO) received offers from Coral Energy to supply two high sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) cargoes and one low sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) cargo for second-half July delivery, industry sources said. PSO had sought five cargoes in the tender, according to its website. “Import data indicates that thermal power generating companies in Pakistan made the initial switch from gas to fuel oil late last year and the price dynamic provides an ongoing incentive to max out fuel oil purchases over LNG,” said Timothy France, a MENA senior oil analyst at Refinitiv. Asia LNG spot prices jumped last week, tracking European gas prices, as an extended shutdown at a U.S. export plant prompted buying by Japan and South Korea. Pakistan LNG, in its second attempt to buy four LNG cargoes for July delivery, received only a single supply bid for one cargo from QatarEnergy on Thursday. Pakistan LNG, however, did not pick up the supply bid due to the cost. The country, which is facing a severe energy crisis, has been in a conservation mode to reduce consumption and stave off blackouts.

Bankrupt Sri Lanka runs out of fuel - Sri Lanka has virtually run out of petrol and diesel after several expected shipments were delayed indefinitely, the energy minister said Saturday while apologising to motorists for the worsening fuel crisis. Kanchana Wijesekera said oil cargoes that were due last week did not turn up while those scheduled to arrive next week will also not reach Sri Lanka due to "banking" reasons. Sri Lanka is facing a serious shortage of foreign exchange to finance even the most essential imports, including food, fuel and medicines and is appealing for international handouts. Wijesekera said the state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation was unable to say when fresh oil supplies will be on the island. The CPC had also shut its only refinery over a shortage of crude oil, he added. The refinery started operation earlier this month using 90,000 tonnes of Russian crude oil bought through Dubai-based Coral Energy on two-month credit terms. Wijesekera said he regretted that deliveries of "petrol, diesel and crude oil shipments due earlier this week and next week" would not be fulfilled "on time for banking and logistical reasons". Scarce supplies left in the country will be distributed through a handful of pumping stations, he said. Public transport and power generation will be given priority, Wijesekera added, urging motorists not to queue up for fuel. "I apologise for the delay and inconvenience," the minister said as hundreds of thousands of motorists spent long hours waiting for petrol and diesel across the impoverished nation. Last week, the government shut non-essential state institutions along with schools for two weeks to reduce commuting because of the energy crisis. Several hospitals across the country reported a sharp drop in the attendance of medical staff due to the fuel shortage. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe warned parliament on Wednesday that the South Asian nation of 22 million people will continue to face hardships for a few more months and urged people to use fuel sparingly. "Our economy has faced a complete collapse," Wickremesinghe said. "We are now facing a far more serious situation beyond the mere shortages of fuel, gas, electricity and food." Unable to repay its $51 billion foreign debt, the government declared it was defaulting in April and is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund for a possible bailout.

Sri Lanka to send ministers to Russia seeking discounted oil -- Cash-strapped Sri Lanka has announced it will send ministers to Russia and Qatar to try and secure cheap oil a day after the government said it had all but run out of fuel. Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera said two ministers will travel to Russia on Monday to discuss getting more oil following last month’s purchase of 90,000 tonnes of Siberian crude. That shipment was arranged through Coral Energy, a Dubai-based intermediary, but politicians have been urging the authorities to negotiate directly with President Vladimir Putin’s government. “Two ministers are going to Russia and I will go to Qatar tomorrow to see if we can arrange concessionary terms,” Wijesekera told reporters in Colombo on Sunday. Wijesekera had announced on Saturday that Sri Lanka was virtually out of petrol and diesel after several scheduled shipments were delayed indefinitely due to “banking” reasons. Fuel reserves were sufficient to meet less than two days’ demand and it was being reserved for essential services, Wijesekera said, apologising for the situation. The state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation on Sunday hiked the price for diesel by 15 percent to 460 rupees ($1.27) a litre and petrol by 22 percent to 550 rupees ($1.52). Since the beginning of the year, diesel prices have gone up nearly fourfold and petrol prices have almost tripled. Wijesekera said there would be an indefinite delay in getting new shipments of oil, and urged motorists not to queue up until he introduces a token system to a limited number of vehicles daily. People, already waiting in kilometres-long, snaking queues outside pumps, are unlikely to get fuel as the government will focus on issuing the remaining stocks for public transport, power generation and medical services, Wijesekera said. The military, which has already been deployed at fuel stations to quell unrest, will now issue tokens to those waiting, sometimes for days, he said, adding that ports and airports will be given fuel rations. Meanwhile, the government extended a two-week closure of non-essential state institutions until further notice to save fuel, maintaining only a skeleton staff to provide minimum services.

Fuel to be supplied only for essential services until July 10 - Fuel volumes will be dispensed only to vehicles attached to essential services with effect from midnight today (June 27) until the 10th of July, Minister Bandula Gunawardena says. He revealed this addressing a special media briefing held today to announce the decisions taken at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers. Accordingly, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) will supply diesel and petrol only to essential services such as ports, health sector, distribution of essential food items, and transportation of agricultural products hereafter, the cabinet spokesperson noted. The Cabinet of Ministers decided to continue essential services and suspend other operations until the 10th of July, the minister said further. He went on to assure that a mechanism to provide a continuous supply of LP gas and fuel would be in place after the 10th of July. Inter-provincial transport services will be temporarily halted due to the availability of limited stocks of fuel, Minister Gunawardena added. Meanwhile, school principals and provincial education authorities are given permission to decide on how lessons are delivered to the students amidst this crisis situation.

Oil imports surge in first five months - As crude oil prices rise sharply this year due to the war in Ukraine, the value of Taiwan’s oil imports surged by 75.6 percent to US$11.9 billion in the first five months of this year compared with the same period last year, the Ministry of Finance said in a report on Thursday. The import value is expected to reach from US$28 billion to NT$31 billion by the end of the year, the highest in eight years, the ministry said. Taiwan is almost entirely dependent on imports for its oil supply, the ministry said, adding that the import volume was stable from 2012 to 2019, at above 300 million barrels a year, while the import value fluctuated with changes in international oil prices. Taiwan last year imported 282.88 million barrels of oil, up 6.6 percent from a year earlier, while the import value rose 59 percent to US$19.9 billion, as the reopening of major economies boosted crude oil prices, the ministry said. That was in contrast to 2020, when the nation imported 265.26 million barrels of oil, down 18 percent from a year earlier, while the import value plunged 41.5 percent to US$12.5 billion, the lowest in 18 years, after responses to the spread of COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the global economy and severely dented oil demand and prices, the ministry said. Oil imports this year have extended momentum from last year, as the war in Ukraine drove oil prices to more than US$100 per barrel, it said. The nation imported 121.86 million barrels of oil in the first five months, up 10.9 percent from a year earlier, at average prices of US$97.80 per barrel, the ministry said. Most of the nation’s oil imports came from the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia accounting for 34.5 percent and Kuwait contributing 20.1 percent in the first five months, while those from the US comprised 21.1 percent of the total during the first five months thanks to an increase in shale oil imports, it said. Taiwan’s exports of refined petroleum products also have a high correlation with oil prices, the ministry said. In 2013, exports of such products reached US$22.9 billion, but dropped in subsequent years, with the value falling to US$5.7 billion in 2020, the lowest in 17 years, it said. Exports of refined products last year increased 68.8 percent from a year earlier to US$9.7 billion, and increased 100.5 percent to US$6.5 billion in the first five months of this year, of which diesel exports accounted for 55 percent of the total and gasoline products comprised 20 percent, the ministry said.

Oil production increase leads Venezuela’s economy to see most growth in 15 years - Venezuela’s economy is forecast to expand at its fastest pace in 15 years, marking a rebound for a country that recently emerged from the deepest recession in Latin America. Gross domestic product is expected to grow 8.3% this year, from 1.9% in 2021, according to a Bloomberg survey of five economists. The country is getting a lift from a rise in oil production and seeing tax revenue and banking credit expand, which suggests domestic demand is rising. Economists had forecast growth of 5.2% as of December. The central bank hasn’t published official GDP data since 2019. To be sure, the economy is a sliver of what it once was. A seven-year recession that ended in 2021 and was marked by bouts of hyperinflation and a migration crisis has left the country hollowed out. Over the past decade, gross domestic product shrunk to around $49 billion from $352 billion in 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund. “The headline could be: the country that has always done poorly is now growing. But when we look at recent history, we see that it’s nothing compared to the levels of recession we’ve had,” said Angel Alvarado, senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of the Venezuelan Finance Observatory during a presentation in which he released a forecast of 11.5% growth this year. Alvarado said the country would need to post double-digit growth for a decade for it to return to the size it was in 2012.

Will Colombia’s New President Upend Its Oil Industry? --Leftist candidate Senator Gustavo Petro emerged victorious from Colombia’s June presidential run-off as the strife-torn country’s president elect. On 7 August 2022 Petro will be sworn into office becoming the 34th president of the Republic of Colombia. This has roiled Colombian financial markets and the Andean country’s currency the peso. Since Petro beat multimillionaire businessman Rodolfo Hernandez the Colombian peso has tumbled by almost 6% while the domestic stock market has shed 6.1%. The president-elect’s proposed policies of reforming the economy, boosting taxation, and ending extractivist industries, including ending contracting for petroleum exploration have unnerved financial markets and investors. Petro has also made it clear (Spanish) that hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, and the exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbon deposits will not be permitted in Colombia. Colombia’s highest administrative tribunal, the State Council, has already placed a moratorium on fracking, although pilot projects are allowed. That, along with Petro’s intention to end the development of offshore hydrocarbon deposits spells the end of Colombia’s oil industry, which even before his victory was facing an extremely uncertain future. Petro’s policies have sparked a frenzied debate in Colombia about the future of the Andean country’s oil industry which is a key driver of the economy. For the first four months of 2022 petroleum exports (Spanish) generated $6.6 billion, making crude oil responsible for 36% of all export earnings for that period. Total petroleum and derivative products exported represent around 70% of Colombia’s petroleum production. During 2019 Colombia’s oil industry was responsible for(Spanish) 3.4% of the Andean country’s gross domestic product, while for the last four quarters from the second quarter of 2021 that fell to 2.7% despite the latest oil price rally. According to Colombia’s peak hydrocarbon industry body, the Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP -Spanish initials) crude oil is responsible for nearly a fifth of the central government’s fiscal income. Those numbers emphasize how critical the oil industry is to Colombia’s economy and for ensuring the crisis-driven country’s energy security. For these reasons, Petro’s plans to end contracting for oil exploration have triggered considerable conjecture that it will significantly impact government revenues, preventing the president-elect from implementing his economic reforms. It is estimated that the president-elect’s plans will be impacted by a massive budget black hole which will worsen if Petro ends extractivist industries in Colombia. Petro’s plans essentially mean Colombia’s petroleum industry will gradually wind down as proven reserves are depleted. At the end of 2021, it was calculated that Latin America’s third largest oil producer only had meager proven reserves of 2 billion barrels, which at the current rate of production will only last for a further seven years. That production life falls to less than six years if Colombia’s oil output returns to one million barrels per day, which was last witnessed in 2015. While Colombia’s 23 basins are under-explored for the presence of hydrocarbons there has been a notable absence of significant oil discoveries over the last two decades. That points to the Andean country not possessing the substantial oil potential required to sustain production of 700,000 barrels per day or more, nor the long-term operation of its petroleum industry. For these reasons, the future of Colombia’s oil industry, even without Petro’s policy to end contracting for hydrocarbon exploration, is questionable.

Rubis fined $225k for 2019 terminal oil spill - Cayman News Service -Almost three years after 3,700 gallons of oil leaked at Rubis’ Jackson Point Terminal due to a rusty tank, the Utility Regulation and Competition Office (OfReg) has fined the supplier $225,000 following a successful prosecution. The discovery of the leak was not reported to the public for six months, and the report on the independent investigation into the cause was only made public after CNS acquired a copy. But OfReg said it had “acted quickly” and established the cause, and despite the large quantity of diesel leaked, the regulator also said it had found no significant impact on the environment.The investigation found sufficient grounds to file charges against Rubis earlier this year. Following initial legal proceedings brought before the courts, Rubis has now agreed to settle the matter and accept an administrative fine, including investigative and related costs.“As the regulator for the fuel sector, OfReg has a legal duty to ensure all operators operate and maintain critical national infrastructure to the highest standard in order to deliver the required benefits to consumers and the jurisdiction,” OfReg CEO Peter Gough said. “This particular incident, thankfully, has not had a significant impact on our environment, but as our investigation has determined, had the operator adhered to the codes, standards and their own operational procedures, the leak could have been prevented.”According to the report, Rubis was aware of the problem with the tank for six years before it began to leak. The tank suffered a “bottom plate failure resulting from severe rust and degradation due to corrosion”, which was preventable, according to the independent investigation.Gough said the decision to prosecute and the size of the fine reflected the seriousness of the offence and the regulator’s commitment to holding licensed operators accountable for their actions. “The matter is now closed, and we are clear in our mandate to ensure that this should not happen again and that there will be severe consequences for those that fail to meet the requirements and terms of their permits and licences,” he added. The fine is in line with the one issued to Sol Petroleum Limited — CI$

Another oil spill occurs in Niger Delta - The National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) has confirmed an oil wellhead leak at Oil Mining Lease (OML) 18, operated by an indigenous operator, Eroton Exploration and Production Limited. OML 18, which produces and exports crude through the 97 kilometres Nembe Creek Trunkline (NCTL), is located near the corridors of the export line in Rivers. Residents said the facility had been discharging oil and gas into the coastal environment for the past one week. The Director-General of NOSDRA, Idris Musa, confirmed the oil and gas leak to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday. Mr Musa said NOSDRA had received the report on the incident and efforts were being made to plug the leaking oil well. “The company reported and oil recovery is underway. Efforts are on to stop the source which is a wellhead,” Mr Musa said. Also, a notification report by the Corporate Communications Lead of Eroton, Odianosen Massade, indicated that the incident occurred on June 15, while a site assessment visit was carried out on June 23. The oil firm said that preliminary findings indicated that the incident was due to suspected vandalism. “This is to bring to your attention the loss of control of Cawthorne Channel well 15 resulting to oil spill,” the company said. CAWC015L/S is a dual string well which started production in May 1977. The short string was shut-in in 1988 due to the high gas oil ratio (HGOR), while the long string watered out and well quit in 1991. “The spill started on the 15th of June 2022 and immediately an emergency response procedure was activated. “The operations team quickly visited the site for preliminary investigation and discovered that the wellhead was vandalised. “It was also observed that the wellhead platform was removed, and this will compound the difficulties in gaining access to the wellhead. “Our team of Well Engineers are working with contractors and evaluating the safest procedure that will be required to bring the well under control.

NOSDRA confirms crude oil spill at Eroto’s OML 18 in Bayelsa — The National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), yesterday, confirmed an oil wellhead leak at Oil Mining Lease (OML) 18, operated by an indigenous operator, Eroton Exploration and Production Limited, along the 97-km Nembe Creek Trunkline (NCTL) located near the corridors of the export line, in Rivers State. Residents said that the oil facility has been discharging oil and gas into the coastal environment for the past one week. The Director-General of NOSDRA, Mr. Idris Musa, who confirmed the leakage, said that efforts were on to contain the menace, adding that “the company reported that an oil recovery was underway. Efforts are on to stop the source which is a wellhead.” Also, a notification report by Mr. Odianosen Masade, Corporate Communications Lead at Eroton, indicated that the incident occurred on June 15, while a site assessment visit was carried out on June 23. The oil firm said that preliminary findings indicate that the incident was due to vandalism. “This is to bring to your attention the loss of control of Cawthorne Channel Well 15 resulting in an oil spill. CAWC015L/S is a dual string well, which started production in May 1977. The short string was shut-in in 1988 due to the high gas-oil ratio (HGOR), while the long string watered out and well quit in 1991. “The spill started on June 15, 2022, and immediately an emergency response procedure was activated. “Our team of good engineers is working with contractors and evaluating the safest procedure that will be required to bring the well under control. A similar incident reported on Nov 5, 2021, at nearby OML 29 operated by Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production, discharged more than 8, 000 barrels of crude oil for some 32 days before the leak was plugged.

Reps probe oil spills, abandoned wells in Niger Delta - House of Representatives had mandated its Committees on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) and Environment to investigate the actual cause of the oil leaks at OML 18, OML 29 and OML 63 and abandoned wells in Niger Delta.The Committees were also saddled with the responsibility of determining the magnitude, scope, and effect of the leaks on affected host communities, examine the scope and liability for required relief and compensation, inquire the nature and details of the JV agreement between Aiteo and NNPC to determine veracity of ownership of percentage stake and financial obligations and as well confirm the claim by Aiteo of engagement of a foreign company to stop the leak, the cost of doing so and the financial claim made by Aiteo to NAPIMS in this regard. The mandate was sequel to the consideration of a motion of under matters or urgent public importance moved at Wednesday plenary by Hon. Ibrahim Isiaka.Isiaka in his motion said he was jolted by the confirmation by the National Oil Spill Detection Agency (NOSDRA) on Saturday 25 June 2022 of a weeklong spill.He said: “The oil leak is from Cawthorne Channel Well 15; an idle and isolated well on Oil Mining Lease (OML) 18. A large oil bloc located towards the south of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, operated by Eroton Exploration and Production Limited which has 45% stake in a Joint Venture (JV) agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited atter Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) divested her interest in the bloc, in 2015. Informed that the Corporate Communications Lead of Eroton reported an oil leak. which eventually resulted to a blowout of crude oil and gas into the environment on 15th June, 2022. Whereas, NOSDRA’s only reported the incident on 23rd June 2022 (10 days thereafter).

Well run by Nigeria's Eroton spills oil and gas for over a week – A well at a site operated by local Nigerian firm Eroton Exploration and Production Limited has been spilling oil and gas into the Niger Delta for more than a week, the company and an agency responsible for detecting oil spills said.Eroton produces and exports crude from its Oil Mining Lease 18 block through the Nembe Creek Trunkline.Last year, a nearby well run by Aiteo Eastern E&P spilled oil for more than a month, polluting the Delta creeks before it was successfully shut.Idris Musa, head of the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency said on Sunday Eroton had reported the spill to authorities, blaming it on a leak from a wellhead.Eroton said in an undated statement seen by Reuters on Sunday that the incident started on June 15 and preliminary findings showed vandalism was the cause.The wellhead platform had been removed, making it difficult to gain access to the well, it added.“Our team of well engineers are working with contractors and evaluating the safest procedure that will be required to bring the well under control,” the company said.It was not immediately clear how much oil is produced from the well, which is part of assets that Eroton bought in 2015 from oil major Shell, which is selling its onshore assets to concentrate on deepwater drilling.Oil spills, sometimes due to vandalism or corrosion, are common in the Niger Delta, a vast maze of creeks and mangrove swamps criss-crossed by pipelines and blighted by poverty, pollution, oil-fuelled corruption and violence.

Shell suspends multibillion-dollar assets sale in Nigeria -- Shell Group says it has suspended the divestment of its interest in its Nigeria subsidiary-Shell Petroleum Development CompanyThe IOC in a statement signed by its Managing Director of SPDC and Chairman, Osagie Okunbor, on Thursday, said the sale of the assets had been put on hold pending the outcome of its appeal at the Supreme Court.“The Shell Group has confirmed separately that it will not progress the divestment of its interest in SPDC until the outcome of SPDC’s appeal”, the statement partly said.The SPDC had faced multiple court cases in the past over oil spills.

Cilacap: Pertamina investigates oil spill in Donan River - ANTARA News- State oil company PT Kilang Pertamina Internasional’s (KPI's) Refinery Unit (RU) IV Cilacap is investigating a crude oil spill in Donan River, Cilacap district, Central Java, which was detected on Monday.While issuing a press statement in Cilacap on Tuesday, communication relations and CSR area manager of PT KPI RU IV Cilacap, Cecep Supriyatna, said that based on observations, the spill involved crude oil and the estimated volume was 1,900 liters."As for the cause, it is still under investigation," he added.Before the spill was detected, oil was loaded from a pipeline to a tanker in Area 70 of Pertamina Cilacap, he informed."Staff in Area 70 are looking for the source of the oil spill," he said.The PT KPI RU IV Cilacap team will try to localize the oil spill by using an oil boom if weather conditions are favorable, he added.Once localized, the spilled oil would be sucked and separated from water by an oil skimmer before being put back into the tank. "Since last night, we have been cleaning as much as possible because it is the wind and wave conditions, so it is not optimal," Supriyatna said.Based on drone monitoring, the area affected by the oil spill is not very wide, he added. "Only around Batre Pier or Wijayapura," he informed.The refinery will compensate residents participating in efforts to clean up and collect the spilled oil."At the moment, we are still focusing on handling efforts. We will also coordinate with the Environment Office regarding the next steps," he said.

Sonatrach Makes Massive Gas Find In Sahara Desert -Algeria's state-owned oil and gas company Sonatrach has made a massive new gas discovery that could hold as much as 12 trillion cubic feet of reserves. Sonatrach said in a statement that the discovery was located in the Sahara Desert and that it is the country's biggest discovery in the last 20 years. The discovery, which the company hopes to bring on stream this year, will massively increase Algeria’s ability for the country to boost gas production. To remind, Eni has already signed a deal with Sonatrach for an increased supply of gas to Italy. Along with Italy, the European Union will also be looking to find alternatives for supplies of Russian gas. The Algerian company has not provided any data if this latest find was made with a new exploration well or was it made during an ongoing appraisal and development campaign into new plays in and around the massive and producing Hassi R'Mel field, some 340 miles south of Algiers. Sonatrach added that the new resource lies close to the Hassi R'Mel field and its infrastructure, so the company can fast-track the discovery to first production in November this year. It is worth noting that production rates are forecast to be around 350 million cubic feet per day. According to a preliminary assessment, Sonatrach said the resource potential of the discovery ranges between 3.5 Tcf and 12 Tcf, plus condensate. The company believes that the new resource ‘has highlighted the significant hydrocarbon potential’ of the LD2 reservoir which is part of the Lias Carbonate play in the greater Hassi R'Mel area. Sonatrach claimed that the discovered volumes were one of the largest reserve evaluations in the last 20 years and that a campaign was underway to confirm estimated volumes and achieve fast-track production.

China’s Deep Sea No. 1 gas field reaches 2 bcm milestone - Deep Sea No. 1, China’s independently developed, ultra-deepwater gas field, has produced more than 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas by Saturday since it was put into operation one year ago, its operator China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) said on Saturday, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The gas field, which is located 150 kilometers from Sanya, South China's Hainan Province, was put into use on June 25, 2021. It is China’s deepest marine gas field and the most difficult one to exploit with a maximum operational water depth of 1,500 meters and proven geological reserves of natural gas exceeding 100 billion cubic meters. The field’s full-year gas production is expected to reach 3 billion cubic meters in 2022, according to CNOOC. As an important source of clean energy for the Hainan Free Trade Port and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the gas field is of great strategic significance in guaranteeing national energy security. CNOOC has set up a team for the Deep Sea No. 2 project using technicians previously based in the Deep Sea No. 1 gas field as the backbone to accelerate the construction of the new project, which is set to be China's first deep-water gas field for high temperature and high pressure environment, CNOOC said. The new project will be fully integrated into the existing gas supply system, expanding the scale of deepwater gas production and increasing China’s energy self-sufficiency rate.

First-Ever 8th Gen Drilling Juggernaut Delivered To Transocean - The first-ever newbuild 8th generation drillship, the Deepwater Atlas, has been delivered in Singapore to U.S. offshore driller Transocean. Based on Sembcorp Marine’s proprietary Jurong Espadon 3T design, Deepwater Atlas is the first of two ultra-deepwater drillships built for Transocean, the other is Deepwater Titan. Both units are of the highest specifications and the only pair in the world to feature net 3-million-pound hook-load hoisting capacity and well control systems with the ability to accommodate a 20,000-psi drilling and completion operations. Currently, the drillship has a 15,000-psi blowout preventer. “The successful construction and delivery of Deepwater Atlas is a testament to Sembcorp Marine’s continuous progress up the value chain and its proven capabilities and track record in providing leading-edge advanced drilling rig solutions,” Sembcorp Marine said in a statement on social media. The drillship is capable of operating at 12,000 feet water depth and drilling to depths of 40,000 feet. It also operates with a lower level of emissions as it uses hybrid power with an energy storage system. With the capacity to accommodate a crew of 220, the drillship is designed and equipped to optimize fuel consumption and lower emissions to support the industry’s commitment to a reduction in the carbon footprint.

Shelf Drilling Buying Five Noble Rigs For $375 Million - UAE-based offshore drilling contractor Shelf Drilling has signed a deal to acquire five jack-up rigs from Noble Corporation which could be the solution to UK competition regulator concerns over Noble’s merger with Maersk Drilling. Noble Corporation entered into an asset purchase agreement to sell five jack-up rigs for $375 million to a newly formed subsidiary of Shelf Drilling whose obligations under the asset purchase agreement will be guaranteed by Shelf Drilling. The sale, subject to approval of the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), is intended to address the potential concerns identified by the CMA in the Phase I review of the proposed business combination between Noble and Maersk Drilling. The proposed merger between Noble and Maersk Drilling was announced in November 2021. The UK’s CMA launched its merger inquiry in February 2022. Before the CMA’s decision, Noble and Maersk announced that they would have to sell certain North Sea rigs to get the UK regulator’s clearance. Following the announcement, the CMA claimed that it might accept a remedy proposal. This so-called ‘remedy rig sale agreement’ includes the rigs Noble Hans Deul, Noble Sam Hartley, Noble Sam Turner, Noble Houston Colbert, and Noble Lloyd Noble and all related support and infrastructure. Associated offshore and onshore staff are expected to transfer with the rigs. Following the sale, Noble expects to continue to perform the current drilling program for the Noble Lloyd Noble under a bareboat charter arrangement with Shelf Drilling until the second quarter of 2023 when the primary term of its current drilling contract is expected to end.

Iran’s day-to-day gas output capacity surpasses 1,000 mcm The amount of Iran’s day-to-day natural gas output surpassed 1,000 million cubic meters (mcm) in the last Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20), a statement issued by the Oil Ministry’s Planning Directorate displayed. As stated by the ministry, the nation's natural gas output volume recorded the stated peak for the initial time in the prior year when gas output from the South Pars gas field rose by over 4 percent in comparison to the year before (1399). As Shana mentioned in reports, the expansion of the South Pars field, which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, has been finished apart for phase 11 whose progress is proceeding. As shown in the report, the physical development of the South Pars Phase 11 development venture at the end of 1400 was over 34 percent.

Libya Says It May Suspend Oil Exports from Key Terminals - Libya’s state oil company said it may suspend exports from the Gulf of Sirte, which contains many of the OPEC member’s main ports, in the next three days amid a worsening political crisis. The National Oil Corp. said it could declare force majeure, a clause in contracts allowing shipments to be halted, within 72 hours, according to a statement on Monday. The Gulf of Sirte includes the exports terminals of Es Sider, Ras Lanuf, Brega and Zueitina. Libya’s crude production has roughly halved since mid-April to 600,000 barrels a day, according to Bloomberg estimates. That has further tightened a global oil market in which prices have surged 45% this year to around $110 a barrel, mostly due to the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The NOC’s move comes as Libya grapples with protests that are forcing many oil fields and ports to shut down. No individual or minister should be allowed to use the oil sector as a bargaining chip, NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said. “The situation is quite dangerous,” he said. “There are closures in the Sirte region and there are people who try to demonize the oil sector.” The nation has been mired in conflict since the fall of dictator Moammar Al Qaddafi in 2011. It’s now facing a standoff between two politicians -- Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and Fathi Bashagha -- who each claim to be the legitimate prime minister. There’s also a power struggle between Sanalla and the oil ministry, headed by Mohamed Oun. Their relationship between has deteriorated since Oun’s appointment last year, with the minister on several occasions trying to dismiss Sanalla. Recently, Oun has complained that the NOC is not sending production figures to the ministry.

OPEC+ running out of oil production capacity, Nigeria says — The OPEC+ alliance of oil producers is running out of capacity to pump more crude, including its biggest member Saudi Arabia, according to Nigeria’s petroleum minister. “Some people believe the prices to be a little bit on the high side and expect us to pump a little bit more but at this moment there is really little additional capacity,” said Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva in a briefing with reporters Friday. “Even Saudi Arabia, Russia, of course Russia, is out of the market now more or less.” The extended group will meet next week Thursday to decide whether to proceed with a planned August oil production increase. Over the last year the cartel has been boosting output in a series of planned increases. “At this moment I think the prices are firming up and I don’t think there will be any surprises in OPEC in August,” Sylva said. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer, has struggled with declining production for years, with international majors selling onshore and shallow-water fields to Nigerian independent producers for more than a decade. The country pumped 1.49 million barrels a day in May, according to a Bloomberg survey, with a quota allowance to produce 1.77 million barrels a day in June and 1.80 million in July. Struggling even to meet the quota has been “very sad for us” and operators have planned to fill the gap within a couple of months, Sylva said. “By end of August generally the commitment is that we’re at least going to produce our OPEC quota and then of course look at going even beyond that after August,” he said.

France’s Macron tells Biden that UAE, Saudi pumping near oil limits — French President Emmanuel Macron said that the United Arab Emirates’ ruler confided to him that OPEC’s two leading oil exporters are already pumping almost as much oil as they can. The UAE is “at maximum” output and neighboring Saudi Arabia can promptly add only about 150,000 barrels a day, Macron said, relaying a conversation with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed to President Joe Biden. The remarks were caught by Reuters TV at the Group of Seven meeting in Bavaria, Germany. UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei promptly sought to clarify the comments, saying that Abu Dhabi is producing close to the ceiling permitted by its agreement with OPEC+. That deal expires in the next few months. The figures cited by Macron -- which contradict official data from the two Persian Gulf energy giants -- would suggest that the buffer of spare production capacity in global oil markets is nearly exhausted, complicating efforts to squeeze out Russian supply in protest over the Ukraine invasion. Macron said that MBZ, as the UAE leader is known, “told me two things.” “One, I am at maximum” oil output levels, amounting to the UAE’s “complete commitment” in this area, Macron said. “Second, he told me the Saudis can increase a little bit,” about 150,000 barrels a day or “a little more,” he added. “They don’t have huge capacities” that can be activated in less than six months, he said. Al Mazrouei said on Twitter that the UAE is “producing near to our maximum production capacity based on its current OPEC+ baseline” of 3.168 million barrels a day. The baseline -- stipulated in a deal between the OPEC cartel and its allies -- remains in effect until the end of the year, he said.

 UN coordinator urges public to help stave off ‘5th largest oil spill from a tanker in history’ - Only days before emergency operations are scheduled to take place to head off a decaying oil tanker threat, a UN Humanitarian Coordinator has urged the public to help with funding to prevent a catastrophic oil spill in the Red Sea, as the work to transfer the oil to a safe vessel is already delayed because of insufficient funding.The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, David Gressly, in a post on Twitter from Sunday, 26 June 2022, called on the public to help “cross the finish line” to get the required funds in place for the first part of the operation to take place.Back in September 2021, the United Nations’ senior management instructed Gressly to coordinate all efforts to mitigate the threat posed by an aging supertanker in an advanced state of decay, known as the FSO Safer, and strengthen contingency plans in the event of a catastrophic oil leak. Following several months of discussions with all relevant stakeholders, an UN-coordinated operational plan was presented to address the threat. The UN informed that the Government of Yemen in Aden supports this initiative along with the Sana’a-based authorities, who control the area where the vessel is located. To this end, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed with the Houthi stronghold Sana’a on 5 March, establishing a framework for cooperation in which the Sana’a authorities have committed to facilitating the success of the project.The plan to address the threat posed by the FSO Safer comprises two critical tracks. This refers to the installation of a long-term replacement vessel or another capacity equivalent to the FSO within a target of 18 months. Since the situation is perceived to be too dangerous to wait for the replacement vessel, a four-month emergency operation by a global maritime salvage company is required to eliminate the immediate threat by transferring the oil from the FSO Safer to a secure temporary vessel.However, as the implementation of this plan cannot start without donor funding, the goal is to raise funds to start the $80 million emergency operation to transfer oil from the FSO Safer to prevent an oil spill that could spell disaster for the region and beyond.

Oil Prices Buck Recession Trend -As investors are increasingly concerned about recessionary risks, Brent oil prices have bucked this trend, reflecting significant supply destruction in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, BofA Global Research outlined in a new report sent to Rigzone recently. In the report, BofA Global Research acknowledged one of the “key lessons” from this century’s three recessions has been an average 66 percent drop in oil prices and noted that applying such a drop to today’s Brent oil price “would leave us with little more than $35 per barrel at the trough of any upcoming recession”. BofA Global Research stated in the report, however, that, in “stark contrast” to conditions ahead of previous recessions this century, “we believe the energy sector today offers significant cushions mitigating the impact of any recessionary demand destruction on the sector’s financial health”. “Sector cash flows are higher today than in previous cycles - partly due to simultaneous supply destruction in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushing gas prices as well as refining margins to record levels,” BofA Global Research said in the report. “Using $105 per barrel Brent, we still see average 21/44 percent upside to 2022 consensus for Big Oil earnings and free cash flow - indicating this still ‘hidden’ earnings upside,” BofA Global Research added in the report. In a separate report sent to Rigzone on June 14, BofA Global Research highlighted that a record net 73 percent of participants in its European fund manager survey expected slower global growth, while a net 54 percent expected a European recession over the next year. At the time of writing, the price of Brent crude oil is trading at $117.04 per barrel. Brent started the year trading around the $80 per barrel mark, before closing at $127.98 per barrel on March 8. The commodity went on to close above $120 per barrel on several more occasions this year.

Esoteric Oil Gauge Spikes to Unprecedented Level -The oil market is so strong some gauges are at previously unthinkable levels. Nowhere in the world is that as stark as in a flagship futures contract in the United Arab Emirates, currently the third-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Murban crude oil futures for August are trading at about $8.90 a barrel higher than for the following month. The same spread closed at a record $9.52 on June 24. The jump is so eye-watering that the equivalent marker for global benchmark Brent has never traded at that level. With oil refining margins at incredibly high levels globally, traders are willing to pay significantly more for get-it-now crudes. Shipments of Middle Eastern crude to Europe, including Murban, have grown in recent months. The flows have likely increased as refiners seek to replace Russian supplies, which have been shunned since it invaded Ukraine. While the price spike has been enabled by an incredibly strong crude market -- both Brent and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate are back in a superbackwardation that characterizes extremely tight markets -- liquidity in the emergent Murban contract is more limited than for the main benchmarks. Total open interest across all Murban futures is about 40,000 contracts and volume rarely surpasses 5,000 contracts a day, a fraction of that for Brent or WTI. But the jump is a reminder of the strength in physical crude oil right now. Key North Sea swaps have also surged in recent days, in another sign of wider market strength.

Goldman Sachs sees oil prices rising 22% this summer as Europe eyes switch to crude from gas amid Russian supply cutoff -  Goldman Sachs doubled down on its forecast for oil prices hitting $140 per gallon over the summer after crude suffered two consecutive weekly losses for the first time since April.The bank's chief commodities strategist, Jeff Currie, told CNBC the the recent price pullbacks are a buying opportunity and that under-investment in the space continues to drive the view for oil climbing higher."The situation across the energy space is incredibly bullish right now," he said. Currie's comments back up a note published by Goldman on June 7 that predicted Brent crude prices will hit $140 per barrel. Oil has surged as much as 50% from the start of 2022 as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has upended global markets and pushed buyers away from Moscow's supply.On Monday, Brent futures rose 1.56% to $114.88 a barrel, meaning Goldman's forecast represents upside potential of more nearly 22%."Investment continues to run from the space at a time it should be coming to the space," Currie told CNBC. "Ultimately, the only way you're solving these problems is through increased investments."He also pointed to turbulence in the European energy market as Russia has slashed flows of natural gas from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in recent weeks. "You're going to have to replace that gas, and oil is going to be one of the [things] to replace it with," Currie said. "The upside risk on oil and oil products is tremendously high right now."

Oil Markets Could Face A Doomsday Scenario This Week --Global oil markets are going to be very volatile in the coming months if news emerging from OPEC’s main producers about production capacity constraints turns out to be true. OPEC will be meeting again in the coming days to discuss its export agreements, while today the oil group is presenting its Annual Statistical Bulletin (ASB) 2022. While the media is likely to be focused on rumors in the next 24 hours of a possible change in the export strategy of OPEC+, the real focus should be on whether or not the oil cartel is even capable of substantially increasing its production. For years, OPEC producers have been the main swing producers in oil markets. With a presumed spare capacity of more than 3-4 million bpd, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have always been seen as a point of last resort in case of a major crisis in oil and gas markets. During the former global oil glut, it seemed nothing could threaten the oil market, even when major conflicts emerged in Libya, Iraq, or elsewhere.The re-opening of the global economy after COVID-19, however, has brought fear back into the market that leading oil producers, including the USA and Russia, are unable to supply adequate volumes to the market. OPEC kingpins Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now being looked upon to increase production to historically high levels and bring oil prices down. Russia’s war against Ukraine, removing a possible 4.4 million bpd of crude and products in the coming months, has thrown this spare capacity problem into sharp relief.This week, a possible doomsday scenario could emerge in oil markets, based not only on OPEC+ export strategies but also due to increased internal turmoil in Libya, Iraq, and Ecuador. Possible other political and economic turmoil is also brewing in other producers, while US shale is still not showing any signs of a substantial production increase in the coming months.Global oil markets have long believed that OPEC has enough spare production capacity to stabilize markets, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE just needing to open their taps. There is, however, no real evidence to suggest that OPEC has increased production capacity in place in the short term. A research note by Commonwealth Bank commodities analyst Tobin Gorey already noted that OPEC’s two leaders are producing at near-term capacity limits. At the same time, UAE Minister of Energy Suhail Al Mazrouei put even more pressure on oil prices as he stated that the UAE is producing near-maximum capacity based on its quota of 3.168 million barrels per day (bpd) under the agreement with OPEC and its allies. That comment could still indicate that there is some spare capacity left in Abu Dhabi, but the remarks were made after French President Emmanuel Macron had stated to US president Biden during the G7 meeting that not only is the UAE producing at maximum production capacity, but also that Saudi Arabia only has another 150,000 bpd of spare capacity available.

Oil Wavers as G7 Nations Mull Price Cap on Russian Oil -- Except for the ULSD contract, oil futures nearest delivery edged higher in early trade Monday following reports the Group of Seven wealthy democracies is discussing a price cap on Russian crude oil sold under Western insurance and shipping mechanisms in a move that could potentially add more Russian oil on the global market while limiting revenues the Kremlin would receive from the sales. Although the details are still being finalized, with the G7 Summit to conclude on Tuesday, the proposal reportedly includes an exemption to the European ban on insuring shipments of Russian oil that would allow insurers to cover those shipments only if the sales price falls under a cap. No details of what that price cap would look like have been released. G7 nations are set to issue coordinated steps on Tuesday, according to people familiar with negotiations. The goal in the talks is to keep Russian oil available on the global market, which could help stabilize prices already trending at roughly double pre-pandemic levels, while constructing a mechanism that Western countries could use to restrict Russian revenues from the sales. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told the meeting that the price cap is "a promising avenue" against Russia because it would cut financial flows to Moscow while reducing inflation, which has surged across the West partly driven by energy prices. In the European Union, the annual rate of inflation surged to a record high 8.1% in May, with energy being the primary driver of rising consumer prices. Some EU member states recorded a double-digit rise in consumer prices this spring -- well ahead of the United States and the rest of the world. Analysts say that the real challenge of the agreement is to get commitment from nations outside the G7, notably China and India that have ramped up their purchases of Russian oil under steep discounts. India bought an average of 1 million bpd of Russian crude oil in June compared with 30,000 bpd in February, according to Kpler data. That puts India's purchases at more than a quarter of Europe's total. India's finance minister defended the country's purchases of discounted Russian oil, saying the government is simply doing what was best for its people and the economy. "My national interest tells me I should buy it where it is cheaper," Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Potentially supporting higher oil prices today is an ongoing supply disruption in Libya, where violent protests shut in nearly all of the country's 1.2 million bpd of oil output. Since then, crude production has recovered to 700,000 bpd, according to the country's oil minister, although it's not clear if Libya is able to export any of this oil to the global markets. Analysts believe that additional supplies from Libya could partially offset the loss of Russian oil on the global market but caution that production remains volatile amid political turmoil. Near 7:30 AM ET, NYMEX August West Texas Intermediate futures edged up $0.28 to $107.85 bbl and ICE Brent crude for August delivery advanced $0.47 to $113.61 bbl. NYMEX RBOB July contract gained 0.99 cents to $3.8947 gallon and NYMEX July ULSD futures declined 2.18 cents to $4.3411 gallon.

Oil Rises on Libya, Equador Tensions, As G7 Prepares To Discuss Russian Price Cap - The roller coaster of volatility that is the crude trading market saw the commodity on Monday achieve price gains due to the persistent fear of supply tightness, spurred by a worsening political crisis in Libya that could suspend exports. The National Oil Corp. said it could declare force majeure and cause shipments to be halted, within 72 hours, according to a statement on Monday. Anti-government unrest in Equador posing an even quicker potential for oil production problems was also a major concern for traders: that country's energy ministry stated in an email that production is likely to halt completely within 48 hours if road blocks and vandalizing of oil wells continue. Brent on Monday settled up $1.97, or 1.7 percent higher, at $115.09 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate closed up $1.95, or 1.8 percent, at $109.57 per barrel. Also keeping traders on edge is Iran's chief negotiator and his U.S. counterpart heading to Qatar in the latest attempt to revive the nuclear deal between the two countries, which if ratified could add millions of barrels of oil to the global market. Monday also saw the Group of Seven nations set to announce an effort to pursue a price cap on Russian oil, according to U.S. officials. Negotiators want to install a system that limits the flow of money to Russia while allowing oil's availability to large buyers like China and India, in order to avoid further price shocks; the U.S. has suggested applying restrictions on insurance and other services needed to transport Russian oil. But critics expressed their doubts about the cap doing anything other than exacerbating an already dire situation. Vivek Dhar, analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, noted that there was "nothing stopping Russia from banning oil and refined product exports to G7 economies in response to a price cap, exacerbating shortage conditions in global oil and refined product markets."

Oil Rises $2/bbl After G7 Vows New Russian Sanctions - (Reuters) -Oil rose $2 a barrel on Monday on the prospect of even tighter supplies loomed over the market as the Group of Seven nations promised to tighten the squeeze on Russian President Vladimir Putin's war chest while actually lowering energy prices. Brent crude futures settled $1.97, or 1.7% higher, at $115.09 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude closed up $1.95, or 1.8%, at $109.57 a barrel. The group of wealthy nations vowed to stand with Ukraine "for as long as it takes", proposing to cap the price of Russian oil as part of new sanctions to hit Moscow's finances. "I think if they were to implement a price cap on sale and purchase of Russian oil, it's difficult for me to imagine how this is going to be implemented, especially when China and India have become Russia's biggest customers," said Houston-based oil consultant Andrew Lipow. Commonwealth Bank of Australia analyst Vivek Dhar noted that there was "nothing stopping Russia from banning oil and refined product exports to G7 economies in response to a price cap, exacerbating shortage conditions in global oil and refined product markets." The international community should explore all options to alleviate tight energy supplies, including talks with producing nations like Iran and Venezuela, a French presidency official said. Both OPEC members' oil exports have been curbed by U.S. sanctions. Both crude benchmarks closed down for the second week in a row on Friday as interest rate hikes in key economies strengthened the dollar and fanned fears of a global recession. Recession fears and expectations of more interest rate hikes have caused volatility and risk aversion in the futures markets, with some energy investors and traders paring back, while spot crude prices have remained strong on high demand and a supply crunch. For now, pressing supply worries outweighed growth concerns. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies including Russia, known as OPEC+, will probably stick to a plan for accelerated oil output increases in August when they meet on Thursday, sources said. The producer group also trimmed its projected 2022 oil market surplus to 1 million barrels per day (bpd), down from 1.4 million bpd previously, a report seen by Reuters showed. OPEC member Libya said on Monday it might have to halt exports in the Gulf of Sirte area within 72 hours amid unrest that has restricted production. Adding to the supply woes, Ecuador also said it could suspend oil production completely within 48 hours amid anti-government protests in which at least six people have died.

Crude Futures Extend Gains after UAE Flags Capacity Limits -- Oil futures extended higher in early trade Tuesday after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates signaled they were unlikely to boost oil production significantly in the coming months, while political unrest in Libya and Ecuador added to concerns over a tight global oil market. UAE's Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazroui on Monday said the major oil producer was near its maximum production capacity based on its current OPEC+ production baseline, which is 3.168 million barrels per day (bpd). The UAE along with Saudi Arabia can only add about 150,000 bpd over the next six months, according to remarks by al-Mazroui to French President Emanual Macron, reminding policymakers and investors how tight the global oil market actually is amid talks of a new round of sanctions against Russian oil exports. The Group of Seven Wealthy nations, known as G7, agreed in principle to study a potential price cap on Russian oil and gas exports, which could include the lifting of an EU shipping ban agreed upon earlier this month, while no further details of negotiations have been made public. The proposal reportedly includes a stipulation that would allow insurers to cover Russian oil shipments only if the sales price falls under a cap. No details of what that price cap would look like have been released. Separately, Libya's National Oil Corp. said on Monday it might have to declare force majeure in the Gulf of Sirte area within the next three days unless production and shipping resume at oil terminals there. The NOC's move comes as Libya grapples with protests that are forcing many oil fields and ports to shut down. In Ecuador, antigovernment protests are about to bring oil production there to a standstill within 72 hours, according to the country's oil minister Juan Carlos Bermeo. The former OPEC country was pumping around 520,000 bpd before the protests. Led by umbrella indigenous organization CONAIE, demonstrators are demanding higher fuel subsidies, a moratorium on new oil and mining projects, and a slowdown of moves to privatize state assets amid broader criticism of conservative President Guillermo Lasso's plan to overhaul the economy with support from the International Monetary Fund. Ecuador preemptively declared force majeure on oil contracts to avoid penalties from being unable to ship scheduled deliveries. It's the second force majeure since Dec. 12 after erosion threatened to snap its two oil pipelines. Oil production dipped to a low of 101,700 bpd during that event, the lowest since at least January 2010. Near 7:30 AM ET, NYMEX August West Texas Intermediate futures advanced $1.67 to $111.26 bbl and ICE Brent crude for August delivery rallied above $117 bbl, up $2.06. NYMEX RBOB July contract advanced 5.4cts to $3.8812 gallon and NYMEX July ULSD futures decline 1.17cts to $4.2185 gallon.

Energy Stocks Rip Higher as Oil Hits Highest Since Mid-June - Oil prices rose about 2% on Tuesday, extending gains for the third session, underpinned by a slew of positive news. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude advanced $2.19, or 2%, to $111.76 per barrel — its highest since Jun 16. Oil’s uptick was primarily driven by the market’s precariously low level of spare capacity. Contrary to popular perception, it appears that two major producers — Saudi Arabia and the UAE — will be unable to boost output sufficiently enough to help fill Russia's supply gap. While UAE is already churning out at full throttle, Saudi Arabia could add just 150,000 barrels daily. In essence, this leaves the market quite vulnerable to future supply outages. Further supporting crude prices is China’s emergence from its strict COVID-19 restrictions. As the world’s biggest oil importer eases its zero-COVID lockdowns that suppressed economic activity, energy consumption is expected to rise, which is a positive for crude demand and prices. Then again, a bunch of better-than-expected economic data over the past few days bolstered prices. Upbeat durable goods orders has painted a positive demand picture, while an increase in pending home sales has signaled strength in the housing market. Production disruptions in Libya and Ecuador, plus speculation about a G-7 decision to cap Russian crude prices to prevent Moscow from benefiting from its energy trade, also sent oil higher. Yesterday’s buying pushed the Energy Select Sector SPDR — an assortment of the largest U.S. energy companies — up 2.7% to be the leader of the S&P sector standings, while all other sectors lost value. Consequently, the three biggest winners of the S&P 500 on Tuesday were all energy-related names — Hess Corporation HES, Occidental Petroleum OXY and Marathon Oil MRO. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Hess’ 2022 earnings has been revised 41.8% upward over the past 90 days. HES beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in three of the trailing four quarters, the average being 12.7%.

Oil Rises as G7 Leaders Assess Capacity Limits -Oil rose for a third day as global output threats compound already red-hot markets for physical supplies, while the Group of Seven agreed to look into a price cap for Russian oil. West Texas Intermediate futures rose to trade near $112 on Tuesday. G-7 leaders said they want ministers to urgently examine how prices of Russian oil and gas can be curbed, a move that comes as government data shows that Urals has appreciated relative to Brent crude. The most notable moves in recent days have been in more specialist market gauges. A contract known as the Dated-to-Frontline swap -- an indicator of the strength in the key North Sea market underpinning much of the world’s crude pricing -- hit a record of more than $5 a barrel. The rally comes amid growing supply outages in Libya and Ecuador, exacerbating ongoing market tightness. “We’re in the crunch period, it’s hard to see any meaningful price relief for crude,” said John Kilduff. There’s a lot of strength with China relaxing its Covid restrictions and starting its independent refiners, “we’re going to have another chunk of demand for crude oil,” as China relaxes its Covid-19 restrictions. Oil is up about 50% this year, but the strength in physical markets has run contrary to a sharp slide in headline prices in recent weeks. While fears of a global economic slowdown have weighed on futures, demand remains robust for now. US retail gasoline prices remain near record highs, causing pain for consumers. A recovery from Covid-19 and a shortage of refining capacity to make fuels continue to keep prices at record highs. The tight supply situation in is revealing itself in the WTI-Brent spread, grew to $6.19, the widest in almost three months. “European demand will remain robust, especially as natural gas supplies run out, while the North American demand for crude is weakening,” . WTI for August delivery rose $2.19 to settle at $111.76 a barrel in New York. Brent for August settlement gained $2.89 to $117.98 a barrel. Oil also rose as broader sentiment was boosted by China’s move to halve the amount of time new arrivals must spend in isolation, the biggest shift yet in its pandemic policy. Travelers to China must spend spend seven days in centralized quarantine, then monitor their health for another three days at home, according to a government protocol. That compares with 14 days of hotel quarantine in many parts of China currently, and as many as 21 days of isolation in the past.

WTI Extends Gains After Unexpected Crude Draw --Oil prices are higher today following relatively positive news from China (easing some of its COVID quarantine restrictions), Macron-inspired doubts over the ability of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to significantly boost output, and unrest in Ecuador and Libya helped lift prices.“We’re in the crunch period, it’s hard to see any meaningful price relief for crude,” There’s a lot of strength with China relaxing its Covid restrictions and starting its independent refiners, “we’re going to have another chunk of demand for crude oil,” as China relaxes its Covid-19 restrictions. With no EIA data released last week due to a "systems issue" (they have issued a statement confirming that the data - and the newest data - will both be released tomorrow), the only guidance we have for now on the past week's inventory changes is from API... API (last week)

• Crude +5.607mm
• Cushing -390k
• Gasoline +1.216mm - first build since March
• Distillates -1.656mm

API (this week)

• Crude -3.799mm
• Cushing -650k
• Gasoline +2.852mm
• Distillates +2.613mm

Crude stocks unexpectedly fell last week, almost erasing the major build from the week before (according to API). Gasoline stocks rose for the second straight week WTI was hovering around $111.75 and pushed up to $112 after the unexpected crude draw... Finally, we note that the tight supply situation in oil (especially European) is revealing itself in the WTI-Brent spread, grew to $6.19, the widest in almost three months.

Oil Extends Gains After Indirect US-Iran Nuclear Talks Fail In Qatar - High hopes had been placed on the indirect talks set to be held in Qatar starting Tuesday between Iran and the United States, which involved the European Union mediating between the two; however after the second day the Iranian side is reporting that talks have already ended without an agreement or any breakthrough. "Indirect talks between the United States and Iran to revive a 2015 nuclear agreement have ended in Qatar without a result, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday," Reuters reports. Underscoring the importance of the Qatar-hosted talks as a restored nuclear deal still hangs from a thread, and is looking more unlikely than ever at this point, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell traveled to Doha to help mediate, after days prior meeting with Iranian officials in Tehran.Most crucially from the viewpoint of the West, lack of progress in these last ditch efforts further means there's no full-scale return of Iranian oil to international markets on the horizon... Crude prices rose steadily throughout the morning, after edging higher since the start of the week and the G7 summit's pledge of 'tougher' action against Russia and Vladimir Putin, also as they continue mulling plans for imposing a price cap on Russian energy as part of exploring ways to ensure the Kremlin's war machine doesn't benefit from soaring energy prices. The Biden administration has been scrambling to tap heretofore inaccessible supplies of crude, including from Venezuela, also as the Saudis appear cool on Washington efforts to get them to pump more. Al Jazeera reviews of where things stand in the indefinitely stalled efforts at a restored JCPOA, which earlier centered on the Vienna process: Meanwhile, the Iranians have remained insistent that it is only the US side holding things up, and that essentially the ball is still in Washington's court, and it is for the Biden administration to act, perhaps also with an understanding that Russia-Ukraine events add pressure to the White House stance vis-a-vis Iran.

Crude oil futures dip as 3-day rally loses steam, US consumer confidence falls -Crude oil futures were lower in mid-morning trade in Asia June 29 in a sign that a three-day rally has run out of steam, with latest US consumer confidence data for June falling to the lowest in more than a year. At 10:09 am Singapore time (0209 GMT), the ICE August Brent futures contract was down 98 cents/b (0.83%) from the previous close at $117/b, while the NYMEX August light sweet crude contract was 69 cents/b (0.62%) lower at $111.07/b. Oil prices had surged more than 7% over the previous three sessions as supply disruptions in Libya and Ecuador and a reported lack of spare capacity in the UAE and Saudi Arabia boosted sentiment. Recession fears, however, continued to loom. Data from The Conference Board released June 28 showed US consumer confidence in June fell to the lowest since February 2021, a sign that Americans were growing increasingly pessimistic about the economy. The Consumer Confidence Index fell to 98.7 in June from 103.2 in May, the board said, while the Expectations Index, a gauge of consumers' short-term economic outlook, fell to 66.4, the lowest level since March 2013. "Rising prices continue to take a toll on consumer spending intentions, while ongoing rate hikes from the Fed are likely to dim sentiment ahead as well," IG market strategist Yeap Jun Rong said in a June 29 note. "US consumers are clearly pessimistic about the economic outlook, with forward-looking expectations at the lowest level since 2013." Market watchers were awaiting the OPEC meet later June 29 and the larger OPEC+ group meet June 30 for further cues. Expectations are for the group to stand pat on its policy agreed upon earlier in June for output hikes of 648,000 b/d in July and August. Analysts said actual output figures will likely be much lower, given group members' difficulties in raising production. "As we have seen in recent months, it is highly unlikely that the group will be able to boost supply by this amount, given the limited spare capacity amongst members and the expectation that Russian oil output will decline as we move closer to the EU's ban on Russian seaborne crude oil imports," ING analyst Warren Patterson said. Data from the American Petroleum Institute June 29 showed a large draw in US crude oil stocks in the week ended June 24, while gasoline and distillate stocks were reported to have risen, according to media reports. Dubai crude swaps and intermonth spreads were mostly higher in mid-morning trade in Asia June 29 from the previous close.

WTI Extends Gains After 'Delayed' DoE Data Show Cushing Stocks Near 'Operational Low' Limits --After "systems issues" 'delayed' last week's inventory, supply, and demand data from the EIA, the admin will report this week's data as well as last week's combined following API reported a notable build the prior week and a surprise draw last week. So over the last two weeks, API reports (net) a small crude build, notable Cushing draw, large gasoline build and small distillates build.Oil prices are notably higher again today following reports that Iran-deal-talks have failed and news that Libya has halted oil exports. Additionally, OPEC's pre-meeting reportedly concluded with no discussion of oil policy, focusing instead on administrative affairs, including an update to the group’s manifesto of guiding principles known as its Long-Term Strategy.Meanwhile, a deluge of ugly macro data provides some fodder for the oil bears (though it is being dominated by supply fears for now)...“Recession fears are just that -- fears,” said Stephen Brennock, an analyst at brokerage PVM Oil Associates Ltd.“In the meantime, oil fundamentals remain solid.”So all eyes are back on the official inventory and demand data... DOE (net of the two weeks)

• Crude -2.762mm
• Cushing -782k
• Gasoline +2.645mm
• Distillates +2.559mm

The official data shows a small crude draw (API showed a small crude build), Cushing a 6th weekly draw of the last 7 (confirming API's net draw). On the product side both gasoline and distillates showed unexpectedly large inventory builds (also confirming API's data)...The headline draw in crude stockpiles of 2.76 million barrels was boosted by the withdrawal of another 6.95 million barrels of crude from the SPR last week.However, as Bloomberg's Javier Blas noted in a tweet:"Over the last 2 weeks, the US gov has injected 13.7 million barrels from the SPR into the market. And yet, commercial oil stockpiles still fell 3 million barrels over the period. Just imagine if the SPR wasn't there. Or what would happen post-Oct when sales end"

Oil prices rise for 4th day on supply worries as US inventories down - (Reuters) -Oil prices gained for a fourth straight session on Wednesday as data showed a drawdown in U.S. crude stockpiles, adding to ongoing worries of tight supply, which have offset concerns over a weaker global economy and demand. Brent crude futures for August rose $1.42, or 1.2%, to $119.40 a barrel as of 10:59 a.m. ET (1459 GMT). The August contract will expire on Thursday and the more-active September contract was at $115.35, up $1.52. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained $1.13, or 1%, to $112.89 a barrel. Both contracts rose more than 2% on Tuesday as concerns over tight supplies due to Western sanctions on Russia outweighed fears of that demand may slow in a potential future recession. U.S. crude inventories fell last week despite production hitting its highest level since April 2020, during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. However, fuel stocks rose as refiners ramped up activity, operating at 95% of capacity, the highest for this time of year in four years. [EIA/S] Prices rose as G7 countries agreed to explore options to impose price caps on Russian oil exports. "Given that almost 1/5 of global oil producing capacity today is under some form of sanctions (Iran, Venezuela, Russia), we believed there is no practical way to keep these barrels out of a market that was already exceptionally tight," JP Morgan said in a research note. Norbert Rucker from Julius Baer said the price cap concept was difficult to grasp given the presence of multiple oil prices for multiple grades and thousands of actors along the supply chain. "Buyers would need to collude in a cartel and build a credible 'threat' backdrop, both of which are challenging," he said. OPEC and its allies such as Russia that form the OPEC+ group, began a series of two-day meetings on Wednesday with sources saying chances of a big policy change look unlikely this month. Analysts are concerned that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates may not have enough spare capacity to make up for lost Russian supply. French President Emmanuel Macron said this week he was told these producers will struggle to increase output further. However, the UAE energy minister said that the country, which is producing about 3 million bpd, does have some spare capacity above its OPEC quota of 3.17 million bpd. Analysts also warned that political unrest in Ecuador and Libya could tighten supply further.

RBOB, ULSD Drop 3% on Flagging Demand, Fuel Stocks Rise -- Oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange turned lower in afternoon trade Wednesday, sending gasoline and distillate contracts down 3% or more. The losses came after weekly inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed a bearish 5.2 million-barrel (bbl) build in domestic fuel inventories amid flashing signs of demand destruction. Wednesday's inventory report, the first in two weeks following a server failure experienced by the government entity, was overall bearish, showing weak product deliveries that pushed supply into inventory, and recovering crude oil production that climbed to the highest output rate since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Domestic producers pumped 12.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude during the week ended June 24, up 100,000 bpd from the previous week. U.S. output remains about 1 million bpd below the pre-pandemic high. Gasoline stockpiles rose 2.6 million bbl from the previous week to 221.6 million bbl compared with analyst expectations for inventories to have decreased by 800,000 bbl. Meanwhile, implied demand for gasoline recovered last week, up 417,000 bpd from a 12-week low 8.505 million bpd during the week ended June 17, EIA data show. Distillate fuels supplied to the U.S. market fell 294,000 bpd to a 3.568 million-bpd 11-week low last week, with lower diesel demand aligning with a slowing U.S. economy. Distillate stocks rose 2.6 million bbl to 112.4 million bbl and are now about 20% below the five-year average. Bullish elements in the report could be found in crude stocks that fell by a larger-than-expected 2.8 million bbl from the previous week to 415.6 million bbl last week and are now about 13% below the five-year average. The hefty draw occurred as refiners jacked the national run rate up 1% to 95% of capacity last week, processing 16.7 million bpd of crude oil, up 403,000 bpd from the previous week to the highest input rate since before the pandemic in January 2020. A 700,000-bbl draw from crude oil stored at Cushing tanks in Oklahoma, the delivery point for the NYMEX West Texas Intermediate futures, pressed inventory there to a 21.3 million bbl 7-1/2-year low. Inventory at Cushing is near the minimum operating level that's estimated between 16 million and 22 million bbl. WTI and Brent futures traded 2.5% higher earlier in the session after reports emerged suggesting Saudi Arabia, OPEC's largest producer, might have less spare capacity than previously believed. The reality is Saudi Arabia has never produced above 11 million bpd for a prolonged period, with the maximum output of 11.5 million bpd reached in April 2020 at the height of Saudi market share war with Russia. At settlement, NYMEX August WTI futures fell $1.98 to $109.78 per bbl on the session, and down from an intrasession high of $114.05 per bbl. ICE Brent crude for August delivery declined $1.72 to $116.26 per bbl after breaching $120 with a $120.41 intrasession high ahead of expiration Thursday afternoon, with the September contract settling at a $3.81 discount. NYMEX July RBOB dropped 10.81 cents to $3.8270 per gallon, with the next-month contract expanding its discount to the expiring contract to 10.37 cents. NYMEX July ULSD futures, which also expire Thursday afternoon, fell 16.27 cents to $4.0367 per gallon and August ULSD futures settled at $3.9563 per gallon.

Oil Rebounds As OPEC+ Confirms Expected Supply Hike - The OPEC+ coalition ratified an oil-production increase that completes the return of supplies halted during the pandemic, while deferring discussions on its next move for another day.The 23-nation group led by Saudi Arabia rubber-stamped plans to add 648,000 barrels a day in August, restoring the final tranche of the 9.7 million barrels a day that was shuttered just over two years agoBut with most members besides the Saudis and their neighbors unable to raise output, the decision is largely symbolic.As a reminder, OPEC+ is falling further and further behind its production goals...Is Macron right and OPEC+ producers are at or near their capacity limits?“Spare capacity is very low, demand is still recovering,” Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said in Singapore on Wednesday. “There is a fair chance we will be facing a turbulent period.”WTI rallied back. Full OPEC+ Statement:

Oil On Course For First Monthly Decline In 8 Months - Oil prices may be heading for their first month of declines since November as fears intensify about the global economy swinging into a recession, in large part because of high oil prices.As OPEC+ meets today to discuss production policy, with no surprises expected from the extended cartel, both Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate have been trending down over the past four weeks.The decline can be attributed to central banks rushing to tighten monetary policy in the face of persistent inflation in a bid to put a lid on it. However, there is a risk in this fast tightening, and this risk is of a full-blown recession, which would likely affect oil demand, and, as a result, prices. Even so, the upside potential of crude oil prices remains substantial as it becomes clear that the world’s spare capacity may not be as significant as previously believed. This week, oil went on a three-day rise as it became clear that Saudi Arabia and the UAE may be close to their maximum possible output rates.Reuters broke the news, citing a conversation between French President Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden. Macron told Biden—while Reuters was recording nearby—that in a chat with the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, he had told Macron the UAE was pumping near its maximum and that the Saudis could only add about 150,000 bpd.UAE oil minister Suhail al Mazrouei later sought to clarify that Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan was referring to the maximum for the UAE’s baseline production rate, but the news worried the market because Saudi Arabia is believed to have spare capacity of some 2 million barrels daily.Meanwhile, other OPEC members are still struggling to even reach their self-assigned production quotas, with outages in Libya and Ecuador tightening supply from the cartel further recently.

Oil Futures Lower on Slowing Demand ahead of Expirations -- For the final session of the second quarter, oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude on the Intercontinental Exchange were lower for a second day early Thursday amid slowing fuel demand in the United States while OPEC+ is expected to agree to a 648,000 barrels per day (bpd) increase in crude oil production for August. Meeting by way of videoconference this morning, OPEC+ is set to return all of the production it cut in the second quarter 2020 in response to lost demand during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. While the large increase in output by the producer group is bearish, OPEC+ is estimated to be underproducing its quota by 2.8 million bpd. Today's expected agreement to further lift output is seen widening the deficit amid a lack of spare capacity. Earlier this week during the Group of Seven meeting in Germany, French President Emmanuel Macron was overheard telling U.S. President Joe Biden United Arab Emirates had no additional spare capacity and that Saudi Arabia could only lift output by 150,000 bpd over the next six months, underpinning August Brent crude's push above $120 bbl on Wednesday. UAE oil minister Suhail Al Mazrouei was quick to note UAE would meet its quota, which will be 3.17 million bpd should OPEC+ agree to the August production hike. UAE produced 3.046 million bpd in May according to OPEC, citing secondary sources. UAE's production quota for July is 3.127 million bpd. Saudi Arabia's July production quota is 10.833 million bpd, with an agreement by OPEC+ today to lift the kingdom's quota to 11 million bpd, a production rate the Saudi's have only reached twice -- in November 2018 and April 2020. In May, Saudi oil production was estimated by secondary sources at 10.424 million bpd, although the Saudis self-reported an output rate of 10.538 million bpd. Saudi Arabia previously said their production capacity was above 12 million bpd and UAE said they could produce 4 million bpd. Amid the tight oil market, Western nations led by the United States are pushing for Saudi Arabia and UAE to lift output well above OPEC+ quotas to offset sanctioned Russian oil, leading to analysts questioning if the two countries actually have the spare capacity. EIA shows days of forward supply for distillate fuels increased to 30.6 as of June 24, a more than five-month high. Gasoline days of forward supply increased for a second week to a five-week high 24.8 days ahead of the July 4th holiday, when AAA has forecasted record road travel of 42 million. NYMEX July RBOB futures are down more than 12.5cts to $3.7015 gallon ahead of expiration this afternoon, with the August contract trading at a roughly 9cts discount to the expiring contract. NYMEX July ULSD futures are about 2cts lower near $4.0165 gallon, with the August contract about 7cts below July delivery. NYMEX August West Texas Intermediate futures were $1.30 lower at $108.50 bbl. ICE August Brent crude is down $0.75 near $115.50 ahead of expiration later today, with the September contract trading at a roughly $3 discount.

Oil falls 3% on uncertainty over future Opec+ output, recession fears - OIL prices sank around 3 per cent on Thursday (Jun 30) as Opec+ confirmed it would only increase output in August as much as previously announced despite tight global supplies, but left the market wondering about future output. Brent crude futures for September delivery fell US$3.42, or 3 per cent, to settle at US$109.03 per barrel. The August contract, which expires on Thursday, fell US$1.45, or 1.3 per cent, to settle at US$114.81 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell US$4.02, or 3.7 per cent, to settle at US$105.76 a barrel. The Opec+ group of producers, including Russia, on Thursday agreed to stick to its output strategy after 2 days of meetings. The producer club avoided discussing policy from September onwards. Previously, Opec+ decided to increase output each month by 648,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July and August. Sanctions on Russian oil since Russia's invasion of Ukraine have helped send energy prices soaring, stoking inflation and recession fears. Oil prices fell alongside Wall Street on Thursday. The S&P 500 was set up for its worst first 6 months since 1970, on concerns that central banks determined to tame inflation will hamper global economic growth. Price declines in the oil market were exacerbated as US traders squared positions ahead of the 3-day Fourth of July holiday weekend. "People are taking money off the table," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. But further disruptions to supply could limit price declines amid a suspension of Libyan shipments from 2 eastern ports while Ecuador output fell because of ongoing protests. In Norway, 74 offshore oil workers at Equinor's Gudrun, Oseberg South and Oseberg East platforms will go on strike from Jul 5, the Lederne trade union said on Thursday, likely shutting about 4 per cent of Norway's oil production. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday that a possible import price cap imposed on Russian oil could push prices higher.

Oil prices up 2% on supply outages - Oil prices rose about 2% on Friday, recouping most of the previous session's declines, as supply outages in Libya and expected shutdowns in Norway outweighed expectations that an economic slowdown could dent demand. Brent crude futures were up $2.20, or 2%, at $111.23 a barrel by 1348 GMT, having dropped to $108.03 a barrel earlier in the session. WTI crude futures gained $2.25, or 2.1%, to $108.01 a barrel, after retreating to $104.56 a barrel earlier. Both contracts fell around 3% on Thursday, ending the month lower for the first time since November. We "still see risks to prices as skewed to the upside on tight inventories, limited spare capacity and muted non-OPEC+ supply response," Barclays said in a note. Libya's National Oil Corporation declared force majeure on Thursday at the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports as well as the El Feel oilfield. Force majeure is still in effect at the ports of Brega and Zueitina, NOC said. Production has seen a sharp decline, with daily exports ranging between 365,000 and 409,000 bpd, a decrease of 865,000 bpd compared to production in "normal circumstances", NOC said. Elsewhere, 74 Norwegian offshore oil workers at Equinor's Gudrun, Oseberg South and Oseberg East platforms will go on strike from July 5, the Lederne trade union said on Thursday, likely halting about 4% of Norway's oil production. Ecuador's government and indigenous groups' leaders on Thursday reached an agreement to end more than two weeks of protests which had led to the shut-in of more than half of the country's pre-crisis 500,000 bpd oil output. On Thursday, the OPEC+ group of producers, including Russia, agreed to stick to its output strategy after two days of meetings. However, the producer club avoided discussing policy from September onwards. Previously, OPEC+ decided to increase output each month by 648,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July and August, up from a previous plan to add 432,000 bpd per month.

Forget June Plunge; Oil Back on High Octane from Supply Squeeze - Crude prices flew higher on Friday as trading began for July on the back of fresh supply scares out of Libya — which called for a force majeure in exports — and Norway, where an oil workers’ strike loomed. Barely 24 hours after June’s price plunge — the first for a month since November — it was a sign that oil bulls had recaptured at least some of their mojo even as an impending recession threatened market outlook over the coming months. “Crude is rebounding on the back of the quarter-end selling being done and more issues in Libya,” “It’s so easy to look at all of this and just be bullish. My sense is that people are just heading to the sidelines as they are tired of the extreme noise and ‘hot takes’ on demand destruction and recession fears. At some point, crude oil prices are going to make a parabolic move in my view that will be led by the physical market as there simply isn’t enough oil production to offset refiner demand with the losses from Libya, Russia and OPEC constantly failing to make [its] quota.” U.K. bank Barclays, a typical cheerleader for oil, concurred, saying it “still see[s] risks to prices as skewed to the upside on tight inventories, limited spare capacity and muted non-OPEC+ supply response.” New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, settled up $2.67, or 2.5%, at $108.43 per barrel. The U.S. crude benchmark finished June down more than 7%. London-traded Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, settled up $2.60, or 2.4%, at $111.63 on its most-active September contract. It fell nearly 6% for all of last month. Libya’s National Oil Corporation, or NOC, declared force majeure on Thursday at the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports as well as the El Feel oilfield. Force majeure was also in effect at the ports of Brega and Zueitina, Reuters said in a report. It said production at NOC has seen a sharp decline, with daily exports ranging between 365,000 and 409,000 bpd — a drop of 865,000 bpd compared to production in “normal circumstances.” Elsewhere, 74 Norwegian offshore oil workers at Equinor’s Gudrun, Oseberg South and Oseberg East platforms will go on strike from July 5, likely halting about 4% of Norway’s oil production, the Lederne trade union was quoted saying on Thursday, Offsetting some of the bullish impact from the events in Libya and Norway was news that Ecuador’s government and indigenous groups’ leaders have reached agreement to end more than two weeks of protests that had led to the shut-in of more than half of the country’s pre-crisis 500,000 bpd oil output. Over the next two months though, oil market participants have two major challenges coming their way that could pull prices in both directions: the Atlantic hurricane season and an increasingly-likely U.S. recession. While hurricanes come and go each year, any storm in 2022 could have a rippling impact on energy infrastructure, supply and prices due to the squeeze already on barrels from sanctions piled on Russia; the apparent inability of OPEC+ to produce what consuming countries want; and US shale being slower than ever in returning to its pre-pandemic drilling glory. “You cannot afford to lose a single barrel this summer. That’s the reality,”

USA Condemns Mortar Attacks on IKR Oil Infrastructure - U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price has stated that the U.S. stands with its partners in condemnation of the repeated rocket and mortar attacks directed at the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, “including three attacks in Sulaimaniya in the last four days on oil and gas infrastructure”. “These attacks are designed to undermine economic stability just as they seek to challenge Iraqi sovereignty, sow division, and intimidate,” Price said in a State Department comment published on Sunday. “They must be investigated and those responsible must be prosecuted. We continue to stand with the Iraqi people, including our partners in the Kurdistan Region, against this kind of unacceptable violence, and we will continue to seek every opportunity to support Iraq’s security and prosperity,” Price went on to say. In a statement published on the Kurdistan Regional Government website on June 26, Masrour Barzani, the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said he had directed ministers of Peshmerga Affairs and Interior to take all measures necessary to protect critical public infrastructure and oil and gas installations. “As part of the plan, we have agreed to reinforce the area with additional forces. More measures will be reviewed in the coming day,” Bazrani said in the statement. “The KRG deeply values and will defend and protect investments in its oil and gas sector and all public infrastructure. I have made it clear that an attack anywhere on Kurdistan is an attack on all of Kurdistan and its peoples,” he added in the statement.

UN investigation finds Israeli forces killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh with “seemingly well-aimed bullets” - A UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) investigation has shown that the bullets that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and injured her colleague Ali Sammoudi, were fired by Israeli forces. It is a damning refutation of Israel’s preposterous lie about her murder, including that she was shot by Palestinians firing indiscriminately at its troops. Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters Friday, “All information we have gathered … is consistent with the finding that the shots that killed Abu Akleh and injured her colleague Ali Sammoudi came from Israeli security forces and not from indiscriminate firing by armed Palestinians” and that there was no evidence of “activity by armed Palestinians in the immediate vicinity of the journalists.” The killing on May 11 of Al-Jazeera Arabic’s widely respected veteran journalist, a US-Palestinian citizen, by Israeli forces while she was covering an army raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank, caused mass outrage. Clad in a press vest and helmet and standing in open view near a roundabout, she was targeted and shot by Israeli snipers along with her co-producer Ali Sammoudi who was hospitalised. It was a brazen attempt to intimidate and prevent journalists reporting on Israel’s brutal suppression of the Palestinians. According to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, Israeli troops have killed 30 journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 2000. In each case, there have been no indictments against the soldiers responsible, testifying to the degree to which US backing guarantees impunity. Israeli police later stormed her family’s home demanding the mourners take down the Palestinian flags and end the gathering and singing. On the day of the funeral, the police gave the pall bearers such a beating that they nearly dropped the coffin. Soldiers fired sponge-tipped bullets and threw stun grenades at the crowds gathered at the hospital morgue until Abu Akleh’s family were forced to whisk her coffin away in a car as a police officer removed the Palestinian flags covering it.

Lithuania Hit By Cyberattack As Russian Hackers Warn More Coming Until Kaliningrad 'Blockade' Lifted - On Monday a major DDOS attack has targeted Lithuania's national network infrastructure, more than a week after EU sanctions took effect for Kaliningrad, and neighboring Lithuania took the dramatic step of banning land transport of goods, including transport of steel and ferrous metals to the Russian exclave. The group now claiming responsibility for the cyberattack, called "Killnet", has expressly stated it's in retaliation for the Kaliningrad 'blockade'. "Lithuanian state and private institutions were hit by a denial-of-service cyber attack on Monday, the Baltic country's National Cyber Security Centre said in a statement released by the defense ministry," Reuters reports. The National Cyber Security Center further warned the country to expect more: "It is very likely that attacks of similar or greater intensity will continue in the coming days, especially in the transportation, energy and financial sectors." It added, "Secure networks used by state institutions were among those affected."It is as yet unclear whether the "Killnet" group is directly affiliated with the Russian state or intelligence agencies. The group has stated that "cyber attacks will continue against Lithuania until it cancels its block on the transit of goods to Kaliningrad."Moscow and its allies have lately escalated their threats and rhetoric concerning the crisis. Belarussian president and close Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko has gone so far as to say that NATO member Lithuania's actions are "akin to a declaration of war".It appears that two days ago Killnet published an early warning, telling Lithuania to unblock Russian goods, while issuing an ultimatum.

EU Walks Back Hard Line On Kaliningrad Standoff As Russia Places New Missiles On Baltic Coast - Following Moscow threatening to retaliate and escalate, it seems the European Union is seeking to rapidly defuse tensions after earlier in June giving Lithuania the go-ahead to block all rail and road transit of Russian goods going to Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad. Some one million Russian citizens of Kaliningrad Oblast have been cut off from normal and vital reception of goods through neighboring EU-NATO member Lithuania since June 17 due to enforcement of EU sanctions against Moscow.But Reuters is reporting Wednesday that Brussels is ready to climb down quickly from its hard line sanctions enforcement stance, after last week the Kremlin warned Lithuania that "Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions." A statement from Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary-General of Russia's Security Council, at the time threatened: "The consequences will have a serious negative impact on the population of Lithuania." But now EU leaders are said to be seeking compromise. The EU is now talking sanctions exemptions rather than enforcing them over an area that will only ensure escalation with Moscow.European officials are in talks to exempt the area from sanctions that have so far hit industrial goods like steel and pave the way for a deal in early July if EU member Lithuania drops its reservations, the people who refused said Not to be credited because the discussions are private.This despite all the talk of a unified front and "resolve" to not only enforce existing anti-Russia sanctions but ramp up further punitive measures over the Ukraine invasion at both the G7 and NATO summits held this week.Russia has said it would for the time being ferry goods across the Baltic Sea to its territory of Kaliningrad. At the same time, Russia's military nearer to the start of the Kaliningrad 'blockade' initiated missile exercises in the Baltic Sea, which featured anti-ship missile 'live fire' against targets. The Defense Ministry even publicized and promoted footage of the threatening drills.And more crucially, there are emerging reports of further fresh Russian missile deployments to Kaliningrad's Baltic Sea coast. "Analysis of satellite imagery shows that Russia has now positioned advanced anti-ship missiles on the Kaliningrad coast," a fresh report in the global maritime monitoring site Naval News finds. "The systems are deployed to the Mys Taran headland, a prominent landmark mid-way along the exclave’s short coastline."

A bloody retreat as Ukrainian unit hit by Russian cluster bombs — The Ukrainian airborne unit was relieved to be pulling back from the front Sunday morning, riding a column of armored personnel carriers away from the embattled city of Severodonetsk, which had already fallen to the Russians, and Lysychansk, which was on the brink. “Nothing happened to us to when we were at the front,” the unit commander said. “It was while we were retreating that we got hit.” They were hit, and hit badly. As the convoy moved into the farm village of Verkhnokamianske, with many of the soldiers riding on the outside of the vehicles, the first blast struck right by them. It was a cluster bomb, they would later surmise, something that tore through the contingent of men clinging to that side of one truck. Several men were wounded, with blood pouring from limbs and, in one case, a soldier’s head. But there was no time to treat them while the convoy remained in the crosshairs of Russian artillery. The uninjured applied tourniquets where they could, dragged the hurt back onto the vehicles and raced out of the village, across rutted farm lanes to a line of trees across a golden wheat field about a kilometer away. It was just one of the many chaotic scenes that keep unfolding as Ukrainians give up ground to Russia’s relentless push to control the eastern Donbas region. Some soldiers pushed their unit’s vehicles into the tree cover, piling on branches to keep them hidden from drones used for targeting. The others did what they could for the injured, making do with their personal first aid supplies because they had become separated from the unit’s big field medical kit. There were eight men wounded, at least two of them seriously. The soldier with the head injury was drifting in and out of consciousness. Advertisement The commander had just radioed their location and requested medical evacuation teams when several Washington Post journalists covering the retreat came upon the group. The soldiers yelled for the journalists to get out of the area: “It’s not safe!” But The Post team’s security escort, a former combat medic, had a well-equipped trauma kit in the car. “Come, come,” the soldiers said. A Russian cluster bomb attack hit Ukrainian soldiers as they moved into the farm village of Verkhnokamianske on June 26. (Video: TWP) For the next harrowing half-hour, the security escort worked with the unit’s medic to stabilize the most serious cases. It was a purely humanitarian impulse, he would explain later. Combat medics are trained to treat the injured, no matter the flag on their uniform. The convoy’s medic removed one man’s helmet to show a heavy bandage. “He was hit in the head,” he explained as a Ukrainian interpreter helped with communication. “But I don’t find an exit wound. The shrapnel is still in there.” The pair administered IV fluids and considered the soldier’s breathing, which was labored. A nasal tube was inserted and oxygen levels checked. Nearby, another soldier was lying in a pool of his own blood on a canvas stretcher, his thigh heavily bandaged.

Pentagon: Ukraine using rocket system to hit Russian command posts -Ukrainian forces are having “a good deal of success” using a U.S.-given advanced rocket system to target Russian command posts, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday. The Ukrainians have used the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) advanced rocket system to target the Kremlin positions in its fight for the eastern region of the country known as the Donbas. “Because it is such a precise, longer-range system, Ukrainians are able to carefully select targets that will undermine the effort by Russia in a more systematic way, certainly than they would be able to do with the shorter-range artillery systems,” the official told reporters. Ukrainian forces are still in the early days of operating the HIMARS systems — four of which the U.S. has already sent to the former Soviet country and four additional it pledged late last month — as only a handful of Ukrainian troops can operate it after taking a brief training course. The HIMARS, which has a range of about 40 miles, has given the Ukrainians the ability to hit faraway targets with more accuracy than they have been able to prior when using shorter-ranged artillery. “What you see is the Ukrainians are actually systematically selecting targets and then accurately hitting them, thus providing this, you know, precise method of degrading Russian capability,” the official said. “I see them being able to continue to use this throughout Donbas.”

Biden, G-7 Will Ban Russian Gold Imports -Having sparked hyperinflation in European gas prices and record energy costs around the globe with their poorly conceived and implemented Russian energy sanctions which have backfired spectacularly, allowing Moscow to reap record energy export profits and China and India to buy oil far below spot prices while leaving US motorists paying record prices at the pump, on Sunday the Biden admin alongside the G-7 announced that they will ban Russian gold imports to "further impose financial costs on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine." The import ban will apply to gold leaving Russia for G-7 countries for the first time, and will be codified by the US Treasury Department on Tuesday. “The United States has imposed unprecedented costs on Putin to deny him the revenue he needs to fund his war against Ukraine,” Biden tweeted on Sunday, the first day of a G7 meeting in Germany; a formal announcement is expected later on during the summit. “Together, the G7 will announce that we will ban the import of Russian gold, a major export that rakes in tens of billions of dollars for Russia” he added.

EU Says Africa Should Stop Buying Russian Fertilizer -- But Can't Make It Themselves - In an attempt to encourage African nations to stop buying Russian fertilizer, the European Union developed a working plan that would help then develop their own fertilizer plants. The draft, dated June 15 and prepared by aides of European Council President Charles Michel, was to be presented at a summit of EU leaders last week, however the EU Commission then "explicitly opposed the text," warning that supporting fertilizer production in developing nations was incompatible with their 'green' initiatives. According to Reuters, the original text of the draft conclusions from the June 23-24 summit, the EU executive commission is urged to devise a plan "to support the development of fertiliser manufacturing capacity and alternatives in developing countries". The Commission, however, urged governments to change the text so that it would only promote alternatives to fertilizers - or a more efficient use of fertilizers, as manufacturing it themselves would be "inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies."Higher fertilizer prices have been putting upward pressure on food prices worldwide, as farmers cut back on nutrients for their crops, resulting in lower yields."Food prices will skyrocket because farmers will have to make profit, so what happens to consumers?'' said Uche Anyanwu, an agricultural expert at the University of Nigeria.The aid group Action Aid warns that families in the Horn of Africa are already being driven "to the brink of survival.''The U.N. says Russia is the world's No. 1 exporter of nitrogen fertilizer and No. 2 in phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. Its ally Belarus, also contending with Western sanctions, is another major fertilizer producer.Many developing countries — including Mongolia, Honduras, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Mexico and Guatemala — rely on Russia for at least a fifth of their imports. –NPR "Many people will not use fertilizers at all, and this as a result, lowers the quality of the production and the production itself, and slowly, slowly at one point, they won't be able to farm their land because there will be no income," said Greek farmer Dimitris Filis, who grows olives oranges and lemons, adding "you have to search to find" ammonium nitrate, while the cost of fertilizing a 25-acre olive grove has doubled.

Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Didn’t Cause the Food Crisis. Capitalism Did - --“Most farmers can no longer produce adequate food for their families,” says Vladimir Chilinya. “Profit-making entities control our food systems… including the production and distribution of seed.” Worsening harvests, infertile soil and increasing food poverty are affecting the majority of small farmers across the globe, especially in the Global South. Wheat prices have surged by 59% since the start of 2022.Last month, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned that the number of people living in famine conditions has increased by more than 500% since 2016, and more than 270 million people are now living in extreme food insecurity. While Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated this crisis (Russia and Ukraine account for 30% of the world’s wheat exports, constituting 12% of traded calories), climate change and capitalism are the primary engines behind this global food emergency.The IPCC has estimated that by 2030, global warming will have diminished the world’s average agricultural production by more than a fifth. In Zambia, the maize harvest for 2021/22 is expected to be down by a quarter, thanks to droughts and flash floods between 2019 and 2021, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan experienced their highest recorded temperatures in March and April since records began 122 years ago. India has since banned wheat exports (after he government failed to buy enough wheat to cover its food security programme), which has further exacerbated the global wheat shortage and soaring global food prices. But the climate and food crises are not isolated phenomena. They are the result of a global capitalist system – and a neoliberal agenda – that has prioritised big corporate agricultural profits over people and the planet.This process really took shape during the so-called “Green Revolution” in India in the late 1960s. This movement was a collaboration between India and the US (with USAID and the Ford Foundation being key actors) and was dependent on agrochemical usage and intensive plant breeding.High-yielding hybrid crops were introduced – the main one being IR8, a semi-dwarf rice variety – alongside the use of fertilisers, pesticides and lots of groundwater (these high-yielding crops required a lot more water). Calorific food was valued over nutrition, and these foods had costly inputs.This shift towards big agriculture and more profitable monocultures made small farmers more dependent on expensive chemical fertilisers, forcing them into ever greater levels of debt. In India, 10,677 agricultural workers were reported to have taken their own lives in 2020, many of them farmers trapped by mounting debts resulting from the high costs of these farming inputs.Unfair terms of trade and global lending – enforced by multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – are also to blame.Structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), introduced by the World Bank following the debt crisis across Latin America and Africa after the 1979 oil crisis, coerced poorer countries into privatising their public sectors and reducing their welfare mechanisms.Adhering to strict policy packages in nearly every key sector – from agriculture to education and healthcare – became compulsory in exchange for any future loans from the bank or the IMF.SAPs meant indebted countries across the Global South had to convert from prioritising indigenous crops that the local population depended on, to producing cash crops for export. As a result, local populations and farmers became more vulnerable to food scarcity – due to the negative ecological effects and decline in food accessibility.

There’s a strongman holding NATO hostage. And it’s not Putin. - — Vladimir Putin will dominate this week’s NATO summit from afar, as the alliance aims to rally together — and take steps to admit new members — in response to the Russian president’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.But another leader, one who will be in attendance in Madrid, will also demand outsized attention as the largest remaining roadblock to a historic NATO expansion that would nearly double the Western alliance’s border with Russia.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has steadfastly balked at a NATO plan to fast-track the admission of Finland and Sweden. The two strategically important northern European nations have pushed for admittance into the alliance after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Turkey has been angered by what it has claimed is Helsinki and Stockholm’s support for Kurdish militants and arms embargoes on Ankara.“Turkey maintains that the admission of Sweden and Finland entails risks for its own security and the organisation’s future,” Erdogan wrote recently inan Economist opinion piece trashing NATO’s expansion plans.But in recent days, there have been growing signs that Turkey may be willing to deal in order to sign off on the nations’ accession, which requires the approval of all 30 NATO members. And President Joe Biden may look to step in to act as the closer when the gathering gets underway Wednesday in Spain.Biden spoke with the Turkish leader by phone Tuesday, and “he looks forward to seeing President Erdogan” at the summit, according to a White House readout of the call. National security adviser Jake Sullivan later confirmed the two leaders will meet in Spain on Wednesday.U.S. officials have signaled that Biden would only meet with Erdogan if a deal was likely, and if there was renewed optimism among NATO members that Turkey would eventually sign off, though an official ascension would almost certainly not happen at the summit. But aides noted that talks could progress to the point where at least a declaration of intent could be approved during the week.Erdogan has often been the problem child within the alliance.Despite objections from Washington, Erdogan has purchased S-400 air systems from Russia, helped Iran evade some sanctions and is accused of letting Hamas and ISIS fighters safely transverse his nation’s territory. He stands for reelection next summer after two decades in power, during which he has strengthened his rule through constitutional changes, imprisoning many of his alleged critics and cracking down on the media. Some analysts believe he decided that strong-arming NATO would make for good domestic politics.“Erdogan is NATO’s weakest link,” said Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “But Biden has quite a lot on his plate. Too much, in fact. Whatever Erdogan thinks he’s going to get, he may find that he will need to get in line. He might gain a concession, but at what cost? Turkey is the reason that several NATO states have explored an ejection mechanism, which NATO currently lacks.”

NATO announces plan for massive European land army -In what NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the “biggest overhaul of our collective deterrence and defense since the Cold War,” the US-led NATO alliance has announced plans to build a massive standing land army in Europe, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Stoltenberg said NATO would increase its “high readiness forces” sevenfold, from 40,000 to 300,000, deploying tens of thousands of additional troops, as well as countless tanks and aircraft, directly to Russia’s border. The move will entail a massive diversion of social resources to NATO’s ongoing war with Russia and planned war with China, draining treasuries throughout Europe and North America and fueling demands for the elimination of social services, the slashing of wages, and the gutting of workers’ pensions. Stoltenberg said the creation of this massive fighting force was a response to the “new era of strategic competition” with Russia and China. He called the plan “a fundamental shift in NATO’s deterrence and defense,” embracing not only the war with Russia, but “the challenges that Beijing poses to our security, interests and values.” As a part of this massive expansion of its fighting force, NATO will increase the numbers of troops stationed in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to the “brigade” level, meaning approximately 3,000 to 5,000 troops. The Financial Times reported, based on an interview with Stoltenberg, that the plan will “include new structures in which Western NATO allies, such as the US, UK and France, would pledge their ships, warplanes and a total of more than 300,000 troops to be ready to deploy to specific territories on the alliance’s eastern flank, with graded response times starting from the opening hours of any attack.” Instead of troops deployed to the Baltics serving as a “tripwire,” the new plan would envision NATO fighting a war against Russia directly on the borders of these countries on NATO’s eastern battlefront.

NATO pledges 300K troops, then leaves everyone guessing — NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg caught the public’s attention Monday when he declared the military alliance would soon place 300,000 troops on high readiness in response to Russia’s warmongering.He caught the attention of some members of the alliance too. As hundreds of officials, diplomats and journalists gathered in Madrid on Tuesday for this week’s NATO summit, many reacted with surprise to the figure, which would amount to a more than seven-fold increase of NATO’s existing response force. People were puzzled over what, exactly, the secretary-general meant. They wondered how the number had been calculated and what kind of troops would be involved. It was unclear whether it would entail extra costs.While NATO members are united in wanting to place more weapons along the alliance’s eastern flank, and even agree there should be more forces put on standby to quickly head east if needed, the specificity of the number still left even the experts with questions. Thus far, officials have interpreted the figure as a redesignation of forces that already exist — essentially making more troops available to move on short notice — as opposed to sourcing thousands of new troops. The number is derived from “forces in various tiers of readiness,” said one senior diplomat, who called it a “game-changer” and a return to the approach used during the Cold War. NATO itself cautioned that the plan was not meant to be fully formed at this point. “The details of the NATO force model, including its precise scale and composition, continue to be developed,” said one NATO official. “The transition to the model is planned to be completed in 2023.” The situation illustrates the balance NATO has had to strike since Russia launched its assault on Ukraine. The alliance wants to project that it is moving with alacrity to prevent Moscow’s war from spreading onto NATO turf. But it also must wrangle over the specifics with 30 allies that don’t always see eye-to-eye on how to use limited resources.

How bad actors are using tech platforms to sexually exploit, traffic Ukrainian women - Bad actors are leveraging social media groups and communications apps to sexually exploit and traffic Ukrainians seeking shelter and information, amplifying concerns about those dangers in an already high-risk region. As the war continues and millions of Ukrainians, especially women and children, transition to border nations, potential traffickers are using the same digital spaces where refugees are looking for assistance to spread misinformation or pose as well-meaning volunteers to house those fleeing the conflict. Experts say tech companies could be doing more to protect Ukrainians from those threats amid an apparent rise in demand for trafficking victims from the besieged country. “I find it really heartbreaking that at the moment when so many people are trying to protect vulnerable women and children, one of the first measurable reactions to the crisis was that men were going online in record breaking numbers trying to figure out how to sexually access those women,” said Val Richey, special representative and coordinator for combating trafficking in human beings at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Data on upticks in human trafficking of Ukrainian women are only starting to emerge since Russia invaded four months ago. But a Thomson Reuters analysis found spikes across Europe for terms related to online demand for sex with Ukrainian women as news about the war spread across Europe. The analysis found a 200 percent increase in Google searches for “Ukrainian escorts” in the United Kingdom between Feb. 27 and March 5 compared to the prior six months. The term “Ukrainian porn” increased 600 percent in Spain and 130 percent in Poland over the same period. A similar trend was seen with search spikes in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France and Switzerland, according to the Thomson Reuters analysis. “European women, Eastern European woman, Ukrainian women, are already at risk, and often are lured and groomed and recruited into sex trafficking. So you put crisis on top of that, and now you have a recipe for increased spikes of demand for human trafficking,” said Heather C. Fischer, senior adviser for human rights crimes at Thomson Reuters. “This might seem innocuous at first to the outside observer, but these trends can actually provide sort of an impetus for traffickers to capitalize the demand,” Fischer added.

China cuts inbound COVID-19 quarantine by half in first move to ease borders restrictions - China said it will cut its mandatory inbound quarantine by half on Tuesday in the nation’s first move to ease COVID-19 borders restrictions since March 2020. Overseas arrivals into China will now only need to quarantine for seven days at a government facility and then an additional three days in home isolation. The new measures are down from what was previously 14 days in quarantine and then an additional seven days of home isolation. The concession from China’s National Health Commission comes days after Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang declared victory over COVID-19 over the weekend saying that they “won the war to defend Shanghai” after emerging from months of a bruising lockdown. The omicron wave that hit China, especially Shanghai and Beijing, during the spring has ebbed and the entire country recorded just one local symptomatic transmission on Monday while zero cases were detected in Shanghai and Beijing for the first time in months. Chinese health authorities warned, however, the announcement did not mean China was changing course on their zero-COVID goal, but that it was merely responding to the shorter incubation time of the omicron variants in circulation. “It’s absolutely not loosening up, but a more scientific and targeted approach,” said Lei Zhenglong, an NHC official told the pressing in a briefing Tuesday afternoon. China remains the largest outlier in the world in terms of COVID restrictions as neighboring countries have either dropped testing requirements or completely reopened. The country still maintains one of the strictest border measures against COVID-19 in the world as China is still adamant in striving for zero-COVID. Nevertheless, the easing of measures was greeted with enthusiasm by the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets, both of which rallied nearly a percentage point after the news.

G7 Unveils $600 Billion Global Infrastructure Plan To Counter China's 'Belt And Road' - President Biden and G7 leaders pledged $600bln to a new global infrastructure project for emerging market economies to counter the Chinese regime's Belt and Road initiative. G-7 leaders from the US, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union gathered at a summit in Bavaria, Germany, on Sunday and unveiled the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) that will "will deliver game-changing projects to close the infrastructure gap in developing countries, strengthen the global economy and supply chains, and advance U.S. national security," a White House press release read. During the summit, Biden said the U.S. would deploy $200bln in grants, federal funds, and private investment over five years for lower- and middle-income nations to boost infrastructure. "I want to be clear. This isn't aid or charity. It's an investment that will deliver returns for everyone," Biden said. He added that it would allow countries to "see the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies."Europe pledged $316bln over the next five years for PGII, while Japan committed $65bln. "It'll boost all of our economies, and it's a chance for us to share our positive vision for the future and let communities around the world see for themselves the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies," the president said. China's Belt and Road Initiative scheme was launched in 2013 and is the centerpiece of Chinese President Xi Jinping's foreign. Also known as the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road," China's infrastructure initiative has projects in more than 100 countries in an attempt to resurrect ancient trade routes from Asia to Europe. Since its launch, Western officials have accused Beijing of pursuing "debt-trap diplomacy" by providing countries with financing to build infrastructure that benefits China more than the countries themselves.

Apply Lessons Of Ukraine - Send Weapons To Taiwan "Earlier" In Face Of China Threat: UK's Truss -- UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has made her perhaps most provocative comments yet aimed at both Russia and China. It's sure to result in swift protest and condemnation from Beijing, given she invoked the Taiwan comparison while expressing regret over not sending more weapons to beleaguered Ukraine sooner.She said Wednesday that the West needs to learn the lessons of Putin's Ukraine invasion and apply them to Taiwan: "We should have done things earlier, we should have been supplying the defensive weapons into Ukraine earlier. We need to learn that lesson for Taiwan."Her words before MPs strongly suggested that Russia's "special operation" in neighboring Ukraine has emboldened Xi Jinping in pursuing a military invasion and occupation of Taiwan. China's government has consistently and forcefully rejected any comparisons between the Ukraine and Taiwan situations.In the briefing she delivered before the Foreign Affairs Committee, Truss continued, "There’s always a tendency, and we’ve seen this prior to the Ukraine war, there’s always a tendency of wishful thinking, to hope that more bad things won’t happen and to wait until it’s too late."Part of her rationale was the lengthy and costly amount time it takes from the moment the decision is made to send in weapons, to the time they can actually get deployed by the Ukrainians on the battlefield:

"The Rubicon Has Been Crossed": The BOJ Now Owns More Than 50% Of All Japanese Bonds - A little over three years ago, the Bank of Japan crossed a historic milestone when we reported that the central bank had become a top-10 shareholder in 50% of all Japanese companies. Since then, the central bank's equity stake across Japanese corporations has only grown.One week ago, we also reported that the BOJ was on the verge of crossing the final "50%" Rubicon, when as consequence of the latest surge in bond buying by Kuroda's central bank meant to prevent the bank's Yield Curve Control from collapsing, the BoJ was brought to a place it almost certainly never envisaged when it started QE as a “temporary” measure back in 2001 -- owning virtually half of the JGB market.As Bloomberg's Simon White said last week, "we are in uncharted territory as no other major central bank has crossed this threshold before."He continued:The BoJ could pass the 50% threshold as early as this week. That would be crossing the Rubicon. However you slice it or dice it, the BoJ will be the JGB market. What this means over the long term we’ll eventually find out. But it’s not a big leap to guess that private JGB holders -- both domestic and foreign -- will become less comfortable in a market with such lopsided ownership.Well, as of today, this final threshold has also been crossed, thanks to the recent burst of YCC-defending debt monetization which reached a mindbogglging 11 trillion in the last week...... and as Japan's Nikkei reports, the share of Japanese government bonds held by the Bank of Japan just topped 50%, hitting a record Ponzi high.According to Nikkei calculations, the BOJ purchased JGBs worth 14.8 trillion yen ($110 billion) in June, surpassing the 11.1 trillion yen purchased in November 2002, its largest monthly total. According to the QUICK database, the outstanding value of long-term JGBs as of June 20 totaled 1,021.1 trillion yen, of which the BOJ held 514.9 trillion yen on a face-value basis. That translates to 50.4% of the total amount outstanding, up from 50.0% in February to March 2021.

Japan's May factory output suffers biggest slump in two years - (Reuters) - Japan's factory output posted the biggest monthly drop in two years in May as China's COVID-19 lockdowns and semiconductor and other parts shortages hit manufacturers, adding to worrying signs for an economy struggling to mount a strong recovery. The decline also highlights the challenge the world's third-largest economy faces in overcoming supply disruptions and persistently high prices of raw materials and energy. Factory output slumped a seasonally adjusted 7.2% in May from the previous month, official data showed on Thursday, as production of items such as cars as well as electrical and general-purpose machinery dropped sharply. The decline, which marked the sharpest monthly reduction since a 10.5% month-on-month drop in May 2020, was much bigger than a 0.3% fall expected by economists in a Reuters poll. "The plunge in industrial output in May suggests that Japan's recovery is disappointing yet again," said Marcel Thieliant, senior Japan economist at Capital Economics. "The conventional wisdom is that supply shortages are the main culprit," he added. "However, the fact that inventories were broadly stable despite plunging output suggests that weak demand is playing a role." The data comes a day after Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), the world's largest automaker by sales, said it missed its already downgraded global production target for May. read more Toyota produced 634,940 vehicles globally last month compared to its target of about 700,000, which it had lowered by 50,000 from 750,000 in mid-April due to pandemic curbs in Shanghai. While activity in Japan's services sector is picking up thanks in part due to a modest post-pandemic spending rebound, the country's manufacturing sector is facing pressure from parts and high-tech chip supply disruptions. The government cut its assessment of industrial production, saying it was weakening.

37 refugees dead, hundreds injured in Spanish-Moroccan police massacre at Melilla border -- Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government, working with Moroccan police acting as the European Union’s border guards, have carried out a barbaric massacre at the borders of the Spanish enclave of Melilla in Africa. At least 37 migrants were killed and 150 more were injured when thousands tried to cross the Moroccan border into Melilla on Friday. According to the UNHCR, many came from Chad, Niger, Sudan and South Sudan, and would be considered potential asylum seekers according to international law. The precise cause of the deaths remains unclear. Some migrants may have died from suffocation or crushing because of a stampede provoked by Moroccan police charges. Other deaths may have occurred when some fell from the top of the fence: at the place on the border where the massacre took place, the border fence rises to between 6 and 10 meters in height. Other may have been directly killed by police who hit them with stones and batons. Footage released by Al Jazeera showed dozens of people lying by the border fence, some bleeding and many apparently lifeless as Moroccan security forces stood over them. In one clip, a Moroccan security officer appeared to strike a person lying on the ground with a baton. Significant police repression by Spain’s Civil Guard and National Police left at least 60 migrants injured, two of them in hospital. According to the Spanish government representative in Melilla, police forces of the two sides of the border worked collaboratively in “a joint operation,” with tear gas and baton charges against the crowd from both sides. The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) said many of those wounded “were left there without help for hours, which increased the number of deaths.” Helena Maleno, founder of the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, declared: “The victims of the Melilla tragedy agonized for hours under the cruel gaze of those who were supposed to help them and did not…” According to videos posted by elDiario.esand Público, when 500 migrants crossed into Spain Moroccan security forces crossed into Spanish territory, where they hit, arrested and forcibly returned migrants. The ability of Moroccan police to cross into Spanish territory depended on the collusion of the members of the Civil Guard and the National Police. Only 133 refugees now remain in Melilla, with the rest forcibly expelled.

Credit Suisse hit with historic money laundering conviction - Cocaine. Stashes of cash. A down-on-his-luck Bulgarian wrestler. For days during the February trial, the lurid details captivated Swiss finance as Credit Suisse Group faced charges that it had failed to prevent a drug trafficker from laundering millions. On Monday, the verdict was in: guilty — a historic judgment for the bank in the first criminal conviction of a major Swiss lender in the country’s history. The ruling, in which a former relationship manager at the bank was also convicted on money laundering charges, was handed down by Switzerland’s top criminal court on Monday afternoon. The woman was given a 20-month suspended prison sentence while Credit Suisse faces a fine of 2 million Swiss francs ($2.1 million) and was also hit with a claim of 19 million francs, equivalent to the amount the bank allowed to be laundered.The judgment is another blow to the tarnished reputation of Credit Suisse, which had argued the crimes date to an era when compliance standards were less stringent. It has been struggling with a series of scandals that have sent its shares to near-record lows, and may face a second criminal indictment in an unrelated case later this year.The bank said in a statement it will appeal the decision, noting that the pretrial investigation dates back more than 14 years.“Credit Suisse is continuously testing its anti-money laundering framework and has been strengthening it over time, in accordance with evolving regulatory standards,” the bank said.The case was criticized by Credit Suisse for having been brought so many years after the events in question. The bank expressed its “astonishment” in late 2020 when Swiss prosecutors publicly charged it with money laundering offenses, given the alleged crimes took place between 2004 and 2008. But under Swiss law, local prosecutors can press criminal charges against banks if they believe those institutions didn’t do enough to screen clients and their cash for obvious ties to illicit activity. The former Credit Suisse manager, who can only be named as E. under Swiss reporting restrictions, accepted deposits of used bank notes that regularly exceeded 500,000 euros ($528,650) at a time, according to the 515-page indictment. Cash deposits were very common given the parlous state of Bulgaria’s banks at the time, she said in testimony. Two other Bulgarians were convicted in the case for participation in a criminal organization and aggravated money laundering. One was given a 36-month prison sentence, with 18 months of it suspended, and the other was handed a 12-month suspended sentence. The main Bulgarian at the heart of the scandal, who was later convicted to a 20-year sentence for his drug offenses, organized the import of tens of tonnes of cocaine into Europe between 2002 and 2012, using boats, planes and drug mules willing to swallow cocaine-packed rubber balls.On the second day of the February trial, Credit Suisse won an early victory when the presiding judge said any evidence before February 2007 would be excluded from consideration, given the 15-year limit on aggravated money laundering charges. But the court then proceeded to hear details that highlighted the bank’s compliance shortcomings.E. testified that she had "no banking" background and only passed her initial banking exam to enter the industry on the third try. Later, she said that Credit Suisse didn’t freeze or block the Bulgarian’s accounts following his arrest on drug trafficking charges as she received instructions to “wait and see if this information will be confirmed.”

Biden, Macron, Scholz, Johnson: global allies, struggling at home — When leaders of the Group of Seven nations gathered one recent night in the Bavarian Alps to pose for a photo after a long day of meetings, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson enthused, “Ride for life, G-7!” — as if the three-day summit were a whimsical adventure for the transatlantic allies. Johnson could be forgiven for wishing. Like his three major counterparts, who flew Tuesday from the G-7 gathering in Germany to their next summit, a NATO meeting in Madrid, Johnson is trying to forge a strong international alliance at a time when he is greatly weakened at home. President Biden’s approval has plummeted, and he faces potentially big losses in the midterms. French President Emmanuel Macron prevailed in his recent reelection campaign but then promptly lost control of Parliament amid historic gains by the far right and a strong result for the left. German Chancellor Olaf, struggling to gain his footing after replacing the veteran Angela Merkel, is sharply criticized in his country as a dithering, impenetrable leader. Then there’s Johnson. His poll ratings tanked after revelations that he and his staff broke covid lockdown rules with parties at his residence. He is the first serving British prime minister to be fined in office. In a no-confidence vote this month, 41 percent of his Conservative colleagues voted to oust him, and the party chair has quit. For all their individual woes, the four leaders — who met privately Tuesday morning in Germany before heading to Madrid — face a broadly similar threat: rising populism against the backdrop of a shaky global economy, institutions under siege and a bloody war pressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It may be hard, current and former diplomats say, to maintain purpose and unity amid such shaky domestic foundations. “Putin is watching this — it’s quite possible that he sees time as his friend,” said Richard Haass, a veteran diplomat and president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Putin probably figures he is better at weathering a long war than, say, a newly divided France. Or a polarized America. Or just simply given what’s going on in Germany.” As Johnson’s “ride for life” comment suggests, along with earlier bantering by the leaders about going shirtless, foreign trips can give leaders a sense of welcome relief from the weight of their problems at home. “Clearly his authority at home is shot,” Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said of Johnson. But support for Ukraine is widespread, he noted, giving Johnson, like the other leaders, a popular cause on the global stage: “Anything to do with Ukraine is to some extent ring-fenced from normal politics.” Still, that may not last, and at some point the drawn-out war could become a political liability as it continues to drive high prices and fuel shortages. The leaders seemed well aware of that danger. “Domestic politics get more difficult the higher the political and economic costs get, and that’s exactly what Putin is counting on.” said Heather A. Conley, president of the German Marshall Fund. “For all these leaders, it’s absolutely fine to visit Kyiv and express support. But it also has to be explained to each of their countries and win the popular support at home, and it can be challenging and politically difficult.”