FOMC Minutes Show "More Restrictive" Fed Worried About 'Entrenched' Inflation - Since the last FOMC statement and press conference on June 15th where The Fed hikes 75bps - its largest hike since 1994 - and the WSJ leak on the 13th, bonds have been bid as recession fears dominate and gold has been dumped as inflation anxiety eases. The Dollar and stocks have managed modest gains... Most notably, Fed rate-trajectory expectations have dovishly plunged since the last FOMC And while July remains an 80% lock for 75bps, the expectations for hikes in September have tumbled and for the rest of the year, almost gone... Graphics Source: Bloomberg. All of which is ironic since The Fed adjusted its 'DotPlot' UP to the market's hawkish view at the last FOMC and now the market has adjusted dramatically more dovish than Fed expectations.One more thing before we get to the details, US Macro data has continued to disappoint since The FOMC meeting with 'soft' survey data really decelerating.The odds of a US recession are 38% in the next 12 months, according to the latest forecast from Bloomberg Economics, after consumer sentiment hit a record low and interest rates surged, with The Atlanta Fed's GDPNOW model crashing to -2.1%...So the main focus of The Minutes will be whether The Fed uses them to suggest any 'less hawkish' bias than was projected at the press conference... The highlights are as follows...
- On the possibility of even more restrictive policy: "At the current juncture, with inflation remaining well above the Committee's objective, participants remarked that moving to a restrictive stance of policy was required to meet the Committee's legislative mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. In addition, such a stance would be appropriate from a risk management perspective because it would put the Committee in a better position to implement more restrictive policy if inflation came in higher than expected....Such a stance would be appropriate from a risk management perspective because it would put the Committee in a better position to implement more restrictive policy if inflation came in higher than expected."
- On the July meeting:“Participants judged that an increase of 50 or 75 basis points would likely be appropriate at the next meeting.”
- On entrenched inflation:"Participants judged there was a significant risk higher inflation could become entrenched if the public questions the Fed s resolve... Participants saw little evidence to date of a substantial improvement in supply constraints, and some of them judged that the economic effects of these constraints were likely to persist longer than they had previously anticipated... Participants noted that inflation remained much too high and observed that it continued to run well above target"
- A potential pause?:“Participants noted that, with the federal funds rate expected to be near or above estimates of its longer-run level later this year, the Committee would then be well positioned to determine the appropriate pace of further policy firming and the extent to which economic developments warranted policy adjustments.”
- On financial market impacts:“Downside risks included the possibility that a further tightening in financial conditions would have a larger negative effect on economic activity than anticipated.”
FOMC Minutes "Near-term inflation outlook had deteriorated" From the Fed: Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, June 14-15, 2022. Excerpt on inflation risks:In their discussion of risks, participants emphasized that they were highly attentive to inflation risks and were closely monitoring developments regarding both inflation and inflation expectations. Most agreed that risks to inflation were skewed to the upside and cited several such risks, including those associated with ongoing supply bottlenecks and rising energy and commodity prices. Participants judged that uncertainty about economic growth over the next couple of years was elevated. In that context, a couple of them noted that GDP and gross domestic income had been giving conflicting signals recently regarding the pace of economic growth, making it challenging to determine the economy's underlying momentum. Most participants assessed that the risks to the outlook for economic growth were skewed to the downside. Downside risks included the possibility that a further tightening in financial conditions would have a larger negative effect on economic activity than anticipated as well as the possibilities that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-related lockdowns in China would have larger-than-expected effects on economic growth. In their consideration of the appropriate stance of monetary policy, participants concurred that the labor market was very tight, inflation was well above the Committee's 2 percent inflation objective, and the near-term inflation outlook had deteriorated since the time of the May meeting. Against this backdrop, almost all participants agreed that it was appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate 75 basis points at this meeting. One participant favored a 50 basis point increase in the target range at this meeting instead of 75 basis points. All participants judged that it was appropriate to continue the process of reducing the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, as described in the Plans for Reducing the Size of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet that the Committee issued in May. In light of elevated inflation pressures and signs of deterioration in some measures of inflation expectations, all participants reaffirmed their strong commitment to returning inflation to the Committee's 2 percent objective. Participants observed that a return of inflation to the 2 percent objective was necessary for creating conditions conducive to a sustainably strong labor market over time. In discussing potential policy actions at upcoming meetings, participants continued to anticipate that ongoing increases in the target range for the federal funds rate would be appropriate to achieve the Committee's objectives. In particular, participants judged that an increase of 50 or 75 basis points would likely be appropriate at the next meeting. Participants concurred that the economic outlook warranted moving to a restrictive stance of policy, and they recognized the possibility that an even more restrictive stance could be appropriate if elevated inflation pressures were to persist.Participants noted that, with the federal funds rate expected to be near or above estimates of its longer-run level later this year, the Committee would then be well positioned to determine the appropriate pace of further policy firming and the extent to which economic developments warranted policy adjustments. They also remarked that the pace of rate increases and the extent of future policy tightening would depend on the incoming data and the evolving outlook for the economy. Participants recognized that ongoing policy firming would be appropriate if economic conditions evolved as expected.At the current juncture, with inflation remaining well above the Committee's objective, participants remarked that moving to a restrictive stance of policy was required to meet the Committee's legislative mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. In addition, such a stance would be appropriate from a risk management perspective because it would put the Committee in a better position to implement more restrictive policy if inflation came in higher than expected. Many participants judged that a significant risk now facing the Committee was that elevated inflation could become entrenched if the public began to question the resolve of the Committee to adjust the stance of policy as warranted. On this matter, participants stressed that appropriate firming of monetary policy, together with clear and effective communications, would be essential in restoring price stability.
U.S. Fed sees 'more restrictive' rates possible if inflation persists - Federal Reserve officials became more resolved last month to keep raising interest rates for longer to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched, even if that slowed the US economy. Policy makers increased interest rates by 75 basis points last month and backed hiking them at their next meeting in July by either 50 or 75 basis points, according to minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s June 14-15 policy meeting released Wednesday in Washington. They viewed maintaining the central bank’s credibility to control inflation as crucial. “Many participants judged that a significant risk now facing the committee was that elevated inflation could become entrenched if the public began to question the resolve of the committee,” the minutes showed. “They recognized the possibility that an even more restrictive stance could be appropriate if elevated inflation pressures were to persist.” The record was heavy with references to price pressures and why they might take time to ease. Officials “recognized that policy firming could slow the pace of economic growth for a time, but they saw the return of inflation to 2 per cent as critical to achieving maximum employment on a sustained basis.” Two-year Treasury yields, which are sensitive to Fed policy, pushed higher after release of the minutes and investors continued to bet the central bank would hike by 75 basis points later this month. The Fed’s aggressive push to curb the hottest inflation in 40 years has convulsed financial markets as investors fret that tighter monetary policy will tip the US economy into recession. The word “recession” was not mentioned once in the minutes, compared with 90 references to inflation. “They can lose the battle on the economy, but they can’t lose the war on the inflation anchor,” Officials hiked their benchmark rate to a target range of 1.5 per cent to 1.75 per cent in June and Chair Jerome Powell suggested they could do the same thing again in July. He told reporters at a post-meeting press conference that another 75 basis-point increase, or a 50 basis-point move, was most likely on the table when policy makers gather July 26-27. Officials went big last month -- despite previously signaling they favored a 50 basis-point hike -- after inflation data came in hot and a key indicator hinted that expectations for future price pressures could be accelerating among US consumers.
Fed's Waller backs 75 basis-point rate hike at meeting this month - Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said he supports raising interest rates by 75 basis points this month for a second straight meeting and “probably” a 50 basis-point hike at the following gathering in September. He also dismissed concerns that the US economy is starting to slump, a sentiment echoed by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, who in a separate event said the US economy has a “good chance” of sticking a soft landing. “We need to move to a much more restrictive setting” and do that “as quickly as possible,” Waller said Thursday in a webcast hosted by the National Association for Business Economics. Regarding the idea that higher borrowing costs risk pushing the US economy into recession, Waller repeatedly stressed the need to tame red-hot inflation. “Inflation is a tax on economic activity” and the Fed is “dead set” on getting prices under control, he said. Fears of a recession are “overblown,” and any hit to the economy from rate hikes should be relatively small, Waller said. Waller had previously said the central bank is “all in” on the inflation fight, and has backed another 75 basis-point interest-rate increase when the Federal Open Market Committee meets July 26-27. That would match the move it made last month, which was the biggest increase since 1994. On Thursday he said he still sees a “good shot” that the economy will have a soft landing -- meaning that the Fed’s interest-rate hikes will bring down inflation without sparking a recession. Minutes from the June FOMC meeting released on Wednesday showed central bankers prepared, if necessary, to combat the hottest inflation in 40 years by tightening policy even further than anticipated in their latest forecasts. Those projections, which were updated last month, see the Fed’s benchmark lending rate peaking in a range of 3.75 per cent to 4 per cent next year from a current of 1.5 per cent to 1.75 per cent. Inflation according to the Fed’s preferred measure rose 6.3 per cent in the 12 months through May -- more than three times the Fed’s 2 per cent target. A separate gauge of consumer prices is expected to show a 8.8 per cent year-over-year increase in June, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The Labor Department report will be released on July 13. Waller, who was previously research director at the St. Louis Fed before becoming a governor in December 2020, said there is a lot of discussion about whether the world has emerged from the pandemic with structurally higher inflation forces. But there are few conclusions yet, and even it it has the central bank’s job is to achieve the 2 per cent goal.
Economy gives Federal Reserve little reason to halt rate hikes -The economy is giving the Federal Reserve little reason to shift its strategy of raising interest rates to lower inflation. A Friday jobs report showed employment growth exceeding expectations in June despite rising recession fears and plunging consumer confidence. The U.S. gained 372,000 jobs last month, according to the Labor Department, beating the consensus estimates of economists by almost 100,000. Job growth has slowed slightly since the start of the year, but economists had expected it to fall off harder in June under the weight of Fed rate hikes. A recent dip in oil and commodity prices, easing pressure on supply chains and slowing housing sales have boosted optimism among economists that relief from inflation may be on the way. Even so, a small move in the direction of lower inflation is unlikely to convince Fed officials to ease up on rate hikes and risk losing their chance to bring down prices without triggering a recession — a careful balancing act known as a “soft landing.” “There’s no reason for them to reconsider that approach. That approach may be consistent with the sort-of soft landing that they’re hoping for,” said Julia Pollak, labor economist at ZipRecruiter, in a Friday interview. After holding off on rate hikes as inflation rose in 2021, the Fed has sprinted to make up for its mistakes with a series of rapid increases over the past four months. The Fed has raised its baseline interest rate range by 1.5 percentage points since March, including by 0.75 percentage points in June alone. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and other top Fed officials say the bank will not stop raising rates until they see signs of inflation moving steadily toward their annual target of 2 percent. The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation, rose 6.3 percent annually in May, more than three times higher than the bank’s ideal level.
Fed’s QT Kicks Off: Total Assets Drop by $74 Billion from Peak, New Era Begins - by Wolf Richter - Total assets on the Fed’s weekly balance sheet as of July 6, released this afternoon, fell by $22 billion from the prior week, and by $74 billion from the peak in April, to $8.89 trillion, the lowest since February 9, as the Fed’s quantitative tightening (QT) has kicked off. The zigzag pattern is due to the peculiar nature of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) that we’ll get to in a moment. Treasury notes and bonds mature mid-month and end of month, which is when they come off the Fed’s balance sheet, which in June was June 15th and June 30th. Last week’s balance sheet was as of June 29 and didn’t include the June 30th run-off. However, the army of tightening-deniers trolling the internet and social media doesn’t know that, and so a week ago, they fanned out and announced that the Fed had already ended QT, or was backtracking on it, because Treasuries hadn’t dropped in two weeks, which was hilarious. Or more sinister: hedge funds manipulating markets through their minions?Inflation compensation from TIPS adds to balance. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities pay inflation compensation that is added to the face value of the TIPS (similar to the popular “I bonds”). So if you hold a fixed number of TIPS, their face value will rise with the amount of the inflation compensation. When they mature, you will receive the total amount of original face value plus inflation compensation.The Fed holds $384 billion in TIPS at original face value. It has received $92 billion of inflation compensation on those TIPS. This inflation compensation increased its holdings of TIPS to $476 billion.Over the month of June, inflation compensation increased by $4 billion. In other words, until those TIPS mature and run off the balance sheet, the Fed’sholdings of TIPS will increase by the amount of inflation compensation – currently around $1-1.5 billion a week!No TIPS matured in June. But next week, July 15, TIPS with an original face value of $9.6 billion plus $2.5 billion in inflation compensation will mature, for a total of $12.1 billion, that the Fed will get paid. After that, the next maturity of TIPS on the Fed’s balance sheet is on January 15, 2023. And the TIPS balance will increase from July 15 through January 15 due to inflation compensation.The thing to remember about the Fed’s TIPS is that the inflation compensation is added to the balance of TIPS and therefore to the balance of Treasury securities, at around $1-1.5 billion a week currently. The balance of Treasury securities fell by $20 billion from the prior week and by $27 billion from the peak on June 8, to $5.74 trillion, the lowest since February 23:Note the two run-offs on the balance sheets on June 16 and today. Note the small steady increase of around $1-1.5 billion a week after QE had ended from mid-March into June, which is the inflation compensation from TIPS. MBS fell by $31 billion from peak.Pass-through principal payments. Holders of MBS receive pass-through principal payments when the underlying mortgages are paid off after the home is sold or the mortgage is refinanced, and when mortgage payments are made. As a passthrough principal payment is made, the balance of the MBS shrinks by that amount. These pass-through principal payments are uneven and unpredictable.Purchases in the TBA market and delayed settlement. During QE, and to a much lesser extent during the taper, and to a minuscule extent now, the Fed tries to keep the balance of MBS from shrinking too fast by buying MBS in the “To Be Announced” (TBA) market. But purchases in the TBA market take one to three months to settle. The Fed books its trades after they settle. So the purchases included in any balance sheet were made one to three months earlier.This delay is why it takes months for MBS balance to reflect the Fed’s current purchases. The purchases we san show up on the balance sheet in June were made somewhere around March and April.
Brainard calls digital dollar a 'natural evolution' of payment system -- A central bank digital currency could play a key role in protecting financial stability, Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair Lael Brainard said in a speech Friday morning.In remarks delivered at a Bank of England conference in London, Brainard said a CBDC could be a settlement layer that connects a system of regulated stablecoins to one another and to public money. “Given the foundational role of fiat currency, there may be an advantage for future financial stability to having a digital native form of safe central bank money — a central bank digital currency,” Brainard said in remarks delivered at the conference. “A digital native form of safe central bank money could enhance stability by providing the neutral trusted settlement layer in the future crypto financial system.”Brainard warned that stablecoins, which she described as “the digital native asset that bridges from the crypto financial system to fiat,” are already becoming highly concentrated, with three coins accounting for 90% of transactions and two issuers holding an 80% market share. Should this trend continue, she argued, it risks the creation of a private, unregulated payment system.The comments were the strongest endorsement a Fed official has given to the idea of a digital U.S. dollar to date. While the central bank has studied CBDCs, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has maintained a neutral stance on the topic of implementation, noting that the decision ultimately belonged to Congress. During testimony in front of the House Financial Services Committee in May, Brainard outlined the benefits of developing a CBDC, but also highlighted a set of risks, such as thedisintermediation of banks from the financial system and a depletion of deposits.Friday’s speech gave no such caveat. While falling short of an outright endorsement of a digital dollar, Brainard described the development of a CBDC as a “natural evolution” of the interoperability of public and private currencies. She said it would ensure “strong public trust in the one-for-one redeemability of commercial bank money and stablecoins for safe central bank money.”
Unstoppable' U.S. dollar tramples on loonie, global currencies - Global currencies, including the Canadian dollar, were under pressure on Tuesday as currency traders piled into the U.S. dollar as a safe haven asset amid growing recession concerns. “The [U.S.] dollar is rolling through foreign exchange markets like an unstoppable juggernaut this morning, crushing major and exotic currencies alike,” Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at Corpay, in a note to clients. The loonie sank more than an entire penny against the U.S. dollar to 76.71 cents U.S. on Tuesday -- a significant move by normal trading standards. The euro, meanwhile, hit its lowest level against the greenback since 2002. Investors are on the hunt for places to hide in the market as “worries about a worldwide economic downturn outweigh hopes of a rapprochement with China, hurting risk appetite and heightening demand for safe assets,” Schamotta said. “The euro is trading near a 20-year low, on course to challenge parity with the dollar as investors lower European Central Bank policy expectations,” he added. “Sentiment indicators are pointing to recession in the bloc’s biggest economies, limiting the central bank’s capacity to respond to high inflation by raising interest rates.” In addition to U.S. dollar strength, a drop in crude prices is also heaping pressure on the Canadian dollar. The West Texas Intermediate benchmark plunged more than eight per cent Tuesday to settle at US$99.50. Investors appear to be brushing off another potential supersized interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada next week, even after two surveys released by the Canadian central bank on Monday showed consumers and businesses are expecting inflation to run much hotter for longer. “[Monday’s Bank of Canada] surveys confirm our view that the bank will hike by 75 [basis points] at the next meeting in a few weeks. Even still, markets have this priced in alongside decent odds of another non-standard sized hike at the September meeting as well,” Bipan Rai, North America head of FX strategy at CIBC Capital Markets, said in a note Tuesday. He also noted an expected divergence in monetary policy between the U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank as underpinning weakness in the euro. “The slide lower in [euro/U.S. dollar] is reflective of the proximity of a recession in the Eurozone as the price for gas soars in the EU. That’s helping to lift the [U.S. dollar] elsewhere as the Fed continues to look like the central bank that few are going to match when it comes to hiking rates,” he said.
Five High Frequency Indicators for the Economy - These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment. 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 July 3rd. 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 5.1% from the same day in 2019 (94.9% 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). Black is 2020, Blue is 2021 and Red is 2022. The data is from BoxOfficeMojo through June 30th. Movie ticket sales were at $206 million last week, down about 39% 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 25th. The occupancy rate was down 4.1% compared to the same week in 2019. The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is at the median rate for the previous 20 years (Blue). This graph, based on weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows gasoline supplied compared to the same week of 2019. As of June 24th, gasoline supplied was down 5.7% 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, July 1st.
Atlanta Fed’s Model Forecasts GDP to Contract by -2.1 Percent in Second Quarter; Morgan Stanley Says S&P 500 Could Drop Another 22 Percent If that Happens By Pam and Russ Martens The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will release its advance estimate for U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the second quarter of 2022 at 8:30 a.m. on July 28. All eyes on Wall Street will be glued to that number as a gauge of where stock prices are headed.As of this morning, the highly respected number crunchers at the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model are forecasting a contraction of -2.1 percent in U.S. economic growth in the second quarter. (That’s the real GDP growth/seasonally adjusted annual rate.) The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow modelers will update their forecast five more times, based on additional economic data releases, before the advance estimate for second quarter GDP is officially released by the BEA on July 28.GDP contracted at a -1.6 percent annualized rate in the first quarter. Two quarters of negative GDP growth has been the criteria on Wall Street for characterizing the economy as in recession. The definition of recession at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee is the official word on classifying when a U.S. recession has begun and ended.If there is a meaningful contraction in the U.S. economy, Wall Street trading house, Morgan Stanley, sees the potential for the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500,to sink to as low as 3,000. As of Friday’s close, the S&P 500 stood at 3825.33, which was already a loss of 19.7 percent year-to-date.The S&P 500 closed out last year at 4,766.183. If it were to reach 3,000 this year, that would be a year-to-date loss of 37 percent – and that could actually be the good news compared to what is likely to happen to Nasdaq if there is a significant GDP contraction. The Nasdaq composite index closed out last year at a reading of 15,644.97. The Nasdaq closed Friday at 11,127.85 – a year-to-date decline of 29 percent. A GDP contraction would be likely to hit the Nasdaq much harder than the S&P 500 because the Nasdaq is stuffed with tech companies trading at lofty price-to-earnings multiples; numerous companies with negative earnings histories; many companies paying no dividends; and companies which should have never been brought to public markets in the first place. (See our report: SEC Chair Jay Clayton Left Markets in the Biggest Mess Since 1929.)
Q2 GDP Forecasts: Slightly Negative --Note: We've seen two consecutive quarters of negative GDP before without a recession (that isn't the definition). If Q2 is negative, it will mostly be due to inventory and trade issues. No worries. My view is the US economy is not currently in a recession, see: Predicting the Next Recession. From BofA: We are now tracking -1.2% qoq saar growth for 2Q, down from 0.0% qoq saar previously. It is reasonable to dismiss some of the signal from the GDP declines that may have taken place in the first two quarters of the year on account of the large negative contributions from net trade and inventories. In addition, there is a larger-than-normal gap between GDP and GDI which, historically, has been resolved by GDP getting revised toward GDI, suggesting that some of the as-reported weakness in activity may get revised away over time. [July 8 estimate] From Goldman: We left our Q2 GDP tracking estimate unchanged at +0.7% (qoq ar). [July 8 estimate] And from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNow: The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2022 is -1.2 percent on July 8, up from -1.9 percent on July 7. [July 8 estimate]
No more whispers: Recession talk surges in Washington - From Wall Street to Washington, whispers about a coming economic slump have risen to nearly a roar as the Federal Reserve ramps up its battle against the highest inflation in four decades. Price spikes and the Fed’s aggressive interest rate hikes sent the benchmark S&P 500 stock index tumbling to its worst performance in the first half of the year since 1970. Consumer confidence has sunk to record lows. And economists are increasingly worried that a downturn will not only happen but happen soon — a danger underscored by one widely watched Fed growth tracker. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has begun saying the quiet part out loud: The central bank is willing to tolerate a recession if it means getting inflation under control. “The bigger mistake to make,” he said on June 29, “would be to fail to restore price stability.” While Biden has publicly backed Powell’s efforts, raising expectations of a recession are compounding the administration’s economic woes as Democrats head into congressional elections this year. “Everyone is screaming about inflation,” said Josh Bivens, research director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But “people would really hate a recession too.” Americans are already pessimistic about the economy even as unemployment sits at 3.6 percent — near modern-era lows — and a contracting economy would deepen the pain, bringing a wave of layoffs and pay cuts. “The mood could get a lot more sour,” said Bivens, who argues that if the economy contracts, that would mean the Fed has screwed up by going too far in trying to curb surging prices. Across the nation, the leading topic of economic conversation — high inflation — is swiftly morphing into growing certainty of a coming recession. White House allies are bracing for it. Republican lawmakers are trumpeting that a downturn is inescapable. Wall Street analysts are increasingly building it into their forecasts. And business leaders have rapidly moved from muted fears to openly chattering about an economic slump during investor discussions and inside their companies.Some Democrats, for their part, are still pointing to bright spots in the economy and hoping that the central bank will manage to slow growth — and therefore bring down inflation — without tipping the country into a full-blown slump. Powell says he shares that hope and has pointed to the continued strength of the economy. M
Democrats race to clinch deal on climate, energy with Manchin - Lawmakers face a fast-ticking clock as they try to secure a deal that would deliver on Biden’s goals and satisfy Manchin’s concerns - Democratic leaders are racing to finalize a revised proposal to tackle climate change and jump-start the nation’s transition to clean energy, part of a larger sprint to strike a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on their stalled spending bill this month. 10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint The frenzied deliberations reflect weeks of private talks between Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Manchin, a centrist who scuttled negotiations over the party’s last attempt at a broader spending package in December. A climate agreement would help the country meet President Biden’s ambitious clean-energy goals, even as Manchin pursues policies that would still promote fossil fuels. While top Manchin aides say they are far from a deal, some Democrats are still hoping to finalize a retooled climate proposal as soon as next week, when lawmakers are set to return from recess, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Already, party leaders have held advanced discussions with the West Virginian on spending to combat climate change, including how to curb emissions of methane, a potent planet-warming gas, the individuals said. Advertisement Last year, Democrats proposed placing a fee on oil and gas companies’ methane emissions as part of their ill-fated legislative package, known as the Build Back Better Act. But Manchin raised concerns about the fee, saying it would be duplicative of proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. Democrats are now working out with Manchin a potential solution that would exempt companies from the methane fee if they comply with the EPA regulations once the rules are finalized, the two people familiar with the matter said. The individuals cautioned that lawmakers and their staff are still discussing the idea and that no final deal on methane — or the rest of their climate agenda — has been reached. Over the past year, Democrats have repeatedly thought they were close to striking an accord with Manchin, only to see negotiations collapse at the last moment because of misunderstandings, miscommunications and lingering policy differences. “Suggestions that a reconciliation deal is close are false,” said Sam Runyon, a spokesman for Manchin, in a statement. “Senator Manchin still has serious unresolved concerns and there is a lot of work to be done before it’s conceivable that a deal can be reached he can sign onto.”
Democrats inch forward on reconciliation package - Senate Democrats today are sending an agreement on drug pricing to the parliamentarian for review, an important step forward in talks on their party-line budget reconciliation package, an aide familiar with the negotiations told E&E News.Last year Democrats were in the process of putting their “Build Back Better Act” through the “Byrd Bath,” which determines whether provisions fit the strict rules that govern budget reconciliation in the Senate. But then Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) killed the effort.The drug pricing language will be the first section to get scrubbed as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Manchin negotiate a smaller bill.Energy and climate provisions that have been a cornerstone of the budget reconciliation effort remain in flux, with details expected to trickle out over the coming weeks.Green groups, including the Sierra Club, EDF Action and the League of Conservation Voters, rallied on Capitol Hill this morning to call on Congress to pass climate legislation.Still, for Democrats, the first Byrd Bath, named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), is an encouraging sign.“Senator Manchin has long advocated for proposals that would lower prescription drug costs for seniors and his support for this proposal has never been in question,” Manchin spokesperson Sam Runyon said in an email. “He’s glad that all 50 Democrats agree.”As talks continue, another Democratic aide familiar with the talks said climate spending is expected to be below the $555 billion contained in the “Build Back Better Act” passed by the House last year.“I am as optimistic as I’ve been in quite a while that we’re going to get this done,” said the aide, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.NBC News reported today that Manchin, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources chair, and Schumer are eyeing a $300 billion “ceiling” for the energy provisions, but the specifics are still up in the air.Manchin has in recent weeks expressed opposition to direct pay options for clean energy tax incentives, as well as expanded credits for electric vehicles — both key aspects of the House-passed bill.On the other hand, both Manchin and Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.) have indicated that the proposed fee on methane emissions remains on the table (E&E Daily, May 6).
Blinken won’t meet with Lavrov at G-20 summit in Indonesia --Secretary of State Antony Blinken will not meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov when the two are in Bali, Indonesia, this week for a meeting of the foreign ministers of Group of 20 nations. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday that the “time is not right” for a bilateral engagement between the two top diplomats because of Russia’s “unprovoked, brutal war” against Ukraine. The G-20 foreign minister’s meeting, set to take place between July 7 and 8, presents a potentially awkward, public confrontation between the U.S. and Russia, which are both members of the global grouping, more than five months into Russia’s war against Ukraine. “We would like to have the Russians give us a reason to meet on a bilateral basis with them, with Foreign Minister Lavrov, but the only thing we have seen emanate from Moscow is more brutality and aggression against the people and country of Ukraine,” Price said. Price would not speak to the “choreography” of the summit, alluding to the potential that Blinken could be in the same room or a photograph with the Russian foreign minister, but said the secretary would be an “active participant in the G-20.” The summit will also bring together other member states on opposite sides of the war, as well as ones that have taken neutral positions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Price said that he expects a number of G-20 members to express “no shortage of condemnation for the actions on the part of the Russian federation.” But potential outliers include Indonesia — whose president recently shuttled between Moscow and Kyiv to try and achieve a breakthrough on food shipments out of Ukraine — and countries that have sought to preserve ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. These include India, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and China.
US paramilitary forces are on the ground in Ukraine - The New York Times reported Monday that dozens of US ex-military personnel are operating on the ground in Ukraine and that retired senior US officers are directing portions of the Ukrainian war effort from within the country. Coming after revelations that the United States was directly involved in coordinating and planning the assassination of Russian generals and the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, the report further refutes the false claim by the Biden administration that the United States is not at war with Russia.In its report, the Times wrote:Americans are in Ukraine. An unknown number are fighting on the front lines. Others volunteer to be members of casualty evacuation teams, bomb disposal specialists, logistics experts and trainers. At least 21 Americans have been wounded in combat since the war started, according to a nonprofit organization that evacuates them. Two have been killed, two have been captured and one is missing in action.In February, US President Joe Biden said, “Our forces are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine.” In March, Biden reiterated, “The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks … going in with American pilots and American crews, just understand, don’t kid yourselves, no matter what you all say, that’s called World War III.”Since that announcement, the United States has provided over 200 armored personnel carriers and over 20 helicopters to Ukraine, as well as M109 self-propelled armored howitzers, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and HIMARS long-range missiles.In addition to these military armaments, it is now clear that the United States has sent troops. The US military claims that these forces, including one colonel and one lieutenant colonel, are operating on their own and are not under the command of the US military.But these denials are a lie, meant to deceive the American people, who overwhelmingly oppose their government going to war with Russia. The officers admitted as much, telling the Times that their actions give the United States “plausible deniability.” The Times interviewed Andrew Milburn, a retired Marine Corps Special Operations colonel on the ground in Ukraine, who declared that his actions and those of the dozens of American soldiers “are executing U.S. foreign policy in a way the military can’t.” Significantly, the US officers are “helping to plan combat missions,” serving as a critical conduit for US direction of the war effort.The Times reports of the existence of a so-called “Mozart group” of dozens of US soldiers who are actively engaged in training thousands of Ukrainian troops on how to use weapons provided by the United States, such as javelin anti-tank missiles.The Times report does not constitute investigative reporting but rather a controlled release of information designed to condition the American population to accept the unthinkable: A “hot war” between nuclear-armed powers.Bit by bit, Biden’s lying claim that the United States is not at war with Russia is being replaced with the reality that the United States is, in fact, at war with the world’s second largest nuclear power. The American population is simply to be presented with a fait accompli and accept the facts on the ground that they are at war.
Biden to rescind Afghanistan’s designation as major non-NATO ally -President Biden indicated on Wednesday that he intends to rescind Afghanistan’s designation as a major non-NATO ally. “In accordance with section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2321k), I am providing notice of my intent to rescind the designation of Afghanistan as a Major Non-NATO Ally,” Biden wrote in a letter to Congress, addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), according to the White House. The U.S. designated Afghanistan as a major non-NATO ally in 2012, more than 10 years after NATO forces first deployed to the country following the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Its status as a major non-NATO ally allowed Afghanistan to receive military assistance and training from the military alliance, which, along with the U.S., withdrew all its troop forces in August 2021 following the swift retaking of the country by the Taliban. Since then, NATO and the U.S. have suspended all military support to the country but at times continue to lend humanitarian aid. The chaotic and deadly U.S. troop withdrawal from the country in August left more than 200 Afghans dead and thousands of Afghans who had worked with the U.S. and allied forces stranded. Thirteen U.S. soldiers died as a result of a suicide bomber who detonated a bomb at the airport in Kabul while thousands were trying to flee the country. Biden had firmly stuck to an Aug. 31, 2021, deadline to remove all U.S. troops from the country for the first time since the war began 20 years ago despite pleas from lawmakers in both parties to wait until everyone who wanted to get out could. Over the course of evacuations, U.S. military and coalition aircraft flew out more than 123,000 civilians, including 6,000 Americans.
Terrorism & Human Rights Violations Hallmark of US Regimes - Not a day passes when US armed forces, whether the mostly white police in American towns and cities, or whether Yankee occupation soldiers abroad, do not indulge in acts of sadistic terrorism. As a matter of fact, there is no conception of human rights in official American thinking from the White House to the ordinary white-skinned cops notorious for their bloodcurdling violation of all civilizational norms. For instance, this heartlessness was on full display last week in Akron, Ohio, where a 25-year unarmed old Afro-American citizen was killed for no fault, in the most brutal manner. White traffic policemen, on mere suspicion, gave a 7-minute chase to motorist Jayland Walker, and after cornering him, pumped at least 60 bullets into his body, even though he had neither committed any crime nor violated the rules of the road. A couple of years ago, US racist brutality had shock the civilized world when George Floyd was mercilessly throttled to death in broad daylight in the streets of Minneapolis by white policemen, for being a black skinned person. This is law enforcement US style, or actually the trampling of justice on the pretext of safeguarding security, which not just frequently happens in the streets of American towns and cities, but occurs with untold brutalities in countries where Yankee soldiers are based. This happened in Dresden, Berlin, and other German towns when the Nazi army collapsed during World War 2 and the victorious US troops plundered people, murdered children, and gang-raped women. The Japanese were also subjected to these inhuman US atrocities in the eastern theatre of the war, and later the Koreans. These were routine occurrences for over a decade in Vietnam where Americans committed every conceivable crime, while resorting to hypocrisy at the UN and other world forums by falsely claiming to be supporters of human rights. In our own times, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, have witnessed these cruelties by the American soldiers and their agents, while regimes that slavishly serve US interests, have enacted the same scenarios in Palestine, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt, and other places. Meanwhile, ever since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution that kicked out the American hegemons in 1979, Washington has continued to target Iran with all kinds of terrorism, including economic, cultural, pharmaceutical, and political, including the 8-year war it had imposed in the 1980s through Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad, who earned lasting damnation for using internationally-banned chemical weapons supplied by the US and the West. Yet, despite this grave violation of human rights and dignity, the US claims to be a defender of human rights – a claim that is dismissed by experts.
Democrats Love Saying That AR-15s Should Only Be Used On Foreigners - Caitlin Johnstone - Every time there’s a mass shooting in America with an AR-15, high-level Democrats line up to proclaim that those weapons should only ever be used to kill impoverished foreigners.The latest example of this ongoing phenomenon was Illinois Senator and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth telling the press that a recording from the July 4th Highland Park shooting which killed seven people and wounded dozens more reminded her of her combat experience overseas, saying the US needs to do better within its own borders. “I just listened to the sound of that gunfire from one of the videos that was captured,” Duckworthsaid. “And let me tell you that the last time I heard a weapon with that capacity firing that rapidly on a Fourth of July was Iraq, it was not the United States of America. We can and we should and we will do better.”This was not the first time Duckworth has repeated this demented Democratic Party refrain. Last month during the controversy which followed the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Duckworth tweeted, “I carried an M16 and M4 in the military, so let me be clear: High-powered rifles designed for our troops to engage an enemy with accurate, lethal fire at a velocity of 3,000 feet per second have no place on our streets. I fully support an assault weapons ban.” Obviously American weapons of war kill far more people overseas than they do domestically, and those killings are done in wars of aggression for power and profit which are sold to the public with lies and propaganda, so they’ve got no higher moral standing than the killings of any mass shooter. But because the Democratic Party exists only to kill leftward movement in the United States and ensure the continual functioning of a globe-spanning empire, gun violence is seen at its highest echelons not as a moral issue which should be opposed everywhere but as a wedge issue which should be exploited for campaign donations. We saw this illustrated in a notorious 2017 tweet from now-US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig which said, “I did not carry an assault weapon around a foreign country so I could come home and see them used to massacre my countrymen.” Silly Republicans! Assault weapons are for killing foreign kids!Another classic came from Instagram progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019: “Weapons of war, specifically designed to kill human beings en masse, should not be available for purchase.” Cool beans, AOC. Leave the killing en masse to the American stormtroopers exterminating brown-skinned poor people for resource control.We saw this “those bullets belong in foreign bodies” Democratic talking point seeded way back in 2013 by that masterful empire manager Barack Obama.“These weapons of war, when combined with high-capacity magazines, have one purpose: to inflict maximum damage as quickly as possible,” reads an Obama White House statement. “They are designed for the battlefield, and they have no place on our streets, in our schools, or threatening our law enforcement officers.”The line “Weapons of war have no place on our streets” would go on to be parroted, again and again and again, by Democratic Party candidates and officials for years. Hillary Clinton regurgitated it verbatim during her 2016 campaign. Biden said it on the campaign trail in 2019. We heard the slogan “Weapons of war have no place on our streets” repeated word-for-word by Democratic Party war hawks like Dianne Feinstein, Adam Schiff, and Seth Moulton.“Weapons of war don’t belong on our streets.” You can learn so much about the Democratic Party’s true nature just from those eight words. Those weapons do not belong on our streets, they belong on someone else’s streets. Far away streets. The streets where our wars are. We shouldn’t have to see that stuff!
ICBM Test Rocket Exploded Seconds After Launch, Briefly Setting Fire To California Base -- A late night ICBM missile test in California ended in disaster, as it exploded just seconds after lift-off on Wednesday. Officials with the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Lompoc, California confirmed that "The Minotaur II space launch vehicle exploded approximately 11 seconds after launching off the test pad at 11:01 p.m. local time, Vandenberg," which was announced Thursday morning.The incident resulted in a fire on base, though officials noted that debris from the blast didn't stray outside of the "immediate vicinity" of the launch bad. The local Vandenberg Fire Department responded and was able to put out the fire before it threatened other areas of the base. No injuries were reported. A cause of the failed test was not immediately clear, and it's under investigation. Local reports, citing military press releases, say the test was originally slated for Thursday morning but was moved up to late Wednesday night for unknown reasons."The military base was testing the U.S. Air Force’s new missile rocket, which is expected to be used with the future LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile," one area report details."Both are being developed by the Air Force’s Nuclear Weapons Center to will replace the aging Minuteman missiles that have previously been tested at the Central Coast base, located near Lompoc," the reported added.
US, UK law enforcement chiefs unite to warn of Chinese spying threat -- The heads of the FBI and the United Kingdom’s (U.K.) MI5 warned against what they described as a sweeping Chinese espionage threat during a rare joint appearance in London on Wednesday. FBI Director Christopher Wray and MI5 Director General Ken McCallum detailed the potential calamities before an audience of business and academic leaders, arguing China’s efforts to steal technology, maintain hidden investments and control business operations in China extend to companies of all sizes and industries. “The Chinese government poses an even more serious threat to Western businesses than even many sophisticated businesspeople realize,” Wray said. Wednesday’s appearance marked the first time the leaders of the FBI and MI5 shared a public platform, according to McCallum. Wray said he was not advising companies to avoid doing business in or with China altogether, but he implored businesses to “take the long view” and work with U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies to better understand the threat and mitigate cyberattacks. “The Chinese government is set on stealing your technology — whatever it is that makes your industry tick — and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market,” Wray said. “And they’re set on using every tool at their disposal to do it.” Law enforcement has even caught people affiliated with Chinese companies sneaking into U.S. fields to dig up genetically modified seeds, Wray added. “Consider that it may be a lot cheaper to preserve your intellectual property now than to lose your competitive advantage and have to build a new one down the road,” he said. Wray also pointed to concerns that China may attempt to invade Taiwan militarily. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has further sparked concerns that Beijing might be learning lessons for its own regional expansion plans. Wray argued an invasion of Taiwan would represent “one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen,” warning that the FBI has picked up on efforts by China to insulate their economy against potential sanctions. “In our world, we call that kind of behavior a clue,” he said.
Biden prepares action to reshape Trump’s tariffs on China - President Joe Biden is preparing to alter some of former President Trump’s tariffs on China, with a decision expected this month. The administration is likely to announce action to lift a narrow set of tariffs on Chinese imports this month, said three industry officials and former federal officials with knowledge of administration plans. A senior administration official, who spoke anonymously to discuss policy plans, said no final decision has been made on timing. The decision comes as the White House continues to seek ways to tame historically high inflation outside of actions by the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates. Some administration officials and outside economists have identified lifting some of the tariffs on China as a way to partially ease high prices U.S. consumers are now paying. But in its current form, the tariff plan would be a defeat for Biden officials like Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who have pushed for broader tariff relief as a way to combat inflation and show voters ahead of the midterms that Biden is working to counteract rising prices. The details of the administration’s plan are not final, but are likely to involve three parts. First, a narrow set of tariffs will be lifted, likely duties on consumer goods like bicycles. Which duties will be included in the initial tariff relief are still under discussion, but two sources said the value is expected to be relatively small — $10 billion worth of imports out of roughly $370 billion imposed by Trump is one value under consideration. At the same time, the administration is expected to announce that the U.S. Trade Representative will open a new exclusion process for companies to win exemptions from the tariffs on China. USTR earlier this year awarded a narrow set of exemptions on 352 types of imports from China, but companies and pro-free trade lawmakers have pushed the agency to award further carve outs. Alongside those actions, the administration will also announce a new tariff investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act that will target sectors of the Chinese economy that are heavily subsidized by the Chinese Communist Party. The U.S. has long complained that Beijing supports high-tech sectors like semiconductors and batteries to unfairly disadvantage foreign competition, and the new tariff investigation will likely result in new duties on those sectors in an effort to level the playing field for American firms.
Treasury announces sanctions targeting cheap Iranian oil heading for China --The Treasury Department announced sanctions Wednesday against a number of export companies shipping Iranian petroleum products to China and other east Asian countries, coming to the aid of U.S. allies in the Gulf who are seeing their Asian market share undercut by discounted oil from Russia and Iran. Russian oil exports to China have spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which prompted Western countries to block and scale back their imports of Russian energy products. To stay competitive with cheaper Russian oil, Iran has also slashed its prices on exports to China, undermining the big Gulf producers on the international market. Ahead of President Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia this month, the new Treasury sanctions will likely be read as a gesture of good faith on the part of the administration toward regional allies. Biden has indicated to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that he thinks they should increase oil production in order to bring down prices. A barrel of oil now costs around $100, which is well below the $120-price tag following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but still way above both its low point during the pandemic and its pre-pandemic level. Treasury’s sanctions target Jam Petrochemical Company, which the department says “has exported hundreds of thousands of metric tons of petrochemical products, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to companies throughout East Asia.” Also sanctioned were Edgar Commercial Solutions FZE, Lustro Industry Limited, Oligei International Trading Co. Limited, as well as two United Arab Emirates-based entities — all for their involvement in the purchase and transfer of goods derived from Iranian petroleum. The Treasury Department said that despite the new sanctions, the Biden administration is still keen to return to the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which the U.S. pulled out of in 2018.
Has There Been Any Follow Up on DOE Energy Meeting? - Has there been any follow up on the energy meeting that U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm held? That was one of the questions posed to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a press briefing earlier this week. Answering the question, Jean-Pierre said, “as you know, that meeting went very well”. “We are … still looking to get to solution. We think that was a first step. There’s going to be more conversations … We just don’t have more to share on the next steps, specific next steps and what has been presented to the President,” the White House Press Secretary added in her response. “But clearly, we’re looking for solutions. We want to get that capacity up. We want to make sure that refineries are increasing their capacity so that we can get … gasoline out there, we can get diesel out there so that the cost[s] for the American people … come on down,” Jean-Pierre continued. “And so that’s what we’re going to continue to work on,” the press secretary went on to say. The average price of regular gasoline in the U.S. on July 7 was $4.752 per gallon, according to the AAA gas prices website. Yesterday’s average was $4.779 per gallon, the week ago average was $4.857 per gallon, the month ago average was $4.919 per gallon and the year ago average was $3.137 per gallon, the AAA site showed. The highest recorded average price for regular gasoline was seen on June 14 at $5.016 per gallon, according to the site. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed last month that Granholm led an in-person meeting with the CEOs and executives of seven major U.S. oil companies at the DOE headquarters in the morning of June 23. In an organization statement at the time, the DOE said the meeting took a productive focus on dissecting the current global problems of supply and refining, generating an opportunity for industry to work with government to help deliver needed relief to American consumers.
Biden's 51 years of bad blood with Big Oil - The fight started decades ago, when Biden was an up-and-coming county councilman with an eye on a U.S. Senate seat. President Joe Biden has been feuding with Big Oil since he was a 28-year-old county councilman in Delaware who went to war against a Shell refinery. “If Shell wants to build a refinery, let them build it,” Biden said during his brief stint as a local politician, the Wilmington News Journal reported at the time. “But first let them write it in blood that they won’t pollute.” He helped galvanize political opposition to the planned refinery, which was never built.Biden’s fight against the oil giant was a centerpiece of his two years on the New Castle County Council, where he served from 1971 until 1972. He leaned on his reputation for battling Big Oil to win his 1972 Senate race — catapulting a political career that ultimately landed in the White House.As president, Biden’s clash with the industry continues, but the stakes are higher. He’s hoping to prod drillers and refiners to step up production in an attempt to ease soaring fuel costs. But his public criticism of industry — and the industry’s disdain for his rhetoric and his policies — could make it harder for the administration and the industry to work together to lower gas prices.Earlier this month, Biden publicly quipped that an oil executive was “mildly sensitive” after the executive had accused Biden of vilifying the industry. E nergy Secretary Jennifer Granholm appeared to make amends on the administration’s behalf, but the relationship between Team Biden and Big Oil isn’t great (Greenwire, June 24).
Biden's presidency looks 'out of control,' but could it get worse? | Fox News --The Fourth of July weekend began with #ImpeachJoeBiden trending on Twitter. There appeared to be no illegal act cited as a basis for impeachment; instead, people were reacting to this tweet: "Former Senior Obama advisor David Axelrod to Jake Tapper of CNN: Things in the country are ‘out of control’ and Biden is ‘not in command.’" Americans are furious, despondent, and fed up with President Joe Biden. They agree with David Axelrod; the country has gone off the rails and the president seems utterly incapable of fixing what’s wrong. That’s not to say Biden isn’t making history. The president is causing a series of firsts, including some of the worst presidential approval ratings ever, the worst consumer sentiment, the worst bond market in modern times, and the worst-ever small business pessimism about the future. And that was just in the first half of 2022. Can it get even worse? Yes, unfortunately, it can. The economy is slumping, COVID confusion reigns, high energy prices are raising the cost of everything, air travel is a disaster, the chaos at the border is about to escalate and crime is surging. And, we remain disastrously low on baby formula. All this at a time when even Democrats have decided President Biden can’t cut it. Let’s start with the economy. Even as Biden idiotically continues to tout the "accomplishments" of his economic agenda, our country is sliding into recession. Private firms like S&P Global Market Intelligence and tracking groups like the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta are forecasting that economic activity dropped in the second quarter; following a pullback in the first three months of the year, a slump would technically put us in recession.Meanwhile, stock markets have had their worst first six months since 1970, with the S&P 500 down by nearly 21%. Bond markets by early May had suffered the worst losses – since 1842! Bitcoin came unglued as well, dropping 60% in value since the end of March.
Frustrated Democrats express alarm over Biden’s powerlessness -President Biden is finding himself largely powerless to address a spate of setbacks in recent weeks that have sparked alarm among Democrats about the state of the country. Biden has been dealt blow after blow in recent weeks: The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade’s constitutional right to an abortion; the country is plagued by gun violence, the latest example falling during an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago; and rising costs for gasoline, food and other goods have frustrated the public for months. In each case, Biden’s hands are largely tied, frustrating Democrats and contributing to the president’s political malaise. He has signed executive action and a bipartisan bill aiming to curb gun violence. He has taken some unilateral action to lower gas prices, such as releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And he has called on the Senate to alter the filibuster if needed to codify Roe v. Wade. None of those steps were expected to do or will do much to slow the gun violence plague, dramatically lower prices at the pump or bring back abortion rights in states where the procedure is being outlawed. And all of that is increasingly frustrating Democrats, who argue they voted Biden into office to enact change and are unhappy with the results. The steps and statements Biden has taken and given, in this context, are seen as much too little. “It’s infuriating,” said one top Democratic strategist, venting frustrations about Biden and his team. “Our house is on fire and it seems like they’re doing nothing to put the fire out. They’re just watching it with the rest of us.” Polls point to the gloom in American life. A Gallup survey published Tuesday found just 23 percent of Americans have confidence in the institution of the presidency, down 15 percentage points from a year ago. A Monmouth University poll released Tuesday found 88 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, with just 10 percent saying it’s on the right track, the lowest number tallied in a Monmouth poll since 2013. Democratic strategist Joel Payne said Biden needs to change course.
US Pandemic Checks Had No Lasting Impact on Poor, Study Shows - The nearly $1 trillion in stimulus checks during the pandemic likely had no long-lasting impact on recipients’ financial well-being, and in some cases increased their feelings of distress around money, a study found. Researchers surveyed more than 5,000 Americans living in poverty to find out how effective the unconditional cash transfers were. Recipients increased expenditures for a few weeks, but the extra money had no long-term impact on spending or savings, according to the paper, published Tuesday.“These results suggest that the cash allowed participants to spend more money, improving objective financial outcomes for the few weeks immediately following the transfer and then dissipating thereafter,” wrote the researchers, led by Ania Jaroszewicz at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences. The survey covered three groups: the first received a one-time payment of $500, the second got $2,000 and the third nothing. In the two weeks following the payment, the first and second groups spent $26 and $82 more per day on average, respectively, compared with the control group. Both groups also had higher bank balances immediately after getting the money. Expenditures and bank balances returned to levels similar to that of people who received no payment about four weeks later. The cash recipients also did more poorly on financial, psychological and health measures in the survey. This is consistent with the notion that receiving some money -- but not enough -- makes the gap between needs and resources more salient for low-income individuals, which is source of distress, according to the paper. “These results hint that while the cash did not actually produce worse outcomes in some objective sense, in some situations it made recipients feel worse,” the researchers wrote. In the survey, participants mainly used the checks to make debit and credit card payments, pay bills, buy food, shop and fund transportation. The study, which was conducted from July 2020 to May 2021, found no evidence that the extra money helped reduce bank fees, including overdraft and late payment penalties.
One year since President Biden declared “independence” from COVID-19 - One year ago, President Joe Biden spoke on the White House’s South Lawn with more than 1,000 maskless people in attendance, declaring the country’s independence from the coronavirus to much applause.He noted at that time, “Today, all across this nation, we can say with confidence: America is coming back together… Two hundred and forty-five years ago, we declared our independence from a distant king. Today, we’re closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.”He then invoked his vaccine-only strategy, stating, “Thanks to our heroic vaccine effort, we’ve gained the upper hand against this virus. We can live our lives, our kids can go back to school, our economy is roaring back.”The essence of the speech was not to pronounce the achievement of any meaningful elimination of the virus as China recently did in Shanghai. He intended to place the country on notice that America was abandoning any significant mitigation measures that would impede the complete reopening of the US economy, including the full reopening of schools to in-person instruction, whatever the cost.And one year later, the Biden administration has completed what his predecessor Donald Trump began—the dismantling of all mitigation measures to contain the virus and even any reporting and measurements to determine its impact, effectively declaring it a permanent fixture in society.
Twitter 'Silenced' Physicians Who Posted Truthful Information About COVID, Lawsuit Alleges - Three physicians are suing Twitter, alleging the company violated its own terms of service and community standards when it suspended their accounts for posting “truthful statements regarding COVID-19 policy, diagnosis and/or treatment.” Drs. Robert Malone, Peter McCullough and Bryan Tyson on Monday filed the lawsuit in Superior Court in California, San Francisco County. The complaint alleges Twitter breached the terms of its contract when it permanently suspended the plaintiffs’ accounts, silenced their voices and failed to provide them with “verified” badges. Plaintiffs allege Twitter’s actions were a substantial factor in causing them harm, and are asking the judge to order Twitter to reactivate their accounts. All three doctors are represented by attorneys Bryan M. Garrie and Matthew P. Tyson (no relation to the plaintiff, Bryan Tyson). Matthew Tyson on May 12, sent a letter to the directors and managing agents of Twitter requesting the company reinstate the accounts of five physicians, including the plaintiffs, and provide them with “verified” badges. Twitter failed to respond. In the letter, Matthew Tyson acknowledged Twitter is a “private company” and its terms state it can “suspend user accounts for any or no reason.” “However, Twitter also implemented specific community standards to limit COVID-19 misinformation on the platform, and Twitter was bound to follow those terms,” he added. According to the complaint, Twitter’s content-moderation terms included removal procedures for ineffective treatments and false diagnostic criteria, and measures for “labeling” information as “misleading.” ... “None of these physicians posted false or misleading information, nor did they receive five strikes before suspension,” Matthew Tyson stated in his letter to Twitter. “It’s no accident that Twitter violated its own COVID-19 misinformation guidelines and suspended the accounts of Drs. Zelenko, Malone, Fareed, Tyson and McCullough,” he wrote. The letter stated: “Twitter received express and implied threats from government officials to censor certain viewpoints and speakers, lest Twitter face the amendment or revocation of Section 230, or antitrust enforcement. This was a financial decision for Twitter. “For the sake of profits, it chose to abandon its role as a neutral internet service provider and instead openly and intentionally collude with government to silence lawful speech.”
Army cuts pay, benefits from more than 60,000 unvaccinated National Guard, Reserves - Roughly 57,000 Army National Guardsmen and Army Reservists who have yet to get vaccinated against the coronavirus will be barred from their duties, effectively cutting their pay and benefits an Army official confirmed for Fox News Digital. "Beginning July 1, 2022, members of the Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve who have refused the lawful DOD COVID-19 vaccination order without an approved or pending exemption may not participate in federally funded drills and training and will not receive pay or retirement credit," the Army said in a July 1 release obtained by Fox News Digital. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks with U.S. troops on Friday, March 18, 2022, at an Army training range in Bulgaria. Austin was in Bulgaria to meet with U.S. troops and to consult with top Bulgarian government officials. (AP Photo/Robert Burns)The announcement came one day after the June 30 deadline passed requiring soldiers in the Army National Guard to get the shots in their arms.Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in November said that members of the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard who refused to get vaccinated would be barred from participating in trainings and their pay would be blocked. Austin also warned that the continued refusal to get vaccinated could result in "separation" or expulsion from the service.
HHS Orders 2.5 Million More Doses of JYNNEOS Vaccine For Monkeypox Preparedness | HHS.gov - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today ordered an additional 2.5 million doses of Bavarian Nordic's JYNNEOS, an FDA-licensed vaccine indicated for prevention of smallpox and monkeypox, for use in responding to current or future monkeypox outbreaks and as part of U.S. smallpox preparedness. Deliveries from this latest order will begin arriving at the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) later this year and will continue through early 2023.The additional supply of vaccines is part of the Biden-Harris Administration's broader strategy to combat the monkeypox virus and protect those most at risk, including by accelerating the production and distribution of vaccines, making testing more accessible and convenient, and communicating regularly with health and community leaders about the virus."We are working around-the-clock with public health officials in states and large metro areas to provide them with vaccines and treatments to respond to the current monkeypox outbreak," said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. "This order of additional JYNNEOS vaccine will help us push out more vaccine quickly, knowing that we have more doses on the way in the coming months – and is only possible because of our longstanding investment in smallpox and monkeypox preparedness."The order announced today is in addition to the 500,000 doses of government-owned vaccine the company is producing in 2022 for use in the current response to monkeypox in the U.S and brings the total vaccine doses to be delivered in 2022 and 2023 to more than 4 million. The company will produce these doses in liquid frozen form using vaccine already manufactured in bulk under an existing 10-year contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), within the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR); that contract was part of ongoing national preparedness efforts against smallpox. BARDA supported the development of JYNNEOS, which is approved by the FDA to prevent smallpox and monkeypox. The U.S. government owns enough smallpox vaccine – JYNNEOS and ACAM2000 – to vaccinate millions of Americans, if needed.
Biden admin snafu leaves 1 million monkeypox doses in Denmark - A top Biden administration official tried to bat away mounting criticism from public health activists Thursday that the White House is letting red tape snarl delivery of 1 million monkeypox vaccine doses — which are currently stuck at the manufacturing plant in Denmark. It was the first appearance by the federal government’s pandemic response chief in New York City since local LGBTQ organizers sent the June 28 letter to the White House revealing the existence of massive supply sidelined by red tape.The US government spent at least $2 billion developing and manufacturing the vaccine for the national stockpile, the June 28 letter states, but the Food and Drug Administration has refused to import the shots after it failed to inspect the plant — and then refused to accept the inspection results from European Union’s regulatory arm, which deemed the facility safe.“Let me just set the facts straight on this one because I think there’s been some reporting that’s not completely captured the facts,” said Dr. Raj Panjabi, the senior director of the White House National Security Council leading pandemic preparedness.The FDA “by policy” would not accept EU sign-off — or “reciprocity” — for “any vaccine,” Panjabi claimed. He added that the FDA had “expedited” inspections by “several months to make sure we have those vaccines here as quickly as possible.” The FDA did not immediately respond to questions.
Appeals court panel casts doubt on DACA legality - - A panel of federal judges in New Orleans on Wednesday appeared unconvinced by the Justice Department’s arguments defending the legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, with the fate of nearly 600,000 so-called Dreamers hanging in the balance.The three-judge panel is hearing appeals by the Biden administration, liberal states and individual DACA recipients to U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision a year ago that held DACA to be unlawful. Hanen’s 2021 ruling ordered the Department of Homeland Security to no longer approve new applicants to the program, which grants work permits and protection from deportation to young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. However, the order allowed DHS to continue to process DACA renewals as the issue moved through the courts.Wednesday’s arguments before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals took place just over a decade after President Barack Obama created the DACA program through executive action. Much of the roughly 45-minute argument session was devoted to whether Texas and other states suing to block the program could show enough impact on them to proceed with the court case.“The relevant question here for summary judgment is whether… [Texas] has shown at least a dollar of expenditures that would be remedied by the removal of DACA, and whether some individual who has received that sort of spending under DACA will leave the United States,” Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone II told the judges.Stone argued that Texas did have injury from the DACA program, citing research from economist Ray Perryman that DACA recipients cost the state about $250 million per year. Perryman told The Dallas Morning News in August 2019 that the statement was “a complete mischaracterization of my research.”DOJ attorney Brian M. Boynton, meanwhile, argued that the plaintiff states did not have standing to challenge the federal government’s deferred-action policy because their injury was “purely speculative,” citing a 2015 case heard in the same appeals court.The panel assigned to the case, Judges Priscilla Richman, James Ho and Kurt Engelhardt, are a relatively conservative set of jurists on an appeals court widely considered to be the most conservative such bench in the country.Ho, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, vigorously challenged Boynton during his argument, questioning why the 2015 case, which was central to his argument, wasn’t mentioned in the Justice Department’s written filings. “I’m looking at your brief, and you don’t really talk about that case,” Ho said. “I’m just surprised that your lead case isn’t even in your brief.”Boynton also tried to persuade the judges that if they’re inclined to strike down the program, returning the issue to the Department of Homeland Security for them to revise the policy while keeping it in place would be an “appropriate remedy” in this case.The appeals court panel is expected to rule on the case in the coming months, with the losing side virtually certain to seek further review by the full bench of the 5th Circuit and eventually at the Supreme Court.
DACA court hearing energizes advocates on both sides - An appellate court on Wednesday heard arguments on a key immigration case that could determine the future of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants. The case, which involves the legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, riled up opponents and supporters of the Obama-era program, but it’s unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. “There is no established timeline for when they must or will decide the case,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund. “But we do know that when a decision is rendered it is likely that whichever side finds itself in disagreement with the decision will then consider further action. Either request for a full hearing by the entire 5th Circuit Court of Appeals or petition to the Supreme Court,” added Saenz. A 5th Circuit panel in New Orleans took up the appeal led by the Biden administration, a group of DACA beneficiaries and the state of New Jersey against a ruling by District Judge Andrew Hanen, who last year decreed DACA to be illegal. Texas, which led a multistate lawsuit against DACA, argued in favor of Hanen’s decision. While the 5th Circuit could take weeks or months to come to a decision, the hearing renewed passions in a legal fight that sits at the core of the country’s disagreements on immigration. “DACA has been under attack since its inception,” said Greisa MartÃnez Rosas, executive director at United We Dream, an immigrant youth advocacy organization. “The forces working against us are not shy about what they want. They want to end DACA and put all immigrants on a path towards detention and deportation. Republican governors continue to deliberately use DACA as a political weapon and continue to politicize our court systems,” she added.
Biden administration unveils sweeping changes to federal student loan system - The Biden administration on Wednesday announced several new proposed changes to the federal student loan system, including measures that help discharge loans for physically and mentally disabled borrowers, limit interest capitalization rates, and help borrowers working as public service employees to earn forgiveness on their loans. In a statement unveiling the proposed expansion of student loan discharge programs, the Department of Education said it expected to finalize a full plan by Nov. 1, with the aim to have the changes take effect no later than July 1. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in the statement that proposed changes “will protect borrowers and save them time, money, and frustration, and will hold their colleges responsible for wrongdoing.” “We are committed to fixing a broken system. If a borrower qualifies for student loan relief, it shouldn’t take mountains of paperwork or a law degree to obtain it,” Cardona said in a statement. “Student loan benefits also should not be so hard to get that borrowers never actually benefit from them.” The Biden administration has so far canceled nearly $26 billion for more than 1.3 million borrowers since taking office, much of which included loans obtained by borrowers who were defrauded by their college or had their school close down before they could complete their education. The changes proposed for the federal student loan system on Wednesday would make it easier for borrowers to file and pursue claims of predatory practices by colleges. The proposed rules would also help students who enrolled in schools 180 days prior to a school closure and who didn’t complete their education to more easily discharge the loans. In a statement, James Kvaal, the undersecretary of Education, said that “borrowers have had to navigate narrow rules and a needlessly complicated system” when attempting to cancel loans they should be able to easily discharge. “What’s worse, borrowers whose schools lied to them can’t pursue litigation because restrictive and unfair arbitration requirements and class action bans were foisted on them by their colleges,” Kvaal said. “Borrowers should not have to jump through hoops to get the relief they deserve.” Since October, the Biden administration has approved about $8.1 billion in student loan relief for 145,000 borrowers after rolling out changes to Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which grants loan forgiveness for those serving full time in certain public service positions. The changes to PSLF include a waiver that bypassed certain program requirements and granted borrowers credit toward loan cancellation, regardless of the type of federal loan. The waiver will expire at the end of October. Wednesday’s announcement proposes a permanent change to PSLF that would allow more payments to qualify for the program, including partial, lump-sum and late payments. It also would allow particular kinds of deferments and forbearances to count toward PSLF, and it would create a formal reconsideration process for applicants who were denied access to the program.
Supremes Kayo Climate Change Regulation: West Virginia v. EPA by Jerri-Lynn Scofield - -The Supreme Court issued another blockbuster 6-3 opinion last Thursday in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in which it ruled that the Clean Air Act didn’t provide EPA expansive powers to regulate carbon emissions.The decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, re-establishes his shaky control over the Court – which had last week in the Dobbs case overturned the longstanding Roe v. Wade precedent, despite his quibbles and wish to allow that precedent to stand. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had promoted his nomination to the Supreme Court and this latest decision fulfils the Chamber’s longstanding priority of guting federal regulatory authority (see David Siroia’s take in Jacobin, Chief Justice John Roberts Is Carrying Out Corporate America’s Long-Term Plan Perfectly.)The legal implications of the latest EPA ruling might in future have more far-reaching implications, hampering regulatory authority throughout the executive branch. I’ll not discuss those possible issues further here. ’ll instead confine myself to two immediate implications of the latest decision, the first, the impact on U.S. global leadership and the second, the limitations the decision imposes on the ability of U.S. states to regulate, now that the feds cannot – or may not- do so in the absence of further congressional action. But before I turn to those issues, permit me an aside. [.…] I also note that the current small c ‘conservative‘ Supreme Court relied in its decision on a relatively novel legal theory – the ‘major questions’ doctrine: that in certain extraordinary cases, Congress must provide more explicit authority for agency rule-making. In the West Virginia case, the Court held that the Clean Air Act did not provide necessary authority to undertake the power plant regulation at issue. Even more outrageously, the Court didn’t actually have, at least by my reading – and consistent with Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent – a live case or controversy it needed to weigh in on. The EPA’s 2015 Clean Power Plan rule had been put on hold in 2016 by the Court in response to a challenge by several states and private parties, and in 2019, the Trump EPA replaced that earlier EPA rule with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule. Both of these plans were vacated by a 2019 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which had sent the case back to the EPA for additional proceedings – yet to be concluded (see SCOTUS blog,Supreme Court curtails EPA’s authority to fight climate change) for further detail). So the Court could have sent this case back to the EPA to sort out the mess – and perhaps enact a viable climate change policy – before issuing any decision.What are the implications of the latest Supreme Court decision at the global level? There, the Biden administration has well and truly not only dropped – but lost – the ball. No one seems to be paying necessary attention to the climate change issue. Instead, the focus on Ukraine – and economic sanctions – has left climate change considerations to the side. Thus leaving the planet in peril. I only point out here that if, and that’s a very big IF, a sane and sensible administration were to step in, and attempt to implement a serious climate change agenda, at both domestic and international levels, this latest decision by the Supremes would prove to be a major impediment to such further action. Thus adding to the increasingly widespread perception that the U.S. is incapable of entering into any agreement – and following through on any commitments it might make therein.
Why the Supreme Court climate decision is a canary in the coal mine - You cannot kill what is already dead. So, while it is puzzling that the Supreme Court issued a decision on the unlawfulness of the Clean Power Plan — an Obama-era policy to cut climate pollution from the U.S. power sector that never actually took effect — that regulation is not the decision’s primary casualty. Economic trends drove industry to surpass the Clean Power Plan’s goals to burn less coal years ago. The Clean Power Plan was merely a zombie that the court raised to issue a decision. The real wrecking ball in West Virginia v. EPA is how the court unnecessarily tied our societal hands from most effectively tackling a major problem. This case could be a canary in the coal mine for a wider attack on regulatory safeguards. In its decision, the court’s majority penned a self-described narrow holding that the Clean Power Plan went too far by setting standards based on shifting generation from coal-fired plants to lower-emitting sources like gas-fired plants and on shifting both coal- and gas-fired plants to renewables. The loss of this cost-effective and efficient approach is bad news for climate action and for business. Power companies themselves defended a generation-shifting approach in their brief before the court, explaining it would not be novel, but is in fact how the modern grid operates and a typical end result of power sector regulation. This approach would have been a win for their bottom line — and the planet. Despite this setback, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still retains the authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions, including from the power sector. It has lost a valuable weapon in its arsenal to protect public health and the environment. But the fight is far from over. The true specter in the case is the “major questions doctrine.” Despite being dubbed a “doctrine,” this judicially created interpretive framework was, until recently, little-used, and it remains poorly defined. In West Virginia v. EPA, the court maintained that it would use the doctrine only in “extraordinary” situations involving “vast economic and political significance” where an agency used a long-existing statute in a new and transformative way. In those cases, it would infer an agency lacked authority unless Congress spelled it out precisely. The court then characterized the Clean Power Plan as such an exceptional case. Applying the major questions doctrine more widely would prove problematic because Congress has legislated for decades against a countervailing assumption — that it can broadly authorize agencies to use their expertise to address critical problems in adaptive ways. For example, Congress wrote the Clean Air Act of 1970 to broadly protect public health. As Justice Elena Kagan noted in her dissent, Congress recognized what it could not yet know. It left it to EPA to determine how to keep the air clean, flexibly leverage emerging technology and recalibrate based on the latest science. It passed the Clean Air Act, and many other laws, so that regulations could address the big problems of the day and of tomorrow — not punt on them. While a subset of climate change solutions occupied the crosshairs of West Virginia v. EPA, the risk extends to other areas of regulation. Previously, the court used the major questions doctrine to end the eviction moratorium early on in the coronavirus pandemic and vaccine-or-test mandate for eligible workers. Future regulations for national security, the financial system or any other sector could potentially fall prey. Use of the doctrine to unpredictably scrap regulation not only hobbles agencies from doing their jobs effectively, but it may mean higher costs and more uncertainty for regulated entities.
3 climate rules threatened by the Supreme Court decision - The Supreme Court ruling last week that clipped EPA’s authority to regulate global warming pollution will likely open the door to a flood of challenges claiming government agencies are overstepping their mission to tackle climate change. The court’s decision saying that agency efforts to curb emissions from power plants is a “major question” that Congress did not give EPA the authority to handle has led to a debate over other regulations that may or may not fall under the same label. The court didn’t clarify what might trigger the so-called major questions doctrine, but a host of energy, environmental and legal analysts say several initiatives could be vulnerable to challenges. “Anything now that agencies do to respond to climate change with regulatory authority, I would fully expect the interests that feel they are on the losing end of the proposal, will launch a major questions challenge,” said J.B. Ruhl, the co-director of Vanderbilt University Law School’s Energy, Environment and Land Use program. “It’s opened up a whole new world of speculation.” Ruhl likened the situation to a Goldilocks scenario — the court in 2007 found that EPA wasn’t doing enough to regulate greenhouse gases, only to say last week in West Virginia v. EPA that it was trying to do too much. “You can’t do nothing just because it’s a big problem, but you can’t do too much because it’s a big problem. So what’s just right?” Ruhl said. The regulations that could be subject to the court’s interpretation of a “major questions” issue — which involve “vast economic or political significance” — could run the gamut from EPA’s rules to boost car emissions standards, new climate accounting proposals from the Securities and Exchange Commission and new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission initiatives. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in favor of West Virginia, as well as other red states and coal companies, stated that EPA had overstepped its authority under the Clean Air Act by creating a rule requiring power plants to begin shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The decision invalidated the 2015 Clean Power Plan, which never went into effect, and will put some limits on how the Biden administration and future presidents can write new rules for existing power plants (Greenwire, June 30). EPA could now face a similar challenge to its proposed emissions standards for cars and trucks, the largest source of planet-warming pollution in the country.
- Even as the court heard the arguments in West Virginia v. EPA last February, two biofuel coalitions, a group of oil and gas producers and a refinery industry group joined 15 Republican state attorneys general in suing the Biden administration over a December rulemaking that increases vehicle fuel economy standards to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Similar to West Virginia v. EPA, the lawsuits argue that EPA is exceeding its authority by using the rule to shift the transportation sector away from liquid fuel vehicles to electric ones, as opposed to simply regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
- The SEC’s proposal to require some companies to disclose emissions data and their climate targets may also be a target in future legal challenges that rely at least in part on the major questions doctrine, legal experts said (see related story).SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce, a Republican, had raised the prospect of such a challenge in her dissent of the proposed rule in March, saying the SEC sought to change its regulatory role to be the “Securities and Environment Commission.”“This proposal steps outside our statutory limits by using the disclosure framework to achieve objectives that are not ours to pursue and by pursuing those objectives by means of disclosure mandates that may not comport with First Amendment limitations on compelled speech,” she said.
- The energy commission’s efforts to account for the climate risks of new interstate natural gas projects approved by federal regulators may also be targets of legal challenges under the justices’ interpretation of the major questions doctrine (Energywire, July 6).However, legal experts were generally skeptical that suits aimed at blocking FERC’s recent natural gas policy statement would be successful.
Supreme Court ruling shakes up 5th Circuit nuclear case - E&E News --Texas’ Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is looking to extend the implications of the Supreme Court’s landmark climate ruling in West Virginia v. EPA to the federal government’s jurisdiction over nuclear waste storage.The justices’ argument that EPA had violated the “major questions” doctrine in its 2015 greenhouse gas regulation for power plants also applied to Texas’ federal appeals court challenge to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to issue a license for a private facility to store radioactive waste in the Permian Basin, Paxton argued in a court filing this week.The legal doctrine states that Congress has to clearly delegate authority to federal agencies to act when they are seeking to draft rules that are politically and economically significant“West Virginia confirms that this case implicates the major questions doctrine,” said the attorney general’s office in a letter to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, citing new supplemental authority in the case.Paxton’s letter appears to be among the first instances where the court ruling is being cited to undo another federal regulation.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had not acquired consent from the state for the storage and had relied on the 1954 Atomic Energy Act to license the storage of the waste near the border between Texas and New Mexico, Paxton’s office said.Texas officials, who filed their challenge last September, had previously warned in court filings that the proposal would result in the transport of spent nuclear fuel from around the country into an above-ground storage site far from the reactor sites where the waste was generated.While the NRC license is only considered an interim approval, it is also valid for 40 years and can be renewed. There is also currently no plan in place for a permanent facility, raising the odds the site will become permanent, according to Texas officials.Quoting the West Virginia ruling, the challengers said in their letter this week there was “every reason to hesitate” before reaching the conclusion that Congress meant to grant that expansive power to the NRC.The letter to the 5th Circuit was filed just a week after a 6-3 conservative majority struck down EPA’s regulatory approach under the 2015 Clean Power Plan, which had directed states to shift from fossil fuel-based energy to renewable sources. The rule never went into effect, but the decision could limit EPA’s options as it prepares to release a new proposal to cut power plant emissions early next year. The ruling penned by Chief Justice John Roberts was the first time the justices had explicitly named the doctrine in an opinion. The justices did not define what regulatory actions might count as “major,” leaving open the possibility for challengers to test the boundaries of the doctrine in lower courts. Legal experts have expected the ruling’s reliance on the major questions doctrine and the ambiguity in how it could apply would become a focus for challengers wishing to undo a range of federal regulatory actions (Climatewire, July 7). The opposition from Texas officials comes as the federal government has struggled to find a viable location for nuclear waste storage after the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada was abandoned a decade ago, in the face of bipartisan objections to new locations to store the waste.Rep. Henry Cueller (D-Texas) recently withdrew an amendment to the $56.3 billion fiscal 2023 Energy-Water spending bill that would have stopped NRC or the Department of Energy from siting an interim storage facility for nuclear waste unless there was a plan for a permanent facility underway (E&E Daily, June 29).Paxton’s case against NRC is tentatively scheduled for oral argument at the end of August.
SCOTUS Ruling in West Virginia v. EPA Threatens All Regulation - The Supreme Court’s enshrinement in West Virginia v. EPA of the major questions doctrine as a key technique of statutory interpretation is a threat to regulation in general, contends Richard Revesz, professor at New York University School of Law. The court turned on its head the normal approach to statutory interpretation, he says, and the doctrine casts a pall over the nation’s regulatory future.
Supreme Court to hear case on GOP ‘independent legislature’ theory that could radically reshape elections - The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a case promoting a controversial legal theory that would consolidate elections power in the hands of state legislatures.Just after releasing its final opinions of the term Thursday, the Supreme Court announced it would take up the closely watched case, Moore v. Harper, brought by North Carolina’s Republican state House speaker, who challenged the state Supreme Court’s decision to throw out the legislature’s congressional maps over partisan gerrymandering.The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in February that the state’s congressional maps violated the state constitution by illegally favoring Republicans. The map — drawn by GOP legislators — could have given the party control of as many as 11 of the closely divided state’s 14 districts.But the Republican legislators argued in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court that the state court had extremely limited authority to police the legislature on federal election matters — a theory known as the “independent state legislature” theory.The theory holds that state legislatures have near-uncheckable authority to set procedures for federal elections — and state courts have either a limited or even no ability to rule on those laws. The theory is based on a pair of clauses in the constitution, the Electors Clause and the Elections Clause, that mention state legislatures but do not explicitly mention the judiciary.Republicans have increasingly promoted the theory as a way around state courts that have recently struck down redistricting maps as partisan gerrymanders.“Some provisions of the Constitution are subject to reasonable debate. Others are not,” read a friend of the court brief from the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees earlier this year.“Absent from the constitutionally mandated order of authority is any role for the state judiciary,” the brief continued. “Notwithstanding this omission, certain state and commonwealth courts have taken it upon themselves to appropriate the processes that belong to the politically accountable branches of government.”A Supreme Court ruling that state legislatures alone have the power to make decisions about federal elections, within the boundaries set by federal law, could have a dramatic impact on redistricting processes and election procedures.Actions by state legislatures could still be subject to challenge in federal courts, but state courts and even governors could be sidelined under the most expansive interpretations of the “independent state legislature” theory.With 30 state legislatures currently in Republican hands, GOP state legislative leaders would be strongly positioned to skew maps in their party’s favor and to make changes Republican have sought to voting procedures.Four conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — have signaled at least an openness to some version of the theory.The theory was also central to then-President Donald Trump’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to get states to appoint a slate of alternate electors in the 2020 presidential contest.The court is likely to hear arguments in the case late this fall or early next year. The Supreme Court is also set to hear arguments in October in the caseMerrill v. Milligan, which election lawyers and civil rights groups worry could undermine the Voting Rights Act.
The conservative Supreme Court is just getting warmed up - The massive jolt the new conservative Supreme Court supermajority delivered to the political system last week by overturning Roe v. Wade could just be the beginning. The next targets could include voting rights, state courts’ power over elections, affirmative action and laws banning discrimination against LGBTQ people. Even as the justices wrapped up their work and began their summer break Thursday following an unusually rocky term, the court signaled that its poor standing with the public won’t deter justices from taking up ideologically-charged disputes that could sow havoc in American politics. In addition to overturning a nearly half-century-long federal right to an abortion, the court struck down gun-licensing laws in the most populous states, expanded state funding for religious schools, broadened the rights of public-school employees to pray publicly at work and halted lower court orders requiring two states to redraw congressional boundaries to give minority voters a better chance of electing candidates of their choice. “What the court did just on abortion, guns and congressional power in the last eight days—that alone is momentous [but] if these justices stay together over the next few years, I don’t even think the first shoe has dropped,” University of California at Irvine Law Professor Rick Hasen said. “There’s so much more the Supreme Court could do to change American society.” On Thursday, minutes after dealing a severe blow to President Joe Biden’s plan to reduce power-plant emissions to combat climate change, the high court announced it will take up a case from North Carolina next term that could give state legislatures vast power to draw district lines and set election rules even if state courts, commissions or executive officials disagree. The so-called independent state legislature theory has lingered at the fringes of election-law debates for years, but was seized upon by former President Donald Trump in 2020 in his unsuccessful efforts to overturn Biden’s win. “It’s kind of uncharted territory,” Hasen said. “It could have some far-reaching and unintended consequences.” A sweeping Supreme Court ruling on the state-legislature issue might give state lawmakers the authority to appoint presidential electors, regardless of what state courts say or how a majority of a state’s voters cast their ballots.
Up next: West Virginia AG targets SEC climate proposal - The Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate risk disclosure rule now has an even bigger target on its back. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said as much yesterday after the Supreme Court curbed EPA’s ability to regulate planet-warming emissions. He argued that the Biden administration and agencies including the SEC have intentionally sidestepped Congress to fight climate change and that his and other Republican states’ challenge against EPA is just their first effort to fight back. “We’ll also be looking at a lot of the other rules the Biden administration and independent agencies are putting forth. Particularly, the SEC’s” rule, Morrisey, who spearheaded the challenge, said yesterday during a press conference. “West Virginia has already led a 24-state comment letter against [the SEC rule]. And I think that would also fall into the major questions category where the Biden administration is trying to transform all these agencies, what their traditional mission is, and turn them into environmental regulators,” he added. At issue is a landmark proposal the SEC unveiled in March that would force companies to more closely examine and disclose their contributions to and risks from global warming. If adopted in its current form, the rule would require publicly listed companies to provide detailed information about their greenhouse gas emissions, exposure to mounting climate impacts and more. The aim is to ensure that investors have the data they need to make informed financial decisions. The rule has drawn fire from some business groups and Republican lawmakers. They argue that the SEC — which is an independent agency charged with protecting investors and regulating capital markets — should leave to elected lawmakers the issue of climate change and the risks it poses (Climatewire, , June 17). Morrisey reiterated that point yesterday. “Regardless of where you are on the issue of climate change,” he said, “it’s important to play by the rules. Don’t try to use the agency process to short-circuit Congress’ role under the Constitution.” . Progressives, Democrats and a growing number of financial regulation experts see it differently. They say regulators and finance firms have a responsibility to take into account all potential risks and that research has shown climate change represents a significant threat.
Why the Supreme Court's climate ruling matters to the SEC - The Supreme Court’s EPA ruling last week is casting a shadow over a climate rule proposed by an entirely different regulator: the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC unveiled a proposal in March that would require companies to provide investors with reliable information about their contributions to climate change and the risks they face from a warmer planet. Since its release, the draft rule has drawn opposition from both Republican officials and business groups, who say the SEC — an independent financial agency — is overstepping its bounds. Now, many of these same critics say the Supreme Court decision in the West Virginia v. EPA case gives them more ammunition to attack the SEC climate proposal. In their 6-3 ruling, the high court’s conservatives agreed to limit EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. They did so by holding up the “major questions” doctrine, a legal theory that says Congress must give agencies an explicit green light when regulating issues of “vast economic and political significance” (Greenwire, June 30). Opponents say this argument could apply to the SEC climate proposal because the agency’s sweeping mandate, which was penned nearly a century ago, makes no mention of climate change. Other rules affecting car emissions and pipeline approvals could also be threatened (see related story). The agency’s climate disclosure push is “completely divorced from financially material information that has historically been the guide for what has to be disclosed, and with no authority from Congress to do that,” said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in an interview on Bloomberg TV following the ruling. Legal experts and attorneys admit the high court decision complicates things. But they aren’t necessarily convinced the West Virginia v. EPA ruling itself is what ultimately would doom the SEC rule — at least not yet. Though the Supreme Court made clear that it is closely examining agencies’ regulatory authority, it did not clarify what types of cases would fall into the major questions category moving forward. In addition, there are fundamental differences between the climate rule at the heart of the EPA case and the climate disclosure proposal put forward by the SEC. Observers say the distinction makes it difficult to predict how the court would apply the major questions doctrine to SEC mandated climate disclosure. “They’re not saying that just because a regulation is big means it’s going to be found to be unlawful. And so with regard to any other rules, I think it’s really tough to say how this will be applied. Because the court did not provide a road map either for EPA or for any other agency in determining what a major question is,” said Elizabeth Dawson, a counsel in the environmental and natural resources group at Crowell & Moring LLP. At the very least, Dawson added, the ruling “could delay the finalization of the rule if the commission determines that it has to provide more support for the rule than it originally thought it might have to.” At the center of the West Virginia v. EPA case was the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The regulation, which never was implemented, sought to slash emissions by pushing power plants to move away from coal-fired power. The court found that Congress, via the Clean Air Act, did not grant EPA the authority to craft such sweeping regulations. The ruling led to immediate speculation about whether the court would apply the same line of thinking to the SEC’s climate disclosure rule. That uncertainty only has intensified as Republican officials have seized upon the high court decision. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican who led the case against EPA, argued in a press conference last week that the rule “would also fall into the major questions category where the Biden administration is trying to transform all these agencies, what their traditional mission is, and turn them into environmental regulators” (Climatewire, July 1). Environmental law attorneys and some financial regulation experts say it’s not that simple. One reason is that while the West Virginia case involved EPA using a somewhat specific statutory authority to engage in this relatively novel type of regulatory effort, the SEC has rooted its proposal in its basic mission from Congress: providing investors with the information they need to make smart financial decisions.
Can SEC’s climate rule survive the Supreme Court’s tough new standard? -A Securities and Exchange Commission proposal that would require banks and other companies to make disclosures about their carbon emissions may become a test case for how far the Supreme Court will go to rein in the authority of financial regulators. The SEC’s climate risk disclosure proposal, unveiled in March, would require corporations to report publicly on the greenhouse-gas emissions generated by their business activities. It is a key priority for the Biden administration at a time when the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has established new limits on regulators’ authority. Legal experts noted that the SEC has clear legal authority to regulate disclosures of material risks, including the emergence of new financial trends. But they also said the court’s narrow interpretation of statutory authority last week in a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency could present difficult legal challenges for the securities regulator. “This court is signaling that it’s not a great fan of administrative action and will tend to shift authority more to Congress, rather than give deference to the agencies,” said Kristina Wyatt, a lawyer who was involved in drafting the SEC’s proposal while serving as senior counsel for climate to the director of the agency’s division of corporation finance. In a 6-3 decision last week, the Supreme Court struck down an EPA rule from the Obama administration, which sought to force heavy-polluting power plants to reduce emissions and transition to cleaner sources of energy. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s majority opinion that he doubted Congress intended to delegate to the EPA the question of how much coal-based power generation there should be in the coming decades, pointing to the economic and political significance of the agency’s rule. The decision signals that the Supreme Court may be willing to scrutinize any regulatory proposal that reaches beyond the scope of the authority granted to a federal agency when it was established by Congress, which in most cases occurred decades ago. SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who took the reins last year, tasked the agency with drafting new rules to account for climate-related risks. The ensuing proposal would represent a landmark shift in how corporations address climate change.
Treasury examines climate effect on insurance availability - The Treasury Department is growing increasingly concerned that climate change is making property insurance scarce in disaster-prone areas and is looking at launching the first nationwide assessment of insurers’ financial exposure to climate risk.The Federal Insurance Office sent a preliminary email Thursday to insurance regulators in all 50 states asking what data they have that would show insurance coverage, liabilities and losses for each ZIP code in their state over the past five years.The data would help the federal office assess whether insurers are declining to cover homes and businesses in areas that are vulnerable to intensifying storms and wildfires and other effects of climate change. The office was created after the 2007-2008 financial crisis to monitor the availability of insurance and risks to insurance markets.President Joe Biden’s executive order in May 2021 on climate-related financial risk directs the insurance office to assess the “potential for major disruptions” of insurance availability in markets that are vulnerable to climate change. In August, the office solicited public comments on how climate change could undermine the stability of the insurance sector (Climatewire, Nov. 17, 2021).The insurance office said in its email to state officials that it plans to analyze the risk that insurers face from potentially paying a rising number of claims in disaster-prone areas. Data from each state would identify “the impact [of climate change] on protection gaps and insurance availability, particularly in at-risk markets,” according to the email, which was obtained by E&E News.The insurance office’s effort comes as anecdotal evidence shows that insurers are pulling out of climate-vulnerable markets. In Florida, hundreds of thousands of homeowners and renters have lost coverage in the past three years as insurers face major losses in part because of hurricane-related claims. Residents have been forced to buy expensive policies through the state-run insurer of last resort (Climatewire, June 22). California insurers lost $20 billion from the wildfires of 2017 and 2018, prompting them to raise rates or drop policies in high-risk areas. State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has imposed a series of moratoriums barring insurers from dropping policies in wildfire-prone areas. “The Federal Insurance Office is more important now than ever in the context of climate change,” said Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, a California-based consumer advocate. “It’s important the federal government is monitoring the health of the property and casualty market because we saw in 2008 how intimately connected insurance, mortgages and the economy are.” The insurance office email does not request states to provide data. It only asks if data is available about coverage and exposure in each ZIP code. State insurance regulators typically have information about coverage and exposure for their entire state and sometimes for counties, which can have dozens or hundreds of ZIP codes.
In the name of religion, the Supreme Court has trashed religious liberty -The books have closed on another Supreme Court term, and analysts are busy weighing in. Among them, some pundits are proclaiming that this Supreme Court has become “the most pro-religion court” in at least 70 years. Well, that depends on who you ask. For Religious Right adherents, this is indeed a pro-religion court. But for the rest of us, the court has seriously harmed religious liberty and may do even more harm in the future. Rarely has it been clearer that this court’s majority will take any route possible to get to the result it wants, than in the two religious liberty cases it just decided, Carson v Makin and Kennedy v Bremerton School District. When I learned and began to practice First Amendment law more than 40 years ago, I was taught that two clauses within the amendment work together to protect religion: the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause. The Free Exercise Clause means individuals are free to practice their religion as they choose, subject to recognized limits. The Establishment Clause ensures that the government itself will remain neutral towards religion and not place its thumb on the scales in favor of any religious point of view. It’s the Establishment Clause that runs into a buzzsaw with this Supreme Court. In Carson v. Makin, the court ruled that the state of Maine must pay for religious high school tuition in areas without public high schools if a resident demands it. If this seems incomprehensible, it’s because the court uses a contorted logic that virtually ignores the Establishment Clause in order to claim that denying this tuition squashes the religious liberty provided by the Free Exercise Clause. The court has never done that before, and it could lead to more taxpayer funding of religion, directly contrary to the views of our Founders. But there’s more. With its decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court held that a public high school football coach has the right to pray immediately after school-sponsored games at the 50-yard line. If Joseph Kennedy’s prayers had remained truly private, no controversy would likely have occurred. But Kennedy wound up leading numerous people, including students from the high school team, in organized prayer. He did this while still on duty as a government employee.The court makes many errors in its ruling for Kennedy. But none is more serious than its significant weakening of the accepted Establishment Clause principle that government officials should not coerce people to pray or engage in religious practice. The court gets around this by insisting that since Kennedy did not actually order anyone to pray, there was no coercion. This does not pass the laugh test. Coach Kennedy is an authority figure with significant power over these students’ lives. Lower courts had already found that some players “felt compelled to join Kennedy in prayer to stay connected with the team or ensure playing time.” Meanwhile, the court ignored its own past precedent (which case) that, particularly among students, “social pressure” can become just as improperly coercive as specific commands. And never mind the rights of those students who do not share Kennedy’s particular faith; they are left out of the equation. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent was pointed: she specifically criticized the majority for rendering the Establishment Clause protection “toothless.” She’s right. And she was on point again when she identified another scary trick the majority used to get the result it wanted. Sotomayor points out that the majority jettisoned the so-called “Lemon test” and the endorsement test, longstanding principles for deciding religious liberty questions. Instead, she writes, the majority “replaces the standard for reviewing such questions with a new ‘history and tradition’ test.” It’s important to let that sink in because the implications are immense. It means that when this court doesn’t like the precedent that ought to guide its decisions, it will turn to cherry-picking centuries of American “traditions” to identify those that bolster its argument. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the court used the same tactic to overturn Roe in this term’s Dobbs case. This is cynical, devious and new — and it opens the door to all manner of regressive decision-making, not just with regard to religion.
Harris says Democrats believed ‘certain issues were just settled’ when asked about failure to codify Roe v. Wade - Vice President Harris said Democrats believed Roe v. Wade to be a settled issue when asked about party lawmakers’ failure to codify abortion protections into federal law over the past 50 years. “We certainly believed that certain issues are just settled,” Harris told CBS News’s Robert Costa, in an interview that was shown on “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” on Friday and will be shown on “Face the Nation” on Sunday. Harris said the fact that the precedent set by Roe was not settled shows that “we are living, sadly, in real unsettled times.” “I think all of us share a deep sense of outrage that the United States Supreme Court took a constitutional right that was recognized, took it from the women of America,” she said. “We are now looking at a case where the government can interfere in what is one of the most intimate and private decisions that someone can make.” Harris said Congress needs to act to pass a law protecting abortion rights on a federal level. She also pointed to the executive order that President Biden signed on Friday to take steps to protect access to abortion. The order, however, is limited in scope, and Biden reiterated on Friday that ultimate control over the issue currently rests with Congress.
End of Roe makes bad situation worse for incarcerated women -- The Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade is raising concerns for women of color who are behind bars — a population that could be disproportionately affected by abortion bans in states across the country. Women of color are statistically more likely to seek an abortion and to be incarcerated, highlighting why advocates worry they could be hurt by the decision. “The criminalization of abortion is going to further drive mass incarceration,” “And anytime we see any form of new criminalization, it inevitably disproportionately impacts Black and indigenous people of color.” Women in jail already faced severe hurdles to access healthcare services, including obtaining menstrual products and abortion services. Roe’s overturning significantly complicates an already difficult situation, raising questions of how women will be treated in federal facilities, state prisons and county jails that lie under different state laws. Before the court’s action, incarcerated women had a right to an abortion, but there were no mandatory standards, Federal facilities had their own rules and regulations, while state facilities and even county jails could have different rules. In practice, this left incarcerated women facing a number of hurdles, and women imprisoned in states with heavy restrictions were generally unable to get an abortion. Even those women who legally could access the service faced challenges in paying the typical $500 cost for the procedure and transportation, particularly in so-called abortion deserts — states or areas with only one or two clinics. Such deserts will be expanded by Roe’s reversal. “If someone is pregnant and incarcerated in a state where abortion is illegal, they don’t have the freedom of movement to try to travel to another state where abortion is legal. Maybe they would get released from jail while still pregnant, but they might be too far long at that point to try to organize the logistics of going to an abortion-supported state.” Women released from prison on probation or parole will also face new challenges as states move to outlaw abortion following the Supreme Court’s decision. “There are travel restrictions for people on probation or parole,” said Moore. “If you want to leave even your county, but especially your state, you have to get permission from your community custody officer. If you live in a state where you would need to travel to get an abortion, that’s going to be near impossible.”
Not all Dems buying ‘go vote’ message on abortion - Voters are becoming disillusioned by Democrats’ calls to storm the polls following Roe v. Wade’s demise, arguing the party’s failure to prepare for the moment means it could face an unpleasant fate in November. Almost from the moment the Supreme Court announced it was ending the constitutional right to an abortion, Democrats began working to make it a midterm issue, presenting a vote for their side as a way to help codify Roe at the state and perhaps federal level — or at least prevent Republicans from doing the opposite. But that message is already falling flat. Frustration with the lack of progress on many women’s issues and what some see as a lack of a clear vision on abortion have left voters skeptical that the solution lies at the ballot box. “Here we are with leadership basically [reduced] to begging for people to vote,” said Aaron Chappell, political director of the grassroots group Our Revolution. “No clear plan, no promises of what those votes will translate to.” “The people chanting ‘just vote blue’ make me lowkey want to die,” said another disgruntled operative involved with strategy for progressive candidates. “It’s nuts.”
Michael Moore's July 4 message: 'Cannot in good conscience' continue to accept 'full citizenship' privileges --Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore posted a "declaration" to Substack Monday outlining his grievances with the United States in the wake of recent events, noting he has a "problem" because he is not planning to leave the country. Moore shared his piece on Twitter with the caption, "A mass shooting to celebrate the 4th. A wealthy class that doubled its wealth while the country suffered. A Supreme Court that stripped 51% of our citizens of their reproductive rights while removing gun laws & killing the EPA."In his declaration, Moore recalled recent events at the Supreme Court, such as the court's conservative majority decision to overturn the 1973 court ruling that legalized abortion, Roe v. Wade."I cannot in good conscience continue to receive the privileges of ‘full citizenship’ in this land when all of its women and girls have now been, by Court decree, declared official second-class citizens with no rights to their own bodies and conscripted to a life of Forced Birth should they fall pregnant and not want to be," Moore wrote. Moore suggested how the course could be corrected, saying he would "not shut up about" it until his advice had been heeded."Until women’s rights have been fully reinstated, and their equal rights are enshrined in our Constitution (now that the required 38 states have passed the Equal Rights Amendment), I will not shut up about this. If you invite me to dinner that’s all I’m gonna talk about. Have me over to your party and it’s going to be, ‘Dobbs, Dobbs, and more Dobbs!’ And I won’t stop until Roe is reinstated and 51% of Congress is female," he said.
Petition calling for Clarence Thomas removal from Supreme Court gets 1M signatures - An online petition that calls for the removal of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has attracted more than 1 million signatures. The petition, titled “Impeach Justice Clarence Thomas,” was created on the public advocacy organization website MoveOn in May. The petition description cited Thomas’s vote to overturn Roe v. Wade as reasoning for his removal. “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—who sided with the majority on overturning Roe—made it clear what’s next: to overturn high court rulings that establish gay rights and contraception rights,” the petition read. The description also mentioned Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, and her role in encouraging members of the Trump administration to continue to challenge the 2020 election results. The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected a request by former President Trump to prevent the release of documents related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Thomas was the only justice to dissent on the matter. “He has shown he cannot be an impartial justice and is more concerned with covering up his wife’s coup attempts than the health of the Supreme Court.” “He must resign — or Congress must immediately investigate and impeach,” the petition concluded. The petition garnered more than 1.1 million signatures and urges Congress to either investigate or impeach Thomas for his actions. The MoveOn petition follows a similar one created by George Washington University students last week in an effort to remove Thomas from his teaching position with the Washington, D.C., university. The student-led petition came after the high court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a landmark 1973 ruling that determined a woman’s right to abortion was constitutional. In a school-wide letter, GWU officials said they don’t have plans to remove Thomas as an adjunct instructor in their law school, stating that he did not violate the school’s policy on academic freedom.
Cassidy Hutchinson testimony prompts reassessment of Trump legal culpability - The Jan. 6 committee’s accumulating evidence against former President Trump, including testimony from White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, has strengthened a potential criminal case against him and chipped away at his most likely defense arguments, legal experts say. Hutchinson, a former special assistant to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows as well as the president, offered explosive testimony Tuesday, filling in gaps about officials’ concerns over Trump’s speech and determination to get to the Capitol that day — and how the former president pushed ahead on both fronts. It’s far from clear that the Justice Department is considering any criminal charges against Trump, even as its Jan. 6 investigation gets closer and closer to those in his orbit. One of the biggest hurdles is that most prosecution pathways against Trump require proving he acted with corrupt intent, an element the select committee has focused on proving in its own investigation. Experts say Hutchinson’s testimony fleshed out the grounds for a possible case against Trump by supplying details about the president’s mindset around Jan. 6 and raised important questions for follow up by prosecutors. “Assuming her evidence is corroborated, I’d say that it does add significantly to his criminal exposure almost across the board because it shows a particular state of mind that would be evidence the prosecution could submit to a jury for a number of different types of offenses,” Ryan Goodman, co-director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law, told The Hill. Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general who also served in the independent counsel’s office for the Iran-Contra scandal, said the panel has supplied key evidence about the warnings Trump received on Jan. 6 and in the days leading up to it. “What has been emerging during the course of the select committee’s hearings has the makings of a powerful, multi-prong criminal case against Trump,” Bromwich said. “This includes evidence that he was aware of the substantial risks posed by his armed supporters, and his desire to further inflame them by personally traveling to the Capitol.” Hutchinson said White House counsel Pat Cipollone told her a few days before the attack he was worried if Trump marched to the Capitol it could appear he was trying to incite a riot, obstruct justice, or defraud the electoral count. “Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy,” Hutchinson said, relaying Cipollone’s message to her that morning. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.”
House Select Committee likely to issue criminal referral against Trump --Comments on the weekend from members of the House Select Committee into the attack on the U.S. Capitol suggest that the committee is moving towards recommending a criminal referral against ex-President Donald Trump, urging the Justice Department to prosecute Trump for his role in the attempted coup of January 6, 2021. These remarks must be viewed in the light of the devastating testimony June 28 by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson about Trump’s plans to go with the mob of his supporters to the Capitol building and join them in the attack, which was aimed at halting the congressional certification of Trump’s defeat in the Electoral College. Her account has been confirmed and supplemented in several press reports that followed. Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (Republican-Wyoming) gave her first interview since the hearings began, sitting down with Jonathan Karl of ABC News, with portions broadcast on Sunday morning’s “This Week” program. Karl asked Cheney whether the hearings demonstrated that Trump should be prosecuted. While Cheney noted that the decision would be made by the Justice Department, she left no doubt about the direction the committee was taking: “I think we may well as a committee have a view on that and if you just think about it from the perspective of what kind of man knows that a mob is armed and sends the mob to attack the Capitol and further incites that mob when his own vice president is under threat, when the Congress is under threat. It’s just—it’s very chilling…” She added, “There could be more than one criminal referral,” although it was not clear whether she meant multiple charges against Trump or multiple individuals charged with crimes, or both. Asked what it would mean to see a former president prosecuted, one who was likely running for president again, Cheney said the greater threat was not to prosecute. She went on to say that the Republican Party “can’t survive if he’s our nominee.” Democratic committee member Adam Schiff of California, appearing on “Face the Nation” on CBS, agreed with Cheney that there could be multiple criminal referrals to the Justice Department. He said, “You know for four years, the Justice Department took the position that you can’t indict a sitting president. If the Department were now to take the position that you can’t investigate or indict a former president, then a president becomes above the law. That’s a very dangerous idea that the Founders would have never subscribed to. Even more dangerous, I think in the case of Donald Trump.”
Capitol Police say a Jan. 6 defendant’s demands could expose secret security features - - A top Capitol Police officer warned a federal court Tuesday that requests by a Jan. 6 defendant to take measurements in non-public areas of the Capitol could compromise the building and expose some of the newer undisclosed efforts to protect Congress since the insurrection. “Permitting him to measure distances from wall to wall, from wall to door and vice versa, would provide a wealth of information to an adversary who might wish to calculate blast distances, the ability to fly a drone within the building or how large of a group could quickly pass through the hallways, to name but a few security risks,” said Sean Gallagher, the head of the Capitol Police’s Uniformed Service Division, in an affidavit filed to U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper. Gallagher, in his filing, noted that the Capitol building was bombed in 1983, was the subject of a planned drone attack in 2011 and was infiltrated by members of the Oath Keepers during the Jan. 6 attack who moved in a “stack” formation throughout the corridors. Gallagher’s filing accompanied a Justice Department brief opposing a request by Jan. 6 defendant Daniel Egtvedt to permit his attorneys to measure and photograph nonpublic areas of the Capitol. Many Jan. 6 defendants have been provided Capitol Police-led tours as part of efforts to build their defenses. The department offered 10 such tours over the last year. But Gallagher said offering a greater level of access to Egtvedt would risk revealing “many secret and highly sensitive security features embedded in the physical structure of the U.S. Capitol.” “Some existed on January 6th and some are new, having needed to be changed after January 6 because the USCP must continue to protect the U.S. Capitol (and those who work there, including Members of Congress) and address future operational security vulnerabilities,” he said. Egtvedt is accused of breaching the building and then assaulting Capitol Police officers who attempted to get him to leave the building. Prosecutors say Egtvedt entered the Capitol after he had already been sprayed with some kind of chemical irritant and then milled around with the crowd before his confrontation with officers.
Comey, McCabe faced rare, intensive tax audits by IRS under Trump appointee: report --The IRS conducted purportedly random, intensive audits of two former top FBI officials who drew the ire of former President Trump, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. The Times published letters received by former FBI Director James Comey and Andrew McCabe, his deputy who became acting director after Trump fired Comey, indicating the IRS was conducting National Research Program audits of their 2017 and 2019 tax returns, respectively. “We must examine randomly-selected tax returns to better understand tax compliance and improve the fairness of the tax system,” both letters state. Trump has repeatedly criticized both men for their roles in investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election both during and after their time at the bureau. The Times reported that the odds of being selected for the specific audit were tiny, with the IRS having targeted about 1 in every 30,600 tax returns for the intensive scrutiny in 2017. “Maybe it’s a coincidence or maybe somebody misused the IRS to get at a political enemy,” Comey told the Times. “Given the role Trump wants to continue to play in our country, we should know the answer to that question.” Comey received a $347 refund after the audit, while McCabe, who echoed similar concerns about his audit, owed a small amount of money, according to the Times. “The revenue agent I dealt with was professional and responsive,” McCabe told the Times. “Nevertheless, I have significant questions about how or why I was selected for this.” Trump appointee Charles Rettig ran the IRS during both audits. The IRS in a statement to The Hill denied the audits were politically motivated but said allegations of wrongdoing are “routinely” referred to the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration for further review. “Federal privacy laws preclude us from discussing specific taxpayer situations,” the IRS said.
Judge holds Cushman & Wakefield in contempt, orders fines in Trump probe - — A state judge gave Cushman & Wakefield the Donald Trump treatment on Tuesday when he held the real estate services firm in contempt and ordered it to pay $10,000 for every day it fails to comply with a subpoena in Attorney General Tish James’ lawsuit against the Trump Organization. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron said the company, which provided services to the Trump Organization for years, blew a June 27 deadline to produce documents the AG sought in a subpoena and later a court-approved motion to compel. “Cushman & Wakefield has only itself to blame if it chose to treat the looming deadlines cavalierly,” Justice Engoron wrote in an order that was dated Tuesday and made public Wednesday morning, adding he was “incredulous” as to why Cushman & Wakefield waited two days after the deadline to seek “yet another extension.” Engoron previously ordered Trump to pay $10,000 a month for also failing to comply with subpoenas. The judge lifted that order last week after Trump paid $110,000. Cushman & Wakefield will begin accruing the fines Thursday. The civil investigation launched by James is evaluating whether the Trump Organization unlawfully inflated the value of its properties. The AG’s office is seeking information about appraisals Cushman & Wakefield made for three Trump-owned properties — the Seven Springs Estate in Westchester County, Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles and 40 Wall Street in Manhattan. A Cushman spokesperson said the company “disagrees with any suggestion that the firm has not exercised diligence and good faith in complying with the Court’s order,” and plans to appeal the decision. “The ruling to hold Cushman & Wakefield in contempt demonstrates a failure to understand the extreme lengths Cushman has gone to comply with the Court’s order,” the spokesperson said.
Georgia grand jury subpoenas Giuliani, other Trump allies in election probe --A Fulton County grand jury has issued a slew of subpoenas to seven people, including Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and conservative lawyer John Eastman, as part of an investigation surrounding former President Trump.In addition to Giuliani, Graham and Eastman, who helped develop the legal case for overturning the 2020 election, podcast host Jacki Pick Deason and campaign legal advisersKenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell also received subpoenas.The Atlanta Journal Constitution was the first to report about the subpoenas, which were filed on Tuesday.The Fulton County grand jury is tied to a probe launched by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, and is looking at whether there were attempts to unlawfully influence the 2020 election by Trump and his allies.The grand jury is interested in hearing from Giuliani, it said in its subpoena to him, because he was “a lead attorney for the Trump Campaign’s legal efforts seeking to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”The subpoena notes a December 2020 Georgia state Senate hearing that Giuliani and others attended in which a video was offered, among other evidence, claiming to show “suitcases” of illegal ballots being handled by election workers, which was later debunked by the Georgia secretary of state’s office.“Additionally, the Witness possesses unique knowledge concerning communications between himself, former President Trump, the Trump Campaign, and other known and unknown individuals involved in the multi-state, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” the subpoena notes.
Trump and Georgia Officials Subpoenaed in Fox News Defamation Case - -- A voting-machine company falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election against Donald Trump is seeking to question two former administration officials and Georgia’s elections chief as part of its $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News. Dominion Voting Systems Inc. on Wednesday subpoenaed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was pressured by Trump to flip the state’s election results after Joe Biden was declared the winner. The company is also seeking to question Christopher Krebs, the former top cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security whom Trump fired for refusing to question the integrity of the election. Dominion’s subpoena of Raffensperger comes as Atlanta prosecutors appear to be stepping up a probe into a phone call in which Trump asked the state official to “find” votes for him. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s office on Tuesday subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani, Senator Lindsey Graham and five others to testify before a special grand jury. According to Dominion, Fox News knowingly broadcast false claims that voting machines were rigged in order to win back viewers upset that the conservative network had called the election for Biden. The voting machine maker’s suit notes that ratings for one Fox News show spiked when Giuliani and former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell appeared on-air to claim that Dominion gave “kickbacks” to Raffensperger “for its contract to provide voting machines to the state.” “The false accusation that Dominion had bribed Georgia officials—a claim for which Powell never offered a shred of evidence—was manufactured out of whole cloth in order to discredit Georgia Republicans after they publicly rebutted” the conspiracy theory, according to the complaint.
Ghislaine Maxwell Appeals Conviction, 20-Year Sentence in Epstein Case (Reuters) - Ghislaine Maxwell on Thursday formally appealed her conviction and 20-year prison sentence for helping the late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls over more than a decade. The British socialite's notice of appeal was filed nine days after she was sentenced by U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan. Nathan said the punishment reflected Maxwell's "instrumental" role in the abuse, and the "incalculable" damage it caused to victims. Lawyers for Maxwell had argued that she was being scapegoated for Epstein's crimes. Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December after a monthlong trial on sex trafficking and four other counts for recruiting and grooming four girls to have sexual encounters with Epstein, who was then her boyfriend, between 1994 and 2004. The daughter of the late British media magnate Robert Maxwell could be imprisoned until her late 70s, with possible credit for good behavior plus credit for the two years she has been jailed at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. Maxwell's appeal was expected, and Thursday's notice did not say what issues she will raise. Her lawyers have said the conviction was tainted because of a lack of evidence Maxwell was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that prosecutors waited too long to indict her, and that one juror failed to disclose he had been sexually abused as a child.
Elon Musk Queries Journalist Over Allegations Of Govt-Driven Censorship On Twitter -- Elon Musk has called on an independent journalist to provide information on how the U.S. government is allegedly pressuring Twitter to suspend the journalist’s account for posting anti-vaccination content. Musk asked Substack writer, Alex Berenson, in a July 6 post on Twitter, about Berenson’s allegation that the U.S. government had pressured Twitter to censor him for posting his opinion questioning the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.“Can you say more about this: ‘… pressures that the government may have placed on Twitter …’,” Musk said, referencing Berenson’s blog post about being suspended by Twitter.Can you say more about this: “… pressures that the government may have placed on Twitter …” — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2022“I wish I could,” Berenson said minutes later, responding to Musk, “but the settlement with [Twitter] prevents me from doing so. However, in the near future I hope and expect to have more to report.”Berenson’s Twitter account was reinstated on July 6 after the social media platform “permanently” banned him over purportedly violating its COVID “misinformation” policy. This follows Berenson filing a lawsuit against Twitter in April.In a blog post published July 6, Berenson elaborated that despite his inability to discuss his case now, he will be able to disclose further “in the near future.”“You know what it took Twitter to admit it shouldn’t have done what it did? You do not, and I can’t tell you, because the statement is all I can say about the settlement,” Berenson wrote. “The settlement does not end my investigation into the pressures that the government may have placed on Twitter to suspend my account. I will have more to say on that issue in the near future,” he wrote.’
Musk's bid for Twitter in peril as he reportedly distrusts bot data -Elon Musk’s proposed acquisition of Twitter Inc. may fall apart over his doubts that the company is accurately reporting the number of spam bots on the service, according to a report, even as company executives reiterated the number is low and tried to better explain how they calculate the figures. Twitter has repeatedly said that spam bots represent less than 5 per cent of its total user base. Musk, meanwhile, has complained that the number is much higher, and has threatened to walk away from his agreement to buy the company for US$44 billion until he gets confirmation about Twitter’s bot percentage. Musk’s team has concluded that Twitter can’t verify its figures on the spam accounts and has “stopped engaging” in discussions around funding the deal, the Washington Post reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. This issue has put the acquisition by the Tesla chief executive officer “in serious jeopardy,” the newspaper said, citing the people. “Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg News after the Post published its story. “We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.”
Twitter board vows legal action after Musk drops bid -The chairman of Twitter’s board vowed the company would take legal action after Elon Musk said he was dropping his bid to acquire the social media platform on Friday. “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” the chairman, Bret Taylor, tweeted. A lawyer representing Musk sent a letter to Twitter’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, indicating Musk would be dropping his bid to buy Twitter, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. “… Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect,” Musk’s lawyer wrote. The letter claimed that the social media platform had ignored or rejected requests from the Tesla executive for information that Musk believed was needed to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform.” The development came close to three months after Musk reached a deal to buy the social media platform for $44 billion, a deal that was celebrated by Republicans and criticized by Democrats. But he tweeted in May, weeks after a deal had been reached, that it was “temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users” while later adding “Still committed to acquisition.”
Rethinking bank capital at a 'pivotal moment' for the Fed - Michael Barr, the Biden administration’s pick to serve as the Federal Reserve’s top regulator, said during his Senate confirmation hearing that he wants to rethink the Fed’s various capital requirements “as a whole, rather than piece by piece.” Barr, who is expected to clear a Senate floor vote this summer to become the Fed’s next vice chair for supervision, struck a chord with that sentiment, particularly with Karen Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. Michael Barr, President Biden's pick to serve as the Federal Reserve's vice chair of supervision, said during his Senate confirmation that he wants "holistic" rethinking of the Fed's bank capital rules.“After Michael said that, I thought this was just too important an idea at a moment that really could be pivotal,” Petrou said. “We need to bring attention to it and then try to help move it along, because if the U.S. just goes back to a rule-by-rule, piece-by-piece, bits-and-pieces capital regulation, we'll never get a coherent system without counterproductive impact.”In a white paper published this week, Petrou urges the Fed to take that holistic approach beyond being a mere starting position and instead make it a guiding principle for rewriting the Fed’s capital framework. The paper, released Wednesday, describes the current regulatory framework as too vast, complex and restrictive for large banks while simultaneously being focused on the overall capital requirements at the expense of safeguarding against specific risks. “The rules for larger U.S. banks are even more of a morass than the global standards on which they are modeled, affording opportunities for regulatory arbitrage, creating pockets of unanticipated risk and contributing to the redesign of American finance into a sector that does far more for financiers than the real economy,” she wrote. “A holistic-capital construct is thus urgently needed.”After garnering the support of five Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee along with the panel’s 12 Democrats in a vote last month, Barr is poised to usher in a new regulatory regime at the Fed. He will be tasked with balancing the Biden administration’s objectives for a more inclusive banking sector with needed changes that have been left unaddressed since the previous vice chair for supervision, Randal Quarles, left office last October. This to-do list includesamending the SLR for the current capital landscape and recalibrating its regulatory framework to ensure the final implementation of the Basel III endgame, also known as Basel IV, is capital neutral.
Criminal trial could signal new tactic in combating white-collar crime -- A rare courtroom trial for a team of former JPMorgan Chase bankers starting this week is being closely watched for potential ripple effects impacting the broader financial sector and its exposure to criminal liability. The trial, set to begin jury selection on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, revolves around a precious metals trading scandal that stretched more than eight years, from 2008 to 2016. According to prosecutors, the JPMorgan traders “spoofed” precious metal commodity markets by placing and quickly canceling orders, effectively driving up prices.And while JPMorgan has already paid a nearly $1 billion fine in connection to the scheme, the Department of Justice is still seeking criminal prosecutions for several individuals, including three former JPMorgan traders — Gregg Smith, Michael Nowak and Christopher Jordan — and one former salesperson, Jeffrey Ruffo. A handful of other former JPMorgan employees have already pleaded guilty to counts of fraud and conspiracy to engage in spoofing. “At bottom, the gist of the alleged conspiracy was that the Defendants placed orders to buy and to sell precious-metals futures contracts, but did so with the intent to cancel those orders before execution,” Judge Edmond E. Chang wrote in a 2021 court filing, referring to a criminal indictment filed in 2019. “These orders were placed solely to move the metals’ market price in a desired direction by manipulating the commodity’s perceived supply and demand.”In that same court filing from 2021, Chang largely dismissed a motion from the trial’s defendants to drop the brunt of the government’s charges against them, including accusations of market manipulation, wire fraud, and conspiracy. The judge did, however, agree to throw out charges of bank fraud, writing that prosecutors had failed to build a strong enough case for it. Representatives for JPMorgan and Jordan declined to comment. Representatives for the other defendants did not respond before publication.It remains extremely rare for white-collar crime to culminate in a criminal trial in the United States, in part due to the difficulties prosecutors can face in connecting corporate misconduct to individual decision-making.
BankThink: Reinstated FDIC committee threatens to politicize supervision of banks | American Banker - The Democrat-controlled Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is doing away with an independent board to which banks could appeal the agency’s regulatory decisions. In its place, it will revive a committee made up of one member of the FDIC’s board and two current staff members. The revival of the Supervision Appeals Review Committee (SARC) and elimination of the Office of Supervisory Appeals (OSA) will allow active government officials, subject to political pressure from the White House, to provide a final determination on reviews of regulatory actions against banks. As recently as December of last year, the FDIC was on track to remove conflicts of interest and improve independence in the supervisory appellate process. The FDIC replaced the SARC with the OSA to hew to statute’s intent to establish an “independent intra-agency appellate process.” The OSA would have been staffed by former government employees with extensive experience and no conflicts of interest. In May, the FDIC decided to reverse course and arbitrarily reinstate the SARC without input from stakeholders. A notice and request for comment was issued after the FDIC had already made the change. The FDIC’s disinterest in soliciting feedback from parties that will be directly affected by this change in the appellate process shows an explicit disregard for due process. The notice provides the FDIC’s board of directors with more direct authority over the appellate process. The SARC will be chaired by a current FDIC board member, and its two remaining members will be a deputy or special assistant to FDIC board members, and the FDIC’s general counsel. The FDIC board member who chairs the SARC will not be as independent from political pressure as a former government employee.
Citi’s sale of Banamex faces new obstacles from Mexico’s president - Citigroup’s planned sale of its Banamex unit should go to Mexican investors and avoid mass firings, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said, adding new restrictions that may undermine some of the bids. Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, said his administration was putting four conditions on the sale, including the requirement that Mexican capital back the deal. He also reiterated that any buyer must be up-to-date on tax payments, and that the bank’s massive art collection remain in Mexico. “Now that Banamex is being sold, one of the things that we have to take care of is that there are no mass firings of workers,” Lopez Obrador said during his daily media conference Wednesday. “They are people, women and men, with experience and who can be very useful. But it usually happens that when these negotiations take place, they seek to save like this, laying off workers.” Lopez Obrador doesn’t have the direct power to weigh in on the sale, but his finance officials do, as will the central bank and the country’s antitrust regulator. In addition to the informal influence the administration can wield, Mexican law allows any deal to be at the discretion of the presidentially appointed bank regulator, Barclays analyst Gilberto Garcia said in a note. A Citigroup representative declined to comment.
Amid ‘whiplash’ at OCC, Hsu expects to serve for ‘foreseeable future’ -Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu expects to be in his role for the “foreseeable future,” he told agency employees in an internal email obtained by American Banker. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since Joseph Otting departed in May 2020. Hsu, a longtime Federal Reserve official, was named acting head one year later. Last November, President Biden nominated Saule Omarova, a Cornell law professor, to head the agency, but she withdrew her name the following month amid attacks from congressional Republicans and banking industry representatives. "When I have asked," Acting Comptroller wrote in an email to OCC employees, "the words ‘whiplash’ and ‘pendulum’ and ‘see-saw’ have been used to describe how the continual changes in leadership have felt."Ting Shen/Bloomberg Since then, the White House hasn’t floated any new names to lead the agency. “My hope and expectation is that I will remain in this role for the foreseeable future,” Hsu said in a May 10 email to OCC employees. The OCC declined to comment. The White House did not return a request for comment. In May, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, asserted that under the Vacancies Reform Act, Hsu would be ineligible to serve as acting comptroller beyond July 5, 2022. But Hsu wrote in a response to McHenry that the Vacancies Reform Act does not apply to his appointment. In a previously unreported letter, Hsu noted that he was appointed under a statute that specifies the first deputy comptroller serves as acting comptroller when the position is vacant.
Crypto Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried Is Dangling $1 Billion in Political Donations; But He Wants Dangerous Crypto Derivatives Trading in Return - By Pam and Russ Martens - Sam Bankman-Fried is the co-founder and CEO of crypto firm, FTX. He’s also a man on a mission. The mission is to spend tens of millions of dollars on political campaigns until he gets his desired outcome in Washington: permission for FTX to be able to offer highly leveraged derivative contracts on cryptocurrencies with margin accounts and 24/7 automated liquidation of defaulting customers, effectively being able to sell out customer accounts while they’re asleep in their beds. And, by the way, the pesky detail of a regulated brokerage firm intermediary in the transaction would become history.To bring his dream to fruition, Bankman-Fried has been writing out checks in a wild flurry of activity this year. Between February 4 and April 14 of this year, Bankman-Fried wrote out three checks totaling $23 million to Protect Our Future PAC. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, that PAC spent $10.45 million supporting the candidacy of Carrick Flynn who was running in a Democratic primary in Oregon for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Protect Our Future PAC also spent $935,705 opposing Andrea Salinas in that same Oregon Democratic Primary according to FEC records. (Hold onto that thought for a moment more.)On April 4, 2022, Bankman-Fried also sluiced the astonishing sum of $6 million to the House Majority PAC – whose slogan is “Fighting to protect and expand the Democratic House Majority.” But instead of working to unite Democrats, according to a group of Democratic candidates in that Oregon primary, the House Majority PAC (enriched with all that money from crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried) inserted itself into the Oregon primary with a $1 million infusion to help Bankman-Fried’s preferred candidate, Carrick Flynn, beat out the other Democratic candidates.Andrea Salinas (who went on to win the Oregon Democratic primary despite all of that crypto money sloshing around) released a joint statement with other Democratic challengers in Oregon, stating this: “We strongly condemn House Majority PAC’s unprecedented and inappropriate decision to spend nearly a million dollars in this Democratic primary…This effort by the political arm of the Democratic establishment to buy this race for one candidate is a slap in the face to every Democratic voter and volunteer in Oregon – and is especially concerning in a year when all resources must go to protecting the Democratic majority.”Why might Bankman-Fried have been so opposed to Andrea Salinas for a House seat? Salinas is a strong supporter of saving the planet from climate change. That’s not a particularly appealing platform for crypto kings since crypto mining relies heavily on fossil fuels and uses more energy than numerous countries.According to FEC records, Protect Our Future PAC spent $250,000 in May on ad production and an advertisement buy for Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who just happens to sit on the powerful Senate Banking Committee which might be inclined to pass crypto regulations to safeguard the U.S. financial system.On January 18 of this year, Bankman-Fried also contributed $2 million to GMI PAC, which says it “supports candidates committed to making way for a more secure, competitive, and innovative digital marketplace.”Nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to make crypto secure. It is the instrument of money launderers, hackers and other assorted criminals. The Federal Trade Commission reported in June that “since the start of 2021, more than 46,000 people have reported losing over $1 billion in crypto to scams. That’s about one out of every four dollars reportedly lost to fraud during that period.” (For more on this crypto nightmare, see our report on how customers on the Coinbase crypto exchange are being victimized.)Since August 2, 2021, Bankman-Fried has also donated $1 million to the Senate Majority PAC (a PAC to help Democrats); $10,000 each to Democratic Committees in New York State, New Hampshire and Michigan; $500,000 on May 5 of this year to the Democratic National Committee; and millions of dollars more to dozens of Congressional candidates from a wide assortment of states.Now Bankman-Fried is attempting to burnish his image as an altruistic do-gooder while simultaneously dangling the allure of being the biggest elephant in the room in the 2024 presidential election. In a podcast released in May, Bankman-Fried said he expects to spend “north of $100 million” with a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion.
The sinking of the Voyager by Frances Coppola -Friday was quite a day. The crypto lender BlockFi provisionally agreed a bailout deal with FTX. The hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), already in compulsory liquidation in its home territory the British Virgin Islands, filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the United States. And the crypto broker Voyagersuspended trading and withdrawals. Voyager's press release revealed a massive hole in its balance sheet. Some 58% of its loan book consists of loans to 3AC: And its loan book is nearly 50% of total assets: So approximately 28% of Voyager's assets are in default. And since 3AC now has creditor protection, Voyager must wait for bankruptcy courts to decide how much, if anything, can be recovered. That will take months. But the balance sheet hole doesn't explain why Voyager has suspended US dollar withdrawals. Despite its apparently healthy "cash held for customers" balance, it seems to be dreadfully short of cash. There is something else going on here. As always when something doesn't quite add up, I take a look at the books. In May, only a few days after Terra's collapse, Voyager released its quarterly financial update, dated 31st March. The income statement makes grim reading: Voyager is making whopping losses. Like all crypto companies this year, it has taken a mammoth hit on the fair value of its crypto assets. But it's the operating loss that concerns me. In the nine months ended March 31, 2022, it spent over $82m on marketing and sales and a further $182m on customer rewards, far above what it was earning from staking and loan fees. This turned what might have been a decent if uninspiring operating profit into a $68m loss. Such exorbitant expenditure on building a customer base reminds me ofWeWork during Adam Neumann's tenure as CEO - and we all know how that ended, don't we? More worrying still is Voyager's cash flow. Voyager is haemorrhaging cash (remember these figures are in thousands): It has burned through nearly $200m in nine months. During this time, Voyager did a $75m private placement shares issue to raise some cash. But it wasn't anywhere near enough. At the end of the period its total cash and cash equivalents, including cash held for customers, was down by nearly $145m. So Voyager has no cash and deeply negative income. And its available assets are now considerably less than its liabilities. It is almost certainly insolvent, though it has not yet filed for bankruptcy. But Voyager wasn't insolvent when these accounts were produced. Its current assets were easily enough to cover its current liabilities, its net assets were positive, and its ratio of equity to assets (unweighted) was a thin but comfortable 4.2%. Voyager's liquidity was strained, but as long as it could borrow against its assets, it would be able to meet its obligations as they fell due. The collapse of 3AC created a golden opportunity for Voyager to borrow the money it desperately needed. The crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX and founder of the asset manager Alameda, was bailing out distressed crypto lenders like BlockFi. Voyager's management decided they wanted a piece of that - after all, Alameda was already a Voyager shareholder. So, saying it wanted to "safeguard customer assets in light of current market volatility", Voyager arranged new revolving credit facilities of $200m USD/USDC and 15,000 BTC with Alameda. Simultaneously, Voyager Digital issued a notice of default against 3AC. Presumably Alameda looked at Voyager's books and decided that the company was basically sound. And presumaly they also thought Voyager had a good chance of getting its money back from 3AC. So their decision to provide Voyager with additional liquidity wasn't unreasonable. Shoring up liquidity when the market is turbulent can prevent basically sound companies from failing. But 3AC's BVI compulsory liquidation and US Chapter 15 bankruptcy was a game changer. Suddenly, Voyager no longer had a strong balance sheet. It had a steaming pile of extremely distressed and probably unrecoverable loans. And shoring up liquidity for a company whose assets are evaporating is a mug's game, as Carillion's lenders discovered to their cost. Did Alameda pull its credit lines? If it did, that would explain why Voyager suspended all withdrawals including US dollars. It does not have sufficient ready cash to pay its customers, and it can't borrow any more.
FDIC probing how bankrupt crypto broker Voyager marketed itself - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which protects customers in the event of certain types of bank failures, is looking into how the bankrupt digital-asset firm Voyager Digital marketed itself to customers, a spokesperson for the agency said.Voyager, the latest casualty of the turmoil in the crypto markets, has publicly said that any U.S. dollars deposited with the firm are covered by FDIC insurance, thanks to its partnership with Metropolitan Commercial Bank. Wording posted in 2019 on a company web page stated that this protection would take effect in the “rare event your USD funds are compromised due to the company or our banking partner’s failure,” according to the Wayback Machine, which keeps an archive of internet content. But that wording was since modified and as of Thursday removes the explicit references to company or bank failures, instead saying, “in the rare event your USD funds are compromised, you are guaranteed a full reimbursement (up to $250,000), so the cash you hold with Voyager is protected.” Meanwhile, Metropolitan Commercial Bank issued a statement recently informing Voyager customers that FDIC insurance coverage would only be offered if the bank itself failed and not in event of Voyager’s failure. Voyager declined to comment when asked about the FDIC probe or why it changed the language on its website.The U.S. government has been increasingly concerned about companies making false advertisements to consumers about deposit insurance. The FDIC in May put out a final rule barring firms from making those kinds of misrepresentations or misusing the FDIC name or logo. Those that violate the rule face enforcement action, including penalties. At the same time, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a warning on the topic, saying the “issue has taken on renewed importance with the emergence of financial technologies — such as crypto-assets, including stablecoins.” The FDIC spokesperson emphasized in an email Thursday that while Metropolitan Commercial Bank is FDIC-insured, Voyager is not. Therefore deposit insurance does not protect customers against Voyager’s default, bankruptcy, withdrawal freeze, or loss in value of products, the spokesperson said. The CFPB declined to comment. Voyager paused customer deposits and withdrawals last week and then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late Tuesday.
Voyager, Celsius implosions spur expanded Texas, Alabama investigations - Securities regulators in Texas and Alabama are expanding their investigations into Voyager Digital and Celsius Network to account for new information arising from the implosions of the two crypto-lending firms. The two states are examining if Voyager properly disclosed material information on its loans and the creditworthiness of the borrowers.Texas and Alabama are among a coalition of U.S. states investigating Voyager and Celsius, including a recent freeze on customer withdrawals at both firms, according to Joe Rotunda, director of enforcement at the Texas State Securities Board, and Amanda Senn, chief deputy director at the Alabama Securities Commission. “What we’re seeing now is that a lot of these crypto-lending firms may not have fully disclosed what they were doing on the backside with investors’ money, the risks associated with those types of lending practices or even the other types of transactions they are engaging in,” Rotunda said in an interview.Voyager filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, just weeks after getting a lifeline from the billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, citing market volatility and the collapse of a Three Arrows Capital, the crypto hedge fund it had lent money to. Celsius, which halted user withdrawals in June amid liquidity issues, said last week it’s exploring options such as “strategic transactions as well as a restructuring of our liabilities.”Regulators have been investigating yield-product offerings at Voyager and Celsius, including whether they are unregistered securities. Voyager lends deposits to third parties and passes on some interest to customers, a dynamic that users agree to when they sign up for the platform. In its bankruptcy filing, Voyager disclosed for the first time a lot of names of its biggest borrowers, including Three Arrows Capital and Alameda Research. With the bankruptcy filing, state litigation against Voyager will be stayed, but investigations are still ongoing, Rotunda and Senn said. Voyager said in its bankruptcy-exit plan that it expects customers to be “impaired” by the Chapter 11 process, meaning they won’t be getting back exactly what they’re owed. “We are investigating these companies and trying to figure out what happened and why,” Senn said in an interview. “We are making inquiries. It’s still the initial stages, but we have a responsibility on behalf of our investors in our states.”
Leverage & Interconnectedness Are Blowing Up Crypto & DeFi - by Wolf Richter That’s what’s different this time: Stuff blows up because of leverage and cascades through the crypto space because everything’s interconnected. Crypto lender and broker Voyager Digital, which also took deposits and offered yield products with huge interest rates of up to 12%, said in a series of tweets today that it is, “actively pursuing a series of strategic alternatives” and that it is “focused on protecting assets and maximizing value for all customers as quickly as possible.” That’s horrifying language for people who have their cryptos on deposit at Voyager and now cannot get their cryptos or anything else out.What’s different this time about the collapse of cryptos, compared to last time in 2018, are two huge factors that were barely in their infancy back then: massive leverage and interconnectedness.All these crypto firms lent to each other and borrowed from each other in cryptos, to speculate in cryptos with borrowed cryptos, and they lent out borrowed cryptos, and they posted cryptos as collateral with each other for more leverage, which is now triggering margin calls, forced selling, and wipeouts cascading through the space. This interconnectedness created huge systemic risks within the crypto space that are now coming home to roost.On Friday, Voyager Digital had suspended trading and withdrawals. In other words, depositors cannot get their cryptos and collateral out. And they cannot get any fiat out either.These people are unsecured creditors if Voyager files for bankruptcy. Voyager has already hired restructuring and bankruptcy lawyers and consultants.Voyager got taken down by the crypto hedge fund, Three Arrows Capital, which blew up amid huge leverage when cryptos plunged.Three Arrows Capital, which was said to have managed about $10 billion of cryptos as of March, was ordered into liquidation by a court in the British Virgin Islands, where it’s legally headquartered. On Friday, it filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the US. Voyager had lent 15,250 bitcoins and 350 million USD Coins, a stablecoin, to the hedge fund. Combined, that loan amounts to about $650 million at current prices. And Three Arrows had defaulted on that loan.Three Arrows ran into trouble when cryptos dropped below a certain level and when Luna, in which it was heavily invested, collapsed by 100%, at which point it received margin calls that demanded more collateral, and when that wasn’t forthcoming, its leveraged positions were liquidated by crypto exchanges including BitMEX and Deribit. Voyager said in the series of tweets today, Sunday, that it has $1.3 billion worth of cryptos left on its platform – presumably put there by depositors – who are now locked out, and that it has $650 million in claims against Three Arrows Capital, which Three Arrows has defaulted on.Voyager trades on the Toronto stock exchange. On Friday, July 1st, when it announced that it had locked out its depositors, the Toronto Stock Exchange was closed in observance of Canada Day. In the US, where Voyager trades over the counter, its shares plunged 31% on Friday, to 30 cents.
Billions in bitcoin trapped on lending sites like Celsius may turn into a tax write-off for investors - Crypto lending platforms like Celsius, Anchor, and Voyager Digital rose to prominence for offering almost unbelievable returns of up to 20% annually on customer deposits. Now much of that crypto cash is trapped, as plunging token prices force platforms to temporarily suspend or limit withdrawals.In the wake of its own solvency crisis, Celsius — which is still advertising up to 18.63% annual yield on its website — has had customer funds on ice for more than three weeks and has yet to announce tangible guidance on next steps.So who is going to be left holding the bag if these platforms go belly up?Unlike the traditional banking system, which typically insures customer deposits, there aren't formal consumer protections in place to safeguard user funds when things go wrong on decentralized finance platforms. 'High risk, high reward' is the general motto of the DeFi ecosystem. For those who lost their life savings to these crypto lending platforms, there is little recourse for recouping their losses.But Shehan Chandrasekera, a certified public accountant, tells CNBC the U.S. tax code may provide some relief to these investors by way of an obscure deduction."If your funds become totally worthless and irrecoverable, you may be eligible to write them off as a nonbusiness bad debt on your taxes," said Chandrasekera, lead tax strategist at CoinTracker.io, a digital currency tax software company that helps clients track their crypto across virtual wallet addresses and manage their tax obligations."It's not going to cover up your entire economic loss, but it's going to give you some type of tax benefit, because at least you get to write off that initial investment that you put in," Chandrasekera.
Crypto ATMs Are on the Rise. Who’s Supposed to Keep an Eye on Them? - — The kiosk at this corner gas station just off Highway 101 in California’s hilly Central Coast warns that you’re on your own: “The attendants at this store cannot help you with this machine.”The kiosk stands right beside a more typical cash-withdrawal ATM, with an identical keypad and slot for a plastic card. But it’s bigger and glitzier, with a brightly colored screen like a casino slot machine. It takes your cash and converts it to Bitcoin in a virtual wallet.Welcome to the world of cryptocurrency ATMs, also known as “BTMs” (the B is for Bitcoin), which have mushroomed in the past several years, even if most people don’t understand exactly what they’re for. The precise number of these machines in the United States seems to depend on who’s counting, but most analyses put it at about 34,000. That’s nearly 90 percent of the world’s total tally. Canada ranks a distant second with an estimated 2,500.Crypto fans and crypto companies see the machines as an extension of the promise embodied by Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency: another step in the democratization of finance. Everybody knows what an ATM is, and allowing people to buy crypto with cash opens this new landscape of exchange and investment up to anyone. You can’t buy into Wall Street investments without a bank account and a brokerage account. BTMs offer the hourly worker on a lunch break the option to buy crypto instead of a lottery ticket.But as they’ve proliferated, state regulators across the country, and even some federal officials, have started to raise concerns. Legitimate companies may run most of these machines, but some are set up by unlicensed operators. The regulators worry that crypto ATMs can too neatly serve the interests of money launderers and fraudsters, or could hide payments to sex and drug traffickers; even for honest brokers, their fees are considerably higher than normal bank transactions. They also market themselves, sometimes aggressively, to low-income people who may not understand the risks of moving their money into cryptocurrency, which is currently in the midst of one of its intermittent crashes. States are trying to figure out how to handle these machines at a time when they’re still grappling with what to do about crypto itself. In most states, banking officials head up the task of sorting through policy. And in most states, they haven’t yet explicitly decided that digital money trades need the same kind of money transmitting licenses that govern traditional finance.
U.S. senators seek crackdown on Zelle amid complaints of fraud -U.S. senators led by Democrats Bob Menendez, Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed told seven of the country’s biggest banks they must do more for consumers defrauded by scammers on Zelle, the person-to-person payments network the firms jointly own. “Frauds and scams have proliferated,” the senators said in letters Thursday to firms including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. “One of Zelle’s biggest selling points to consumers — the ability to immediately transfer money — makes the platform a ‘favorite of fraudsters’ because consumers have no option to cancel a transaction, even moments after authorizing it.” Frustrated consumers flooded the CFPB with comments about money stolen in fraud schemes using Zelle, an online payment system owned by seven banks. Adobe Stock Zelle, which the banks own through parent company Early Warning Services, soared in popularity during the pandemic. Payments on the network jumped to $490 billion in 2021, a 59% increase from a year earlier. While Early Warning Services has developed policies for reimbursing consumers who lose money through unauthorized transactions, it hasn’t yet done the same for customers who are tricked into sending money to fraudsters. That’s what the group of senators is hoping to change. The three lawmakers were joined bys Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. The effort comes on the heels of a similar letter sent by senators to Early Warning Services in April. In response to that inquiry, the company said banks have already moved to limit abuses, including real-time alerts that asks users to carefully consider if they know and trust the person they’re sending money to before initiating a transaction. Person-to-person networks such as Zelle are governed by Regulation E, which dictates rules for electronic transactions. With its policies for reimbursing consumers who are victims of unauthorized transfers, Early Warning told senators it believes it “has gone beyond what is required under Regulation E.” But the senators said the company is ignoring scams that have been extensively documented in the press and by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Given the sheer numbers of consumers using online payments services such as Zelle and the amount of money at risk, the absence of protective measures is unacceptable,” the senators said in the letter.
CFPB says onus on credit screening companies to guard consumer privacy - The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau tightened its restrictions for who can check or see an individual's credit report, whose reports they're allowed to access and with whom they share the information. In a 14-page advisory opinion issued Thursday, the CFPB said the burden is on credit reporting companies and others seeking to run or use a credit report to ensure they have a legally "permissible purpose" for seeking the information, such as employment background checks, landlord screenings and insurance or lending decisions. “Americans are now subject to round-the-clock surveillance by large commercial firms seeking to monetize their personal data,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a press release announcing the decision.The move comes a day after Republican Sen. Pat Toomey decried the CFPB's ongoing push to rein in what it views as corporate bad actors whose sloppy handling of consumer data harms Americans. "The CFPB is more out of control than ever before," Toomey said. In March the CFPB had prompted the three major credit reporting bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, to remove a large portion of medical debt from consumers' credit reports, saying they had contributed unnecessarily to struggles that vulnerable groups like the elderly had with credit. Chopra said he expected Congress and government agencies to do more to protect consumer privacy and rights, but in the meantime, the CFPB intended to act within its power “to combat misuse and abuse of personal data on background screening and credit reports.”
Pension Funds Plunge Into Riskier Bets—Just as Markets Are Struggling --U.S. public pension funds don’t have nearly enough money to pay for all their obligations to future retirees. A growing number are adopting a risky solution: investing borrowed money. As both stock and bond markets struggle, it’s a precarious gamble.
Former Fed Gov. Tarullo sees systemic risk in 'irrelevant' Federal Home Loan banks - Former Federal Reserve Gov. Daniel Tarullo and two Fed economists are calling for more oversight of the Federal Home Loan banks, claiming the banks have expanded into activities that pose risks to financial stability and have become “irrelevant” in housing finance markets. In a new white paper, Tarullo and the economists argue that the Home Loan banks’ hybrid public-private business model needs to be reexamined. The 11 regional banks, the authors argue, have moved beyond their primary mission of supporting housing into activities that could trigger systemic stress. Federal Reserve Gov. Daniel Tarullo Daniel Tarullo, former chair of the Federal Reserve's supervisory committee, said in a paper released in June that the Federal Home Loan Bank system could pose systemic risks in times of stress in the housing market. Ron Antonelli/Bloomberg The authors suggest that in the absence of Congressional action, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Home Loan banks, should determine if the banks are working in the public interest. “There is not a well-defined role for FHLBs to justify their public privileges,” Tarullo wrote along with co-authors Stefan Gissler and Borghan Narajabad, both economists at the Fed. “In the absence of a well-defined mission, the FHLBs crop up in unexpected parts of financial markets as they pursue profitable opportunities.” The pointed criticism from Tarullo, a Harvard Law professor who served as the chair of the Fed’s supervisory committee during the Obama administration, may reinvigorate debate about the Home Loan banks’ purpose and relevance. The 54-page white paper was published June 23 by SSRN, an academic research publisher.
Black Knight Mortgage Monitor: "Early signs of cooling in the housing market" -Black Knight publishes a monthly Mortgage Monitor report that contains interesting information on the mortgage market and housing. Press Release: Black Knight: Signs of Cooling in Nation's Least Affordable Markets as Inventory Levels Improve; May Sees Largest Monthly Slowdown in Home Price Growth Since 2006 Today, the Data & Analytics division of Black Knight, Inc. released its latest Mortgage Monitor Report, based upon the company's industry-leading mortgage, real estate and public records datasets. This month’s report looks at recent cooling in the annual rate of home price appreciation and the intertwined impacts of both affordability and inventory on those trends. May marked the second consecutive month of cooling at the national level.“The annual home price growth rate fell by more than a full percentage point in May, the largest monthly decline at the national level since 2006,” said Graboske. “However, even with growth slowing in 97 of the top 100 U.S. markets, overall home prices still rose 1.5% from April – nearly twice the historical average for the month of May. And while any talk of home values and 2006 might set off alarm bells for some, the truth is that price gains would need to see deceleration at this rate for more than 12 months just to get us back to a ‘normal’ 3-5% annual growth rate. That said, the pace of deceleration could very well increase in the coming months, as we’ve already begun to see in select markets such as Austin, Boise and Phoenix. Here is a graph on delinquencies from Black Knight. Overall delinquencies are at record lows. The national delinquency rate fell five basis points to 2.75% in May, continuing the downtrend of the prior two months and marking another new low Following declines in March, a slight, seasonally typical increase in 30-day delinquencies was offset by continued improvements in serious delinquenciThe second graph shows Black Knight’s estimate of monthly house price increases and the year-over-year change in prices.
- • Annual home price appreciation fell to 19.3% from a revised 20.4% in April, marking the largest single-month deceleration since 2006
- • Even so, prices rose 1.5% month over month – nearly twice the historical average for May
- • Home prices are up 10.8% year to date, and 44% since the start of the pandemic
Note: Black Knights data on affordability goes back to 1975. And on the payment to income ratio:
- • With 30-year rates hovering close to 6% and home prices up nearly 11% since the start of 2022, affordability is at its worst point since the mid-1980s – when sharp Fed hikes led to high double-digit mortgage rates that resulted in a greater than 50% payment-to-income ratio
- • The affordability challenge back then was almost entirely driven by the interest rate environment, while incomes largely kept up with home price growth
- • As of mid-June 2022, it takes 36.2% of the median household income to make the mortgage payment on the average priced home purchase, well above the 34.1% post-1980s peak in July 2006
- • The monthly principal and interest (P&I) payment for the average-priced home purchased with 20% down is now over $2,100 for the first time on record, up nearly $750 (55%) so far this year and nearly 2X the $1,089 required at the beginning of the pandemic.
There is much more in the mortgage monitor. For example, Black Knight also has data on the status of mortgage loans that were in forbearance - and also data on house prices to median income (at all time high).
Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey - Mortgage applications decreased 5.4 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 1, 2022. This week’s results include a holiday adjustment to account for early closings the Friday before Independence Day.... The Refinance Index decreased 8 percent from the previous week and was 78 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 4 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 7 percent compared with the previous week and was 17 percent lower than the same week one year ago.“Mortgage rates decreased for the second week in a row, as growing concerns over an economic slowdown and increased recessionary risks kept Treasury yields lower. Mortgage rates have increased sharply thus far in 2022 but have fallen 24 basis points over the past two weeks, with the 30-year fixed rate at 5.74 percent,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “Rates are still significantly higher than they were a year ago, which is why applications for home purchases and refinances remain depressed. Purchase activity is hamstrung by ongoing affordability challenges and low inventory, and homeowners still have reduced incentive to apply for a refinance."...The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased to 5.74 percent from 5.84 percent, with points increasing to 0.65 from 0.64 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.
Home Price Cuts, Rising Inventories Are Ominous Signs Of Top --The pandemic housing boom hit a peak and should start rolling over as rising inventory forces some home sellers to slash prices. The weight of soaring mortgage rates and increasing inventory are the possible markings of a top that has already led some sellers in major US cities to cut listing prices. "The housing market is absolutely in need of a reset," George Ratiu, senior economist at Realtor.com, told Bloomberg. Realtor.com's data showed almost a third of listings in June had price cuts in Austin, Phoenix, and Las Vegas metro areas. Price cuts are a growing national trend as higher rates triggered an affordability crisis, removing millions of new prospective home buyers. Bloomberg spoke with Naples, Florida, real estate agent Jennifer DeFrancesco who advised her clients to drop listing prices as she believes the flood of demand from the Northeast has eased. Carolyn Young, a broker associate with Christie's International Real Estate Sereno in the San Francisco Bay Area, said demand for homes in a 55-and-over community in Brentwood had seen dramatic declines since many retirees were battered by awful performance in their stock and bond portfolios in the first half. She advised clients at Trilogy at the Vineyards to lower their listings by $50,000 to $100,000 because of faltering demand. "For sellers, it's devastating, especially if they bought something else earlier and paid too much for that," Young said. Price cutting comes as a flood of inventory enters a very tight market. Another Realtor.com report this week showed the number of active US listings soared 18.7% in June from a year earlier.
30-Year Mortgage Rates Decrease to 5.50% - After reaching 6.28% on June 14th, 30-year mortgage rates have decreased to 5.50% today according to Mortgagenewsdaily.com. The 10-year Treasury yield has fallen to 2.82%, apparently on “recession fears”, even though it is pretty clear the economy is not in a recession.In April, I wrote: How High will Mortgage Rates Rise? In that post, I included a simple method for estimating 30-year mortgage rates based on the 10-year Treasury yield.Housing economist Tom Lawler explained that the relationship is more complicated in Lawler: Mortgage/Treasury Spreads, Part I and Lawler: Mortgage/Treasury Spreads Part II: “Decomposing” the Widening This Year. Here is a graph from Mortgagenewsdaily.com that shows the 30-year mortgage rate since 2010. Although mortgage rates have fallen sharply over the last 2 weeks, rates are still much higher than earlier this year.It is the sharp increase in monthly payments compared to earlier this year that is impacting the housing market.The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) reported last week that as of June 24th: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.And Freddie Mac reported last week:“The rapid rise in mortgage rates has finally paused, largely due to the countervailing forces of high inflation and the increasing possibility of an economic recession,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist. “This pause in rate activity should help the housing market rebalance from the breakneck growth of a seller’s market to a more normal pace of home price appreciation.”30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.70 percent with an average 0.9 point as of June 30, 2022, down from last week when it averaged 5.81 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 2.98 percent.All of these measures move together over time (and the Freddie Mac PMMS is used for historical data), however when rates are moving quickly - like over the last few days -mortgagenewsdaily.com is the most up to date.The sharp increase in rates in mid-June was related to a stronger than expected CPI report. Since then, inflation readings have been closer to expectations.
Mortgage Rates Crash Most 'Since Lehman' As Loan Demand Collapses It appears the laws of supply and demand have once again miraculously re-appeared - this time in the home mortgage market. The average rate for a 30-year loan plunged to 5.3%, the lowest in a month and down from 5.7% last week. That is the largest weekly drop (40bps) since the Lehman collapse in 2008... Judging by the total collapse in mortgage applications, it is clear that as the 'price' of loans rose (rates) then the 'demand' for loans evaporated. Simply put, if you were writing mortgages at such high rates (amid near record low levels of affordability) you are doing no business at all... So you lower the price of the loan (rates) to encourage demand. With the 40bps crash in rates this week, it appears the fecal matter really hit the rotating object in the mortgage providers. “Because of falling mortgage rates, homes may be more affordable than they were three weeks ago,” Holden Lewis, home and mortgage spokesperson at NerdWallet said in a statement. “There were few, if any, times you could have said that in the first half of 2022.” Good luck with that idea. Rates are still up massively from levels a year ago - and home prices are at ever higher levels too. At the current 30-year average, a borrower with a $300,000 mortgage would pay roughly $1,665 a month, about $383 more than at the end of last year, when rates hovered around 3.11%. “While the drop provides minor relief to buyers, the housing market will continue to normalize if home-price growth materially slows due to the combination of low housing affordability and an expected economic slowdown,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
Zillow Case-Shiller Forecast for May: Slowing House Price Growth - The Case-Shiller house price indexes for April were released this week. The "April" report is a 3-month average including February, March and April closings. So, 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)! Zillow forecasts Case-Shiller a month early, and I like to check the Zillow forecasts since they have been pretty close.
From Zillow Research: April 2022 Case-Shiller Results & Forecast: Putting on the Brakes With rates continuing their steep ascent and inventory picking up in months since, April is likely the first month of this deceleration as buyers balked at the cost of purchasing a home and pulled out of the market, leading to slower price growth. While inventory is improving, there is still plenty of room to go before it reaches its pre-pandemic trend. Still, coupled with relatively strong demand, that will continue to be a driver for sustained high prices even as sales volume is dropping in response to affordability constraints. As a result, more buyers will take a step to the sidelines in the coming months, which will help inventory to recover and price growth to slow from its peak, leading the market back to a more balanced stable state in the long run and providing more future opportunities for homeownership for those priced out today. Annual home price growth as reported by Case-Shiller are expected to slow in all three indices. Monthly appreciation in May is expected to decelerate from April in both city indices, and hold in the national index. S&P Dow Jones Indices is expected to release data for the May S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices on Tuesday, July 26. The Zillow forecast is for the year-over-year change for the Case-Shiller National index to be 19.5% in May. This is slightly slower than in February, March and April, but still very strong YoY growth.
CoreLogic: House Prices up 20.2% YoY in May - Notes: The CoreLogic HPI is a three-month weighted average and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA). From CoreLogic: CoreLogic Data: National Home Price Gains Continue to Exceed 20% in May: CoreLogic® ... today released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI™) and HPI Forecast™ for May 2022.Though U.S. home price growth relaxed slightly in May from April, it remained in double digits year over year for the 16th consecutive month. As in past months, all states and Washington, D.C. posted annual appreciation, with 13 states posting gains of more than 20%. While rising interest rates cooled overheated demand this spring and are expected to contribute to slowing price growth over the next year, motivated buyers may have less competition and more opportunities moving forward. “Slowing home price growth reflects the dampening consequence of higher mortgage rates on housing demand, which was the intention,” said Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. “With monthly mortgage expenses up about 50% from only a few months ago, fewer buyers are now competing for continually limited inventory. And while annual home price growth still exceeds 20%, we expect to see a rapid deceleration in the rate of growth over the coming year. Nevertheless, the normalization of overheated buying conditions should bring about more of a balance between buyers and sellers and a healthier overall housing market.” ... U.S. home prices (including distressed sales) increased 20.2% in May 2022, compared to May 2021. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 1.8% compared to April 2022.... Annual U.S. home price gains are forecast to slow to 5% by May 2023 as rising mortgage rates and affordability challenges are expected to cool buyer demand.
House Price Declines: How Long for Real Prices to Recover? --Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: House Price Declines: How Long for Real Prices to Recover? Excerpt: Housing economist Tom Lawler sent me some old FHFA research from 2009: A Brief Examination of Previous House Price Declines. ... A conclusion from the research: First, house price downturns have tended to be long. The median time required to return to prior peak prices was 10½ to 20 years. Second, it tends to take longer for prices to rise from the trough to their former peak than it takes prices to decline from peak to trough. While the difference is small for Census Divisions and states, FHFA’s Metropolitan Statistical Area and Division (MSA) indexes suggest that the time from peak to trough tends to be about 3¾ years, whereas the median recovery period (from trough to prior peak) was 6⅔ years.... Here is a similar look at national prices using the real Case-Shiller index (adjusted for inflation).The real return following the ‘79 peak was 6.5 years. It took 11 years for real prices to reach the previous peak following the peak in ‘89.And it took 14.5 years to return to the real peak reached during the housing bubble.This is a little premature, but following a downturn, it typically takes a long time for prices to return to the previous real price peak. Of course, homeowners think in nominal terms, and if prices just “stall”, they usually don’t notice the inflation adjusted price decline.
Apartment Vacancy Rate Declined in Q2 --Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Apartment Vacancy Rate Declined in Q2 A brief excerpt: Moody’s Analytics Reis reported that the apartment vacancy rate was at 4.5% in Q2 2022, down from 4.7% in Q1, and down from a pandemic peak of 5.4% in both Q1 and Q2 2021....This graph shows the apartment vacancy rate starting in 1980. (Annual rate before 1999, quarterly starting in 1999). Note: Moody’s Analytics is just for large cities. ... Moody’s Analytics also reported the effective rents were up 2.8% in Q2 from Q1, and up 17.5% year-over-year. Last week, I posted a graph of the year-over-year change for various measures of rent. 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. There is more in the article.
Summer Driving Season Off to a Slow Start --The U.S. summer driving season is off to a slow start, according to a new market note from energy and environmental geo-analytics company Kayrros. “While passenger road transportation has been rising seasonally since Memorial Day weekend in late May, the levels of activity have now slipped below last year consistently since June 2, Kayrros data show,” Kayrros stated in the note, which was sent to Rigzone recently. “On average, gasoline use in June fell by 2.6 percent year-on-year but remained 16.5 percent above 2020 (Covid-19) levels and 3.5 percent above 2019 (pre-Covid),” Kayrros added. According to a graph outlining on-road gasoline consumption in the U.S., which was included in the note and which included data stretching back to 2019, demand hit a peak around August 2021 and a low point around April 2020. The latest data on U.S. diesel use suggests commercial road transportation activity has so far remained more impervious to high prices at the pump, Kayrros said in the note. “Despite recent reports that online shopping and carrier activity are starting to feel the heat from the return of inflation, this has yet to affect actual end-user diesel burn in a big way,” Kayrros stated. According to a graph outlining on-road diesel consumption in the U.S., which was also included in the note and which also included data stretching back to 2019, demand in 2022 has mostly been above 2021 figures. As of July 6, the average price of regular gasoline in the U.S. is $4.779 per gallon, according to the AAA gas prices website. Yesterday’s average was $4.800 per gallon, the week ago average was $4.868 per gallon, the month ago average was $4.865 per gallon and the year ago average was $3.134 per gallon, the AAA site showed. The highest recorded average price for regular gasoline was seen on June 14 at $5.016 per gallon, according to the site. Average diesel prices in the U.S. as of July 6 came in at $5.716 per gallon, the AAA site showed. Yesterday’s average was $5.726 per gallon, the week ago average was $5.780 per gallon, the month ago average was $5.645 per gallon and the year ago average was $3.250 per gallon, according to the AAA site, which outlined that the highest recorded average price of diesel was seen on June 19 at $5.816 per gallon.
New Vehicle Sales in June 2022 Plunged 25% from June 2019, Back to 1970s Levels, on Inventory Shortages - Automakers have now reported their June new vehicle sales, or their Q2 new vehicle sales, for the US, except Tesla, which doesn’t report US sales but only global sales. All automakers, even Toyota, and now even Tesla, are struggling with the ongoing semiconductor shortages, and they started the month of June with desperately low inventories on dealer lots and in transit.And so new vehicle sales in June plunged by 13.5% from the already horribly beaten-down June 2021, to 1.127 million vehicles, and collapsed by 25% from June 2019, the last decent year in the industry, according to data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis today:All automakers used to report US sales (deliveries to end users) on a monthly basis, except Tesla, which doesn’t report US sales at all. Then GM decided in 2018 that it wasn’t going to do that anymore, and it switched to quarterly sales reports. Other automakers followed.Ford switched from monthly to quarterly sales reporting in 2019. But then during the pandemic, Ford flip-flopped and switched back to monthly reporting, which now is making comparisons to the last decent year the industry had – 2019 – impossible because Ford only reported quarterly sales. But then there’s still 2018. So that’s where we’ll look for inspiration.Today Ford bragged about its monthly sales for June that had jumped by 30.5% from June 2021. But wait…In June 2019, Ford had reported only quarterly sales, and so we cannot compare Ford’s monthly sales in June 2022 to June 2019, the last decent June the industry had.But June 2021 was when Ford ran out of inventory, and its sales collapsed to just 115,789 vehicles, down by 50% from June 2018 (230,635 vehicles).And from that collapsed base in June 2021, Ford’s sales now jumped 30.5%, but they were still down by 34.0% from June 2018!!So you see where this is going. In terms of quarterly sales, in Q2, Ford sold 483,688 vehicles. In Q2 2019, it had sold 650,336 vehicles. In other words, Ford’s Q2 sales plunged by 34% from the last decent Q2, in 2019. And Ford, among the hardest hit by the chip shortages, was among the worst decliners from the good times (2019).These are huge sales declines, and they hit to a somewhat lesser or greater extent all legacy automakers. Total new vehicle sales for the entire industry in Q2 plunged by 20.8% from the beaten-down levels in Q2 last year, to 3.29 million vehicles. While up a tad from Q1, sales were down 21.3% from Q2 2019. These quarterly sales figures in the 3.3 million range were first seen in the 1970s.
Used Vehicle Wholesale Prices Decreased 1.3% in June - From Manheim Consulting today: Wholesale Used-Vehicle Prices Decrease in June from Seasonal Adjustment Wholesale used-vehicle prices (on a mix-, mileage-, and seasonally adjusted basis) decreased 1.3% in June from May. The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index declined to 219.9, up 9.7% from a year ago. The non-adjusted price change in June decreased 1.8% compared to May, leaving the unadjusted average price up 10.7% year over year. In June, Manheim Market Report (MMR) values saw larger declines over the last two weeks than the prior two weeks.This index from Manheim Consulting is based on all completed sales transactions at Manheim’s U.S. auctions. The Manheim index suggests used car prices decreased in June and are up 9.7% year-over-year (YoY). The YoY change is mostly getting smaller. This index was up 45% YoY in January, and now up less than 10% YoY.
Are We Headed For An "Auto Loan Crisis" As Delinquencies Begin To Rise? - Automobile affordability worsens as Americans are saddled up with monthly payments topping $1,000, and loan delinquencies are creeping higher thanks to increasing economic pressures thanks to the Federal Reserve's aggressive monetary tightening regime to rein in the highest inflation in 40 years. A Fed-induced downturn in the economy could end up bursting the auto bubble. "We are seeing delinquencies start to increase," Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler told the Deutsche Bank 2022 Global Automotive Conference last month. "We're looking for every indication and every data point we can to get a read on where the consumer is, where they're headed given everything that we see out there, the inflationary pressures, the economic issues, et cetera," Lawler said. He continued: "So we are seeing some headwinds there a little bit when it comes to delinquencies as maybe a leading indicator."Edmunds' executive director of insights Jessica Caldwell also noted, "auto loan delinquencies are expected to rise," adding consumers must "understand the risks associated with financing more than what they can afford."Meanwhile, June data from Edmunds shows monthly auto payments topped $1,000. Cox Automotive showed the average monthly car payment reached $712 in May. These auto payments are higher than rent for one-bedroom apartments in Wichita, Kansas, and Akron, Ohio. Combine auto, shelter, energy, and food costs that are soaring, and no wonder consumers have maxed out their credit cards and drained savings as they struggle to survive the worst inflationary storm in 40 years. This situation is expected to worsen as the Fed is determined to hike into a downturn and may trigger a recession in the middle of the second half of 2022, according to a note from Nomura. What's surprising to Jack Liebersohn, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine, is that auto payments are topping shelter costs for some consumers. "Normally housing is the thing people struggle to pay — autos are typically an optional expense you can delay, so the phenomenon of car payments exceeding rent is surprising to me," Liebersohn told Bloomberg.
Gasoline Prices See The Largest Drop In Nearly 15 Years - While gasoline prices are still $1.50 higher per gallon than they were this time last year, they fell sharply overnight in what was the largest one-day drop in nearly 15 years, according to AAA data.. The current price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States is averaging $4.721 on Friday, down from $4.752 per gallon on Thursday—a 3.1-cent drop. The weekly change is even more significant at 12.1 cents. According to Gas Buddy’s Patrick De Haan, more than 5,800 gas stations across the country are offering gasoline at $3.99 per gallon or less. While they are trending down this week, gasoline prices are still $1.58 higher than they were this time last year. Gasoline prices continued to drop as crude oil prices rose on Thursday and Friday, but crude oil prices are still down significantly week on week. WTI crude was trading up $2.01 per barrel on Friday at $104.70—down almost $4 on the week. High gasoline prices have been a worry for the Biden Administration, which has so far released more than 145 million barrels of crude oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves, bringing the SPR down to levels not seen in decades in order to calm the high prices at the pump. But the falling price of crude oil—which makes up about 60% of the cost of gasoline—fell this week largely on fears of a recession. Another measure that the Biden Administration has taken includes asking OPEC+ to pump more, but the group has been either unwilling or unable to live up to its production quotas. Also contributing to the price decrease in gasoline is U.S. gasoline demand, which is down roughly 4.5% from last week, according to De Haan.
Heavy Truck Sales Solid in June -- The BEA released their estimate of vehicle sales for June this morning. This graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the June 2022 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR). Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand SAAR in May 2009. Then heavy truck sales increased to a new all-time high of 570 thousand SAAR in April 2019. Note: "Heavy trucks - trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight." Heavy truck sales really declined at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 308 thousand SAAR in May 2020. Heavy truck sales were at 475 thousand SAAR in June, down from 491 thousand in May, and down slightly from 476 thousand SAAR in June 2021. Usually, heavy truck sales decline sharply prior to a recession. Sales were solid in June.
Manufacturing Still Hung in there in May, New Orders Surged in Part Driven by Raging Inflation. June Less Promising - By Wolf Richter -Manufacturing in the US, as measured by new orders received, ramped up further in May, with raging inflation being part but not all of the equation, and unfilled orders ticked up further, and the key inventory ratio of inventories-to-shipments – which eliminates the effects of inflation – held at the lowest levels since August 2019.The impact of the rate hikes or any slowdown is not yet visible in the manufacturing data for May. But surveys of executives conducted in June and released last week as the Manufacturing PMIs hint at a first dip in orders in June from the fairly strong May.New orders for manufactured goods in May rose by 1.6% from April, seasonally adjusted, to $543 billion, according to data from the Census Bureau today: orders for manufactured durable goods +0.8% to $267 billion; orders for manufactured nondurable goods +2.3% to $276 billion.On a year-over-year basis, new orders for manufactured goods jumped by 14% in May, after a series of massive year-over-year increases for the past two years, with orders for manufactured durable goods increasing by 12.2%, and for manufactured nondurable goods by 18.9%.Transportation equipment is the largest category of durable goods, with $82.8 billion in orders in May, not seasonally adjusted, up by 19.7% from a year ago. The vast majority of this sector is composed of cars and trucks, heavy trucks, buses, components, and trailers, which account for almost 70% of the sector. Aircraft (nondefense and defense combined) account for 18% of the total transportation orders. Ships and boats account for 3% of transportation orders. Unfilled orders rose to $1.11 trillion in May, up by 7.3% from a year ago. All of this year-over year increase is likely accounted for by price increases: Inventory levels in dollar terms are inflated by cost increases, and are not indicative of whether or not inventories are piling up – the rumored “inventory glut.” But the inventory-to-shipment ratio eliminates the factor of prices and price increases, and in May, the ratio remained unchanged from April at 1.47, the lowest since August 2019, according to the Census Bureau: The impact of the rate hikes or any slowdown in demand is not yet visible in the manufacturing data for May.But there are the surveys of manufacturing executives for June: Though the overall ISM Manufacturing PMI for June was in growth mode, the new orders index within it dipped to 49.2, from the fairly strong reading in May (55.1), with 50 being the dividing line between rising and falling orders on a month-to-month basis. Spending is shifting from goods back to services. For months now, consumers have shifted from the mind-boggling pandemic-related spending boom on goods back to spending on services. Spending on discretionary services had collapsed during the pandemic, and it has been coming back, even as spending on goods dropped. Consumer spending on services accounts for over 60% of total consumer spending. And this shift is huge – even adjusted for inflation. Read… Consumer Spending Shifting Back to Services from Stimulus-Binge on Goods. Inflation Eats into Incomes
AAR: June Rail Carloads and Intermodal Down Year-over-year --From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Rail Time Indicators. Graphs and excerpts reprinted with permission.In June, total U.S. carloads fell 1.5% from last year, their third consecutive monthly decline. ...U.S intermodal originations in June were down 4.6% from last year, their fifth decline in 2022’s first six months. This graph from the Rail Time Indicators report shows the six-week a verage of U.S. Carloads in 2020, 2021 and 2022:U.S. railroads originated 1.16 million total carloads in June 2022, down 1.5% from June 2021. It’s the third consecutive year-over-year decline and the fourth in the first six months of 2022. In 2022’s second quarter, total carloads were down 2.7% from last year; in the first half, they were down 0.1%. Since 1988, when our data begin, only 2020 had fewer first-half carloads than 2022.The second graph shows the six-week average (not monthly) of U.S. intermodal in 2020, 2021 and 2022: (using intermodal or shipping containers):U.S railroads also originated 1.32 million intermodal units in June, down 4.6% from last year. It’s the fifth decline in 2022’s first six months and the 10th in the past 11 months. Intermodal originations averaged 264,624 per week in June 2022, the fewest in four months.
Trade Deficit decreased to $85.5 Billion in May From the Department of Commerce reported: The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that the goods and services deficit was $85.5 billion in May, down $1.1 billion from $86.7 billion in April, revised.May exports were $255.9 billion, $3.0 billion more than April exports. May imports were $341.4 billion, $1.9 billion more than April imports..Both exports and imports increased in May.Exports are up 22% year-over-year; imports are up 23% year-over-year. Both imports and exports decreased sharply due to COVID-19, and have now bounced back (imports more than exports), The second graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum.
The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products.Note that net, imports and exports of petroleum products are close to zero.The trade deficit with China increased to $31.5 billion in May, from $26.1 billion a year ago. The trade deficit was close to the consensus forecast, and the deficit for April was revised down.
ISM® Services Index Decreased to 55.3% in June, Employment Contracted - The ISM® Services index was at 55.3%, down from 55.9% last month. The employment index decreased to 47.4%, from 50.2%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 in contraction. From the Institute for Supply Management: Services PMI® at 55.3% June 2022 Services ISM® Report On Business® Economic activity in the services sector grew in June for the 25th month in a row — with the Services PMI® registering 55.3 percent, say the nation's purchasing and supply executives in the latest Services ISM® Report On Business®. “In June, the Services PMI® registered 55.3 percent, 0.6 percentage point lower than May’s reading of 55.9 percent. This is the lowest reading since May 2020 (45.2 percent). The Business Activity Index registered 56.1 percent, an increase of 1.6 percentage points compared to the reading of 54.5 percent in May. The New Orders Index figure of 55.6 percent is 2 percentage points lower than the May reading of 57.6 percent....The Employment Index (47.4 percent) contracted... This was slightly better than expected.
BLS: Job Openings Decreased to 11.3 million in May - From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary: The number of job openings decreased to 11.3 million on the last business day of May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires and total separations were little changed at 6.5 million and 6.0 million, respectively. Within separations, quits (4.3 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.4 million) were little changed. The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS. This series started in December 2000.Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for May, the employment report this Friday will be for June. Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are usually pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs.The spike in layoffs and discharges in March 2020 is labeled, but off the chart to better show the usual data.Jobs openings decreased in May to 11.254 million from 11.681 million in April. The number of job openings (black) were up 17% year-over-year. Quits were up 11% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (See light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").
Tech Layoffs & Hiring Freezes Only Made Tiny Dent in Red-Hot Labor Market in May - Wolf Richter -There have been numerous announcements and reports of hiring freezes at some tech companies, and layoffs at others, including in the crypto and DeFi zone that is now collapsing. But the layoff numbers were small, mostly by startup companies, or some small-scale targeted layoffs at larger companies, not mass-layoffs. And total layoffs across all industries have ticked up just a little from the record lows and remain historically low.Layoffs in May rose by 77,000 from April, to 1.39 million layoffs, according to today’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) data. But this was down by 22% from May 2019 and remains in the record low range. By contrast, in the 2011-2019 recovery, there were an average of 1.80 million layoffs per month. And in the 2000-2007 recovery, there were an average of 1.87 million layoffs per month. Job openings remain in the Astronomical Zone.At the end of May, job openings dipped for the second month in a row, to 11.25 million, down 5.1% from the record in March, seasonally adjusted. But this was still way up in the astronomical zone, up by 55% from May 2019.Note, these job openings are not based on online job postings – and therefore not influenced by fake online job postings – but are based on what companies and government entities said their hiring needs were:This is one more indication that the “labor shortages” continued through May in an extraordinarily tight labor market, despite some small-scale layoffs and some hiring freezes, and that it will take a lot more layoffs and a lot more hiring freezes to loosen up the labor market back to anything resembling “normal.” This may come over the next few months, but it isn’t here yet.In the years around recessions – from 2002 to 2004 and from 2008 to 2012 – people are losing their jobs and start looking for work, and at the same time, the job openings vanish, and there is a big gap between the unemployed looking for work and actual job openings.At the peak of the Great Recession in late 2009, there were 15 million unemployed people looking for a job, and only 2 million job openings – which is terrible math for the unemployed.As the economy improved more job openings appeared, and more people found a slot, and unemployment fell.Then in the already tight labor market in the years before the pandemic, job openings exceeded for the first time in the data the number of unemployed looking for work, which is what workers want. That’s the sign of a strong labor market.Since June last year, job openings have exploded, even as the number of unemployed looking for a job has plunged, creating the biggest gap between the two – another aspect of the “labor shortage.”That gap has been cited by Powell as well – with a historically high 11.25 million job openings and a hi storically low 5.95 million unemployed people looking for a job in May:
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims Increase to 235,000 -- The DOL reported:In the week ending July 2, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 235,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 231,000. The 4-week moving average was 232,500, an increase of 750 from the previous week's unrevised average of 231,750.The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971. The dashed line on the graph is the current 4-week average. The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims increased to 232,500.The previous week was unrevised.Weekly claims were higher than the consensus forecast.
June Employment Report: 372 thousand Jobs, 3.6% Unemployment Rate From the BLS:Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 372,000 in June, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and health care....The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for April was revised down by 68,000, from +436,000 to +368,000, and the change for May was revised down by 6,000, from +390,000 to +384,000. With these revisions, employment in April and May combined is 74,000 lower than previously reported..The first graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms.The current employment recession was by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms. However, 28 months after the onset of the current employment recession, almost all of the jobs have returned.The second graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968. In June, the year-over-year change was 6.3 million jobs. This was up significantly year-over-year.Total payrolls increased by 372 thousand in June. Private payrolls increased by 381 thousand, and public payrolls decreased 9 thousand.Payrolls for April and May were revised down 74 thousand, combined.The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.
The Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 62.2% in June, from 62.3% in May. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.The Employment-Population ratio decreased to 59.9% from 60.1% (blue line).The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.The unemployment rate was unchanged in June at 3.6% from 3.6% in May.This was above consensus expectations; however, April and May payrolls were revised down by 74,000 combined.
June jobs report: strong headline numbers, betraying numerous signs of rougher times ahead - Consumption leads employment. That’s true at bottoms, and it’s true at peaks as well. Since February, when consumption growth started to flag, I have been waiting for it to show up decisively in jobs numbers. In March through May, average growth decelerated from over 500,000/month to 400,000/month. So in this jobs report, I have been most interested to see if it declined further. Here’s my in depth synopsis of the report:
- 372,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 381,000. Government jobs fell by -9,000 jobs.
- The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report indicated a *decline* of -315,000 jobs. The above household number factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below.
- U3 unemployment rate was unchanged 3.6%, 0.1% above the January 2020 low of 3.5%.
- U6 underemployment rate declined -0.4% to 6.7%. THIS IS A NEW ALL-TIME LOW FOR THIS SERIES, WHICH DATES FROM 1994.
- Those not in the labor force at all, but who want a job now, declined -25,000 to 5.656 million, compared with 4.996 million in February 2020.
- Those on temporary layoff rose 17,000 to 827,000.
- Permanent job losers declined -113,000 to 1,273,000.
- April was revised downward by -68,000, and May was also revised downward by -6,000, for a net decline of -74,000 jobs compared with previous reports.
- the average manufacturing workweek, one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators, declined -03 hours to 40.9 hours.
- Manufacturing jobs increased 29,000. Since the beginning of the pandemic, manufacturing has now *increased* by 12,000 jobs.
- Construction jobs increased 13,000. All of the jobs lost during the pandemic have also been made up.
- Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, declined by -4,500.
- Temporary jobs rose by 5,400. Since the beginning of the pandemic, about 250,000 jobs have been gained.
- the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less increased by 196,000 to 2,262,000, which is back above its pre-pandemic level by 39,000.
- Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose $0.13 to $27.45, which is a 6.4% YoY gain, down from its 6.7% peak at the beginning of this year.
- the index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers rose by 0.3%, which is now 0.5% *above* its level just before the pandemic.
- the index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers rose by 0.8%, which is only about even with the average inflation gain in the past 3 months.:
- Leisure and hospitality jobs, which were the most hard-hit during the pandemic, rose 67,000, but are still -1,318,000, or -7.8% below their pre-pandemic peak.
- Within the leisure and hospitality sector, food and drink establishments added 41,000 jobs, but are still -728,400, or -5.9% below their pre-pandemic peak.
- Professional and business employment increased by 74,000, which is about 900,000 above its pre-pandemic peak.
- Full time jobs declined -152,000 in the household report.
- Part time jobs declined -326,000 in the household report.
- The number of job holders who were part time for economic reasons fell -707,000 to 3,621,000, which is A NEW 20 YEAR LOW.
- The Labor Force Participation Rate declined -0.1% to 62.2%, vs. 63.4% in February 2020.
SUMMARY: This report had two distinct aspects: the headline coincident numbers were excellent. But the leading indicators were mainly negative.A three month average gain in jobs of 383,000, while below last year’s torrid pace, is still excellent. The unemployment and underemployment figures were also excellent, in several aspects setting new records. While wage growth decelerated a bit, it is also still very good nominally. With the exception of leisure and hospitality, every significant sector has exceeded their pre-pandemic levels. Aggregate hours also increased nicely.But when it comes to leading indicators for future employment, and for the economy in general, the news was much more downbeat. Manufacturing hours declined sharply, to the lowest level since August 2020, and are also down 1% YoY, which in the past has coincided with a slowdown and frequently a recession. Residential construction employment declined. Short term unemployment increased. The household jobs number - which while noisy frequently leads at turning points - actually declined for the second time in 3 months. Revisions for the past two months - which also frequently turn in the direction of the near term trend - also were negative for the second month in a row.All was not negative among leading indicators, however. Manufacturing jobs increased. So did temporary jobs. Also, since the unemployment typically turns up in advance of recessions, that it remains at its low is a positive.In summary, the good news is that, at present, the jobs market remains very strong. This pretty much rules out the notion that a recession has already begun. But on the other hand, there were plenty of warning signs in this report of rougher times ahead once we get to autumn.
Comments on June Employment Report - The headline jobs number in the June employment report was above expectations, however employment for the previous two months was revised down by 74,000. The participation rate and the employment-population ratio both decreased slightly, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6%. Excluding leisure and hospitality, the economy has 800 thousand more jobs then prior to the pandemic. Leisure and hospitality gained 67 thousand jobs in June. At the beginning of the pandemic, in March and April of 2020, leisure and hospitality lost 8.20 million jobs, and are now down 1.32 million jobs since February 2020. So, leisure and hospitality has now added back about 84% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020. Construction employment increased 13 thousand and is now 46 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing added 29 thousand jobs and is now 12 thousand above the pre-pandemic level.Earlier: June Employment Report: 372 thousand Jobs, 3.6% Unemployment Rate In June, the year-over-year employment change was 6.3 million jobs. This graph shows permanent job losers as a percent of the pre-recession peak in employment through the report today.This data is only available back to 1994, so there is only data for three recessions. In June, the number of permanent job losers declined to 1.273 million from 1.386 million in the previous month.These jobs were likely the hardest to recover, so it is a positive that there are fewer permanent job losers now than prior to the recession.Since the overall participation rate has declined due to cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old. The 25 to 54 participation rate decreased in June to 82.3% from 82.6% in May, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio decreased to 79.8% from 80.0% the previous month.Both are slightly below the pre-pandemic levels and indicate almost all of the prime age workers have returned to the labor force. From the BLS report:"The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons declined by 707,000 to 3.6 million in June and is below its February 2020 level of 4.4 million. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs."The number of persons working part time for economic reasons decreased in June to 3.621 million from 4.328 million in May. This is below pre-recession levels.These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that decreased to 6.7% from 7.1% in the previous month. This is down from the record high in April 22.9% for this measure since 1994. This measure is lower than the 7.0% in February 2020 (pre-pandemic).This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more.According to the BLS, there are 1.336 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job, down from 1.356 million the previous month.This does not include all the people that left the labor force. Summary: The headline monthly jobs number was above expectations; however, the previous two months were revised down by 74,000 combined. The headline unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6%. Look at these highlights:
- • U-6 is below pre-recession levels, and the lowest level on record (started in 1994).
- • There are now fewer permanent job losers than prior to the recession.
- • There are fewer part time workers, for economic reasons, than prior to the recession.
- However, there are still 524 thousand fewer jobs than prior to the recession.
Overall, this was another strong report.
Dozens of San Diego Police and other city employees fired for failing to perform weekly COVID testing - According to the San Diego Police, Officer's Association as many as 20 San Diego Police Officers received notice of termination letters from the city for failing to conduct weekly COVID testing. The city tells CBS 8 that dozens of other city employees in other departments also received termination letters.The officers are among hundreds of city employees to receive religious exemptions from the city's December 2021 vaccine mandate.Employees who were granted religious exemptions were subsequently required to perform weekly COVID tests in hopes of preventing the spread of COVID.In March of this year, the city announced that it was granting religious exemptions for hundreds of city employees, many of which serve in the police and fire departments. The decision to grant the religious exemptions came after dozens of police and fire employees sued the city over its COVID vaccine mandate. But today, the Mayor's Office announced that many were not following through with the agreement for weekly testing. “City employees who were granted an exemption from the COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate are required to do weekly testing," reads a statement from the Mayor's Office. "There are several employees in the Police Department who have failed to comply with the weekly testing accommodation. Those who fail to comply will be issued Advance Notice of Termination letters and will be afforded all due process rights and rights to representation. “The City has issued Advance Notice of Termination letters to approximately two dozen employees in other City departments for failing to comply with the weekly testing accommodation. Those employees have also been afforded all due process rights and rights to representation.”In regards to the police department, San Diego Police Officers Association President Jared Wilson says that as the force grapples with staffing shortages, rising crime rates, and trouble retaining quality officers, getting rid of police officers is not the answer."Over the past fiscal year, we've seen more than 240 officers leave our department," said Wilson. "This significant and rapid departure of officers has put tremendous strain on our department, making it harder for officers to respond to calls, implement community policing, address quality-of-life issues, and generally protect public safety."
AEP cut 164,000 Ohioans' power for nonpayment last year, more than any other utility - American Electric Power disconnected more of its customers for late bills than any other utility in the state last year, new regulatory filings show.Between June 2021 and May 2022, AEP Ohio disconnected nearly 164,000 customers from their electric service. That’s more than twice as many as its second place counterpart, FirstEnergy Corp., whose three utilities in northeast Ohio disconnected a combined 74,000 customers in the same time frame.Adjusted for size, AEP executed about 12 disconnections for every 100 customers. For most other utilities, the rate was between 2 to 5 shutoffs per 100 customers, the data shows.This marks the greatest number of customers AEP has disconnected from power for nonpayment in a calendar year dating at least back to 2014. State law requires Ohio utilities delivering electricity and gas to disclose their shutoff data to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on an annual basis.Last year was at least the second in a row in which AEP outdid utilities around the state in terms of cutting off service for customers. The disconnections underscore the reality of entrusting investor-owned utilities, which are duty bound to shareholders, to deliver a basic human need to customers in an uncompetitive market.Scott Blake, an AEP spokesman, filled in some details about the disconnections. He said about 75% of customers who were disconnected were reconnected the same day. Additionally, he said a small percentage of customers (less than 3%) comprise 66% of all disconnections.With some crude math, this comes out to about 35,000 AEP customers who were each disconnected an average of three times during the course of the year. Of this cohort, Blake said he has no information as to the geography of where these shutoffs are occurring."AEP Ohio diligently follows the disconnection processes and rules outlined in state law and regulations. Disconnection is the last resort when are unable to work with a customer to make payment arrangements," he said.
Mississippi’s only abortion clinic shuts down, moves to New Mexico -- The last abortion clinic in Mississippi officially shut down Wednesday, a day before a trigger ban against almost all abortion procedures is poised to take effect in the state, following the Supreme Court’s decision last month to overturn Roe v. Wade. Shannon Brewer, who led the clinic involved in the controversial Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court case, told The Washington Post in May about plans to relocate to New Mexico, where abortion procedures are still legal. Now, after a judge refused Jackson Women’s Health Organization’s request for a temporary block on the Mississippi trigger ban, Brewer told The Texas Tribune that her team is relocating services to Las Cruces, N.M. As of the June 24 Supreme Court opinion, the power to regulate abortion now falls to individual states, creating a patchwork of laws that will require many women seeking abortions to cross state borders. Many companies have promised to pay for such travel for employees, while Democratic states have sought to enact protections for those crossing state lines to access the procedure.
NYC Doctors, Doulas, Activists Prep for a Massive Influx of Abortion Seekers - For activists, advocates and providers working on the ground in New York, the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade was one they’d expected, even before Politico published a leaked draft of the opinion in May.People like Niharika Rao, an organizer with NYC for Abortion Rights, have long understood the obstacles pregnant people — both in and out of state — face in affording and securing a safe abortion.Their dedication to that mission has only grown as they navigate a new legal landscape that couldprove risky to abortion-seekers crossing state lines.“Now we’re not only fighting for New Yorkers, we’re fighting for the massive increase in abortion patients we’re going to be seeing coming from all over the country,” said Rao, who is also a co-founder of the Reproductive Justice Collective, based at Columbia University.“This is the opposite of the moment to sit on our laurels and be like, ‘We codified Roe in 2019, but we’re fine!’ It requires thinking about things like responsibility and privilege to access,” Rao added. (In 2019, New York become one of the first states to codify the right to an abortion.)While abortion is legal in New York, the overturning of Roe in the ruling for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opens the door for more than half of states to outlaw or severely restrict abortion.Lawyers, doulas, hosts with extra bedrooms, medical professionals and grassroots organizers are all working to increase access to both medical and surgical abortions, as well as provide educational, legal, financial and emotional support. This comes as the New York legislature on Friday approved a measure to add abortion rights in the state constution through amending the Equal Protection Clause to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive healthcare and autonomy.Officials and reproductive health advocates expect to see an influx of people seeking abortion coming to New York City from states where abortion procedures are banned or limited. Out-of-state residents accounted for 9.4% of abortions performed in New York City in 2019, according to CDC data.Judith Plaskow, a retired professor who lives in Washington Heights, nearly a decade ago began volunteering with the Haven Coalition, an organization that pairs hosts with people who travel to the city for abortions. Before the pandemic, she offered her guests — who had driven down from upstate, taken a 22-hour bus from the Midwest and flown in from the South — an extra room and a meal. She plans to start up again soon.“Most of the time they haven’t been in New York that many times. It’s an overwhelming city,” Plaskow, 75, said. “It’s been a very positive experience to be able to give people a comfortable welcome, to point out some [iconic] New York sites as we walk out of the clinic so the abortion isn’t the only thing they’re experiencing.”A nonprofit called Elevated Access has begun lining up volunteer pilots to transport for free people who live in restrictive states to states where they can access abortions and gender-affirming healthcare procedures. A pilot flew the first passenger through the program this past June. At least one pilot in New York state has signed up to fly patients so far, according to the nonprofit. New York may also welcome doctors to train them to provide abortion care, as nearly half of obstetrics and gynecology residents in other states wouldn’t be able to learn abortion care.
A Doctor Just Declined To Prescribe This Patient Their Arthritis Treatment Because It Could Hurt A Fetus That Doesn't Even Exist - Mortellus is a 40-year-old author and mortician living in rural North Carolina. They are a practicing necromancer and witch, and they also haver heumatoid arthritis. Recently, they shared on Twitter that their doctor is refusing to continue prescribing the common arthritis medication methotrexate to them because it can also be used for abortion. To be clear, they are NOT currently or planning to become pregnant. And sadly, Mortellus isn't the only one running into this problem. In the replies, other users shared that they're also encountering difficulties acquiring this drug as an arthritis treatment, and similar threads have been popping up elsewhere on Twitter. Others rightly pointed out that withholding these kinds of important medications on the basis that someone has the ability to get pregnant is deeply unjust. Via email, Mortellus shared with BuzzFeed that although they live in North Carolina, a state where abortion is still legal, their rheumatologist is just across the border in South Carolina. In that state, a law banning abortions after six weeks is now in effect and doctors are also allowed to deny nonemergency care that conflicts with their religious beliefs, such as family planning, under the Medical Ethics and Diversity Act.
68 People Shot, 8 Killed in Shootings Across Chicago Over July 4th Weekend: Police -Eight people were killed and 60 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend. According to Chicago Police Department data, 68 people were shot in 51 separate shootings between 6 p.m. Friday and 11:59 p.m. Monday night during the holiday weekend. A 24-year-old woman was killed and two others were injured Friday night following a shootout between two men in the 2200 block of South Wentworth Avenue. Police said one of the people shot, a 38-year-old man, was struck in the buttocks while he was exchanging gunfire with a second man in that area just before 11 p.m. He was listed in critical condition. The woman was struck in the torso and later died at Stroger Hospital. A second woman, 42, was shot in the hand and hospitalized in good condition. A little more than an hour later, a 30-year-old man was shot and killed in the 9000 block of South Escanaba Avenue. That victim was shot in the head just after 12:15 a.m. Saturday morning by an unknown man, who then fled on foot. A bicyclist was fatally shot while riding in the 2100 block of East 71st Street Saturday afternoon. Police said the 26-year-old man was riding at around 4 p.m. when an unknown offender in a dark colored sedan approached and fired shots, striking the man in the head and arm. The victim was initially hospitalized in critical condition, but reportedly later died. A 35-year-old man was shot in the neck and killed at around 3 a.m. Sunday as he rode in a vehicle in the 3800 block of South Kedzie Avenue. The driver of that vehicle called 911, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene. A 24-year-old man was killed and two women were injured during an early morning shooting Sunday behind a home in the 7000 block of South Harper Avenue. Police said the group was standing in a backyard around 5:30 a.m. when a suspect opened fire. The man was struck multiple times and pronounced dead on scene, while the two other victims, ages 24 and 30, were hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds. A 38-year-old man was shot in the chest and head as he sat outside a residential building in the 700 block of North Springfield Avenue around 10 a.m. Sunday morning. Police said an unknown man who was in a dark colored sedan exited the vehicle and fired gunshots at the victim, striking him in the head and chest. He was taken to Stroger Hospital where he was pronounced dead. A man was fatally shot just before 1 p.m. Sunday in the 6500 block of South Kedzie Avenue. According to police, the victim was walking down the street when someone exited a nearby vehicle and fired shots. The victim, who is between the ages of 25 and 35, suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head, upper torso and body, and was later pronounced dead. Police said a man between the ages of 30 and 35 was killed while driving in the 2500 block of West Potomac Avenue just before 10 p.m. Monday night. After being shot, the man lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a tree. He was initially hospitalized in serious condition, but later died. According to Police Superintendent David Brown, violence levels over the holiday weekend this year were lower than in 2021. For the Fourth of July weekend in 2022 compared to 2021, shootings were down 14%, the number of shooting victims decreased 21%, and the number of homicides dropped by 53%.
Chicago killings on July 4 weekend invisible next to Highland Park - — No new counseling resources were announced this week on this city’s impoverished South Side, even after a man was shot to death in broad daylight, feet from a playground, days before July Fourth.There are no crowdsourced charity drives raising millions for victims’ families in Chicago, where the holiday weekend death toll reached at least 10 with 62 injured — numbers that exceed the toll from a July Fourth parade shooting in nearby Highland Park, Ill.In that affluent lakeside suburb, the violence was an anomaly. Here, it is a grimly regular occurrence. “They have a lot of resources there in Highland Park,” said Bobbie Brown, 62, who watched the nationally televised law enforcement response and community outpouring from her home in the Englewood neighborhood, down the block from where the homicide near the playground happened Friday afternoon. “Ain’t that something? Our babies see people get shot while they’re at a playground, and there’s no counseling. They have to suck it up and deal with it.” This year’s holiday violence was tame in Chicago compared with the previous year, when more than 100 people suffered gunshot wounds and 17 died, according to Chicago Police Department data.Brown, a community activist and organizer, describes herself as the neighborhood’s “Big Mama.” She flies two American flags above the front door of her duplex. One is red, white and blue; the other — red, black, and green — is known as the Black Liberation flag. Her property is a neighborhood safe haven, she said.This spring, a young man was shot down the block and came sprinting into her yard, resting on her gazebo deck. As she tried to render first aid, police arrived. She said they watched and waited for an ambulance, their body cameras activated, but did not assist.“I’ve never seen so much blood in my life,” Brown said. “I looked up at them. No one cares. No one said anything, or even gave me advice on what to do. But they’re recording me.”A detective later told her the man was pronounced dead at the hospital. Brown did not have the names of the officers who responded to her home, and Chicago police said The Washington Post would need to file a Freedom of Information Act request for details about the response to the incident.Since taking office in 2019, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has significantly boosted mental health funding for communities affected by violence, announcing last month that her health department would award an additional $3.1 million to 12 nonprofit organizations to provide services across the city. But residents touched by the weekend’s violence said the need for help far surpasses what is available and easily accessed. In these communities, news of the Highland Park shooting was met with mixed emotions. For many, the rapid response — aided by Chicago police officers lent north — poured salt in very recent wounds.
Police: Parade shooting suspect contemplated second shooting — The man charged with killing seven people at an Independence Day parade confessed to police that he unleashed a hail of bullets from a rooftop in suburban Chicago and then fled to the Madison, Wisconsin, area, where he contemplated shooting up an event there, authorities said Wednesday. The suspect turned back to Illinois, where he was later arrested, after deciding he was not prepared to pull off another attack in Wisconsin, Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Christopher Covelli said at a news conference following a hearing where the 21-year-old man was denied bond. The parade shooting left another American community reeling — this time affluent Highland Park, home to about 30,000 people near the Lake Michigan shore. More than two dozen people were wounded, some critically, and hundreds of marchers, parents and children fled in a panic.
Highland Park shooter charged with 7 counts of first-degree murder; considered second shooting in Madison, Wisconsin - On the morning of July 6, Highland Park, Illinois, shooting suspect Robert Crimo III confessed to prosecutors he committed a pre-meditated attack on the Fourth of July parade which left seven dead and 46 wounded after firing more than 80 rounds from a rooftop into the crowd. The death toll is subject to change given the severity of the injuries inflicted.Crimo is currently being held without bail and charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. A preliminary hearing is set for July 28 with Crimo facing the possibility of life imprisonment without parole. There is no indication anyone else was directly involved with the attack. New details regarding Crimo’s actions before and after the shooting have come to light since he was taken into custody by Illinois police on the night of July 4th. One of the most alarming developments is that Crimo reportedly considered committing a second mass shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, after he was able to evade the police and flee Highland Park. He also dumped his phone in nearby Middleton, Wisconsin, less than 10 miles west of downtown Madison, in an effort to throw the authorities off his tracks. Authorities have said that Crimo had planned his attack in Highland Park for weeks and legally bought multiple rifles, along with large quantities of ammunition. On the morning of the attack, he disguised himself in women’s clothing and covered his facial and neck tattoos in make-up to avoid being recognized. Crimo climbed up a fire escape of an office building in the area of Central Avenue and 2nd Street and began shooting from the roof into the crowd along the parade at 10:14 a.m.After firing about 80 rounds, Crimo escaped into the panicked crowd still disguised and fled the scene. Still armed he took his mother’s car and fled 140 miles away on an approximately two and half hour drive to Madison in an attempt to mislead authorities. According to Lake County Major Crimes Task Force spokesman Sgt. Christopher Covelli, the 21-year-old suspect “seriously contemplated doing another shooting in Madison.” Crimo had a second semi-automatic rifle with him, along with 60 rounds of ammunition as he traveled to the Wisconsin state capital. Sgt. Covelli added that upon entering the city, Crimo “saw a large fest and began considering an attack” but “hadn’t put enough thought or research into it.” Crimo also may have been dissuaded by the poor weather in Madison which at the time included large rolling thunderstorms. It remains unclear which event or festival he was considering attacking.
What laws could have stopped the Highland Park shooting? -- The Independence Day shooting in Highland Park, Ill., has put the spotlight on loopholes in federal and state gun laws as well as a lack of robust implementation that limits their effectiveness in preventing gun violence. The 21-year-old man accused of shooting and killing seven people and wounding dozens more on Monday slipped past Illinois’s red flag laws and legally obtained a high-powered rifle similar to an AR-15, raising questions about both the law and those sworn to uphold it. “Illinois has this law on the books and it’s on the books for exactly the scenario that we saw in Highland Park,” said Shannon Frattaroli, a professor in the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. Red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, allow a judge to take away a firearm from someone based on the suspicion that the owner could use it to harm themselves or others. Family members, police or doctors, have to petition the court to take away the firearm, and that action can result in police removing it for up to a year. The Illinois law has been on the books since 2018, while the new gun safety measure was approved by Congress last month. It was the most sweeping gun control legislation passed by Congress in nearly three decades, and was focused on red flag laws, allocating millions to help states administer the laws. But it’s unclear it would have made a difference if it had been in place before the Highland Park shooting, and the Illinois law did not prevent the shootings. The man arrested in Illinois, Robert Crimo III, was able to legally buy a gun despite two encounters with the police in 2019. In one encounter, he had attempted to commit suicide. Outside experts point to the problem of how the laws are actually enforced or implemented by local officials. “I think the issue for red flag laws — extreme risk protection orders – the devil’s in the details of how they get implemented.
New 2021 Chicago data shows 400,000 high-priority incidents where dispatchers had no police available to send - As crime continues to roil economic and social life in post-George Floyd, post-Covid Chicago, getting policing and criminal justice right are crucial. City officials are failing at that task.We’re already seen anemic rates of arrest and prosecutions in Chicago, accompanied by finger-pointing between politicians over crime and the court system. And years of no support from city leadership, anti-policing legislation and the damaging rhetoric of the “defund” movement have taken a toll on Chicago police morale and manpower.All that has spread the police force so thin that, in 2021, one of law enforcement’s most basic functions, responding to high-priority emergency service calls in a timely manner, was regularly beyond their capacity.New data uncovered by Wirepoints through public records requests to the Chicago Police Department (CPD) reveal that in 2021 there were 406,829 incidents of high-priority emergency service calls for which there were no police available to respond.That was 52 percent of the 788,000 high-priority 911 service calls dispatched in 2021. High priority calls include Priority Level 1 incidents, which represent “an imminent threat to life, bodily injury, or major property damage/loss,” and Priority Level 2 incidents when “timely police action…has the potential to affect the outcome of an incident.”
Akron police executed unarmed, fleeing Jayland Walker in a hail of gunfire - Body camera footage released by the Akron, Ohio, police department Sunday afternoon shows multiple cops unloading a barrage of gunfire into 25-year-old Jayland Walker, killing him in the early hours of Monday, June 27, following a brief vehicle and foot pursuit. From the footage it is clear that Walker was unarmed and never posed a threat to the police, yet they continued to pump rounds into his body well after he had collapsed onto the pavement after the initial police volley. The video shows dozens of rounds entering Walker’s supine and motionless body. The volume of gunfire, which lasts roughly seven seconds, is so deafening that it is impossible to tell from the audio how many rounds the police shot at Walker, although the footage shows police reloading during the fusillade.The video selectively released by police on Sunday omits footage of the cops handcuffing Walker’s mutilated body after they had hunted him down and slaughtered him. Nor does it show the circumstances surrounding the traffic stop, which, according to the police, led to the young man’s death. The horrific murder took place in the city of Akron, home to over 200,000 people. For much of the 20th century, the city was the center of rubber production in the United States.However, decades of deindustrialization have devastated the city, leading to widespread social misery. While Akron residents struggle to survive, its police department continues to receive generous funding. In the 2020 budget, the Akron police received nearly $60 million out of a budget of $173 million, well over a third. At a Sunday press conference, Akron Police Chief Steve Mylett confirmed that Walker was unarmed when he suffered more than “60 wounds” at the hands of eight officers. A total of 13 cops were involved in the incident. Mylett—almost a week after the fact—was unable to confirm precisely how many rounds police fired at Walker. He did acknowledge, however, that media reports of upwards of 90 rounds being discharged by the police were likely accurate.
Police in Akron, Ohio, continue rampage against anti-police violence protesters and journalists --With the blessing of Democratic Mayor Dan Horrigan, state and federal police forces have engaged in a multi-day terror campaign against anti-police violence protesters and journalists in the working class community of Akron, Ohio. For at least the third time this week, officers with the Akron Police Department deployed chemical weapons Wednesday against peaceful protesters demanding justice for Jayland Walker, who was killed by a hail of police bullets on June 27, and the release of those arrested while demonstrating over the previous three days.In the last 36 hours multiple social media videos have emerged of police targeting peaceful protesters and journalists with tear gas even though they are committing no crimes. Despite a self-imposed media blackout by the capitalist media, firsthand accounts by victims detailing the police rampage have emerged exposing the brutality and criminality of the Akron police, which is common among police across the country.On Wednesday night, following the lifting of a curfew imposed by Mayor Horrigan, dozens of protesters gathered outside the police headquarters in downtown Akron. They were met by riot police, who declared the peaceful protests “unlawful” despite no illegal or violent activity on the part of the protesters.After police told demonstrators to leave the area, social media videos show police deploying chemical spray against people who were simply on the sidewalk exercising their First Amendment rights.These violent police state actions are part of a deluge of violence meted out by Ohio police forces aimed at silencing all those who are outraged by the wanton police murder of Walker, a 25-year-old African American worker who was gunned down by at least eight Akron police officers, who have yet to be identified.Walker suffered over 60 wounds during the seven seconds in which police continuously fired their guns. According to data compiled by Mapping Police Violence, Walker is one of 569 people who have been killed by police in the United States so far this year.In response to mass anger over Walker’s killing, the police have been given a blank check by Horrigan to crush any sign of popular opposition. Like the mass protests that emerged two years ago following the police murder of George Floyd, Horrigan and the rest of the ruling class are terrified that the vicious murder of Walker will expose the fact that more than two years after the killing of Floyd, the police, the front-line defenders of capitalist rule, continue to kill with impunity.
Police searching for teen suspects who allegedly beat 73-year-old to death - The Philadelphia Police Department announced Friday they are searching for multiple teenagers who allegedly beat a 73-year-old man to death last month. The police say four male and three female teenagers allegedly attacked the man late at night on June 24 using various objects. Footage released by the department of the incident shows one male teenager hitting the man with a traffic cone. Another female teenager takes the cone and throws it at the old man’s back. The police say the teenagers are in their early-to-mid teens. The man was taken to the hospital for his injuries, particularly the ones he suffered to the head, but died the next day. Homicide Capt. Jason Smith said the medical examiner found the cause of death to be blunt force trauma, WPVI reported. The department reminded the public it offers a $20,000 reward for any information that could lead to the arrest or conviction of a homicide case. Smith is imploring the parents of the teenagers in the attack to turn in their children.
Oklahoma plans to execute an inmate nearly every month until 2025 --Oklahoma plans to execute 25 prisoners in the next 29 months after ending a moratorium spurred by botched lethal injections and legal battles over how it kills death row inmates.The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday set the execution dates for six prisoners in response to a request by Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor (R) in mid-June. The court later added dates for an additional 19 prisoners for a total representing more than half of the state’s 44-person death row population. After a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled in early June that the state’s three-drug lethal-injection protocol was constitutional, O’Connor made his request, saying in filings that the prisoners had exhausted their criminal appeals. O’Connor argued for imminent execution dates as a matter of justice for the family members of those who were killed. In a statement, O’Connor noted that the earliest kill by a prisoner on Oklahoma’s death row was committed in 1993. The first execution is scheduled for Aug. 25, with subsequent executions scheduled for about once every four weeks through 2024. In Oklahoma, prisoners are automatically granted a clemency hearing within 21 days of their scheduled execution, at which point the state’s pardon and parole board can recommend the governor grant a prisoner a reprieve from death row.The scheduled flurry of executions is expected to draw Oklahoma back into familiar territory: the center of the nation’s death penalty debate. Several of the Oklahoma prisoners scheduled for execution have strong innocence claims, histories of intellectual disability that should disqualify them from the death penalty or cases that have claims of racial bias, their lawyers say.Among them is Richard Glossip, whose 2015 case against the state’s lethal injection protocol went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in the state’s favor. His assertion of innocence has not only made him one of the more high-profile death row cases in the United States but has also won him support from Republican lawmakers in the state who object to his execution, scheduled for September.Glossip’s attorney on Friday filed a motion for post-conviction relief, a type of appeal that cites new evidence that was not available during his original 1998 trial. Last month, the law firm Reed Smith released an independent investigation on Glossip’s case commissioned by a committee of lawmakers led by Oklahoma state Rep. Kevin McDugle (R). It found “grave” concerns with Glossip’s conviction, including allegations that Oklahoma City police, at the direction of prosecutors, intentionally destroyed evidence favorable to Glossip.
Cruel and Unusual Nourishment - IN THE MIDST OF all that was horrible and strange in 2020, a disturbing story about a court case in New York’s Montgomery County got lost in the shuffle. In July of that year, local news outlets reported that the county jail had reached a $1 million class-action settlement with its inmates, who had alleged that the food provided to them was so meager and nutrient-poor that it constituted a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The jail had been providing no more than seventeen hundred calories a day, sometimes fewer—an amount far below what the FDA recommends for adult men. According to the testimony submitted to the court, those with medical or religious dietary restrictions received no substitutions for items they were unable to eat, paring the insufficient rations down even further. Men recalled their hair falling out, their gums bleeding, their teeth coming loose at the root—all symptoms of serious nutritional deficiency. One man reportedly lost so much weight that he was no longer able to use his prosthetic leg because it had become too large for him. Perry Hill, a plaintiff in the case, recounted that the hunger sometimes became so intolerable that he resorted to consuming lotion and toothpaste just to put something in his empty stomach. “As a direct and proximate result of starving for nearly five months,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote in their complaint, “plaintiffs have suffered and continue to suffer physical and psychological pain, humiliation . . . and mental anguish.” To conservatives and liberals who still view punishment as the proper outcome of the legal system, the matter of prison food might seem irrelevant: of course it’s bad. That’s the whole point. To others, meanwhile, the discussion might appear to be a misallocation of limited attention and resources: Given all that is cruel, all that is unjust, all that is wrong with mass incarceration, why talk about lunches? As the Montgomery County case demonstrates, a decades-long decline in prison food’s quantity and quality has reached crisis levels, exacerbating America’s race and class health disparities—all with little to no ameliorative action from the government. Quite the opposite, in fact: it is precisely because food may be seen as trivial that lawmakers have been able to exploit it as a Trojan horse for the steady rollback of prisoners’ rights across the board. Despite the dismissal of prison meals as a trifling concern, they are enormously consequential. For incarcerated people, the lack of control over what they eat is an infantilizing cruelty with which they are confronted multiple times a day. Given the deep and complex connections between identity—religious, ethnic, familial—and food, the inability to make dietary choices while in prison also means losing a key way of expressing one’s sense of self and maintaining connections with the outside world. As well as diminished control over what they eat, incarcerated people also lose control over when they eat. Learning to suppress your needs and desires in deference to the will of authority is a fundamental part of acculturation into any environment where your time, movements, and thoughts are not fully your own, and in a carceral setting, this is taken to an extreme—“dinners” served in the afternoon and breakfasts as punishingly early as three or four in the morning. As a result, each new arrival must recalibrate their bodily clock in order to survive, learning to endure the unnatural schedule and the long, hungry stretches between meals.
Judge Strikes Down Los Angeles School Vaccine Mandate, Siding With Parent - A plan to mandate COVID-19 vaccine shots for hundreds of thousands of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will remain on pause after a Los Angeles County judge ruled on July 5 that the district lacks the authority to do so.In his ruling, Judge Mitchell Beckloff of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County sided with a parent, whose 12-year-old son attends a public magnet school in North Hollywood. The parent filed the complaint in October 2021, about a month after the LAUSD announced its vaccination mandate.Under the district’s mandate, all eligible students aged 12 and above must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination, or get approved for exemptions by Jan. 10 in order to attend school in person. Those who don’t comply would be transferred into the district’s remote learning program, City of Angels, which offers a mixture of live instruction and self-study.The suing parent, identified as G.F., argued that it is unfair and unlawful for the child, identified as D.F., to have to lose his hard-earned place at a competitive school just because he and his parent have chosen to not get vaccinated on the basis of personal beliefs.According to G.F., his son had acquired natural immunity after recovering from COVID-19. He also said he worried that vaccinating the child would put the child’s health in jeopardy.“Either I get him a vaccine that I fear could harm him, or I send him to a virtual school that I know from experience and LAUSD’s own data would prove academically vastly inferior,” the father said earlier this year in a sworn declaration, reported City News Service. “The idea of dumping him into an online school, free of a rigorous academic program and torn away from his like-minded classmates, breaks my heart.”
Los Angeles teacher: “I feel like we're living in a Covid coverup" - “I work in adult education. Many of our students are facing poverty and homelessness. We help them get a high school diploma, get into college or find a job.”“I mean, this is what's supposed to happen. Because that's what our division does, right, we help people out of poverty. That’s our schtick. The program says, ‘Come here, learn a trade, we'll get a good job. You won’t live in poverty anymore. Come here, learn English, you’ll get a better job, you won’t be in poverty anymore.’ Okay, so then they get paid $15 an hour, and they still can't afford rent! And what happens when there are no jobs?“I just read that there are 100 homeless students just in my local area. A lot of them end up in our program. I’ve had some really great students come in during the pandemic who for various reasons couldn’t do what they had to do in regular school. One of my students lived in a motor home and would Zoom with me from there.“I feel like we are living in a COVID-19 coverup. We are ending the COVID testing program as well as the COVID sanitizing program, despite the COVID numbers rising. I did not get COVID until mid-January 2022 when the media was declaring COVID mostly over. Many of my co-workers came down with it. As employees, we were told there was a task force that would contact us when someone we came into contact with got COVID.“Many of the individuals only knew they had COVID because they tested positive during routine weekly COVID testing and never showed any symptoms. No task force member ever contacted me, or anyone else I spoke to who got COVID during this period. This led me to believe there was no such task force at all or that they were disbanded because ‘COVID is basically over.’“Two months later, on March 12, 2022, the in-school mask requirement was lifted from LAUSD. Now, any ‘COVID testing’ will be testing students and staff who are only symptomatic, with boxed instant antigen tests. This will effectively keep numbers of asymptomatic people out of the statistics, thus skewing the truth about COVID infections and covering it up. These numbers will also be used to lull students and staff into believing they are safe at school.“We have lost adult school teachers to Covid. I know one school where I have been accommodated they lost at least two instructors to Covid. At my main campus, we lost one that I know of. She wasn’t very old either, she was in her forties.“I have an autoimmune disease and had childhood asthma. I worry because if I get it again, it can really do damage. This last case was mild but still I had to get a breather to breathe, and it took two months for that to go away. There’s all sorts of things we don’t know about the virus. Going to campus with mostly all unmasked people scares me, and they have already lowered all the cleaning protocols.
Tennessee Republican Governor silent as ultra-conservative charter school peddler calls public school teachers “dumb” - During a private event hosted recently by Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn in an affluent suburb of Nashville, surprise guest Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee sat quietly as Arnn said education is a “plague” and called public school teachers and the colleges that train them “dumb.” Hidden camera footage of the reception obtained by a Nashville television station revealed the college president, Governor Lee’s education advisor and personal friend, meandering through remarks which disparaged public education and accused teachers of indoctrinating students.Among Larry Arnn’s most egregious comments:
- “...they (education students) are the dumbest part of every campus.”
- “The teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.'
- “They (teachers) are taught that they are going to go and do something to those kids.... Do they ever talk about anything except what they are going to do to these kids?'
- “The philosophic understanding at the heart of modern education is enslavement…. They're messing with people's children, and they feel entitled to do anything to them.”
- “You will see how education destroys generations of people. It's devastating. It's like the plague.”
- “Here's a key thing that we're going to try to do. We are going to try to demonstrate that you don't have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.”
Throughout the two-hour event, Governor Lee praised Arnn and Hillsdale College, with whom the Governor has contracted to open 50 American Classical Education K-12 charter schools in Tennessee. Asked to comment on the college president’s derision of the 80,000 public school teachers in his state, Governor Lee’s office responded with boilerplate from his education plan: “Under Gov. Lee, the future of public education looks like well-paid teachers and growing a workforce to support our students and build the profession.” Hillsdale College, located in rural Michigan, built its conservative bona fides by refusing federal or state funds. Called the “shining city on a hill” by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who helped facilitate President Trump’s January 6, 2020 coup attempt, Hillsdale’s $900 million endowment relies on deep-pocketed libertarian benefactors such as the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, Dorothy D. and Joseph A. Moller Foundation, and Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. However, by far the largest chunk of monies comes through Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund that allows for anonymous donations from those who value “limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise,” according to Sourcewatch.org.
University Of California Waives Tuition For Native Americans, Starting Fall 2022 - Native American students attending schools in the University of California (UC) system will have their tuition fully waived starting this fall. Announced in April, the UC Native American Opportunity Plan allows California residents who are “members of federally recognized Native American, American Indian, and Alaska Native tribes” to get free education on UC campuses. The program applies to undergraduate and graduate students.“The University of California is committed to recognizing and acknowledging historical wrongs endured by Native Americans,” UC President Michael Drake said in a letter (pdf). “I am proud of the efforts the University of California has made to support the Native American community, including the creation of the [program].”The UC system has ten campuses—Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz. About 295,000 students were enrolled in the system in fall 2021.The program is expected to cost $2.4 million and will be funded mainly by both the state’s and UC’s financial aid programs, according to Drake’s office.The program was developed to expand “student diversity and make the University of California more affordable and accessible,” Drake said in the letter. The approximate annual tuition for a state resident is $13,104, according to the UC Admissions office.California has 109 federally recognized tribes and has more Native Americans and those of Alaska Native heritage than any other state in the country, according to the Judicial Council of California.Native Americans make up 1.7 percent of the state’s population while accounting for 0.5 percent of the UC system’s student body in Fall 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the university’s enrollment statistics.Some universities and lawmakers across the country are following UC’s steps.In June, the University of Arizona announced its Arizona Native Scholars Grant program, which completely covers tuition and mandatory fees for full-time undergraduate students who belong to any of the state’s 22 federally recognized tribes starting this fall. The program would benefit over 400 students and may expand to graduate students in the future, according to the university.Oregon launched a free tuition program in May for Native American students from nine federally recognized tribes in the state to remove financial barriers to a college education for the 2022–2023 school year, according to the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
The Dawn of ESG Is Decimating Ranks of New Petroleum Engineers - Scott Lindberg’s dream of becoming a petroleum engineer was fueled by childhood drives through Texas oil country with his energy-consultant father, passing pumpjacks and pipeline hubs that kept the world’s biggest economy humming. But after recently graduating with honors from the University of Texas at Austin with a petroleum-engineering degree, Lindberg is turning his back on the oil industry and plans to attend law school instead. His disenchantment is rooted in concern that fossil fuels may not have much of a future given increasing pressure from politicians, activists and investors to pivot toward more climate-friendly energy sources.The 22-year-old Houston-area native illustrates an alarming trend for the top US petroleum-engineering programs, where enrollments are dwindling despite the surge in crude prices that historically prompted more aspirants to join the industry. This year, the number of new petroleum-engineering graduates in the US is expected to total about 400 -- an 83% decline from 2017, when they peaked at more than 2,300, according to Lloyd Heinze, a Texas Tech University professor who tracks annual enrollments at more than three dozen petroleum schools around the world. “I was kind of concerned that if we eventually get to a point where fossil fuels are so disfavored that the jobs simply don’t exist before I plan to retire,” Lindberg said. “I could lose my career if I stayed.” At Lindberg’s alma mater -- which he attended on a full scholarship -- undergraduate enrollment in petroleum engineering dropped 11% between 2018 and 2021. Although benchmark American crude prices climbed 25% during that period, it was perhaps the most-volatile era in the modern oil industry: in early 2020, the price temporarily went negative for the first time in history as energy demand collapsed in the wake of a worsening global pandemic. Historically, however, petroleum schools have seen influxes of new students when oil booms and the sector goes on hiring sprees. But with US crude up more than 30% so far this year, the link appears to be broken. “Personally, I think we are heading to a bit of a crisis,” said Jennifer Miskimins, who leads the petroleum-engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines, one of the world’s premier oil universities. “As petroleum engineers age, the industry will need to replace a retiring cohort of Baby Boomers. But we are not seeing enough petroleum engineers to fill the demand.” During the shale revolution that unfolded during the first decade-and-a-half of this century, enrollments soared and bachelor’s degrees reached a record 2,326 in 2017, Texas Tech’s Heinze said. That will tumble to about 400 this year and remain in the 200-to-400 range annually for the next 10 years or so, he estimated. The reason why enrollment numbers no longer correlate with oil prices, according to Colorado School of Mines’s Miskimins, is partly due to the energy transition. More students and parents are turned off by the sector not necessarily because they are environmental advocates, but because they have concluded the switch will make oil and natural gas obsolete in five or 10 years, she said.
Biden administration unveils sweeping changes to federal student loan system - The Biden administration on Wednesday announced several new proposed changes to the federal student loan system, including measures that help discharge loans for physically and mentally disabled borrowers, limit interest capitalization rates, and help borrowers working as public service employees to earn forgiveness on their loans. In a statement unveiling the proposed expansion of student loan discharge programs, the Department of Education said it expected to finalize a full plan by Nov. 1, with the aim to have the changes take effect no later than July 1. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in the statement that proposed changes “will protect borrowers and save them time, money, and frustration, and will hold their colleges responsible for wrongdoing.” “We are committed to fixing a broken system. If a borrower qualifies for student loan relief, it shouldn’t take mountains of paperwork or a law degree to obtain it,” Cardona said in a statement. “Student loan benefits also should not be so hard to get that borrowers never actually benefit from them.” The Biden administration has so far canceled nearly $26 billion for more than 1.3 million borrowers since taking office, much of which included loans obtained by borrowers who were defrauded by their college or had their school close down before they could complete their education. The changes proposed for the federal student loan system on Wednesday would make it easier for borrowers to file and pursue claims of predatory practices by colleges. The proposed rules would also help students who enrolled in schools 180 days prior to a school closure and who didn’t complete their education to more easily discharge the loans. In a statement, James Kvaal, the undersecretary of Education, said that “borrowers have had to navigate narrow rules and a needlessly complicated system” when attempting to cancel loans they should be able to easily discharge. “What’s worse, borrowers whose schools lied to them can’t pursue litigation because restrictive and unfair arbitration requirements and class action bans were foisted on them by their colleges,” Kvaal said. “Borrowers should not have to jump through hoops to get the relief they deserve.” Since October, the Biden administration has approved about $8.1 billion in student loan relief for 145,000 borrowers after rolling out changes to Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which grants loan forgiveness for those serving full time in certain public service positions. The changes to PSLF include a waiver that bypassed certain program requirements and granted borrowers credit toward loan cancellation, regardless of the type of federal loan. The waiver will expire at the end of October. Wednesday’s announcement proposes a permanent change to PSLF that would allow more payments to qualify for the program, including partial, lump-sum and late payments. It also would allow particular kinds of deferments and forbearances to count toward PSLF, and it would create a formal reconsideration process for applicants who were denied access to the program.
Why Are We Still Talking About Black Mountain College? - Like ancient Athens, the Bloomsbury Group in London, the Harlem Renaissance, Vienna during the heyday of Mozart or Freud and 19th-century Concord, Mass., Black Mountain College was the site of a genius cluster, though in the unlikeliest of places: at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Swannanoa Valley, 15 miles east of Asheville and near the small town for which the school was named. There, from 1933 to 1957, a ragtag group of teachers — helmed variously by an irreverent classics professor, John Andrew Rice; physics professor Theodore Dreier; chemistry professor Frederick Georgia; former Bauhaus instructor Josef Albers (who arrived in 1933 with his wife, the textile artist Anni Albers); and, in the 1950s, the poet Charles Olson — offered students a liberal arts education with art at its core. “Art is a province in which one finds all the problems of life reflected,” Josef Albers wrote in 1934, in the Black Mountain College Bulletin. It was, in fact, the college’s summer sessions in the arts — and the impressive lineup of visiting faculty who came to teach at them — that would solidify its mythical reputation. Among the many well-known names who have cameos in Black Mountain’s history are the painters Jacob Lawrence, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Leo Amino and Ben Shahn; the photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind; the art critic Clement Greenberg, the social critic Paul Goodman and the literary critic Alfred Kazin; the composer Stefan Wolpe; the Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius; the poets Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan and Hilda Morley (who, along with Olson were part of a group of writers known as the Black Mountain Poets); the Bauhaus potter Marguerite Wildenhain and the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada, who, in 1955, was designated a Living National Treasure of Japan. Plenty of students, too, would become famous artists in their own right: Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Susan Weil, Cy Twombly, Francine du Plessix Gray, Robert De Niro Sr., Arthur Penn and John Wieners among them. “Don’t you think it’s quite impressive that we are talking about Black Mountain College in 1987?” reads a charmingly quaint remembrance delivered at the opening of an exhibition that year at Bard College and collected by independent scholar Mary Emma Harris as part of the Black Mountain College Project, an online archive and independent study of the college that Harris has been pursuing since 1968. But it is now 2022 — nearly nine decades since the school’s inception — and people are still talking about it (many, in fact, more than mildly obsessed with it). Black Mountain College lives on not just because reading about it and looking at the many images it produced is pleasurable and immensely entertaining, but because it was a uniquely generative institution. It modeled an innovative style of education that would form the paradigm for numerous art and liberal arts schools and arts organizations in America. And it educated a generation of confident, independent, original thinkers — artists of the imagination, if you will, if not necessarily career professionals — to participate in a democratic society. But, above all, it gave rise to a network of artists who would spread its utopian spirit, ideas and vision to various precincts of the contemporary art world.
Overdosing on vitamin D supplements is possible and harmful, doctors say – Doctors are warning consumers overdosing on vitamin D supplements is possible and can lead to an array of health issues, after treating a man who was hospitalized for eight days. A man who had a variety of health problems, including tuberculosis, an inner ear tumor, meningitis and chronic sinusitis began experiencing symptoms around a month after beginning a vitamin regimen advised by a nutritional therapist. The man was taking high doses of more than 20 over the counter supplements, which included 50,000 micrograms of vitamin D; the recommended daily dosage is 600 micrograms. His regimen also included higher than recommended doses of vitamin B6, Omega 3 and vitamin B9. Doctors said the man’s symptoms — vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, leg cramps, ringing in the ear and diarrhea — lasted three months. The man stopped taking the vitamins once the symptoms began, but they did not go away. The patient’s vitamin D level was still unusually high two months after he was discharged from the hospital, although calcium level was normal. The authors of the report published in BMJ Case Reports said although cases are increasing, hypervitaminosis D is still relatively rare. Some common symptoms of hypervitaminosis, caused by excess calcium in the blood, are drowsiness, confusion, apathy, depression, abdominal pain, vomiting, constipation, high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythm and kidney abnormalities, including renal failure.
Widely Used Hospital Gowns Show Signs of Exposing Workers to Infection - Disposable gowns designed to deflect the splatter of bodily fluids, used in thousands of U.S. hospitals, have underperformed in recent and ongoing laboratory tests and may fall short of safety standards, leaving health care workers with a greater risk of infection than advertised.A peer-reviewed academic study, published to little notice amid the coronavirus pandemic, found that isolation gowns commonly worn in medical units or intensive care units ripped too easily and allowed about four to 14 times the expected amount of liquid to seep through when sprayed or splashed.“I’m amazed that facilities are using them,” said study co-author Elizabeth Easter, a textile expert at the University of Kentucky, of the thinnest disposable gowns. “Because, technically, you can see through the fabric.”Now a similar study is underway at ECRI, a nonprofit focused on health care safety, which began testing disposable isolation gowns after receiving anecdotal reports of “blood or other body fluids leaking through,” said ECRI Engineering Director Chris Lavanchy. He told KHN that preliminary test results raised concerns that disposable gowns may not meet safety standards.Isolation gowns are worn by hospital workers to cover their torso and arms before entering rooms of contagious patients, blocking the spray of fluids that could otherwise cling to workers’ clothing and end up in their eyes or mouth. Germs are thought to rarely seep through gowns and sicken the wearer, but with gowns used constantly in hospitals every day, even a small gap in protection could be magnified millions of times over. “It’s an expected principle of infection control that you don’t want that body fluid getting through,” Lavanchy said. “A very reasonable expectation is that if you do get liquids through, there is a risk.” Lavanchy declined to provide more details about ECRI’s findings, stressing that testing is ongoing. The organization is in discussions with gown companies that will get a chance to question or dispute the findings in advance of a full report’s release, planned for later this year. Neither ECRI nor the academic study identified the specific gowns or brands that were tested, but officials involved with both studies said the gowns were purchased from some of the primary suppliers of U.S. hospitals. KHN reached out to three of the largest suppliers of hospital gowns for comment. None responded. The testing of isolation gowns comes as the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically heightened concerns about infection control in hospitals and the limitations of supply chains for personal protective equipment, including gowns. Disposable gowns were a scarce resource in the first year of the pandemic, forcing some nurses to resort to wearing trash bags and some hospitals to hurriedly buy from manufacturers with no gown experience or foreign suppliers that did not meet U.S. standards. ECRI testing showed that many of these gowns offered lackluster protection, which drew attention to the lack of quality control in the gown industry, ultimately motivating the organization’s current testing of gowns from more traditional suppliers. Supply shortages and questions about the quality of disposable gowns may persuade some hospitals to reconsider reusable isolation gowns, which can be laundered about 75 times. Ahandful of studies and pilot programs suggest reusable gowns offer at least as much protection and lower costs and are far better for the environment. Additionally, reusable gowns have been readily available throughout the pandemic, allowing hospitals to avoid supply shortages and surging prices.
COVID-19 was third-leading US cause of death between March 2020 and October 2021 - COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. between March 2020 and October 2021, according to an analysis of federal data released Tuesday. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, analyzed death certificate data and found that the coronavirus accounted for 350,000 deaths — 1 in every 8 — in the U.S. during that 20-month period. The data illustrates the toll of the pandemic, as COVID-19 was a top-five cause of death in every age group aged 15 years and older. Heart disease was the No. 1 cause of death, followed by cancer, which accounted for a total of 1.29 million deaths combined. Compared with 2020, deaths from COVID-19 in 2021 decreased in ranking among those aged 85 years and older but increased in ranking among those aged 15 to 54 years and became the leading cause of death among those aged 45 to 54 years. Among those aged 85 and older, the coronavirus was the second-leading cause of death in 2020 but dropped to third in 2021, likely because of targeted vaccination efforts in this age group. According to the study, COVID-19 increased from the fifth- to the second-leading cause of death among people aged 35 to 44 years, from 6,100 deaths up to 13,000. Compared with 2020, COVID-19 became the fourth-leading cause of death in 2021 among those aged 25 to 34 years, at 5,000 deaths, and those aged 15 to 24 years, with 1,100 deaths. The authors noted that the increased ranking of COVID-19 as a leading cause of death in some age groups matches a downward age shift in the distribution of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. in 2021 compared with 2020. This trend could be attributed to higher vaccination rates among elderly and more vulnerable people.
Data cover-up deepens as at least 3 children die of COVID every day in the US - Last month, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) announced that it would discontinue publishing child hospitalization and mortality figures in its weekly “Children and COVID-19” report. The notice states that as of June 16, 2022, “due to only a portion of states reporting hospitalizations and deaths, we are no longer providing updates on cumulative hospitalizations and mortality data.” The news highlights the degree to which surveillance and public reporting of the COVID-19 pandemic has been systematically shut down under the Biden administration, beginning with the Department of Health and Human Services ending the requirement for hospitals to submit daily death reports in early February. Since the spring of 2020, the AAP has reported state-level information about child infections, hospitalizations and deaths. While the data has always been limited due its reliance on inconsistent public data from the states, the report has nevertheless been an important tool in tracking the far-reaching impact of the pandemic on the most vulnerable population in society. It has been particularly insightful in documenting the calamitous impact of the forced reopening of schools during the Delta and Omicron surges, during which the vast majority of infections, hospitalizations and deaths among children occurred. The latest report notes, “Almost 13.8 million children are reported to have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic according to available state reports; nearly 315,000 of these cases have been added in the past 4 weeks. Approximately 5.9 million reported cases have been added in 2022.” It adds as well that for the week ending June 30, nearly 76,000 children were infected with COVID-19, up from 68,000 last week. By contrast, this is a 528 percent increase from the number of child cases reported a year prior on July 1, 2021. The rising cases are part of the latest wave of the pandemic ripping through the United States and internationally. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are now dominant across the country, accounting for 70 percent of cases last week. The subvariants are known to be highly resistant to immunity from vaccines and prior infections. The AAP’s last update for child hospitalizations recorded a cumulative total of 43,316 since the start of the pandemic but with data from only 25 states and New York City. It also recorded 1,055 deaths with data from 46 states, New York City, Puerto Rico and Guam. Though alarming in themselves, the figures from the AAP are known to be undercounts due to the limitations noted above. Over 86,000 children ages 0-17 have been hospitalized from COVID-19 according to CDC data and at least 1,624 have died. The CDC Data Tracker, which is the most real-time source to track deaths by age group, has added 63 pediatric deaths in the past seven days alone, an average of nine per day. Over the past month, 101 pediatric deaths have been added to the Data Tracker, an average of over three per day. Even these horrific figures are also likely undercounts. In a still unexplained incident, on March 16, 2022, the CDC abruptly removed 72, 277 deaths from the Data Tracker, including 416 pediatric deaths, or 25 percent of the total. Despite repeated attempts by the WSWS to clarify this change to their data, the CDC never issued a clear explanation.The only plausible explanation for this data manipulation can be gleaned from a report in the Guardian and a form publicized by anti-COVID activistGregory Travis, which note that the CDC now differentiates between children dying “with COVID” and dying “from COVID.” Initially a far-right talking point at the start of the pandemic, this was adopted by the Biden administration and state Democrats during the Omicron surge last winter.
Exacerbation of COVID-19 mortality by the fragmented United States healthcare system: A retrospective observational study -Lancet -Before widespread vaccination, the United States was disproportionately affected by COVID-19 with a mortality rate several times that of other affluent societies. Comparing regions with different rates of health insurance, we assess how much of this excess mortality may be due to the relatively large population without health insurance. We use daily surveillance data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stratified by region, age group, gender, and race in regression analysis of daily COVID-19 cases, hospitalization, and mortality. COVID-19 data have been matched with structural characteristics of the region including average proportion with health insurance. As checks, we have estimated regressions for different time periods, different groups of states, and by comparing adjacent counties between states with and without Medicaid expansion.Groups with lower health insurance coverage had significantly higher mortality as well as greater case counts and hospitalization. Early in the pandemic, they were also less likely to be tested for COVID-19. Applying our regression estimates, we estimate that had there been full health insurance coverage of the population, there would have been 60,000 fewer deaths, 26% of the total death toll in the period of this analysis.Our study demonstrates that a significant share of COVID-19 mortality in the United States, and much of the excess mortality in the United States compared with other countries, is due to our reliance on a system of market-driven healthcare. Providing universal insurance coverage should be part of our campaign to reduce COVID-19 mortality. It also suggests that these concerns should not be restricted to COVID-19 but apply across all diseases, contributing to many unnecessary deaths in the United States each year even apart from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Flawed oxygen readings may be behind Covid-19’s toll on people of color - Doctors have sometimes failed to diagnose serious cases of Covid-19 among people of color — and the Food and Drug Administration acknowledges one reason may be flaws in devices it approved to measure blood oxygen levels. Pulse oximeters can overestimate blood oxygen in people with dark skin, causing doctors to miss patients’ distress signals. The FDA is convening an expert advisory panel later this year to assess the problem and offer guidance to health care providers. An agency spokesperson said it has prioritized assuring that pulse oximeters are “sufficiently safe and accurate for all people.” But advocates still say the FDA, which issued a warning about the issue last year, is moving too slowly. “It’s really shocking that it was only until 2021 for the FDA to actually issue an alert,” said Uché Blackstock, an emergency medicine physician and CEO of Advancing Health Equity. “And even in that alert last year, they didn’t even mention racial bias or race or racism in it.” The problem raises broader concerns about bias as technology becomes more embedded in health care, and about the government’s ability to counteract it through regulation and oversight. Experts warn that disparate outcomes among racial groups could get worse if technology doesn’t work for all patients.Researchers identified problems with pulse oximeters years ago, with small studies pointing to misreadings in people of color in 1990, 2005 and 2007. The Covid-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to the devices, which commonly come in the form of a sensor on a patient’s fingertip.
FDA issues limited authorizations for pharmacists to prescribe Paxlovid -The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday issued a revision to its emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid that will allow pharmacists to prescribe the treatment with certain limitations. Under the original EUA from the FDA, only physicians, advanced practice registered nurses and physician assistants were permitted to prescribe Paxlovid to patients. The FDA said in its announcement that state-licensed pharmacists would now be able to prescribe Paxlovid, meaning many more pharmacy locations will now be able to provide coronavirus antivirals to patient sooner. According to the FDA’s revised authorization, people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are seeking antiviral treatment should bring pharmacists their “electronic or printed health records less than 12 months old,” “the most recent reports of laboratory blood work” and a list of current medications they are taking so pharmacists can be aware of possible drug interactions. “The FDA recognizes the important role pharmacists have played and continue to play in combatting this pandemic,” Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. “Since Paxlovid must be taken within five days after symptoms begin, authorizing state-licensed pharmacists to prescribe Paxlovid could expand access to timely treatment for some patients who are eligible to receive this drug for the treatment of COVID-19,” Cavazzoni said.
Omicron Sub-Variants BA.4, BA.5 Make up 70% of COVID Variants in U.S. - (Reuters) - The fast-spreading BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineages of Omicron are estimated to make up a combined 70.1% of the coronavirus variants in the United States as of July 2, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday. BA.4 and BA.5 made up 52% of U.S. variants for the week of June 25. They were added to the World Health Organization's monitoring list in March and designated as variants of concern by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended last week that COVID-19 vaccine makers change the design of their booster shots beginning this fall to include components tailored to combat BA.4 and BA.5. BA.4 made up 16.5% of the variants in circulation, the latest data showed, while BA.5 accounted for 53.6%.
New omicron subvariant BA.5 now a majority of US COVID-19 cases - A new omicron subvariant known as BA.5 now comprises a majority of U.S. COVID-19 cases, according to data released Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The data is a sign of the rise of the highly transmissible subvariant, which has prompted concern about a new increase in cases. BA.5, along with a related subvariant known as BA.4, has mutations that have shown an increased ability to evade the protection from vaccines and previous infection. Vaccines still offer important protection, especially against severe disease and hospitalization, and experts say the rise of the new subvariants make it even more important that people get their booster shots if they have not already. BA.5 now makes up 53.6 percent of U.S. cases, according to the CDC, and BA.4 makes up another 16.5 percent, putting the two together at around 70 percent of infections. “Omicron subvariants BA.4 & BA.5 are even more mutated than the original Omicron, which means that our immune systems are having a harder time recognizing these new subvariants, regardless of whether we’ve previously been vaccinated or infected,” tweeted Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert at New York University. “We are also seeing early hints that Omicron subvariants BA.4 & BA.5 may be more virulent (causing more severe disease) than the original Omicron.” The Food and Drug Administration last week advised vaccine makers to target the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants in their updated vaccines that they are preparing for this fall. Gounder, though, stressed that people should not wait for the updated vaccines to be available to get a booster shot. “The updated vaccines won’t be available until October at the earliest,” she wrote. “That’s 4+ months away. That’s a big window of risk.”
The BA.5 COVID Surge Is Here -- The newest wave of COVID infections and reinfections, fueled by more transmissible subvariants of the Omicron strain including BA.4 and BA.5, continues to grow across the U.S. As countless Americans gather over theJuly 4 holiday weekend, it’s entirely possible that there are more new daily infections happening in the country than at any other point in the pandemic other than the Omicron wave. And as the worrisome BA.5 subvariant rapidly rises to what will likely be global dominance, the U.S. isn’t the only country experiencing a surge. Last week, the U.S. test positivity rate — which is now a more reliable indicator of case surges than official case counts — reached a seven-day average of over 15 percent for the first time since February 3. New York City’s test positivity rate surpassed 10 percent last week for the first time since January 22. The city took down its color-coded COVID risk alert system last week so it could be reevaluated, city officials said. The CDC estimates that the level of community transmission remains high in more than 87 percent of U.S. counties, and remains substantial or higher in more than 95 percent of counties. The good news? While U.S. COVID hospitalizations have been trending up since mid-April, they are nowhere near the levels reached in the Omicron wave, and the rates of new reported COVID deaths and COVID patients in intensive-care units are thus far only slightly ticking up and remain near pandemic lows. The vaccines are still doing an excellent job of preventing severe illness in most instances (and are finally now available for small children), and doctors have never had more tools to combat those severe illnesses when they do occur.The bad news? Against these new subvariants, vaccines and prior infection are proving less and less effective at preventing infections and reinfections. They also appear to be at least somewhat less effective at preventing hospitalizations as the coronavirus evolves — particularly among the many un- and under-boosted seniors. A big wave of cases will be at best disruptive, will increase the risk of a lot more people developing long COVID, and will give SARS-CoV-2 many more opportunities to evolve. The impact of multiple COVID reinfections, which many Americans already have or soon will experience, remains unclear. Most importantly, BA.5 may be the worst COVID variant yet. Its unique mutations make it the best equipped major variant to date at avoiding antibodies, which means it can likely reinfect people who recently had other Omicron subvariants. There is still a lot that scientists don’t know about the strain, and the threat of other even worse variants emerging remains very real. (BA.2.75, an Omicron subvariant recently detected in India, is the newest one to rapidly attract scientists’ attention.)
New BA.5 COVID-19 omicron variant 'most transmissible yet' - Two and a half years into the pandemic, Kaiser Permanente Georgia physician and director of epidemiology Dr. Felipe Lobelo says we're facing the most transmissible subvariant of the virus yet.The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention says the BA.5 omicron subvariant is now driving just over half of all new infections."It borders into the territory of measles, which is the most infectious agent we know of,' Dr. Lobelo says. "And, because it's so transmissible, we know what happens when millions of people get exposed to the virus. You're going to have not only lots of cases, but the potential for increased hospitalizations and deaths, unfortunately. We're starting to see a surge in hospitalizations not only in Georgia but across the country."As of Friday, Georgia Department of Public Health says 1,113 people statewide are hospitalized with COVID-19 AND another 340 Patients are being tested for the virus.The UK-based ZOE Health Study, in which millions of smartphone users are their COVID-19 symptoms with researchers, is finding fewer people infected with the omicron subvariants are reporting traditional COVID-19 symptoms, such as shortness of breath or loss of taste or smell, and more are reporting sore throat and hoarseness. But, Dr. Lobelo, says the symptoms are largely consistent with earlier variants. "You have the headache, fever, muscle aches," Lobelo says. "There have been some reports, particularly in England, that some people experience meningitis-like symptoms with BA.5, like a very stiff neck, and they're bothered by light. But the CDC or any other organizations hasn't said BA.5 has had different symptoms or more severe symptoms. What we know is that it's so transmissible. And to some extent it evades the protection that we had from previous infections." Nationally, about 59% of US counties have a medium or high level of COVID-19, according to the CDC. In Metro Atlanta, Cobb, Paulding, Douglas, Coweta and Spalding Counties all have high community COVID-19 community levels.
Omicron Subvariants Mean Outdoor Covid Risk Is Different Now | Kaiser Health News - Media outlets report on the rise of omicron BA.5, and how subvariants like this are leading to new covid surges and have potentially increased the risk of catching covid in some outdoor situations which had previously been considered less risky. San Francisco Chronicle: What’s The Risk Of Getting COVID Outside? Here’s Why New Variants May Have Changed The Answer - Summer in the Bay Area means outdoor parties, weddings and music festivals, where people can worry a little bit less about catching COVID-19. But will fast-spreading offshoots of the omicron coronavirus variant change the equation this year? The highly infectious and immune-evasive BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineages of omicron are now the dominant strains in Northern California, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID infections are up across the state as the test-positivity rate nears record levels, meaning the risk is higher in nearly all settings. “We know they’re more transmissible, so the risk is greater inside or outside,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert with UC Berkeley. Health experts agree that outdoor activities are still much safer than indoors, since viral aerosols don’t have a chance to accumulate in the air. But with the most transmissible variants yet, chances are you have less protection in certain situations. “Being at parks and outdoor sporting events is still what we should turn to,” said Dr. Anne Liu, an infectious disease doctor at Stanford. “But if you are in a dense crowd or in an outdoor space that has been modified to look like an indoor space, then the risk becomes higher.” In other words, walking on an isolated hiking trail or a breezy beach is a lot safer than standing shoulder-to-shoulder with celebrants under a tent at a wedding or singing and dancing with fans crammed into an outdoor concert. The omicron sub-lineages are so new that infectious disease experts are still measuring their potential impact, even in outdoor settings.“The risk outside is going to be substantially less than inside but we don’t know if it’s changed because we haven’t had a lot of experience with BA.4 and BA.5,” said Swartzberg. “We’re basing our assumptions on BA.1 and BA.2.”Given the high rate of infection across the Bay Area, there is more virus circulating in the air, so it’s better to be cautious in any environment. That means masking, social distancing, and being aware of your surroundings.“The chances of being around someone outside or inside who is shedding virus is very high,” said Swartzberg.Even for those who were recently infected, the new variants don’t offer much protection against catching the virus again, according to Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert with UCSF.“The newest kids on the block, BA.4 and BA.5, cause a lot more reinfections,” he said.
What Are The Symptoms Of The Omicron BA.5 Covid Variant? - The UK is experiencing yet another wave of Covid infections, with case numbers rising byhalf a million in a week.According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), an estimated 2.3 million people had the virus last week, which is an increase of 32% compared to the week before. While this is the highest recorded number since late April, it is still lower than the peak seen at the end of March, where Omicron BA.2 (the stealth variant) led to a record 4.9 million cases.But more than two years into the pandemic and several variants later, how do we tell a mild infection from a more severe one? The incline in case numbers comes down to two new strains, BA.4 and BA.5, which are sub-variants of Omicron. They were labelled as “variants of concern” by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in May. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) claims BA.5 is growing 35% faster than BA.2, while BA.4 is growing only 1% faster – meaning BA.5 is dominant.These two strains spread very easily and appear to dodge antibody responses from both those who have natural immunity and have been fully vaccinated. They supposedly have mutations on their spike proteins, which enable them to retrain their attacks on human lung cells. Vaccines will still protect against severe disease according to specialists, although rising hospitalisations are still a cause for concern.It’s been around six months since most people in the UK received their booster jab as part of the winter rollout programme, meaning vaccine efficacy is waning.Increased socialising at major events such as the Jubilee bank holiday weekend and the return of festivals like Glastonbury will have accelerated case numbers, too. Despite the fresh concerns around the new sub-variants, the UKHSA claims there is“currently no evidence” they cause more serious illness than previous strains, or come with new symptoms.Breathlessness and a loss of taste or smell were more common with previous strains of the virus, such as Alpha. There is a key sign which sets mild infections apart from more severe disease.Dr Dan Goyal, a consultant in internal medicine in NHS Highland, pointed out that it comes down to your breathing.In a Twitter thread, he wrote: “To be absolutely clear, shortness of breath is NOT a ‘normal’ feature of Covid.“Shortness of breath indicates severe Covid (or worse) until proven otherwise.”He suggested that Silent Hypoxia is an additional major concern, and “the most challenging part of Covid management”.This is when the oxygen in your blood is very low, but the patient is not aware of any related symptoms. Dr Goyal describes it as where the “lungs are inflamed but you don’t feel short of breath”.To detect this, he recommended buying a pulse oximeter from your local pharmacist. This measures how much oxygen is in your blood.Dr Goyal said levels of 95% or more is OK, but below 95% needs medical input. When the oximeter shows 93% or 94% oxygen levels, that means you need support from the GP and if it 92% or lower, you need to go to A&E.Other signs include feeling flu-like symptoms, severe fatigue from small amounts of exertion (like walking up the stairs), any fever lasting more than a few days and any signs of confusion were further warning signs.
Can new Omicron subvariants evade vaccine immunity? - Many parts of Western Europe and the United States are seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases thought to be driven by new subvariants of Omicron. These rises come alongside the easing of safety measures that were previously put in place to curb the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, testing being scaled back, and COVID booster vaccine take-up at lower-than-expected levels.The latest data shows cases are on the rise in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Greece and Denmark. Portugal, a popular holiday destination for many people each summer, is experiencing the biggest surge. Hospital admissions have risen in several countries including France and England, according to data analysed by the Financial Times.In the UK, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), released on June 17, shows that COVID infections are up 43 percent week on week. The uptick in new COVID cases and hospital admissions is thought to be driven largely by new subvariants of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, known as BA.4 and BA.5. The BA.5 subvariant of Omicron is now the dominant variant in Portugal. In Germany, where admissions have been rising for over a week, the share of COVID infections ascribed to BA.5 doubled at the end of last month. And according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), BA.4 and BA.5 are now most likely the dominant variants in the country, accounting for about 52 percent of new cases in the US, numbers that experts say could rise in the weeks to come.BA.4 and BA.5 are two newly designated Omicron lineages, meaning they are Omicron viruses with a new combination of mutations. Both were first detected in South Africa – BA.4 in January and BA.5 in February 2022 – and are now the dominant variants there. South Africa performs genetic sequencing on more SARS-CoV-2 samples than many other countries, so it is possible that these variants emerged somewhere else and South African scientists were simply the first to spot them. The fact that BA.4 and BA.5 have quickly become dominant over previous subvariants of Omicron would indicate that they harbour mutations that make them more transmissible, either due to these mutations or due to waning protection from vaccines and previous infections. It is likely a combination of both, although it is too early to say for sure. The two subvariants are often discussed together because the mutations in their spike protein gene are identical, even though they differ in mutations found elsewhere. The spike protein is key, as this is what the virus uses to infect and enter human cells, and changes here that make the process easier and quicker will make the virus more transmissible. Both new variants carry an L452R mutation, which was also previously detected in the Delta variant, and is thought to make the virus more contagious by enhancing the virus’s ability to attach to human cells; it may also help it to partially evade destruction by immune cells. They also possess a genetic change, called an F486V mutation, near where their spike protein binds to human cells. This may also help them partially evade our immune response. They also contain a change in their genetic sequence known as an S-gene dropout, which means they will not show up on certain PCR tests that look for the S-gene to give a positive result.So far, there is no indication that BA.4 or BA.5 are associated with new symptoms or more severe disease. This is to be expected, given that the majority of mutations are similar to those found in other Omicron lineages, although it is something that will continue to be closely monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO).Research is still ongoing as to whether the new subvariants can evade protection given by vaccines and/or previous infections from other variants.One small study showed that antibodies against the BA.2 Omicron were less effective at neutralising the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. It also found that antibodies elicited by the COVID-19 vaccines were more effective against these new subvariants than those garnered by the previous infection. Another, yet to be peer-reviewed study found people who were not vaccinated and had been previously infected with the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron were more likely to get reinfected with BA.4 and BA.5 compared with those who had been vaccinated.
Emerging Omicron Subvariants BA.2.12.1, BA.4 And BA.5 Are Inhibited Less Efficiently By Antibodies – The Omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2 of SARS-CoV-2 have dominated the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2022. In many countries, these viruses are now outcompeted by emerging subvariants, with BA.5 being responsible for the current uptick of cases in Germany.However, it is at present largely unclear whether the “new” Omicron subvariants BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 acquired biological traits that allow for more efficient transmission or whether they are less efficiently blocked by antibodies compared to the “old” Omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2. A study shows that most of the therapeutic antibodies available for treatment of COVID-19 patients do not inhibit BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 at all or only inhibit with reduced potency. Furthermore, the study shows that the Omicron subvariants BA.2.12.1 and especially BA.4 and BA.5 are inhibited worse than their predecessors BA.1 and BA.2 by antibodies generated after vaccination or inoculation followed by infection. Thus, BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 are immune escape variants. A pass-through infection with “old” Omicron subvariants confers only limited protection against infection with “new” subvariants (The Lancet Infectious Diseases). New SARS-CoV-2 variants emerge because of errors during viral genome replication. Thus, the virus acquires mutations that change the viral proteins, including the surface protein, spike, the central target of the antibody response. In case the mutations reduce recognition of the spike protein by antibodies, such variants become more adept at spreading among people with preexisting immunity due to vaccination or past infection.Infection researchers at the German Primate Center are specialized in the analyses of SARS-CoV-2 inhibition by antibodies. Jointly with colleagues they have investigated inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 by antibodies. BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 (the spike protein of the latter two subvariants is identical) are becoming dominant in several countries and BA.5 is largely responsible for the recent uptick of cases in Germany. The team found that out of ten therapeutic antibodies studied only two were able to at least partially inhibit BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 and that only one antibody, Bebtelovimab (LY-CoV1404), efficiently blocked infection by all Omicron subvariants. “These results confirm a trend that we have already seen in previous studies: Omicron subvariants are not appreciably inhibited by most therapeutic antibodies and the few antibodies that inhibit frequently do so in a subvariant-specific fashion. Therefore, it is important to develop new antibodies in order be prepared for future subvariants,“ says Prerna Arora, first author of the study.Antibodies from unvaccinated individuals that were infected with Omicron subvariants BA.1 or BA.2 in spring 2022 neutralized BA.2.12.1 with similar efficiency but were much less potent against BA.4 and BA.5. Therefore, it is likely that a previous BA.1 or BA.2 infection provides little protection against a subsequent infection with BA.4 or BA.5. Antibodies induced by three immunizations with the mRNA vaccine of BioNTech/Pfizer blocked all Omicron subvariants. However, inhibition was less efficient as compared to that measured for a virus that circulated early during the pandemic, and inhibition of BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 was less efficient as compared to BA.1 and BA.2. Similar results were obtained for antibodies induced upon vaccination plus breakthrough infection. Although this so-called hybrid immunity conferred overall higher neutralizing activity against all variants tested, inhibition of BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 was significantly reduced.New dominant Omicron COVID subvariant defies immunity from previous infections - This subvariant of Omicron called BA.5 — the most transmissible subvariant yet — quickly overtook previous strains to become the dominant version circulating the U.S. and much of the world. BA.5 is so transmissible — and different enough from previous versions — that even those with immunity from prior Omicron infections may not have to wait long before falling ill again. This week, the CDC reported BA.5 became the dominant variant in the U.S., accounting for nearly 54% of total COVID cases. Studies show extra mutations in the spike protein make the strain three or four times more resistant to antibodies, though it doesn't appear to cause more serious illness.Hospital admissions are starting to trend upward again, CDC data shows, though they're still well below what was seen during the initial spread of Omicron. It's unclear whether that could be indicating an increase in patients in for COVID, or patients who happen to have COVID, Wachter said. "We're up in hospitalizations around 20% but with a relatively small number of ICU patients," Wachter said about COVID cases at UCSF. In South Africa, the variant had no impact on hospitalizations while Portugal saw hospitalizations rise dramatically, Megan Ranney, academic dean at the Brown University School of Public Health told Axios. "So the big unknown is what effect it’s going to have on the health care system and the numbers of folks living with long COVID," she said. "I'm certainly hearing about more reinfections and more fairly quick reinfections than at any other time in the last two and a half years," Wachter said. That is also largely the experience of the surge seen firsthand in New York City by Henry Chen, president of SOMOS Community Care, who serves as a primary care physician across three boroughs of the city. With this particular variant, he said: "The symptoms are pretty much the same but a little bit more severe than the last wave. It's more high fever, body ache, sore throat and coughing," Chen said, adding his patient roster is mostly vaccinated. But it is occurring among patients who'd gotten the virus only three or four months ago, he said. Another summertime wave of cases could prolong the pandemic, coming after many public health precautions were lifted and with available vaccines losing their efficacy against the ever-evolving virus. The messaging isn't to panic, but to understand the virus is likely spreading in local communities much more than individuals realize due to shrinking testing programs — and without the level of protection they might assume they have."If you don't want to get sick, you still need to be taking at least some precautions,"
You can now get COVID again within 4 weeks because of the new Omicron BA.5 variant, health expert says - Health experts in the US and abroad have found that the coronavirus variant currently responsible for most infections in the US, Omicron BA.5, can quickly reinfect people who have protection against the virus.People who have been vaccinated, received antibody treatments, or developed natural immunity from contracting the virus were previously thought to have a lower risk of getting COVID-19, at least in the months following exposure.But Andrew Robertson, the chief health officer of Western Australia, told News.com.au that he's seeing people get reinfected with the coronavirus in a matter of weeks."What we are seeing is an increasing number of people who have been infected with BA.2 and then becoming infected after four weeks," he said. "So maybe six to eight weeks they are developing a second infection, and that's almost certainly either BA.4 or BA.5."As of Saturday, Omicron BA.5 was responsible for about 53% of COVID-19 infections in the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. BA.4, another highly contagious Omicron subvariant, accounted for 16.5% of the infections.Reinfections with BA.5 and BA.4 are typically less severe compared with early COVID-19 infections, Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Insider. As the virus has evolved to have some resistance to antibodies, immune systems are learning to respond to it without making the body go haywire, he said. Like previous Omicron subvariants, BA.5 and BA.4 are known to have mutations that let them evade protection against the virusfrom COVID-19 vaccines or prior infections.While the immune system still churns out antibodies to neutralize an infection, that protection tapers off over time. It's not an on-off switch, Dowdy said — but if someone is exposed to a tricky subvariant as their protection is waning, the virus may find an opening."Anything that can get around that immune response just a little bit faster has an advantage when a lot of the population is immune," Dowdy said.A recent study out of Columbia University that has not been peer-reviewed found that the recent BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants were at least four times as resistant to protection against the virus compared with previous variants in the Omicron lineage.
Omicron BA.2.75 is alarming! Experts point 3 key reasons why tracking new COVID variant is essential --With detection of a new sub-variant of Omicron - BA.2.75 in several states, experts have pointed out that its emergence is ‘alarming’ as ‘because it may imply a trend to come.’ However, it is still too early to predict whether it will tend to become a dominant strain. So far 10 states have reported BA.2.75 variants including Delhi and Maharashtra, which saw massive surge in infections during previous waves. Indian Health Ministry is yet to officially confirm the detection of the sub-variant in the country.So far 85 sequences of the sub variant from eight countries (including India) have been reported. And speaking regarding the same, Dr. Shay Fleishon of the Central Virology Laboratory at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer said, it is "too soon to tell" whether BA.2.75 will be the next dominant variant, he noted that the sub-variant may be "alarming because it may imply a trend to come".Admiting with him, Thomas Peacock, a scientist at Imperial College London, also said sub-variant is worth "keeping a close eye" on?Explaing the logic behind it, Fleishon explained in the recent past there has been a trend of second generation variants based on Omicron sub-lineages, namely BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4, and BA.5. This was based on Omicron lineages with mutations in the S1 section of the spike protein and specifically in the part of the spike protein which the virus uses to connect to and gain entry into cells.And to note, how the new variant differs, he said, till now, the rise seen in these sub-variants has been "at a level not seen in second-generation variants from other variants of concerns".Also these second-generation variants have only been found in a few cases within one region. This is the first time a second-generation variant from Omicron has spread to multiple regions. "The fact that such a divergent 2nd gen variant can succeed inter-host is alarming. It means that if BA.2.75 will not succeed, and even if it will, other 2nd gen might grow better over time," Fleishon said.Meanwhile, Bloom Lab at the Fred Hutch research institute in the US, that flagged the new variant, pointed to two mutations as key: G446S and R493Q."G446S is at one of most potent sites of escape from antibodies elicited by current vaccines that still neutralises BA.2. So for immunity from vaccines or early infections, adding G446S to BA.2 will decrease neutralisation," the lab said."However, G446S will have less effect on antibodies of people with prior BA.1 breakthrough infection. Therefore, BA.2.75's antigenic advantage relative to BA.2 will be most pronounced in people who have not had BA.1 exposure," it said.This means that "BA.2.75 will have antibody escape that is similar to that for BA.4/5 with respect to the current vaccine".The R493Q mutation, on the other hand, seems to increase the virus's ability to attach to ACE2 -- the protein which the Covid virus uses to enter cells.
"Daughters of Omicron": Latest COVID variants BA.4 and BA.5 could lead to rise in summertime cases - - Summertime is in full-swing. That means the kids are out of school and people are taking those vacations that always seem to come right on time.According to Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission, new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are down.But some medical experts are concerned that the gatherings could lead to an increase soon, and two of the latest variants, BA.4 and BA.5, could play a significant role in the increase of cases. When it comes to protecting yourself against COVID, Dr. Richard Ellison of UMass Chan Medical School said this summer season is not the time to let your guard down."You still don't want to get COVID!" Dr. Ellison insisted.While the latest COVID-19 data from The Department of Health shows that new cases and hospitalizations are down in Boston, community spread is still pretty high."We have yet another new variant that has developed in the United States. Actually, it's been around we've known about it for 6 to 8 months in other parts of the world, and it's now in the United States," Dr. Ellison said. Dr. Ellison described the variants, BA.4 and BA.5, as "daughters of Omicron" and said they are highly contagious.Dr. Ellison says the good news is most of the infections they're seeing are not as severe as the infections in the past. But he said there are still a lot of questions about long-COVID."That's the unknown we have. And because it's an unknown factor, I encourage people to take protection to avoid getting COVID," Dr. Ellison said.While medical experts are working to learn more about the variants, Dr. Ellison said masking up in crowded areas and washing your hands frequently will help protect you. If hanging out in the park is not your thing this summer, Dr. Ellison said the beach is a safe place to be tool. Outdoor sporting events can be great as well, as long as you're not too close to someone who appears to be sick.
Ultra-contagious coronavirus subvariants spread in California - In a sign of how the new coronavirus wave continues to spread across California, two-thirds of the state’s counties are now in the high COVID-19 community level, in which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal masking in indoor public spaces. This comes as health officials are warning of concerning weeks ahead as two new ultra-contagious Omicron subvariants — BA.4 and BA.5 — spread. Experts believe the subvariants, which are not only especially contagious but also capable of reinfecting those who have survived earlier Omicron infection, are a major factor behind the continued persistence of coronavirus transmission across California. So far, Los Angeles County health officials have not imposed new masking rules. But they have warned that might be necessary, perhaps later in July, if new coronavirus-positive hospitalizations continue to rise. Though experts are concerned, there is still uncertainty about how serious a summer wave will get. “With the continued increase in cases, and now as you’re seeing the corresponding increase in hospitalizations … we’re really worried,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday. The California Department of Public Health has strongly recommended universal mask wearing in indoor public spaces ever since the state’s universal mask order expired in February. On Thursday, the most populous counties in California that entered the high COVID-19 community level for the first time since spring began are Kern, San Francisco, Ventura and San Mateo. Ventura County on Thursday became the first Southern California county to enter the high COVID-19 community level since the first Omicron wave faded.
Coronavirus dashboard for July 5: no sign of a BA.4&5 wave in cases yet, as the next variant has appeared in India -- First of all, the BA.4&5 variants continue to increase their share of infections in the US, now at 70% of all cases: Regionally, BA.4&5 are most prevalent in the South Central States, including Texas, where they make up 75% of all cases; vs. the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, where they make up just short of 60% of all cases, with BA.2.12.1 almost all of the remaining 40%: Although there has been some alarm among the medical punditry, cases have not significantly increased at all from their 100-110,000 range established back in March. As of today, the seven day average of cases is 102,400, and only once in the past 4 weeks has the average exceeded 120,000. Similarly as of today deaths average only 276/day in the past week, in line with their range since the beginning of May as well: Some of today’s particular data has to do with lack of reporting over the 4th of July holiday weekend. Nevertheless even before the weekend the trend was flat. But if BA.4&5 haven’t made a dent in cases or deaths, they absolutely have caused a continued rise in hospitalizations: Hospital admissions bottomed in early April at just over 10,000. They appeared to be plateauing in June at roughly 30,000, but in the past two weeks have climbed to over 36,000. This suggests that BA.4&5 are more severe than BA.2 or BA.2.12.1 were, but that medical treatments for more severe cases are much better than they were one year ago, thus preventing any significant increase in deaths. Although I won’t bother with a graph, in South Africa where these first variants appeared, the upside of the wave lasted 3 weeks with a quintupling of cases, until those variants constituted 90% of all cases; and then the wave rolled all the way back out over the next 5 weeks. Deaths followed with roughly a 2 week lag. Notably there was no BA.2.12.1 wave in South Africa during the spring. At their current rate of growth, BA.4&5 are going to constitute 90% of cases in the US within 3 weeks. Wastewater site Biobot shows no nationwide increase of cases through June 29, and regionally cases actually decreasing in the South and West, and only increasing in the Northeast: The worst case scenario may be represented by Texas, where BA.4&5 infections are at the highest level of any region in the US. In that State cases and deaths have both tripled, with deaths lagging by about 2 weeks, just as in South Africa, suggesting that these variants are more virulent than BA.2 or BA.2.12.1: A tripling of cases nationwide would be roughly 350,000 cases at peak. But Texas, like South Africa, never had that much of a BA.2.12.1 wave, and that seems to make a big difference. Thus, because the rest of the nation has not followed this trajectory, a more conservative trajectory might be that in the next few weeks perhaps cases increase to 140,000-150,000 per day. But based on current nationwide evidence they may even remain in their current range and never increase beyond 120,000. And then what? By now I have come to expect that continued mutations that optimize transmissibility will continue to appear. Since BA.4&5 are well into their course, I went looking to see if the next variant is on the horizon. And it is. Variant BA.2.75 appears to have begun in India, and is now spreading to other countries such as New Zealand. According to local medical authorities in India, it is the most transmissible variant yet. That’s presumably what we will all be dealing with this autumn.
Contagious omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 now make up majority of New England cases - The newer and most contagious omicron subvariants of the SARS-COV-2 virus, known as BA.4 and BA.5, now make up the majority of infections in New England, according to data released by the CDC this week. Public health experts in Massachusetts say the subvariants are more contagious but their severity is still unclear. They stressed it bears watching in the summer months and that current public health tools are still very effective against BA.4 and BA.5, including masking indoors, avoiding crowds and close contact with strangers and getting a first or second booster shot. Andrew Lover, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst, pointed to the constant churn of new SARS-COV-2 variants, driven in part by low vaccination rates in some less-developed parts of the world. Lover said it creates a level of unpredictability that doesn’t bode well for a lasting lull in COVID-19 cases.“Certainly in the last two summers, we’ve seen fairly low case counts,” Lover said. “And I think everyone had been kind of hoping or assuming that this summer would look pretty similar, all in all. And we may not be quite so lucky. “It certainly is a bit concerning,” he added. “More than a few countries in Europe right now, as well as Israel, are seeing some pretty significant increases in cases and hospitalizations with increased BA.5. And there’s at least some evidence that suggests the symptoms can be pretty severe with BA.5 — but we don’t have great data on that yet.” Lover said BA.5 is “quite capable of outcompeting most of the other variants in circulation right now — so that alone says that it’s a really, really very fit virus. And so that is definitely worrisome.” But Bill Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology in the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, emphasized that it’s still too early to tell if the subvariant is more severe, or just more contagious. Hanage said the increased transmissibility of BA.5 alone would be expected to drive up the number of severe infections. But he adds that BA.5 has already caused some sizable surges in cases in South Africa and Portugal, and that in both places data on hospitalizations and deaths is not particularly worse than with earlier omicron variants. “So BA.5 is just the next chapter in the story,” Hanage said. “And it’s not as good as it would be if BA.5 did not exist, but there isn’t reason, at the moment, to think that it’s really turning the page in a serious way when it comes to hospitalizations and deaths.”
Opinion | The worst virus variant just arrived. The pandemic is not over. - By the Editorial Board, The Washington Post - The pandemic is a relentless race against Mother Nature. Waves of infection took millions of lives, and only highly effective vaccines prevented even more deaths. Now, the coronavirus is speeding up once again, mutating, evading immunity and still on the march. The arrival of subvariant BA.5 should be a reminder that the finish line in this race is nowhere to be seen. Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates What’s BA.5? This is the latest subvariant of omicron, which stormed the planet late last year and caused a huge wave of infection. As of now, BA.5 and a closely related variant, BA.4, account for about 70 percent of all infections in the United States, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based in part on modeling. These two newcomers are easing out an earlier variant, BA.2. The obscure names should not hide the punch of BA.5. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, says that BA.5 “is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen.” He adds, “It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility,” well beyond earlier versions of omicron. There has not been a marked increase in hospitalizations and deaths, he reports, because there is so much immunity built up from the winter omicron wave. But there are aspects of this new variant very much worth keeping an eye on as the United States remains stuck at an uncomfortably high plateau of pandemic misery. And the new variants are driving a case surge in Europe. At the core of the BA.5 difference is its biology. Evolution has given it more fitness, a term that incorporates its ability to transmit, grow and evade immunity; the variant shows “marked difference from all prior variants,” reports Dr. Topol. One way it does so is by evading the body’s immune system, and BA.4 and BA.5 together are “the most immune-evasive variants” seen in multiple studies to date. Whether BA.5 will lead to more severe disease isn’t clear yet. But knowing that the virus is spreading should reinforce the need for the familiar mitigation measures: high-quality face masks, better air filtration and ventilation, and avoiding exposure in crowded indoor spaces.An important question is whether the next boosters should include the new variants. Does a booster with an earlier version of the virus make any sense if that variant has disappeared from the population? The Food and Drug Administration has recommended manufacturers build a bivalent or two-component vaccine, with old and new variants as the target. It certainly makes sense to be flexible — as Wayne Gretzky put it, to skate where the puck is going, not where it has been. But time is short, and who knows what variants will be present later this year? In the longer term, variant chasing is hardly ideal. The greatest need is for next-generation vaccines that are more broadly protective, more durable (with longer-lasting immunity) and that can dampen transmission. There is a major research effort underway to achieve this, but the finish line is not yet in sight.
Get Ready for the Forever Plague --While Omicron’s subvariants find new ways to evade vaccines and destabilize immune systems, another pandemic has overwhelmed officials who are supposed to be in charge of public health.Let’s call it a plague of willful incompetence or an outbreak of epidemiological stupidity. Or maybe José Saramago’s novel has come to life and targeted public officials with a scourge of blindness.In any case, COVID, a novel virus that can wreak havoc with vital organs in the body, continues to evolve at a furious pace.In response officials have largely abandoned any coherent response, including masking, testing, tracing and even basic data collection.Yes, the people have been abandoned.So don’t expect “normal” to return to your hospital, your airport, your nation, your community or your life anytime soon.Although many public health officials still dismiss COVID infections as inevitable and even beneficial, a growing body of science shows this fashionable dogma is dangerously wrongheaded, if not an outright form of malpractice.Reinfections, and 2022 is surely the year of reinfections, just increase the damage from COVID, which can be profound: immune dysregulation, blood clots, nerve cell death, inflammation, lung damage, kidney failure and brain damage.New science shows that Omicron and its variants are getting better at evading immune defences induced by vaccines or by natural infection. BA5, for example, is more transmissible than any previousvariant.As a consequence it is now possible to be reinfected with one of Omicron’s variants every two to three weeks.The data also shows that each reinfection confers so little immunity — because the immune system is unable to remember it — that we must seek every other protection available.* A summer infection, for example, will not protect you against a fall infection. But each and every infection will damage your immune system regardless of how mild the symptoms.Let’s start with a startling U.S. Veterans Affairs study involving five million people.It looked at the health outcomes after a first, second and third infection in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated. A second infection, for instance, doubled the risk for death, blood clots and lung damage. It also increased the risk of hospitalization by three times. Every COVID infection increased the risk for bad outcomes in a graded fashion.The unvaccinated fared worse than the vaccinated. “Reducing overall burden of death and disease due to SARS-CoV-2 will require strategies for reinfection prevention,” noted the study.There is more bad news. Past infection by older variants dampen rather than strengthen immune protection even among those with three vaccinations. “That previous SARS-CoV-2 infection history can imprint such a profound, negative impact on subsequent protective immunity is an unexpected consequence of COVID-19,” noted the researchers in Science. The high global prevalence of Omicron subvariant infections and reinfections “likely reflects considerable subversion of immune recognition” in the population, the study concluded.Immunologist Anthony Leonardi, a specialist in T cells, which play a complex role in immune function, predicted such a development nearly two years ago. That’s when he speculated that COVID was destabilizing the immune system by subverting T-cell function.And that is exactly what many researchers are now finding.Leonardi bluntly describes the current state of things on Twitter: “There is a cumulative damage from SARS-CoV-2 reinfections, and reinfections are not mild, the virus is intrinsically virulent. Immune memory does not turn a SARS into something like a flu. It remains severe.”So if each COVID infection depletes T cells and destabilizes immune function and the damage is cumulative, then policies that allow the virus to run riot through the population will not only cause immense suffering but erode public health along with trust in government. The word diabolical comes to mind. The British immunologist Danny Altmann compares the situation to “being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film.”
With ultra-contagious BA.5 rising, how close is L.A. to an indoor COVID mask mandate? - Continued increases in coronavirus cases fueled by the ultra-contagious BA.5 subvariant as well as a rise in hospitalizations have pushed Los Angeles County even closer to reinstating a universal indoor mask mandate.The measure, which officials have long warned was on the table, could go into effect as soon as late July.“We can’t predict with certainty what the future hospitalization trend will look like. However, it is looking more likely, as cases and admissions have continued to increase, that we’ll enter the high community level designation later this month,” L.A. County Public Health Officials have said a public indoor masking requirement would be reinstated should L.A. County reach the high COVID-19 community level, defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and remain there for two consecutive weeks.L.A. County has not yet entered that level — the worst on the CDC’s three-tier scale. But it is the closest it has been since exiting from it in early March. The category indicates not only that a region is experiencing significant coronavirus spread but that transmission is starting to exert stress on hospitals.The CDC updates its community level assessments every Thursday. Assuming L.A. County were to enter the high COVID-19 community level next week, on July 14, and remain there on July 21 and July 28, the soonest a mask mandate could be issued would likely have an effective date of July 29, according to Ferrer.There’s no guarantee that will happen, though. Projections are based on the possibility of current trends continuing.
Almost 200,000 dead as new COVID wave rips through UK population - July 19 will be the first anniversary of what Conservative government Prime Minister Boris Johnson dubbed “Freedom Day”, as he tore up almost all COVID safety measures. On that date, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) more accurate record of total UK deaths where COVID is mentioned on the death certificate, 155,502 had already died due to the government’s criminal herd immunity policy. By June 17 this year almost 200,000 people (199,422) were reported dead from COVID in Britain. As the ONS “Daily deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate by date of death” data gives a lag in reporting of at least 11 days as it is based on death registrations, 200,000 deaths may have already been reached. With no mitigations in place, COVID spreads without hindrance, while evolving into more dangerous variants. The latest wave of COVID is being spread by the now dominant Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5. BA.4 and BA.5 make up more than half of all new COVID cases in England. The latest surge is part of a global wave of cases, amid a warning from the World Health Organisation that more than 100 countries have reported an increase. In what is already the fifth COVID wave to hit Britain, infections shot up by more than a third (34 percent) with the number of people estimated affected reaching 2.3 million in the week ending June 25. This equated to one in 30 people in England, (with 56.4 million of Britain’s almost 67 million population vaccinated)—a sharp increase over the estimated 1.8 million people infected the previous week. Sarah Crofts, ONS head of analytical outputs for the COVID-19 infection survey, said, “This rise is seen across all ages and regions of England.” The number of cases has fuelled an increase in the seven-day average of people of hospitalised for COVID. It has reached close to 7,400, a 45 percent increase over the level reached in early June. The continuation of the current trend will mean hitting the high hospitalisation levels seen during the devastating Delta wave.
Coronavirus: UK's latest omicron wave being driven by BA.4 and BA.5 covid variants - One in 25 people in England, or nearly 4 per cent of the country’s population, were infected by thecoronavirus in the week ending 29 June, according to latest figures from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS). The equivalent figures for the rest of the UK were 1 in 17 people in Scotland, 1 in 20 people in Wales and 1 in 19 people in Northern Ireland, with a total of around 2.7 million people..
UK health chiefs brace for ‘bumpy ride’ amid fears over Covid wave -Health chiefs are braced for a “bumpy ride” over the coming months amid fears that the latest wave of Covid will drive hospitalisations to their highest in more than a year and seasonal flu pressures could hit early.Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme that hospital cases with Covid were expected to rise in the weeks ahead, with admissions likely to exceed the April peak driven by the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that Covid infections in the UK soared by more than half a million in a week at the end of June in the latest wave driven by even more transmissible variants of Omicron known as BA.4 and BA.5.“It doesn’t look as though that wave has finished yet, so we would anticipate that hospital cases will rise. And it’s possible, quite likely, that they will actually peak over the previous BA.2 wave,” Harries said. “But I think the overall impact, we won’t know. It’s easy to say in retrospect, it’s not so easy to model forward.”At its peak in April, the BA.2 wave in England hospitalised more than 2,000 people a day, making it more dangerous than the first Omicron wave in January. The most deadly wave of the pandemic so far came in January 2021 when the Alpha variant pushed daily hospitalisations in England above 4,000 in the early weeks of the vaccination programme.Harries’ comments prompted a warning from NHS chiefs about the pressures hospitals will come under as the number of Covid patients rises ahead of a further wave expected in the autumn and what health officials fear could be a bad and early flu season. “Trust leaders know they are in for a bumpy ride over the coming months as they tackle new and unpredictable variants of Covid-19 alongside grappling with seasonal flu pressures which may hit us earlier than usual this year,” said Saffron Cordery, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers.“The policy of living with Covid does not mean Covid has gone away. The latest data shows we cannot afford to be complacent, with currently small but concerning increases over the past week in the number of patients both being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 and those needing a ventilator. Warnings from Dr Jenny Harries today that community infection rates and hospital admissions are expected to rise further is concerning.”
Australia’s official COVID-19 deaths toll surpasses 10,000 - Australia’s official COVID-19 death toll reached 10,014 yesterday, amid an ongoing wave of infection, illness and death. Almost 7,800 Australians have died from the virus in 2022 alone. While governments, health authorities and the corporate media pretend the pandemic is over, the virus remains among the three leading causes of death in Australia. In June, an average of almost 46 COVID-19 deaths were reported each day, a rate not seen since February.With hospitals, ambulances and other health services constantly overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and staff shortages exacerbated by mass infection among staff, the virus has also indirectly contributed to thousands of otherwise preventable deaths.According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last month, total deaths from all causes in the first quarter of 2022 were 17.5 percent higher than the historical average.More than half of the 6,609 excess deaths were not directly caused by COVID-19. Deaths from diabetes were 20.7 percent higher than average, while dementia deaths were up 19.7 percent to 3,859, making it the leading cause of death over the period.This devastating loss of life, on a scale not seen outside of war, is the result of a deliberate program. State and federal, Labor and Liberal-National governments openly adopted “let it rip” COVID-19 policies last December, sacrificing the health and lives of the population for corporate profits.Every major political party bears responsibility for this program, which amounts to social murder, along with the trade union bureaucracies, which have done nothing to protect their members or the general population from the spread of COVID-19. Instead, the unions have worked hand-in-glove with governments to force workers back into unsafe workplaces and promoted the slashing of COVID-19 public health measures. Australia’s per capita infection rate remains among the highest in the world, with more than 30,000 new cases recorded every day across the country. Hospitalisations are again rising, with 3,511 people now hospitalised and 118 in ICU.
As new COVID surge begins in Australia, Labor government declares public health restrictions a thing of the past -By every metric, the coronavirus pandemic in Australia is the worst it has been, except for the absolute peak of an Omicron tsunami that swept across the country in December–January. Infections, hospitalisations and deaths are once again approaching record levels, as the highly-infectious BA.4 and BA.5 variants of Omicron take hold. Under these conditions, the newly-elected federal Labor government has made clear that it will continue the “let it rip” program adopted last December. The profit-driven policies, involving the withdrawal of public health measures that limited infections and deaths during the first two years of the pandemic, mean that the population is at the mercy of continuous surges of the virus. Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) this morning, Labor Health Minister Mark Butler stated that the country had “moved beyond” coordinated public health measures. “The message is ‘take responsibility, make your own choice,’” Butler said. “We’re deep into the third year of the pandemic and we need to make sure that people feel they’re able to take control of their own circumstances.” The line is identical to that of the previous Liberal-National government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Even as Labor acknowledges that infections and illnesses will rise over the coming weeks, it is insisting that no measures will be taken that impact upon big business. In the first instance, this means ensuring that the schools and workplaces remain open, no matter what, so that workers remain on the job and full profit-making operations continue. Not only did Butler rule out lockdown measures, he also ruled out any broader mask mandates. Most state and territory administrations, Labor and Liberal alike, have removed such mandates, even in airport terminals and crowded indoor locations. They remain in place only on public transport, where they are not enforced, and in the hospitals. The rejection of this most basic form of infection control has no scientific basis. The population has been encouraged to dispense with masks solely because they are a reminder that the pandemic continues and their continued presence could limit economic activity, such as retail shopping. The ABC interviewer pointedly asked Butler if his position meant “sitting back and accepting” rising death and illness. Butler said his government would boost the hospital system and expand vaccine access, including by rolling out a fourth booster shot, which has previously been limited to those aged over 65 and the immunocompromised.
COVID surges in New Zealand, fuelled by new variants - Cases of COVID-19 have risen sharply in New Zealand, as experts warn that a new wave of infections has begun, driven by the much more contagious BA.5 Omicron variant. On July 5, the country recorded 9,629 new cases, the highest daily figure in nearly a month, and an increase of more than 3,000 on the previous day. The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 reached 493, up by 110 in the space of just one week. Another 24 COVID-related deaths were announced, bringing the country’s seven-day average to 15 daily deaths, compared with 12 in the previous week. In the past week, New Zealand recorded 18 COVID deaths per million people (a total of 91 deaths), according to Worldometers. New Zealand has the seventh-highest rate in the world, surpassed only by Iceland, Taiwan, and a few small island nations. These include the tiny Pacific country of Nauru (population 10,800), which recorded its first COVID death last week. The total COVID-19 death toll in New Zealand remains lower than similar sized countries because of the zero COVID policy adopted in March 2020. Last October, however, in response to pressure from big business and the corporate media, the Labour Party-led government abandoned this policy. Since then, the death toll has soared from around 30 to 1,592 as of yesterday. The vast majority of these deaths could have been avoided had the elimination approach been maintained. Instead, the government ended all lockdowns, the border quarantine system was dismantled, schools and businesses reopened, mask requirements were significantly weakened, and vaccine mandates removed for the vast majority of workers. COVID-19 modeller professor Michael Plank predicts that case numbers could soon reach more than 20,000 per day, the level in March, which led to more than 1,000 people hospitalised with the virus (twice the current figure). This will be even more devastating in winter, with hospitals already overrun by COVID, influenza and other seasonal respiratory illnesses. Internationally, the BA.4 and BA.5 variants are fuelling a renewed surge of COVID-19, demolishing the lie peddled by governments that the pandemic is over. The new variants can more easily infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID. Almost all governments, except China’s, have abandoned public health measures to stamp out the virus or even mitigate its catastrophic spread. Speaking to Newshub on July 3, epidemiologist Michael Baker noted that around half of New Zealand’s population has been infected with COVID. He warned that this does not provide any lasting immunity. Studies suggest people can be reinfected multiple times, with no reduction in the risk of severe symptoms or death. Reinfection can occur within just weeks of recovering from COVID. Hundreds of thousands of those infected will suffer from Long COVID, which can include damage to the heart, lungs, brain, and other organs; COVID survivors have a heightened risk of stroke and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
CDC: Deadly listeria outbreak spanning 10 states linked to ice cream — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has tied a Florida-based ice cream company to a multistate listeria outbreak.The CDC believes Big Olaf Creamery, a brand of ice cream only sold in Florida, may be to blame. Of the 17 people interviewed by the CDC, 14 reported eating ice cream before experiencing symptoms.Six of those 14 people, according to the CDC, mentioned Big Olaf Creamery by name, or a location known to serve that specific brand of ice cream.Nearly two dozen people from 10 states have been sickened, according to the CDC, with the bulk of them being reported in Florida. Other cases were reported in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.The first cases were reported back in January, but have continued through June, when two more people became sick.In total, 23 people were sickened, and all but one were hospitalized. One person died, and one of the sickened pregnant patients (of which there were five) lost their fetus, according to the CDC.
Understanding Monkeypox and How Outbreaks Spread - The global eradication of smallpox more than 40 years ago was one of the greatest achievements in public-health history, vanquishing a cause of death, blindness and disfigurement that had plagued humanity for at least 3,000 years. But, on the downside, it also led to the end of a global vaccination program that provided protection against other pox viruses. That includes monkeypox, which has been spilling over from its animal hosts to infect humans in Africa with increasing frequency since the 1970s. Monkeypox now represents a serious, evolving threat after sparking outbreaks in dozens of countries this year, mostly in Europe, demonstrating again how readily an infectious agent that emerges in one country can quickly become an international concern. . The virus belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus, which includes the variola virus, the cause of smallpox; the vaccinia virus, which is used in the smallpox vaccine; and cowpox virus. Monkeypox is less contagious than smallpox and the symptoms are milder. About 30% of smallpox patients died, while the fatality rate for monkeypox in recent times is around 3% to 6%, according to the World Health Organization. Advertisement After an incubation period of usually one to two weeks, the disease typically starts with fever, muscle aches, fatigue and other flu-like symptoms. Unlike smallpox, monkeypox also causes swelling of the lymph nodes. Within a few days of fever onset, patients develop a rash, often beginning on the face then spreading to other parts of the body. The lesions grow into fluid-containing pustules that form a scab. If a lesion forms on the eye, it can cause blindness. The illness typically lasts two to four weeks, according to the WHO. The person is infectious from the time symptoms start until the scabs fall off and the sores heal. Mortality is higher among children and young adults, while people whose immune system is compromised are especially at risk of severe disease. Pregnancy also carries a high risk of severe congenital infection, pregnancy loss, and maternal morbidity and mortality. Monkeypox doesn’t usually spread easily between people. Contact with the virus from an animal, human or contaminated object is the main pathway. The virus enters the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract or the mucous membranes in the eyes, nose or mouth. Transmission from one person to another is thought to occur through respiratory particles during direct and prolonged face-to-face contact. Vertical transmission from mother-to-unborn baby has also been documented. It can also happen through contact with body fluids or lesion material, or indirectly through contact with contaminated clothing or linens. Common household disinfectants can kill it.
Monkeypox cases more than double in California and the Bay Area -- Monkeypox cases have more than doubled over the past week in California and the Bay Area, where health officials are joining a global scramble to contain the outbreak while the virus still circulates in limited social networks. California had reported 95 monkeypox cases as of Friday, up from 40 the week before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 460 cases have been reported nationwide as of Friday, up from 150 the week before. In the Bay Area, more than two dozen confirmed or suspected cases have already been reported, with 16 in San Francisco alone as of Friday, though that number is updated only once a week and is almost certainly higher by now, health officials said. The infectious disease, a cousin of smallpox, manifests itself as skin lesions and is spread by intimate, person-to-person contact. Most people recover fully without treatment, but monkeypox can cause severe illness in children and some other vulnerable groups. Even for those who aren’t seriously sick, it can take weeks to get over and cause discomfort and pain. Almost all cases so far have been reported among gay or bisexual men, most of whom are believed to have been exposed through sexual or other close contact with someone who was infected. The risk to the general public remains very low, local and federal health officials say. Monkeypox is nothing like COVID, and is not currently — and almost certainly never will be — a threat at the same crisis level, experts say. But the outbreak is at a critical stage where health officials have an opportunity to stamp it out before cases spread further and potentially affect more vulnerable people. “Monkeypox is not the same scale of a problem (as COVID). That said, if there’s an opportunity to control an emerging disease, it’s important we try to do it,” said Dr. Seth Blumberg, an infectious disease expert at UCSF. “We can’t blow this off. We need the political and societal will to control the disease now.” It’s possible that monkeypox, if allowed to widely circulate, could become endemic in the United States and threaten the general population, though many health experts said that outcome is unlikely given the nature of the virus and how it spreads, plus the existence of effective vaccines to stop it. Monkeypox also could establish itself as a recurring threat that triggers fresh outbreaks every few years, especially if it becomes embedded in U.S. animal populations. Or it could join the ranks of sexually transmitted infections, including syphilis and gonorrhea, that affect certain communities and have proved stubborn to control.
Colorado plans 3 more pop-up monkeypox vaccine clinics as cases see slow uptick --Colorado’s state health department will hold three more pop-up monkeypox vaccine clinics this week in Denver in an effort to curb the spread of the disease, which has been gaining a foothold in large U.S. cities. The Department of Public Health and Environment said it was expanding availability of the two-dose shots after receiving an additional 300 doses of vaccine from a federal stockpile late last week. Colorado’s official case numbers are still in the single digits, but actual numbers are likely higher, said Nicole Comstock, CDPHE’s communicable disease branch chief. “We’ve had cases with no travel history and who likely acquired their infection here in Colorado from community spread,” she said. “So, it is certainly possible that there are cases that have not been detected.” The monkeypox virus can spread through skin-to-skin contact with an infected individual. It is rarely deadly, with a fatality rate of less than one percent. Symptoms can last up to four weeks and include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and exhaustion. Typically, a rash or skin bumps develop after the onset of fever, beginning on the face and spreading to other parts of the body. So far, all 8 of Colorado’s recorded cases have been among men who are gay, bisexual or identify as men who have sex with other men. None of the patients have been hospitalized, and all have recovered from the disease at home, Comstock said. Due to limited supply, Colorado’s vaccines will be offered only to patients who also identify as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with other men. Other residents who believe they have been exposed to the virus are also eligible to sign up.
10 new Mass. cases of monkeypox diagnosed, DPH says— Ten new cases of monkeypox were identified in adult males in Massachusetts within the past week, according to the latest count from the Department of Public Health. The DPH said the total number of monkeypox cases in Massachusetts is now 31 since the first case in the United States was announced on May 18. The 10 cases announced in Thursday's weekly update were diagnosed between June 30 and July 6 through testing at the State Public Health Laboratory in Jamaica Plain. The state health agency was working with local health officials, patients and health care providers to identify individuals who may have been in contact with the patients while they were infectious. Known monkeypox patients are instructed to isolate themselves from others until they are no longer infectious. An allocation of 2,004 doses of a monkeypox vaccine was sent to Massachusetts by federal health officials and arrived Tuesday. It was distributed to four health care providers and injections began Wednesday. Eligible individuals include those at greatest risk of exposure, officials said. DPH officials provide public updates on monkeypox cases in Massachusetts on a weekly basis each Thursday. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows there have been 605 cases of the monkeypox virus this year in U.S. residents.
6 monkeypox cases detected in Oregon — Health officials in Oregon said Thursday they have confirmed six cases of monkeypox in the state.The cases — all affecting men — include one in Multnomah County; three in Lane County; and two in Washington County, the Oregon Health Authority said in a statement. There have been no deaths.Globally, nationally and in Oregon, cases were initially associated with travel but more recent cases do not have a history of travel, indicating transmission within the United States and Oregon, officials said. Officials said the same in Washington state this week, reporting nine cases in the most populous county, which includes Seattle.Dr. Tim Menza, OHA senior health advisor for monkeypox response, said while anyone can be affected by monkeypox, the current global outbreak has largely affected men who have sex with men.“Right now our priority should be empowering men who have sex with men and the larger LGBTQIA+ and queer community and their health care providers with information, testing, prevention and treatment strategies,” he said.Oregon’s supply of vaccines has been limited but federal allocations to OHA have been arriving in recent days and are expected to increase. Menza said he hopes to expand vaccine availability to beyond just those who have been exposed to the virus. Experts say anyone can be infected through lose contact with a sick person, their clothing or bedsheets. Most monkeypox patients experience fever, body aches, chills and fatigue. People with more serious illness may develop a rash and lesions.
US monkeypox cases top 600 in 34 states -The monkeypox virus outbreak is growing in the United States and elsewhere, with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now reporting 605 cases in 34 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. New York has the most cases, with 122, followed by California with 116 and Florida with 64. The virus is affecting rural states, too, with Idaho now reporting its first case. The patient is an adult who likely acquired the infection during travel to a country experiencing an outbreak.According to the latest situation update from the World Health Organization (WHO) published yesterday, global cases of the virus increased 77% in the past week.The WHO update also noted that among monkeypox patients with known HIV status, 41% were HIV-positive. Among cases with reported sexual orientation, 60% (1,214 of 2,025) identified as gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men."The most often suspected and reported route of transmission, among known contacts, has been through sexual contact. Due to sensitivity in reporting a full list of sexual contacts, identification of all contacts of probable and confirmed cases has therefore proven to be very challenging in this outbreak, and might be one of the reasons why it is hard to break all chains of transmission," the WHO said.Widespread rash remains the most common symptom among patients in the current outbreak. Among the cases who reported at least one symptom, "81% presented with systemic rash (widespread rash on the body), 50% presented with fever and 41% presented with genital rash." The WHO also warned that 25 cases have been detected so far among healthcare workers, and said transmission in this setting cannot be ruled out.
As monkeypox spreads in California, gay community demands urgent action - Community health and LGBTQ rights leaders in California are demanding a much more aggressive response to monkeypox from government and health agencies, saying shortages of vaccines and limited public outreach are exacerbating the outbreaks.Confirmed and probable cases of monkeypox across California have climbed by 65% in the last week, from 85 to 141. There were 47 confirmed and probable cases of the virus in Los Angeles County as of Thursday — an almost 60% increase since last week — and in San Francisco, cases have more than doubled in a similar time frame, rising from 16 to 40.While monkeypox is nowhere near as contagious as the coronavirus, officials said they are concerned about the increase in infections. The cases in both counties are spreading primarily among men who have sex with other men, health officials said, as has been the trend since the outbreak began in early May.Monkeypox is primarily transmitted by skin-to-skin contact with someone who has a rash and pus-filled skin sores, which are filled with the virus. In some cases, the rash has appeared first in the genital area and in or around the anus. Symptoms can include fever, aches, chills, exhaustion, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes; and the skin lesions can be so intense that patients are prescribed painkillers.Transmission likely accelerated at Pride events attended by gay and bisexual men in June. The month is a season of travel for many gay and bisexual men, with Pride events held in major cities — in California, the U.S. and abroad — every weekend in June. This weekend, the city of Long Beach is hosting its Pride parade and celebrations. As reports of infection and exposure have increased, there is a clamor for vaccinations, and widespread frustration about the inability to get the shots.“What we need most immediately is warnings and public announcements by the county department of public health — which we have not had,” said Michael Weinstein, president of L.A.-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “We’re not treating this seriously enough.”
Canada’s monkeypox cases hit 300 as numbers exceed 5,800 globally - Canada has now confirmed 300 monkeypox cases as of July 4, according toan announcement from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) on Monday. Quebec has once again reported the highest number with 211 cases, while Ontario has reported 77 cases. There are also eight confirmed cases in Alberta and four cases in British Columbia.Monkeypox is a viral infectious disease transmitted to humans from animals caused by an orthopoxvirus, which is related to smallpox, according to PHAC. Individuals can be infected through direct contact with an infected person or by shared contaminated objects.PHAC noted that the possibility and extent of respiratory transmission of monkeypox is “unclear at this time.”“The Public Health Agency of Canada is working with provinces, territories and international partners, including the World Health Organization, to actively monitor the situation,” states PHAC. “Global efforts are focused on containment of the outbreak and the prevention of further spread.”Besides performing diagnostic testing for monkeypox virus, Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory is also conducting whole genome sequencing on Canadian samples of monkeypox to understand the chains of transmission happening in Canada, states PHAC.In Canada, adults 18 years of age and older who do not have contraindications are eligible to receive the IMVAMUNE vaccine, which is intentionally developed to treat smallpox.Vaccination against smallpox is about 85 per cent effective in preventing monkeypox, PHAC states.A total of 8,101 doses of IMVAMUNE vaccine have been administered in Quebec since May 27, while almost 6,000 people in Toronto have been vaccinated against monkeypox as of June 30, provincial health authorities told Global News.
Monkeypox cases in Europe have tripled in last 2 weeks, says WHO -The World Health Organization’s Europe chief warned Friday thatmonkeypox cases in the region have tripled in the last two weeks and urged countries to do more to ensure the previously rare disease does not become entrenched on the continent.
Monkeypox: Cases triple in Europe, urgent action needed to contain spread - The World Health Organization on Friday warned that urgent action is needed to contain the spread of monkeypox in Europe, as cases have tripled over the past two weeks. Europe is the center of a global outbreak of the virus with 90% of confirmed monkeypox cases reported there, according to the WHO. New infections have tripled since June 15 with 4,500 confirmed cases across 31 European nations. Henri Kluge, the head of WHO Europe, called on governments to ramp efforts to prevent monkeypox from establishing itself on the continent, warning that time is of the essence. "Urgent and coordinated action is imperative if we are to turn a corner in the race to reverse the ongoing spread of this disease," Kluge said. The World Health Organization on Saturday declined to declare monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern, its highest alert level. However, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said monkeypox is an evolving health threat. Tedros called on governments to step up surveillance, contact tracing and to make sure people at high risk have access to vaccines and antivirals. Kluge said the WHO will likely reconsider whether monkeypox is global health emergency soon, given the "rapid evolution and emergency nature of the event." He said 99% of monkeypox patients in Europe are men between the ages of 21 and 40. The majority of the patients who provided demographic information identified as men who have sex with men, he said. Monkeypox primarily spreads through close physical contact with much of the transmission in the current outbreak happening through sex. However, small numbers of cases have now been reported in which the patients did not catch the virus during sexual contact, Kluge said. Family members of infected individuals, heterosexual contacts as well as children have also caught the virus, he said. Among patients where information was available on their status, nearly 10% were hospitalized for treatment or isolation and one patient ended up in an intensive care unit, Kluge said. Nobody in Europe has died so far from the virus, he said. "There is simply no room for complacency – especially right here in the European Region with its fast-moving outbreak that with every hour, day and week is extending its reach into previously unaffected areas," Kluge said. The stigmatization of men who have sex with men in some countries has made it difficult to get a full picture of the outbreak, Kluge said. Some people with monkeypox symptoms might avoid going to health-care providers for a diagnosis because they are fearful of consequences if someone finds out they are gay or bisexual, Kluge said. However, clearly communicating the reality of the current outbreak is also crucial, he added.
African officials treating monkeypox spread as an emergency, call for equitable vaccine distribution (AP) — Health authorities in Africa say they are treating the expanding monkeypox outbreak there as an emergency and are calling on rich countries to share the world’s limited supply of vaccines in an effort to avoid the glaring equity problems seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Monkeypox has been sickening people in parts of central and west Africa for decades, but the lack of laboratory diagnosis and weak surveillance means many cases are going undetected across the continent. To date, countries in Africa have reported more than 1,800 suspected cases so far this year including more than 70 deaths, but only 109 have been lab-confirmed. “This particular outbreak for us means an emergency,” said Ahmed Ogwell, the acting director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control. “We want to be able to address monkeypox as an emergency now so that it does not cause more pain and suffering,” he said. Last week, WHO said its emergency committee concluded that the expanding monkeypox outbreak was worrying, but did not yet warrant being declared a global health emergency. The U.N. health agency said it would reconsider its decision if the disease continued spreading across more borders, showed signs of increased severity, or began infecting vulnerable groups like pregnant women and children. Globally, more than 5,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 51 countries, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of those cases are in Europe. No deaths beyond Africa have been reported. Within Africa, WHO said monkeypox has spread to countries where it hasn’t previously been seen, including South Africa, Ghana and Morocco. But more than 90 percent of the continent’s infections are in Congo and Nigeria, according to WHO’s Africa director, Dr. Moeti Matshidiso. She said that given the limited global supplies of vaccines to fight monkeypox, WHO was in talks with manufacturers and countries with stockpiles to see if they might be shared. The vaccines have mainly been developed to stop smallpox, a related disease — and most are not authorized for use against monkeypox in Africa. Vaccines have not previously been used to try to stamp out monkeypox epidemics in Africa; officials have relied mostly on measures like contact tracing and isolation.
Official monkeypox cases surpass 6,000 as model projects over 1 million cases globally by this fall - The unprecedented global outbreak of monkeypox is deepening throughout the world, raising concerns among scientists and physicians internationally that another pandemic is now unfolding alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 1, a record 781 new cases were identified worldwide, more than half of which were in Spain, bringing the seven-day rolling average to 402 cases per day, a 10-fold increase since May. Over the past four weeks, the number of infections worldwide has risen more than sixfold to 6,229 total cases, with 6,178 confirmed and 51 suspected infections. There are now 459 official infections in the US, an almost 20-fold increase over the past four weeks. The global outbreak has quickly expanded to 67 non-endemic countries and territories across every part of the globe. Spain, England and Germany have each surpassed more than 1,000 confirmed cases, while the US has 459. Given the Biden administration’s laggard response to the unfolding crisis, public health advocates and infectious disease experts believe that the US will soon catch up with its European counterparts. As of Sunday evening, 32 states and the District of Columbia have reported monkeypox infections since the first case was identified six weeks ago. The states leading in the number of confirmed infections are California (95), New York (90), Illinois (53) and Florida (50), given their immediate connections to international travel and population density. Public health authorities have affirmed that official figures are certainly undercounts, as medical professionals are missing cases due to a lack of widespread testing and unfamiliarity with the signs and symptoms of the disease. Over the weekend, a TikTok video went viral in which a young woman named Halle shared her experience attempting to get tested for monkeypox, revealing how totally unprepared the American health care system is for this growing outbreak. After contacting two urgent care centers and two primary care physicians who were unaware of the monkeypox outbreak and even the disease itself, she was told to return to work and prescribed antibiotics. A dermatologist she was to consult with canceled her appointment and told her to contact the CDC. Halle noted, “I called the CDC. The CDC says, ‘Call your PCP [primary care provider].’ The lady I talked to at the CDC had no idea what she was talking about and couldn’t answer any of my questions. I have not been able to get tested anywhere. Doctors have refused to see me, and I have this mysterious and painful rash all over my face, chest, arms and back… The CDC has no idea what they are doing, nobody is educated, not even doctors, and doctors will refuse to see you, treat you or test you. And the CDC does nothing about it.”
EPA sets wildlife protections on 3 pesticides - EPA has set new restrictions on the use of three commonly used pesticides, including the highly controversial chemical chlorpyrifos. In adopting new conservation measures to be required on labels, the environmental agency allows the continued use of chlorpyrifos, malathion and diazinon in various settings. The final decision follows a final biological opinion from the Fish and Wildlife Service that found potential threats to endangered species that could be addressed through additional restrictions. “These measures will not only protect listed species but will reduce potential exposure and ecological effects in these areas whenever malathion, chlorpyrifos and diazinon are used,” the agency said in a news release yesterday. EPA takes about 18 months to approve amended labels from product registrants, the agency said. Farmers and others have used the chemicals — from a class called organophosphates — for a variety of insect pests on various crops. EPA ended the use of chlorpyrifos, linked to brain damage in children, on food crops in February, although it’s still allowed for other uses like mosquito control. All the pesticides are highly toxic to mammals, fish and aquatic invertebrates, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries. EPA consulted both agencies on the biological opinion as required by federal law. Among the new limits, diazinon can no longer be applied from the air, and chlorpyrifos can’t be applied over wide areas for the control of ants, for instance. Other conservation measures are aimed at keeping pesticides out of water, and reducing the overall load of the chemicals at any time. Without additional limitations, NOAA Fisheries said, the chemicals would pose dangers to species and their habitats. “Current application rates and application methods are expected to produce aquatic concentrations of all three pesticides that are likely to harm aquatic species as well as contaminate their designated critical habitats,” NOAA Fisheries said in the biological opinion. “Species and their prey residing in shallow aquatic habitats proximal to pesticide use sites are expected to be the most at risk.” Groups such as the Center for Food Safety have urged heavier restrictions or outright bans, as the CFS did for malathion in comments to NOAA Fisheries earlier this year. The group also knocked the administration for a proposed system in which producers would use a “pick list” to select methods they’ll follow to reduce risks to wildlife.
Australia is exterminating tens of millions of bees to save its honey industry -- Tens of millions of bees are being exterminated in a desperate attempt to save Australia's honey industry from a devastating mite plague.Australia is the last major honey-producing nation to be hit by a varroa mite plague and is taking the measure to kill thousands of honeybee colonies to stop the mites spreading. An eradication zone has been set up within a six-mile radius of a sighting, already implicating a significant number of bees, as authorities fight to prevent a plague that has affected the rest of the world."Australia is the only major honey-producing country free from varroa mite," Satendra Kumar, chief plant protection officer of New South Wales state, told The New York Times.Satendra told the newspaper that a widespread varroa mite plague could cost Australia's honey industry $70 million a year. Danny Le Feuvre, acting head of the Australian Honey Bee Industrial Council, told The Times that his team had already exterminated 600 hives, each containing around 30,000 bees, amounting to at least 18 million bees.According to the website BeeAware, varroa mites – or the varroa destructor – feed and reproduce on larvae and pupae of the developing brood of bees. They affect bees' ability to fly, gather food, and produce honey. The mite has been blamed for the sharp reduction in the number of honey bee colonies outside Australia, and a rapid fall in the size of honey yields, The Financial Times reported.
Effort begun to eradicate giant African snails in Florida (AP) — Invasive giant African land snails that can eat building plaster and stucco, consume hundreds of varieties of plants and carry diseases that affect humans have been detected once again in Florida, where officials said Thursday work has begun to eradicate the pests. The snails, which grow as long as 8 inches (20 centimeters) and have a distinctive whirled, brown mottled shell, were confirmed by state agriculture officials in New Port Richey, Florida, on June 23. The location in Pasco County is just north of the Tampa Bay area on the Gulf coast. Florida has twice before eradicated the snails in other parts of the state, most recently a 10-year effort in Miami-Dade County that cost $23 million and ended in 2021 after collection of about 170,000 snails. Now they are back again, most likely the result of the illegal international exotic pet trade or arriving hidden in cargo from overseas. Related video: Invasive giant African land snails that can cause meningitis found in Fla. “We will eradicate these snails. We've done it before and we will do it again,” said Nikki Fried, commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, at a news conference Thursday. The snails have been found in numerous parts of the world such as Hawaii and parts of the Caribbean, including in Cuba where an effort is ongoing to rid the island of the pests. The snails are known to eat 500 different plant types, making them a major threat to agriculture including peanuts, beans, cucumbers and melons. They will also eat plaster and stucco in buildings, even tree bark, and carry a parasite called the rat lungworm that can cause meningitis in humans, according to the department. They can produce up to 1,200 eggs a year. “They are one of the most damaging snails in the world,”
Court nixes Trump-era rules loosening endangered species protections -A federal court on Tuesday reinstated endangered species protections that were loosened under the Trump administration. Judge Jon Tigar, an Obama appointee, vacated the rules in question. Under the Trump rules the Fish and Wildlife Service no longer provided the same protections to species that are considered threatened — those that are likely to become endangered — as they do for species that are endangered. The rules also would have allowed for the consideration of economic impacts in deciding whether to protect a species. Conservationists additionally raised concerns that the rules could limit the consideration of climate change. The Trump administration’s changes faced significant resistance from environmentalists, who brought the lawsuit. “The whole point of the Endangered Species Act is to give protections to species that are on the brink of extinction,” Kristen Boyles, an attorney at Earthjustice, told The Hill. “The Trump rules that have today been repealed did nothing to help species and in fact did affirmative harm to how species are protected in this country,” Boyles added. “By the court ruling today, we go back to the regulatory interpretation that had been in place for over 40 years.” The Trump administration said at the time it finalized the changes that it was “easing the regulatory burden on the American public.” Last year, the Biden administration had asked the court to order a second look at the Trump rules, but did not ask the court to nix the changed rules in the meantime. It said that getting rid of the Trump rules while it reassesses them “would cause confusion … by abruptly altering the applicable regulatory framework and creating uncertainty about which standards to apply.” Nevertheless, in the case, Tigar argued that since the Biden administration has indicated that it would reevaluate the regulations, it “seems doubtful” that getting rid of them entirely would add to the confusion.
Judge wipes out Trump ESA rules - A federal judge today struck down controversial Trump administration rules that critics say shackled the Endangered Species Act.While the Biden administration is rewriting the ESA regulations in question, it had sought to keep the Trump-era rules temporarily in place. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, though, sided with a number of environmental groups against the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries in deciding to vacate the rules imposed in 2019.“Here, the Services themselves concede that they have substantial concerns with the 2019 ESA Rules, both with respect to certain substantive provisions as well as certain procedures that were utilized in promulgating these regulatory revisions,” Tigar wrote.An Obama administration appointee to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Tigar noted that the agencies’ chief argument was that vacating the rules would cause confusion among the public, other agencies and stakeholders.“But, as the Services themselves explain many times, leaving the regulations in place will cause equal or greater confusion, given the flaws in the drafting and promulgation of those regulations,” Tigar wrote.One of the Trump administration’s rules covered how FWS and NOAA Fisheries designate listed species’ critical habitat. Another eliminated FWS’s former policy of automatically extending to threatened species the protections against “take” that the law automatically provides for endangered species (Greenwire, Sept. 4, 2020).A third rule changed how FWS and NOAA Fisheries work with federal agencies to prevent proposed agency actions that could harm listed species or their critical habitat.The Biden administration agreed last December to redo the three rules in response to a lawsuit filed by Earthjustice on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Parks Conservation Association, WildEarth Guardians and the Humane Society of the United States.“The court spoke for species desperately in need of comprehensive federal protections without compromise,” Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles said in a statement. “Threatened and endangered species do not have the luxury of waiting under rules that do not protect them.”
An equine flu has killed over a dozen wild burros in the Inland Empire - As humans continue to contend with COVID-19, herds of wild burros in the Inland Empire are facing their own outbreak of a deadly equine influenza that has killed more than a dozen donkeys since June. The burros, which roam around 30 to 40 square miles in the mountains and hills east of Riverside and south of San Bernardino, began showing up sick around a month ago, said Chad Cheatham, vice president of the nonprofit DonkeyLand sanctuary in Colton. While serving as a sanctuary for injured burros, DonkeyLand has also been responding to reports of sick donkeys and taking them to equine veterinarians for treatment. However, the illnesses have often been too severe for veterinarians to intervene. “Several herds in different jurisdictions have been dropping dead without any time to help save them,” the sanctuary wrote on Facebook last week. “Their symptoms have all been the same, from foaming or bubbles from the mouth, dripping noses, coughing or showing severe symptoms of heavy labored breathing.” By the time the donkeys are transported for treatment, it is often too late. “They actually were coming in pretty sick … almost on their last legs,” said equine veterinarian Dr. Paul Wan of the SoCal Equine Hospital in Norco, where DonkeyLand takes many of its sick and injured burros. “They were just breathing so hard and really easily caught,” Wan said. “Unfortunately, a lot of them just passed as soon as they got in the hospital — within, I would say, a 24-hour period.”
Livestock industry hammered by foot and mouth outbreak - The agriculture sector has been one of the brightest sectors in the economy for the past two years, growing despite the broader slowdown in the rest of the economy. But the resilience of the sector could soon be fading and it could soon be tested, given the fact that we have reports of lower harvest expectations for some crops. There’s the additional challenge from foot-and-mouth disease, as well as the swine flu outbreaks. To discuss how much slower the agricultural sector could grow by this year I’m joined by Wandile Sihlobo, the chief economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, Agbiz. Wandile, I’m assuming growth here – let me know if that assumption is wrong. Given that the agricultural sector grew by 3.6% in the first quarter, when you are talking about challenges on the horizon and the prospects of a slow down just how slow will it go this year?
Toxic chemicals lurk at playgrounds - When Diana Zuckerman was growing up, there was dirt underneath the slides. Her children played on playgrounds placed atop sand and mulch. But, today, when she drives around her Bethesda, Md., neighborhood, all Zuckerman sees are rubber playgrounds. The sight concerns Zuckerman, because as president for the National Center for Health Research she has testified in front of multiple municipal and even state governments about the toxic chemicals that can lurk in rubber playground surfaces. The chemicals can include neurotoxins like lead and other heavy metals, as well as carcinogenic chemicals like polyaromatic hydrocarbons, endocrine-disrupting chemicals like phthalates, and chemicals linked to other organ damage like volatile organic compounds and PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. “All these rubber surfaces, they can be very pretty, and when you know nothing, you think it’s great because if my child fell on it, it is so spongy and pretty and safe,” she said. “But we actually don’t know that it’s safe from the chemical exposure perspective.” Concerns about modern playground surfaces were first raised decades ago, when recycled tire crumb rubber became a popular playground surface. The recycled tires often contained lead and other heavy metals, and public health experts were especially concerned that using the bite-sized material on playgrounds could unnecessarily expose small children, particularly toddlers, who are prone to putting objects in their mouths. Nowadays, many municipalities searching for new playground surfaces know enough to stay away from tire crumb rubber. But many continue to install what’s called “pour in place” rubber, flat, spongy rubber surfaces that can contain other chemicals of concern, like polyaromatic hydrocarbons, phthalates, and volatile organic compounds. Those more solid rubber surfaces can also contain additives and binders that could harm the health of children, though the exact chemicals vary by manufacturer. Artificial turf, long-popular on athletic fields, has also been marketed as a playground surface. Some PFAS are used to manufacture the plastic grass blades (Greenwire, Dec. 8, 2021). Sarah Evans, an assistant professor of environmental medicine and public health at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, says those poured in place rubber playgrounds still pose exposure risks to kids. Children could pick up chemicals on their hands as they play and then accidentally ingest them when they eat meals or snacks at the playground. “We are very concerned about that,” she said. “And we don’t have a good handle of what is in those products.” Indeed, the exact risks rubberized playgrounds pose to children are unknown, in part because the federal government’s efforts to investigate the issue have been stalled by both the Trump administration and the coronavirus pandemic.
A huge mass of used wet wipes has formed an 'island' that has changed the course of England's second longest river, MP says A "wet wipe island" the size of two tennis courts has formed in the Thames, causing the river as it flows through London to change course, according to The Times of London. Ministers have asked people to stop using wet wipes, and the government is considering banning those that contain plastic. Fleur Anderson, a Labour MP, warned that when flushed down the drains, wet wipes don't disintegrate and instead end up in the Thames, England's second-longest river. "There's an island the size of two tennis courts, and I've been and stood on it — it's near Hammersmith Bridge in the Thames, and it's a meter deep or more in places of just wet wipes. It's actually changed the course of the Thames," Anderson during a session of questions on the environment, food, and rural affairs in the Commons, per The Times. Anderson has proposed banning the manufacture and sale of wet wipes containing plastic, The Times reported, noting that it is unlikely to become law without government backing. Most wet wipes are made with plastic, which does not break down when flushed, according to environmental charity Thames21. Furthermore, they can break down into microplastic and damage aquatic life and the Thames' ecosystem, the charity said. The charity is urging the government to ban wet wipes containing plastic and is calling for regulation to label how wet wipes should be disposed of clearly. Thames21 documents the plastic litter that washes up on foreshores along the river and found that in just under five years, one mound grew by 1.4m in height (around 55 inches) and covered the area of two tennis courts, according to data from Tideway and the PLA. Wet wipes were found in densities of between 50 and 200 per square meters at these hotspots. Last year, volunteers for the charity collected more than 27,000 wipes over two days at a different site next to Battersea Bridge. Wet wipes also make up nearly 90% of the materials contained in "fatbergs," which are masses of solid waste made of grease and fat that can block sewers.
Calif. enacts historic plastics law, upping ante on industry - California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a landmark plastics bill into law late yesterday, the latest in a dramatic series of legislative efforts by states cracking down on plastics in the absence of federal intervention. After weeks of intensive lobbying, the California Legislature approved a plastics packaging bill, S.B. 54, that is now the nation’s most sweeping extended producer responsibility law — a major move toward shifting waste costs back onto manufacturers. Touting the bill last night, Newsom (D) emphasized California’s efforts toward reducing plastics pollution and production in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision yesterday that significantly curbed EPA’s ability to combat climate change. Advertisement “Our kids deserve a future free of plastic waste and all its dangerous impacts, everything from clogging our oceans to killing animals — contaminating the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat,” Newsom said. “No more.” He added, “California won’t tolerate plastic waste that’s filling our waterways and making it harder to breathe. We’re holding polluters responsible and cutting plastics at the source.” The law overhauls California’s approach to recycling and puts the state at the forefront of efforts to combat plastics pollution. Under S.B. 54, single-use packaging must be at least 30 percent recycled, reused or composted by 2028. That number increases to 40 percent by 2030 and to 65 percent after 2032. The law will also force industry sources to put $5 billion over the next 10 years into helping address plastics pollution. A fee on single-use packaging and food ware will go to state agencies and local governments to assist in their related work. The law requires producers to join a producer responsibility organization, or PRO, that must provide recycling plans approved by the states.
Feds consider phasing out singe-use plastics --The Biden administration announced Wednesday it will consider limiting the government’s use of single-use plastics in a move that greens are calling “promising.”The General Services Administration is seeking public feedback on a proposed rule that could phase out some single-use plastics used in the agency’s government contracts, a move in response to a petition from over 180 environmental groups.“Also known as the Government’s landlord, GSA has the ability to make a difference by addressing single-use plastics in our construction, concession, and facility maintenance contracts as well,” the agency said in its request for public feedback. “With single-use plastics being a significant contributor to the global plastic pollution concern, it is a logical step for the agency to examine this.”GSA’s request follows a February legal petition spearheaded by the Center for Biological Diversity and signed by 180 other environmental groups, calling out the United States as the world’s largest consumer of goods and services and GSA as its primary buyer.The petition asks GSA to use its purchasing power to cut down on single-use plastics, which makes up nearly half of all plastic produced, by reducing the amounts of single-use plastic bags, single-use plastic utensils and straws, beverage bottles, packaging, and other single-use food service items and personal care products the agency procures for the government’s properties and events.“I hope this incredibly promising development marks the start of a federal commitment to strike at the root of the plastic pollution crisis,” said Emily Jeffers, the petition’s author.“The Biden administration has a real opportunity to stem the toxic tide of single-use plastic that’s pouring into our oceans, killing our wildlife, and contaminating our bodies. To protect human health and our environment, the federal government needs to lead the way in radically reducing plastic use.”This is not the first move by the Biden administration to curb plastic pollution. Last month, the Interior Department announced it would phase out the sale of single-use plastics at national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands by 2032 (Greenwire, June 8).GSA will accept public feedback on the proposed plan until Sept. 6 to “help inform future rulemaking on how to best reduce single-use plastics from packaging, while limiting burden and liability on our industry and logistics partners.”
Biologists' fears confirmed on the lower Colorado River (AP) — For National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Arnold, it was a moment he'd been dreading. Bare-legged in sandals, he was pulling in a net in a shallow backwater of the lower Colorado River last week, when he spotted three young fish that didn't belong there. “Give me a call when you get this!” he messaged a colleague, snapping photos. Minutes later, the park service confirmed their worst fear: smallmouth bass had in fact been found and were likely reproducing in the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam. They may be a beloved sport fish, but smallmouth bass feast on humpback chub, an ancient, threatened fish that’s native to the river, and that biologists like Arnold have been working hard to recover. The predators wreaked havoc in the upper river, but were held at bay in Lake Powell where Glen Canyon Dam has served as a barrier for years — until now. The reservoir’s recent sharp decline is enabling these introduced fish to get past the dam and closer to where the biggest groups of chub remain, farther downstream in the Grand Canyon. There, Brian Healy has worked with the humpback chub for more than a decade and founded the Native Fish Ecology and Conservation Program. “It’s pretty devastating to see all the hard work and effort you’ve put into removing other invasive species and translocating populations around to protect the fish and to see all that effort overturned really quickly,” Healy said. As reservoir levels drop, non-native fish that live in warm surface waters in Lake Powell are edging closer to the dam and its penstocks — submerged steel tubes that carry water to turbines, where it generates hydroelectric power and is released on the other side. If bass and other predator fish continue to get sucked into the penstocks, survive and reproduce below the dam, they will have an open lane to attack chub and other natives, potentially unraveling years of restoration work and upending the Grand Canyon aquatic ecosystem — the only stretch of the river still dominated by native species.
The Southwest is bone dry. Now, a key water source is at risk. - — — California and six other Western states have less than 60 days to pull off a seemingly impossible feat: Cut a multi-way deal to dramatically reduce their consumption of water from the dangerously low Colorado River. If they don’t, the federal government will do it for them. A federal Bureau of Reclamation ultimatum last month, prompted by an extreme climate-change-induced drop in water levels at the nation’s largest reservoirs, reopens years of complicated agreements and political feuds among the communities whose livelihoods depend on the river. The deadline represents a crucial moment for the arid Southwest, which must now swiftly reckon with a problem that has been decades in the making. Despite the oppressive dryness that has plagued the region for more than 20 years, California has, in large part, avoided reductions to its usage of the Colorado River. But now that reservoir levels have fallen drastically, the Golden State may be forced to use less water, a prospect that would only further strain a state that is already asking residents in some regions to stop watering lawns and take shorter showers. California’s Imperial Valley, with its vast swaths of farmlands, uses more water than its neighboring water districts — and could be a target for much of the cuts. The state will also have to contend with water users in Arizona and Nevada, who face their own sets of limitations and internal pressures. “You can’t possibly overestimate how hard this is,” said Felicia Marcus, a fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West program and former chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board. “Each state has their own peculiar set of politics.” Over the past 20 years, as the effects of climate change have become more apparent, water authorities in their respective states have been able to hammer out agreements on moderate cutbacks. But it hasn’t been enough. Supplies at Lake Mead and Lake Powell are dangerously low, holding just more than a quarter of their total capacities — and threatening the dams’ ability to generate electricity and provide water to its nearly 40 million users. At its highest level, in the 1980s, Lake Mead could have submerged the Empire State Building up to its top floor. Now, water levels have dropped by nearly 200 feet, or 20 stories, exposing a stark white “bathtub ring” around the rocky walls of the perimeter. The new reality will force the region to shift away from a water source upon which it has relied for centuries, and, in some cases, make tough choices that are sure to ripple nationwide — such as whether to continue alfalfa farming for cattle feed or switch to more drought-hardy crops. The terms laid out in the coming weeks could offer a new blueprint for how America adapts to the increasingly-difficult realities of climate change.
Southern Europe restricts drinking water access - Governments from Portugal to Italy are calling on citizens to limit water use to a bare minimum due to severe drought and scarce rainfall. The situation is most dramatic in northern Italy where unusually low levels of River Po – the country’s largest river, are transforming Italy’s largest fertile region, affecting crop production and threatening the densely populated region with a serious drinking shortage.1 Similar conditions are affecting River Dora Baltea. Together with River Po, Dora Balta feeds one of the most important agricultural regions in entire Europe.Rivers and streams in the Po district are at critical levels due to scarce winter precipitation, both snow and rain, causing severe to extremely severe drought conditions not seen in the region in 70 years, Po River Basin Authority said.More than 100 cities have been called on to limit water consumption as much as possible.On Monday, July 4, the Italian government declared a state of emergency for five regions until the end of the year. It plans to provide €36 million ($37 million) in the short term to combat the water crisis.2By the end of May, a severe drought was affecting 97% of Portugal, where the government restricted the use of hydroelectric power plants to 2 hours per week in an effort to guarantee the country’s drinking water supply for at least 2 years.The association for agricultural irrigation in the towns of Silves, Lagoa, and Portimao in southern Portugal has activated an emergency plan under which 1 800 farms have to halve the irrigation of some crops. Spain is also extremely dry, with two-thirds of its total land area at risk of desertification. Once fertile soils are increasingly turning to sand, especially after the second driest winter since 1961, according to Spain’s meteorological bureau.
At least 200 children have died in Somalia since January from drought-caused malnutrition: UN - The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said late Monday that at least 200 children in Somalia have died of malnutrition since January, with the country witnessing "catastrophic food insecurity" for the first time since 2017. Drought conditions have deteriorated following an unprecedented fourth consecutive failed rainy season in eight regions of the country, up from six regions in May this year, bringing the affected families to the brink of famine, according to the UN. "More than 7 million people are affected, up from 6.1 million in May, and over 805,000 are displaced,” said a statement issued by the UN humanitarian affairs agency. In response to the drought, the UN said its humanitarian partners have launched the Drought Response and Famine Prevention Plan covering May to December 2022 to facilitate the scaling up of life-saving, life-sustaining assistance to prevent famine in the country. The plan requires $993.3 million to implement and targets 6.4 million people, according to the UN. "Since January, 3.9 million people have received lifesaving assistance. However, the scale of the ongoing response and funding from the international community is not sufficient to sustain the lives of all those at risk,” the statement said.As of June 30, the severe drought had affected more than 7 million people, an increase from 6.1 million in May, with over 805,000 displaced.
Extensive damage to hundreds of homes after EF-2 tornado hits Goshen, Ohio - (videos) A confirmed EF-2 tornado touched down in Goshen, Ohio on July 6, 2022, causing extensive damage to hundreds of homes and injuring 2 people.Early in the morning on July 6, a band of training storms moved from northeast Indiana southeast through west-central Ohio and central Ohio, producing a swath of 50 to 150 mm (2 – 6 inches) of rain near this corridor.By the afternoon, a large complex of storms tracked east from central Indiana through east-central Indiana and the Tri-State area, producing large swaths of significant straight-line wind damage and a few tornadoes.The National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed on July 7 that an EF-2 tornado touched down in Goshen.The twister traveled 7.2 km (4.5 miles) from 15:06 to 15:14 EDT. As it approached Goshen, it strengthened rapidly and grew to about 685 m (750 yards) in width.1The tornado crossed the main street just to the west of Highway 28 causing significant damage to a couple of businesses.An insurance agency completely lost its roof and several of the exterior walls collapsed. A woman inside the business was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.The large and strong tornado then crossed Highway 28 significantly damaging a fire station and causing complete roof loss to a brick business next door. Most of the exterior walls on the business also collapsed. A firefighter at the fire station also suffered minor injuries.This was the strongest point in the tornado life cycle with winds estimated at around 209 km/h (130 mph).The tornado continued moving southeast along Goshen Road snapping hundreds of trees and causing at least six more homes to completely lose their roofs. A couple of additional homes also had some failure of exterior walls.The tornado struck both the middle and high school causing some roof and siding damage. The tornado continued moving to the southeast crossing Woodville Pike near its intersection with Manila Rd.It then crossed Moler Road where it completely destroyed a barn and downed dozens of trees, Based on the Highway Patrol video the tornado likely lifted somewhere between Moler Road and Cedarville Road. According to Goshen Township administrator Stephen Pegram, falling trees caused extensive damage to hundreds of homes. Early estimates mention between 150 and 200 homes and buildings damaged, with multiple structures completely torn apart.3Numerous gas leaks were reported across the region, including the town’s fire station.More than 100 power poles were downed, leaving thousands of customers without power. Duke Energy officials said it will be days before all power is restored, urging affected residents to make alternate plans.
Tropical Storm “Colin” forms near South Carolina, U.S. - Tropical Storm “Colin” formed at 09:00 UTC on July 2, 2022, as the third named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical Storm Warnings have been issued for portions of the South Carolina and North Carolina coasts. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for South Santee River, South Carolina, to Duck, North Carolina; and Pamlico Sound. Tropical storm conditions are expected within the warning area along the northeastern coast of South Carolina this morning (LT) and will spread northeastward within the warning area along the North Carolina coast this afternoon into Sunday, July 3. Areas of heavy rainfall may result in localized flash flooding across portions of coastal South and North Carolina through Sunday morning At 12:00 UTC on July 2, the center of Tropical Storm “Colin” was located about 40 km (25 miles) WSW of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.1 The storm had maximum sustained winds of 65 km/h (40 mph) and was moving NE at 13 km/h (8 mph). Its minimum central pressure was 1 012 hPa. A turn toward the ENE with an increase in forward speed is expected late Sunday and Sunday night. On the forecast track, the center of Colin is expected to move northeastward along or just inland of the South Carolina and North Carolina coasts through Sunday, and then emerge over the western Atlantic Ocean late Sunday. Little change in strength is forecast during the next couple of days. Colin is expected to dissipate over the western Atlantic on Monday. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km) mainly to the southeast of the center.
Typhoon “Chaba” spawns tornadoes, splits a ship in half, leaving 26 people missing, China - (videos) Typhoon “Chaba” made landfall in the coastal area of Maoming City, China’s Guangdong Province at around 15:00 LT on July 2, 2022, with maximum sustained winds around 95 km/h (60 mph). Chaba is the third named storm of the 2022 Pacific typhoon season and the first to make landfall in China. The storm produced winds gusts up to 160 km/h (100 mph) off the coast of Guangdong, brought heavy rain the parts of southern China, especially the western part of the Pearl River Delta, and spawned at least 3 tornadoes – in Shantou, Chazhou and Foshan. Fujing 001 – a 240 m (787 feet) long crane vessel tasked with assisting with the construction of an offshore wind farm, split in half and quickly sunk some 300 km (180 miles) SW of Hong Kong, leaving 26 crew members missing. Only 4 of the ship’s 30 members were rescued, as of early Monday morning, July 4 (UTC). Search and rescue operations are still in progress. Chaba lost its typhoon status shortly after making landfall and weakened into a tropical depression at 06:00 UTC on July 3. On July 4, the eye of what was left of Chaba was located in the southern region of Guangxi, moving at a speed of 10 to 15 km/h (6 – 9 mph) into the provinces of Hunan and Hubei. More heavy rain is expected in the central and eastern parts of the country in the days ahead, with parts of Guangxi forecast to receive up to 600 mm (23 inches) through Thursday, July 7.
Strategic bridge with China collapses in Arunachal Pradesh, India - (video) A Bailey bridge, connecting two strategic locations in Kurung Kumey district of Arunachal Pradesh, was washed away in a flash flood that hit the region on July 2, 2022. The bridge over Oyong river near Kororu village connected Koloring, the district headquarters, with Damin — a vital link at the India-China border, an official of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) said on July 3.1 The impact was so massive that only a panel of the bridge could be seen 100 m (330 feet) downstream, BRO’s Project Arunank Chief Engineer Brig Anirudh S Kanwar said.
China Sees Record Rains, Heat as Weather Turns Volatile – From the snowcapped peaks of Tibet to the tropical island of Hainan, China is sweltering under the worst heatwave in decades while rainfall hit records in June. Extreme heat is also battering Japan, and volatile weather is causing trouble for other parts of the world in what scientists say has all the hallmarks of climate change, with even more warming expected this century. The northeastern provinces of Shandong, Jilin, and Liaoning saw precipitation rise to the highest levels ever recorded in June, while the national average of 112.1 millimeters (4.4 inches) was 9.1 percent higher than the same month last year, the China Meteorological Administration said in a report Tuesday. The average temperature across the nation also hit 21.3 degrees Celsius (70.34 Fahrenheit) in June, up 0.9 C (1.8 F) from the same period month last year and the highest since 1961. No relief is in sight, with higher than usual temperatures and precipitation forecast in much of the country throughout July, the administration said. In the northern province of Henan, Xuchang hit 42.1 C (107.8 F) and Dengfeng 41.6 C (106.9 F) on June 24 for their hottest days on record, according to global extreme weather tracker Maximiliano Herrera. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. China has also seen seasonal flooding in several parts of the country, causing misery for hundreds of thousands, particularly in the hard-hit south that receives the bulk of rainfall as well as typhoons that sweep in from the South China Sea. China is not alone in experiencing higher temperatures and more volatile weather. In Japan, authorities warned of greater than usual stress on the power grid and urged citizens to conserve energy. Japanese officials announced the earliest end to the annual summer rainy season since the national meteorological agency began keeping records in 1951. The rains usually temper summer heat, often well into July. On Friday, the cities of Tokamachi and Tsunan set all-time heat records while several others broke monthly marks. Large parts of the Northern Hemisphere have seen extreme heat this summer, with regions from the normally chilly Russian Arctic to the traditionally sweltering American South recording unusually high temperatures and humidity. In the United States, the National Weather Service has held 30 million Americans under some kind of heat advisory amid record-setting temperatures. The suffering and danger to health is most intense among those without air conditioning or who work outdoors, further reinforcing the economic disparities in dealing with extreme weather trends.
Tropical Storm “Aere” makes landfall over Kyushu, bringing record-breaking rainfall, Japan - (video) Tropical Storm “Aere” formed on July 2, 2022, as the 4th named storm of the 2022 Pacific typhoon season. The storm made its first landfall in Okinawa, Japan on the same day and reached Kyushu on July 4, making landfall near Sasebo, Nagasaki, shortly before 21:00 UTC (06:00 LT, July 5). Aere continued moving slowly eastward toward the western and central parts of Japa, bringing torrential rainfall and causing floods and landslides. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the storm brought record-breaking rainfall in areas of Kyushu, with Unzen, Nagasaki Prefecture, Arao, Kumamoto Prefecture, and Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, receiving an estimated 120+ mm (4.7 inches) in an hour.1 tropical storm aere 2220z july 4 2022 jma himawari-8 Tropical Storm “Aere” at 22:20 UTC on July 4, 2022. Credit: JMA/Himawari-8, Zoom Earth, The Watchers JMA officials said more than 20 houses were flooded and a major road was closed due to landslides in the western part of Kochi Prefecture. Elsewhere in Kochi, 85 mm (3.3 inches) of rain was recorded in an hour in Susaki and 79.5 mm (3.1 inches) in the town of Shimanto. In 24 hours to 12:00 LT on July 6, up to 200 mm (7.8 inches) of rain are expected in Shikoku and Tokai regions. At 12:00 UTC on July 5, Aere was a tropical depression located just west of Kaiyo, Tokushima. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 km/h (29 mph) and was moving E at 20 km/h (12 mph), according to the JTWC. If the vortex survives, the remnants of Aere will continue moving eastward along the northern periphery of the steering subtropical ridge, crossing the remainder of Shikoku and the southern point of Honshu before exiting back into the Pacific Ocean.2 By 03:00 UTC on July 7, the cyclone will slow down and become quasi-stationary as a secondary subtropical ridge, building to the north, assumes steering and, after 15:00 UTC on July 8, drive the cyclone NNE. Favorable diffluence aloft and baroclinic interaction will promote intensification to a peak of 75 km/h (45 mph) from July 6 to 7 as the system gradually transforms into a subtropical low.
Massive floods in South Asia kill hundreds, displace millions - Heavy monsoon rains across South Asia since March, mainly affecting India and Bangladesh, have caused floods and landslides with hundreds dead and missing, and millions displaced. Flood survivors face immense hardships because of government failures to take adequate emergency and relief measures.In India, over 600 have died and more than five million have been affected. The northeastern states of Assam and Meghalaya have been hardest hit—at least 200 have died with over 4 million impacted. The Indian National Emergency Response Centre reported 168 deaths in Himachal Pradesh, 60 in Maharashtra, 46 in Bihar, 46 in Madhya Pradesh, 36 in Gujarat and 36 in Meghalaya with 56 missing.In Bangladesh, at least 17 of the country’s 64 districts, mostly in the north and the northeastern Sylhet region, have been hit. More than 100 people have been killed with over 7 million flood affected. The New Age reported on July 3: “The inhabitants in shoals of northern regions are, however, bearing the worst brunt, with many living in submerged houses or on embankments for about a month.” Floods and hundreds of landslides have damaged river embankments, roads, houses and crops, with devastating consequences for livestock, domestic animals and poultry. Survivors are sheltering in makeshift camps without adequate drinking water and food—also they are contracting water-borne diseases. The floods are compounding the social crisis caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to the understated official figures, there have been over 525,000 deaths and 43 million cases in India, with 30,000 deaths and nearly two million cases in Bangladesh. The northeastern Sylhet region in Bangladesh has been severely affected. “Dozens of people have died, many of them young children, in the worst floods northeast Bangladesh has seen in more than a century. More than four million people have been left stranded,” the BBC reported late last month. Khudeza Begum, 50, a mother of seven, who lost her husband to cancer, was living in Companiganj district when the waters started to rise. She told the BBC that her family had to leave their home when the water level rose to her chest. They tried to escape by boat with her family. “As we were traveling, it capsized,” Begum said. “My children and I survived by swimming and holding onto a tree… I couldn’t save my rice or my duck, chicken, cow or goat. They were all drowned. I have to say, I have nothing left except my life.”
Major floods hit New South Wales, more than 30 000 people under evacuation orders in Sydney, Australia - (video) Heavy rains hit parts of eastern Australia over the weekend, forcing the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to issue Severe Weather Warnings for Sydney metropolitan, Illawarra and Central Tablelands districts. 1 fatality A coastal trough developed and deepened along the coast of central New South Wales on July 1, bringing widespread heavy rain to the region. River levels started rising on July 2, forcing BOM to issue multiple flood warnings for parts of NSW, including major flood warnings for the Hawkesbury, Nepean, and Colo rivers. “River levels in some parts of these catchments have already reached levels recorded earlier this year,” BOM meteorologists said on July 3, adding that some are likely to exceed the flood levels reached in the three major flood events since March 2021. An East Coast Low developed in the coastal trough on July 3, leading to further intensification of rain, wind and hazardous seas. BOM predicted water levels in the areas of North Richmond and Windsor northwest of Sydney would peak at higher levels than in the past three major flood events since March 2021. Longer-range forecasts indicate the heavy rain over eastern New South Wales (NSW) could continue into the second week of July. The East Coast Low is expected to weaken on Monday, July 4, along with easing rainfall, but the risk of major flooding will remain across parts of New South Wales. Major flooding is occurring along the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers at Menangle, Wallacia and North Richmond with major flooding expected at Windsor and Lower Portland this afternoon (LT) and Wiseman Ferry on Tuesday, July 5.1 With significant rainfall totals over many catchments in the past three days, some areas are expected to approach or exceed flood levels of recent events in March 2021, March 2022 and April 2022, BOM said. Severe weather warnings for damaging winds and hazardous surf are current for New South Wales and there remains the risk of flash flooding and landslips. The heavy rains caused Sydney’s main dam to spill early Sunday morning (LT), water authorities said, adding that modeling showed the spill would be comparable to a major spill in March 2021 at the Warragamba Dam.2 “If you were safe in 2021, do not assume you will be safe tonight. This is a rapidly evolving situation and we could very well see areas impacted that have never experienced flooding before,” New South Wales emergency services minister Steph Cooke said in a televised media briefing on Sunday evening. Floods submerged homes, farms and bridges in several west Sydney suburbs, after more than 200 mm (7.8 inches) have fallen over many areas, with some hit by more than 350 mm (13.7 inches) since July 2. Since Sunday, about 30 000 residents in New South Wales state have been told to either evacuate or warned they might receive evacuation orders.
Severe floods force more than 50 000 to evacuate, inundate several food-producing regions, Australia (videos) Heavy rains continued falling over Australia’s east coast on July 5, 2022, forcing more than 50 000 people to evacuate their homes, up from 30 000 on July 4. While some parts of the region saw a year’s worth of rain within just 3 days, this heavy rainfall event is still not over. Several major flood warnings remain in effect today for parts of New South Wales including the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment. Major flooding is expected today and tomorrow, July 6 at Wollombi Brook, Macquarie River and Tuggerah Lake, forecasters at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said.1 Minor to moderate flooding is also occurring along the Paterson, Cooks, Georges, Woronora, Macquarie and Shoalhaven rivers and the St Georges Basin. Moderate to heavy rainfall continued overnight in Sydney, Central Coast and the Hunter and is easing today, with the coastal trough moving north bringing rain to the Mid North Coast on Wednesday. The risk of flash-flooding and landslips, in addition to the ongoing risk of riverine flooding, continues for many parts of New South Wales. Some regions have already received 800 mm (31.5 inches) of rain since Saturday, July 2, which is more than Australia’s annual average rainfall of around 500 mm (20 inches). “This event is far from over,” New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet told reporters today. “Wherever you are, please be careful when you’re driving on our roads. There are still substantial risks for flash flooding.” Emergency crews are still being called to rescue residents as power blackouts hit thousands of homes. The federal government has declared the floods a natural disaster, helping flood-hit residents receive emergency funding support.2 Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned the economic impact from the floods “will be substantial”. Floods have likely inundated several food-producing regions and that would hit supplies and lift prices, further straining family budgets already reeling under soaring prices of vegetables and fruits, Chalmers said. “There’s no use tiptoeing around that … that inflation problem that we have in our economy will get worse before it gets better. It’s got a lot of sources, but this (flood) will be one of them,”
Australia flood, boosted by climate change, making history in Sydney - A potent weather system near Australia’s east coast has unloaded tremendous rainfall in the state of New South Wales for days, putting Sydney on track for its wettest year on record.The torrents have spurred widespread flooding in eastern parts of New South Wales, for the fourth time in less than 18 months. The flooding has triggered more than 100 evacuation orders.“The impacts are extensive, especially damage to properties, the environment, livelihoods, and the toll on human wellbeing would probably the longest to recover from,” said Agus Santoso, a senior scientist at the Climate Change Research Center at University of New South Wales, in an email. He added he was most surprised “that records continued to be broken since last year.” Since Friday, Sydney has observed 8.6 inches (220 mm) of rain, while surrounding areas have seen far more — some approaching 28 inches (700 mm) — which is around the amount London sees in an entire year.Sydney amassed the same amount of rain over four days that it typically sees in a month and a half, according to WeatherZone, an Australian weather information company.The city has registered about 70 inches (1,769 mm) of rain this year, leaping 7.5 inches past 1890, its next-wettest year through July 4. And, with nearly five months of the year still to go, it has already clinched at least its 11th-wettest year on record.Scientists attributed the excessive rainfall to a combination of factors:
- The presence of several natural climate drivers: La Niña conditions, a periodic cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, are linked to increased precipitation in eastern Australia. Aperiodic cooling of the western Indian Ocean, connected to La Niña, is associated with increased precipitation in southern Australia. A positive Southern Annular Mode causes easterly winds to bring moist air from the Tasman Sea toward eastern Australia, which falls as rain.
- Human-caused climate change, which is warming the atmosphere and oceans and intensifying precipitation events globally.
The Australia Bureau of Meteorology also noted that warm ocean waters helped intensify rainfall. “During this recent rainfall event, very warm waters off the Australian coast (21-23°C) provided extra energy and moisture contributing to the deep trough and east coast low, leading to the relative concentration of the heavy rainfall to one 24-hour period,” it wrote.
Derecho hits the Northern Plains and Midwest, turning the sky green and leaving extensive damage, U.S. - (videos) A cluster of powerful thunderstorms swept through the Northern Plains and Midwest, U.S. on July 5, 2022, bringing destructive winds and flooding rain from South Dakota to northern Iowa. The storm left more than 30 000 customers without power, extensive damage and at least 4 people injured. The NWS Storm Prediction Center (SPC) received 255 reports of damaging winds and hail, most of which came from the derecho in South Dakota and Iowa.1 The strongest winds were registered in Howard, South Dakota at 159 km/h (99 mph), followed by Huron, South Dakota at 154 km/h (96 mph). According to a South Dakota Department of Transportation roadway weather information sensor, wind gusts of 112 km/h (70 mph) or higher were sustained for roughly 20 to 30 minutes. The storm moved into the Sioux Falls, South Dakota area between 15:00 and 15:30 LT, bringing black, blue, grey and even murky green skies and dumping a swath of rain from Huron to Iowa, with anywhere from 75 – 125 mm (3 to 5 inches) throughout, according to Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network.2 Strong winds flattened many cornfields around Crooks, South Dakota, according to VH Storm Chasers. While the full extent of the damage is still unknown, this is probably the case in many areas across the region. The storm also produced damaging hail across Northern Plains, with grapefruit-sized stones reported in Timber Lake and Promise, South Dakota and Agate, Nebraska. At least 4 people have been injured.
Yellowstone flood repairs could take 5 years to complete - While Yellowstone National Park has reopened 93 percent of its roads, repairing the damage from last month’s historic floods could take from three to five years to complete, Superintendent Cam Sholly said today.Sholly offered his assessment to local reporters during a news conference at the Old Faithful Inn with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who visited the park for the first time since record-breaking floods hit the park in mid-June.After the park’s north loop reopened last Saturday, Sholly said it is “nothing short of miraculous” that so much access has already been restored, according to the Casper Star-Tribune in Wyoming.Sholly also said the park plans to reopen Old Gardiner Road in the north end of the park as a temporary access road by winter, according to KBZK TV in Bozeman, another news outlet that covered the event. The station tweeted photos of Sholly and Haaland addressing reporters.Sholly could not be reached for comment.The Interior Department said on Wednesday that Haaland, who also visited the park last year, wanted to go to Yellowstone to tour the damage and highlight the “swift work” that was done to reopen the park after the flooding (E&E News PM, July 6.)Yellowstone welcomed back visitors to the park’s south loop on June 22, while the park’s north loop reopened on July 2 (Greenwire, June 21).Haaland next plans to go to Oklahoma, where she is expected to meet with Native American survivors from Interior Department-run boarding schools tomorrow (Greenwire, May 11) “It is important to me that we help survivors and their descendants to be in community with one another and to ensure that their stories are never forgotten,” she said on Twitter.
Heat Dome Roasting Millions Across Central US - A dangerous heat wave continues to linger over the central and southern Plains to the Southeast. "There is a strong heat dome, and underneath that, we have had much above-normal to near-record temperatures. "The pattern has been pretty stagnant and consistent for the last several weeks," Zack Taylor, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center, told Bloomberg. Widespread excessive heat warnings and heat advisories stretch across Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, and all the way to the Carolinas for Thursday. Taylor said two low-pressure systems, one in the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast, have trapped heat in the central US for the last several weeks. On Thursday, metro areas in the central and southern Plains could break daily temperature records. Memphis is expected to break a 147-year record of 102 degrees Ferhinheigth set in 1875. Dangerous heat will continue across the Mid-South this week. The entire Mid-South is in an Excessive Heat Warning through at least Thursday evening for heat index values at or above 110 degrees. pic.twitter.com/rgxd6ian4x— NWS Memphis (@NWSMemphis) July 6, 2022 Relief might not come until late next week as the heat dome trapped over the central US continues to bake millions of people.
New California wildfire strands Fourth of July revelers - (AP) — Firefighters in Northern California are battling a fresh wildfire that broke out Monday east of Sacramento at a recreation area packed with Fourth of July revelers and forced a number of evacuations.According to Cal Fire the fire burning in Amador county had quickly spread to 959 acres as of just after 7 p.m. Monday.The fire agency had said just hours earlier on Twitter that the fire was 75 acres in size and “burning at a dangerous rate of spread in dry grass.”The Amador County Sheriff’s Office said as many as 100 people celebrating the holiday at a beach along a river in the area had to be evacuated to a nearby power facility.
Alaska On Fire: Stunning Satellite Imagery Shows Blackening Skies Over State - Alaska's fire season is off to a fiery start, possibly a historic one as more than 2 million acres burned, the earliest date for this milestone in decades. As of Wednesday, more than 200 wildfires rage across the state, with worsening air quality over the central and eastern interior and the western Yukon Territory, Alaska Wildland Fire Information noted on their website. Fairbanks Airport now approaching 300 hours with visibility reducing #wildfire smoke, all since June 12. This is already the fifth highest total past 71 years and we've got a long way to go. pic.twitter.com/DPAYvM3JvM New satellite imagery (via Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite) shows smoke and hundreds of wildfires blackening skies over the state. The Alaska Interagency Coordination Center reported 210 active fires, and 42 were large, with firefighters working to control the blazes. "Wildfires are a regular feature of Alaskan summers, but this year's fires have been exacerbated by drought, unusual heat, and several intense lightning storms. In early July, the area burned was on track to be among the largest on record," according to University of Alaska Fairbanks climatologist Rick Thoman, who NASA cited.
At least seven Alpine climbers killed and many injured by a glacial avalanche, the result of rapid melting due to global warming - The increasingly devastating effects of capitalist-created climate change, driven by rapidly accelerating global warming, are being manifested around the world in both geographically widespread and highly localized ways. Among these is the impact on glaciers, which are melting at an alarming rate. This was dramatically illustrated by the deaths Sunday of at least seven climbers, with 14 still missing, and the injury of eight others in the Italian Dolomites, a section of the Alps in northeastern Italy. A glacier on Marmolada mountain, the highest in the Dolomites, suddenly underwent a major collapse, also known as calving, in which a large section of ice suddenly breaks off from the main body, sending huge quantities of ice, water and rocks descending in the direction of the climbers at approximately 300 kilometers (186 miles) per hour. The avalanche traveled so quickly that survivors said they had no time to get out of the way. Rescue efforts, using helicopters, sniffer dogs and heat-sensing equipment, have been mounted, but are hampered by fears of continuing instability in the glacier. Remaining bodies are likely to be trapped under a layer of ice and rock. So far, the searchers have recovered only body parts, hiking equipment and clothing on the surface, indicating the ferocity of the avalanche’s impact. Italy and much of Europe has experienced an unusually warm spring season. On the glacier itself, a record-high temperature of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) had been recorded at its 3,300-meter (11,000-foot) peak the day before the incident. Meltwater that had accumulated behind a mass of ice reached a critical point, forcing the collapse, according to glaciologist Renato Colucci. Incidents such as this, relatively rare in the past, are likely to become more frequent due to the impact of the warming climate. The Marmolada glacier had already lost 30 percent of its volume and 22 percent of its area between 2004 and 2015. At this rate, it is projected to totally disappear within the next 25 to 30 years. Glaciers are melting not only in the Alps, but around the world, as reported by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For example, European Space Agency satellite images show that the San Rafael glacier in the Northern Patagonia region of Chile, part of an ice field that covers 3,500 square kilometers (1,350 square miles), is receding at the astonishing rate of 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles) per year. Currently, Patagonian glaciers are retreating at the fastest rate in the world. But glacial melting is accelerating in all parts of the planet. Temperature records are being met or exceeded from Europe to Asia. In Italy, the previous maximum June temperature record in Rome was exceeded when the thermometer reached 40.8 degrees Celsius (105.4 degrees F). Florence and Naples also set new monthly records. At the same time, Italy is also experiencing a severe drought and saw unusually sparse snowfall during the past winter. Ultra-hot air from Africa is being pulled all the way to the Arctic. The city of Inuvik in the far north Arctic region of Canada’s Northwest Territories recorded an all-time record high of 31.8 degrees Celsisus (87.8 degrees F) on Monday. Extreme temperatures are also being recorded in the US Southwest. These unusually high temperatures are occurring earlier in the year than has been typical.
Asteroid 2022 NE to fly past Earth at 0.3 LD -- A newly-discovered asteroid designated 2022 NE will fly past Earth at a distance of 0.3 LD / 0.00091 AU (135 958 km / 84 480 miles) at 10:55 UTC on July 6, 2022. This is the 64th known asteroid to fly past Earth within 1 lunar distance since the start of the year and the second so far this month. 2022 NE was first observed at Pan-STARRS 2, Haleakala, Hawaii on July 4, two days before its close approach. The object belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids and has an estimated diameter between 4.8 and 11 m (15 – 36 feet). The flyby will be followed by another close approach at 13:00 UTC on July 7 when asteroid 2022 NF zips past us at a distance of 0.2 LD / 0.00060 AU (89 328 km / 55 506 miles).
Proposed CO2 pipeline would go through Linn, Johnson, Cedar, Clinton and Scott counties -Wolf Carbon Solutions is seeking public hearings in September for a proposed CO2 pipeline from ADM ethanol plants through Linn, Johnson, Cedar, Clinton and Scott counties to a storage site in southern Illinois. This is the proposed map filed last week with the Iowa Utilities Board. Residents of Linn, Johnson, Cedar, Clinton and Scott counties will have a chance in September to share their thoughts about another proposed CO2 pipeline — this one connecting ADM ethanol plants. ADM and Wolf Carbon Solutions announced in January the signing of a letter of intent to build a 350-mile pipeline to transport liquefied CO2 from ADM’s ethanol and cogeneration facilities in Cedar Rapids and Clinton to ADM’s already operational sequestration site in Decatur, Ill. Wolf filed its first documents with the Iowa Utilities Board on June 27, submitting a letter asking for six information meetings and providing a map of the proposed route, which starts in Cedar Rapids and goes southeast through Cedar and Scott counties. A north-south branch extends from Clinton to the main line, according to the map. The primary proposed route would just barely enter Johnson County on the north. This is the third CO2 pipeline proposed for Iowa. Navigator, a Texas company, wants to build a 1,300-mile pipeline that would pass through 35 Iowa counties, including Bremer, Fayette, Buchanan and Delaware, capturing carbon dioxide at ethanol and fertilizer plants. The gas would be put under pressure, turned into liquid and piped to a site in south-central Illinois — near the ADM site. Navigator initially planned for its pipeline to go through Linn County, but once ADM decided to go with Wolf, Navigator dropped this part of the route. Summit Carbon Solutions is planning a 2,000-mile C02 pipeline through Iowa to North Dakota. The company announced in December it has started drilling test wells in three places in the Williston Basin in North Dakota. Wolf, based in Alberta, Canada, said in January its project would be capable of transporting 12 million tons of CO2 per year, which includes CO2 from the ADM plants as well as “spare capacity to serve other third-party customers looking to decarbonize across the Midwest and Ohio River Valley.”
Lee County landowners speak out against proposed CO2 pipeline - Landowners in southeast Iowa are speaking out against a proposed underground pipeline that would carry liquified carbon dioxide through Lee County. “We’re all trying to keep our emotions intact, as I am, but it's a living nightmare, to sum it up,” said Jeff Weisinger, who owns 300 acres north of Fort Madison along the proposed pipeline’s path. During an informational meeting in West Point hosted by the Lee County Board of Supervisors, Weisinger and other landowners said they are not interested in selling any of their property for the project and they do not want to lose it by force through eminent domain. Weisinger said he and fellow landowners believe the company behind the project, Texas-based Navigator CO2 Ventures, will do what it takes to acquire the land to build the pipeline. “This is for profit,” Weisinger said. “This is for shareholders to profit from, and I guess I need to ask for an extra $1 million, to be sarcastic about it.” The Heartland Greenway pipeline would run through three counties in southeast Iowa: Lee, Des Moines, and Van Buren. It would also go through some counties in western Illinois, including McDonough, Knox, and Schuyler. Chris Brown, vice president of capital projects for Navigator CO2 Ventures, said they don’t want to forcibly take property. He said property owners will be able to negotiate with them. “Our preference is to engage in collaborative one-on-one discussions with each and every landowner,” Brown said. “That process will start in the middle of July. We have worked up what we consider to be extremely fair and advantageous offers.” Brown said the proposed pipeline will be buried five feet underground and will meet and exceed government safety regulations. He said the liquified product that would move through the pipeline is not combustible and would be analyzed for safety along the pipeline. Brown also said that many landowners he has met with and spoken to are misinformed about the pipeline and its potential impact on their properties. “I understand that they're concerned and that's why we're here,” Brown said. “We're here to be open and answer those questions. They may elect not to want to accept the answers or to challenge answers, and that's fair. And we'll continue to come out here and will continue to engage directly with the Emergency Management Services and make ourselves available for public to have these discussions, and we commit to that.”
The bitter fight to stop a 2,000-mile carbon pipeline - In August 2021, Sherri Webb found a letter in her mailbox about a new pipeline project. It would be a climate solution, the letter from Summit Carbon Solutions read, capturing planet-warming carbon dioxide and pumping it out of the state to be stored deep underground. The letter included an aerial map of Webb’s property and a word that immediately alarmed her: “easement”. To install the pipeline, planned to run underneath close to 2,000 miles of Iowa land, Summit wanted permission to dig underneath her farm, an 80-acre property near Shelby that has been in Webb’s family for over 100 years. “Anytime somebody is threatening your land, the feathers just kind of go up in the back of your neck,” she says. There are three CO2 pipeline projects in early stages of planning in Iowa. The companies behind them – Summit, Navigator and a partnership of Wolf Carbon Solutions and Archer Daniel Midlands – have been contacting landowners in hopes of getting them to grant easements. But hundreds of people say they won’t sign. Not only that, they don’t want to see these projects go forward at all. Webb and other landowners from different Iowa counties, some who farm and some who rent to other farmers, have joined forces in an unusual alliance with Indigenous groups and environmental organizations, to fight against the pipelines. Iowa residents have been here before with the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), a $3.8bn pipeline project completed in 2017. But where that pipeline was built to transport crude oil pumped from shale oil fields in north-west North Dakota through Iowa to Illinois, this new project is being proposed in the name of climate action. Carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) works by capturing carbon dioxide emissions at their source to prevent their release into the atmosphere, then injecting the CO2 into rocks deep underground. It has become a much-hyped answer to the need to rapidly reduce global carbon emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest working group report identifies seven pathways for limiting global warming – all but one include CCS. The Biden administration has pledged $2.3bn in funding to enhance capacity for existing US-based projects, each of which would be able to store at least 50m metric tons of captured CO2. But critics are concerned that CCS is being treated as an easy fix for the climate crisis, especially by polluters who may rely on the technology to avoid strict emissions reductions. In some instances, captured carbon is used for enhanced oil recovery – a technique that uses liquefied CO2 to flush out residual oil – which serves to entrench fossil fuel production rather than replace it.
Supreme Court ruling opens door to carbon capture - The Supreme Court’s recent climate ruling means carbon capture will likely form the backbone of any new EPA regulations targeting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, energy experts and legal analysts said.It’s an approach that could prove awkward for both the coal industry and the Biden administration.Environmentalists long have been skeptical of carbon capture and storage over concerns about its costs and environmental impact.They point to a series of failed and expensive CCS projects as a sign of the risks that could prevent the technology from delivering deep emission reductions. Many would capture carbon dioxide from power plants and pump it into aging oil fields to stimulate more crude production.Yet the technology is one of the few that has the potential to survive Supreme Court scrutiny.Coal companies and mining states long have pushed CCS as a way to keep coal in the fuel mix — and they’ve secured bipartisan support in Congress for carbon capture research and tax credits. But adding carbon capture and storage to existing coal plants is an expensive proposition, and making the technology the industry standard likely would prompt many plants to close altogether.“If EPA promulgates a new rule that has CCS as the best system of emission reduction, it is a near certainty that we will see that,” said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. “They want it to stay alive, but they don’t want it to serve as the basis of a standard that they actually have to meet.”EPA’s likely focus on CCS is a byproduct of the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia vs. EPA last week (see related story).In handing down a 6-3 decision, the high court ruled EPA could not employ strategies like the Clean Power Plan, an Obama administration proposal which sought to use emission trading and generation shifting to slash CO2 from existing power plants (Climatewire, July 1).Instead, the court found that the agency should rely on its traditional approach of regulating pollution at the source. In practical terms, that has meant bolting pollution control equipment onto power plants to lower emissions.The challenge is that there are relatively few avenues for reducing CO2 at coal and gas plants.
Big Oil CEO Believes Carbon Prices Need To Double -Climate economists and major energy firms believe that the price of carbon should be raised to incentivize greater investment in carbon capture technology and renewable energy innovation. As, without setting a minimum carbon pricing scheme at the international level or introducing carbon taxes, companies are not being incentivized enough to pledge or meet net-zero carbon goals by 2050. The CEO of Exxon Mobil, Darren Woods, stated in an interview that he thinks direct air capture, through the incorporation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies in oil and gas operations is “the holy grail.” He added, “if you can overcome some of those technology hurdles, get your cost down, you’ve got a technology then that can address this in a very cost-efficient way.” Exxon estimates the CCS market could be worth as much as $4 trillion by 2050. At present, the price of captured and stored carbon currently stands at $50 per tonne, but Woods believes this figure should be at least $100 per tonne. He believes an increase in the price of carbon would help to incentivize clean energy innovations, encouraging companies to invest more heavily in CCS technologies.Similarly, the OECD and other international organizations have been urging governments to increase the cost of carbon for several years. A carbon tax could drive companies to reduce their carbon emissions through investment in CCS technologies and renewable energy operations.
How the high court ruling changes EPA and clean electricity - - The Supreme Court ruling on EPA’s power to regulate power plant greenhouse gas emissions hamstrings the Biden administration’s efforts to pursue ambitious climate rules that could have accelerated the power sector’s ongoing transition to renewable energy.The landmark 6-3 opinion in West Virginia v. EPA by Chief Justice John Roberts affirmed that while EPA has power under the Clean Air Act to address climate warming pollutants, the law does not give the agency the authority to craft a regulation based on power plants shifting their energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables as it did in the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (Greenwire, June 30).The ruling, which confirmed EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants but rejected the approach of 2015 rule that never went into effect, may have little practical impact on the power sector in the short-term, legal experts and clean energy advocates said. However, the decision is still not good news for those looking for EPA to push stricter controls on heat-trapping emissions from the power sector as quickly as possible, they said.The utility sector will still continue shifting to more renewable energy as it has done in the absence of EPA regulation of power plant greenhouse gas emissions up to this point following yesterday’s ruling, said Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE).The court affirmed that there were problems with the Clean Power Plan, but that rule is long gone, said Wetstone. The Clean Power Plan has been “far surpassed by the marketplace,” he said.EPA’s targets under the 2015 rule to slash power plant emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 had already been achieved by the time the Trump administration finalized its replacement rule in 2019.“What this decision does do is make it harder for EPA to augment the really economic-based transition that is ongoing at a rapid pace, with the regulatory program that we know we will ultimately need in the long-term to meet our climate objectives,” Wetstone said.
Energy & Environment — What can the EPA still do on power plants? -Today we’re looking at some of the tools the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still has left at its disposal after last week’s Supreme Court ruling and at a separate court move to restore endangered species protections. A Thursday ruling by the Supreme Court significantly curtailed the EPA’s power to restrict emissions from power plants under a 2015 rule, but the agency still retains other tools to curb emissions.
- In the 6-3 ruling in West Virginia v. 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 the alternative regulatory methods are less efficient and more expensive in a political and regulatory environment where every second counts.
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,” said Cardozo School of Law professor Michael Herz. One alternative to generation-shifting, the approach disallowed by the Supreme Court, is co-firing, or the combustion of two kinds of fuel at the same time, which can create a more environmentally friendly product at an existing plant. “Depending on the level of co-firing that you assume, you could still get quite significant emissions reductions through that approach,” Lienke said. He cited 2021 modeling by Resources for the Future, which indicates the co-firing approach could be an effective means of emissions reduction, but “almost certainly not as cost-effective as generation shift,” he added.
- Another possible approach is carbon capture and sequestration, through which carbon emissions are stored and contained before they can enter the atmosphere.
- However, the safest way to shore up EPA authority would be “legislation, appropriate, adequate, serious legislation,” Herz told The Hill.
Environmental groups slam Supreme Court climate ruling; utilities still plan to phase out coal -Environmental advocates slammed Thursday’s Supreme Court decisionstripping the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate heat-trapping gasses emitted from power plants, while Wisconsin’s business lobby hailed it as a win.Local leaders vowed to redouble efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, while the state’s largest utility company says it still plans to stop burning coal by 2035. Here’s a selection of reactions from Wisconsin organizations:
- “The Court chose to side with the narrow, self-serving interests of the dying coal industry rather than allow states to use a variety of smart, economical tools to reduce power plant pollution.” — Katie Nekola, general counsel for Clean Wisconsin
- “States, as well as Congress, will need to step up and act more strongly to protect our environment and public health while the Supreme Court installs roadblocks to federal agency actions.” — Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center
- “Our most vulnerable populations will suffer the most from the ongoing climate crisis. ... This is not just a matter of climate—this is a matter of justice.” — John Greenler, executive director of 350 Wisconsin
- “We have already announced plans to exit coal by 2035 and we do not expect today’s ruling to change that.” — Brendan Conway, spokesperson for WEC Energy Group, Wisconsin’s largest utility company
- “Alliant Energy is focused on executing a long-term strategy to deliver reliable and affordable energy with lower carbon dioxide emissions, independent of changing policies and political landscape. We remain committed to these plans.” — Tony Palese, spokesperson for Alliant Energy
- “Today’s ruling is a major win for the rule of law, and it ensures that decisions with massive impact on the economy can only be made by officials who answer directly to the voters and not unelected bureaucrats. Environmental regulations must not only be based in science, but also balance the economic impact they will have.” — Scott Manley, executive vice president ofWisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce
Hope dims that U.S. can meet 2030 climate goals - Nearly everything needs to go right for America to reach the climate targets set by President Joe Biden. So far, very little has. The Supreme Court has limited EPA’s authority to craft greenhouse gas regulations for power plants. A major legislative push ended in failure after running into opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia. And the political landscape has been dramatically altered by a runup in energy prices, with gasoline prices briefly averaging $5 per gallon last month. The combination makes it increasingly difficult for the United States to meet the emission targets Biden set to comply with the Paris climate accord. America’s NDC, or nationally determined contribution as the targets are officially known, is a 50-52 percent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. “It is clear the NDC is not going to be achieved,” said Robert Stavins, a professor of energy and economic development at Harvard University. “The question is how far off is the administration going to be from what it committed to.” Not every analyst is so pessimistic. Some note that legislative and regulatory avenues for achieving deep carbon reductions remain open. But nearly all agree the window for the Biden administration to act is rapidly closing. In a recent analysis tracking America’s progress, the Rhodium Group concluded U.S. emissions would fall 17 percent to 25 percent by 2030 in a current policy scenario. That leaves the country 1.7 billion metric tons to 2.3 billion metric tons short of meeting Biden’s goal. “The next year or so is going to matter a lot for whether the U.S. 2030 target is going to remain in reach,” said John Larsen, a Rhodium partner. “Things have not gone as good as they could have to date. You have to make up time and make up the pace.” Reaching the president’s goal would require a combination of new federal regulations and infrastructure investments to clean up power plants, factories, homes and vehicles. That was always going to be difficult in a narrowly divided Senate where Manchin is often the deciding vote. Biden has eked out a few wins. An infrastructure bill passed last year contained funding to keep nuclear plants online; make grid upgrades; and research emerging technologies such as direct air capture, advanced nuclear reactors and hydrogen. The president also has advanced permits for a series of offshore wind projects along the East Coast, which are viewed as essential to cleaning up the region’s power grid. And he reinstated tougher tailpipe standards for light-duty vehicles that had been rolled back under former President Trump. But it likely will take years before those moves begin to pay climate dividends. The first offshore wind project, a small 11-turbine development supplying New York, is not slated to begin generating electricity until late next year. Many analysts don’t expect technologies such as direct air capture or hydrogen to be deployed at scale this decade.
The Supreme Court's EPA decision could have been much worse -On Thursday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited decision on West Virginia v. EPA, the case challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Though the court’s six-member conservative majority moved to limit the EPA’s authority, earning the ire of environmentalists and the Biden administration alike, the court’s ruling did not deal the blow that many climate advocates expected. Ultimately, however, the decision’s use of the controversial “major questions” legal doctrine could have a chilling effect on future regulations. Contrary to early news reports, the decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, does not prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, the ruling is unlikely to change the Biden administration’s approach to regulating emissions at all. In a surprising twist for a court that has seemed intent on overturning settled precedents, the ruling was narrowly framed, focusing on one reading of a single section of the Clean Air Act. To understand West Virginia v. EPA, it helps to turn back the clock. Seven years ago, then-President Barack Obama, facing a Senate that refused to pass his landmark climate bill, unveiled a new plan to cut carbon emissions through the EPA’s executive authority. The resulting regulation became known as the Clean Power Plan, and it would have required American power plants to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. Part of that involved “generation shifting” — ordering some utilities to generate less electricity from dirty sources like coal and more from cleaner natural gas and renewable sources. That last component was the specific regulation disputed in Thursday’s decision. The state of West Virginia, joined by North Dakota and two coal companies, argued that the Clean Air Act, which gives the EPA sweeping authority to regulate pollutants in the atmosphere, doesn’t provide the authority necessary to require utilities to shift from one source of power to another. The EPA countered that it did have generation-shifting authority under Section 111d of the Clean Air Act, which allows the agency to mandate the “best system of emissions reductions” for existing power plants. The best system of emissions reductions, the EPA reasoned, was simply to switch to a power source that doesn’t produce as much carbon pollution. The court ultimately sided with West Virginia. Invoking a newly-in-vogue legal doctrine known as “major questions,” Chief Justice Roberts argued that an agency cannot adopt regulations of great social and economic consequence without the clear and express approval of Congress. “A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself,” Roberts wrote. (In a scathing dissent endorsed by the court’s two other liberal members, Justice Elena Kagan argued that “whatever else this court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change.”)
Gorsuch wanted climate ruling to hobble Congress - The Supreme Court last week prohibited EPA from broadly regulating carbon emissions from the power sector by invoking the regulation-chilling major questions doctrine. But it could have gone bigger.Critics of the ruling in West Virginia v. EPA expressed fears that the justices’ finding could eventually ripple across agencies, with courts punishing them for handing down rules on issues of “vast economic and political significance” — without clear direction from Congress.But the court could have chosen to block U.S. lawmakers from giving that direction at all — an outcome some challengers in the West Virginia case had called for and which Justice Neil Gorsuch endorsed in his concurring opinion.“Permitting Congress to divest its legislative power to the Executive Branch would ‘dash [this] whole scheme,’” Gorsuch wrote. “Legislation would risk becoming nothing more than the will of the current President, or, worse yet, the will of unelected officials barely responsive to him.”In his concurrence, Gorsuch signed on to the majority’s application of the major questions doctrine to strike down EPA’s approach in the 2015 Clean Power Plan to conclude that under Clean Air Act Section 111(d), the “best system of emission reduction” was for power plants to reduce production or shift from coal to renewables (Greenwire, June 30).But Gorsuch, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, took the step of anchoring the major questions doctrine in constitutional necessity and linking it to the nondelegation doctrine, which says Congress cannot hand off legislative duties to federal agencies, said Georgetown University law professor William Buzbee.“The court doesn’t go that far,” Buzbee said. “The nondelegation doctrine as Gorsuch envisions it would go that far.” Gorsuch has advocated in past cases for reviving the long-dormant doctrine, which the Supreme Court last used in the 1930s to strike down a pair of New Deal policies (Greenwire, June 20, 2019).
EPA retains tools to cut power sector GHG emissions despite Supreme Court curbing its authority: attorneys - The Environmental Protection Agency still has pathways for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday that took away one possible avenue, according to legal experts. The court ruled that the EPA cannot set up a program that uses “generation shifting” among a broad fleet of power plants, such as the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. Under the program, states would have had to meet state-wide emissions reduction targets, potentially by replacing coal-fired power plants with lower- or non-emitting generating resources. “The decision bars the expansive approach to carbon regulation adopted by the Clean Power Plan, which required ‘beyond the fence line’ actions for compliance,” Peter Tomasi, of counsel and a business lawyer with Foley & Lardner, said in an email. “As a practical matter, this opinion does not appear likely to substantially alter the current transition from fossil to renewable generation.” It is a narrow opinion focused on generation shifting that doesn't get into “inside or outside the fence line distinctions,” Carrie Jenks, executive director of the Harvard Law School’s Environmental & Energy Law Program, said. The decision comes while the EPA is developing new greenhouse gas emissions standards for existing fossil-fueled power plants, with a proposal expected in March. Pointing to language in the Clean Air Act, Tomasi noted the court said “[w]e have no occasion to decide whether the statutory phrase ‘system of emission reduction’ refers exclusively to measures that improve the pollution performance of individual sources.” This appears to allow the EPA to craft a newer rule more narrowly targeted to individual facilities requiring something more than emission controls, Tomasi said. EPA retains options on power plant emissions The EPA retains a broad range of options for reducing carbon emissions from individual power plants, according to Matthew Price, a Jenner & Block partner. “EPA could still adopt technological standards and impose those on fossil fuel plants. The owners of those plants could comply in whatever way they want, whether that's through generation shifting or otherwise, but the standard would be set based on something that the plant could do to reduce its emissions,” Price said. The court decision isn’t a “major blow” to the EPA, according to Price, who noted the Clean Power Plan never took effect. “This just means the EPA needs to approach its goals in a more conventional way, and it still has quite a broad range of options to do that,” Price said.
Court ruling a blow to NJ's clean-energy goals -The Ironbound, a 4-square-mile wedge of Newark, is surrounded by three power plants and the largest sewage treatment facility and garbage incinerator in New Jersey. The cumulative result of so much pollution in such a condensed area has resulted in the Ironbound being one of America’s most recognized “sacrifice zones” — communities, usually low-income and of color, that are near industry that produces toxic emissions. For years, Maria Lopez-Nunez, the deputy director of organizing and advocacy for the Ironbound Community Corporation, has been helping to lead the Ironbound Community Corporation’s fight against these plants in their neighborhood, the state and EPA in the hope of finally improving the dismal quality of the air they breathe. A ruling in favor of West Virginia, which experts were warning was all but certain, would be a blow to environmental justice communities like the Ironbound across the country, Lopez-Nunez said. “I don’t understand what the government’s role is if it can’t even offer the most basic of protections,” she said. “It’s sending a chilling message that the government has no power to help people.” “It’s sad, because it’s almost like even the imagination of justice is being punished here.” “West Virginia v. EPA installs new roadblocks in the already uphill battle to preserve our climate, limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate emissions from power plants,” wrote Emily Sanders of the Center for Climate Integrity, an organization that focuses on greenhouse gas emitters being held accountable for climate change. “It’s an unabashed victory for the fossil fuel industry, which worked for decades to produce this outcome.” In its most basic sense, West Virginia v. EPA has asked the court to determine if the Clean Air Act allowed the EPA to issue broad, proactive regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions across the country’s power sector — or, as the plaintiffs argued, that the agency’s power is limited to more pointed oversight, like plant-by-plant enforcement.
Supreme Court ruling on power plant emissions popular in North Dakota; environmental groups upset - North Dakota's coal industry and Republican leaders are praising a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the authority of the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act. The Lignite Energy Council in a statement said it "applauds the decision by the Supreme Court that puts the power into the hands of elected officials instead of bureaucrats in Washington." The case began with the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, which sought to curb North Dakota's emissions 45% by 2030. The lignite industry feared the regulation would shutter numerous power plants. North Dakota was one of numerous states that sued. Justices in a 6-3 vote Thursday essentially said EPA does not have broad authority to regulate emissions, putting that power in the hands of Congress and the states. Lignite Energy Council President and CEO Jason Bohrer said the trade group opposed the Clean Power Plan "because it was designed to be overly burdensome to states like North Dakota and its power plants. It would have resulted in higher costs, a decrease in grid stability, and the loss of thousands of jobs with no environmental benefit." Attorney General Drew Wrigley in a statement said the Clean Power Plan "unwisely stripped states of their right and authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions," and that Thursday's ruling firmly establishes "the states’ role as an equal partner with the federal government in regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants." "The EPA can't just do whatever it wants and use climate change as an excuse to take the law into its own hands," he said.
Michigan can lower CO2 emissions despite court ruling on federal Clean Power Plan, policy group says -The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the EPA's authority to enforce the federal Clean Power Plan, which aimed to reduce carbon emissions from power plants — but that won't stop Michigan from requiring its utilities to reduce emissions, according to Margrethe Kearney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Michigan's energy law requires regulated utilities to file five-year plans, called Integrated Resource Plans, or IRPs, which detail what resources will be used to meet electricity demand going forward — including how much of those resources will be renewables like wind and solar. Kearney says Consumers Energy's latest IRP settlement with the Michigan Public Service Commission calls for the closure of its remaining coal-burning power plants by 2025. "That settlement was not driven or contingent on the Clean Power Plan at all," she said. "That was about economics, and costs, and what's in the best interest of Michigan customers. And I think it really goes to show that we are moving towards a reduction in carbon emissions from the energy sector, regardless of what the federal government is doing with their planning." Still, Kearney said the federal government does need to be able to control CO2 emissions nationwide, which will require Congress to pass a law giving the EPA explicit authority to regulate carbon emissions. Kearney also has concerns about what the Supreme Court's decision to consider and render an opinion on the case says about its activism. She said the Clean Power Plan was approved during the Obama administration, but it was never enforced — and it is still not being enforced. "This decision definitely supports concerns that the Supreme Court is making political decisions and moving a political agenda — because it wasn't a question that needed to be called," Kearney said. "And the Supreme Court typically tried to only answer questions when they really need to be answered."
'Disastrous' climate ruling won't tank Illinois law- Illinois’ historic clean-energy legislation won’t be hurt by yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that took a buzzsaw to the federal rules tackling climate change, but state leaders are worried nonetheless.Gov. JB Pritzker said the high court has “undermined” the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to reduce the emissions that cause the disastrous effects of climate change.Congressman Brad Schneider said “the clock is ticking on our window to take meaningful climate action.” And Congressman Mike Quigley called it “nothing short of disastrous.”State Rep. Ann Williams, who helped craft Illinois’ clean-energy legislation, calls the court “completely out of touch with the reality of climate science and of reality, period.”The U.S. Supreme Court ruling limits federal regulations on reducing carbon emissions, saying “the EPA cannot take the kind of broad approach that the Obama administration had adopted in regulating greenhouse gases from the nation’s power plants. And it put the onus on Congress to give EPA more authority to fight climate change, if lawmakers wish for the agency to act aggressively,” writes POLITICO’s Alex Guillén.Illinois is safe (at least for now): The EPA does not enforce Illinois state law, so the decision won’t undermine the state’s Clean Energy Jobs Act — the law that puts the state on track to reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.“I expect it will be part of the Republican rhetoric but it’s not going to change policy in Illinois. Our legislation has passed, and we’ve already started the work to implement it,” state Rep. Marcus Evans, who helped carry the legislation through the General Assembly. Clean-energy advocates are concerned, acknowledged Evans, “but if things work the way they should here, I think we can debunk some of the nonsense. We know that clean energy is the future.”
How limiting EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas affects Central Texas — On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissionsfrom power plants that contribute to global warming. This worries environmentalists. A report by Environment Texas finds the state has eight of the nation's power plants producing the most pollution. In the top 10 are three Texas power plants: Martin Lake, Oak Grove, and W.A. Parish rank among the top 10 dirtiest in the nation."Our power plants are the second-largest source of emissions," said Lennis Barlow, clean energy associate with Environment Texas. "With the first largest being transportation."One of the most-polluting plants is Fayette Power Project, a coal-fired power plant located near La Grange, Texas. "It's some wild percentage of Austin's greenhouse gas emissions are just a result of this one power plant that's being run mostly off of coal," added Barlow.Austin Energy owns one-third of this plant, and they've been working to become carbon-free. They hope to reach their goal of being 100% carbon-free by 2035."We're already over 50% [carbon-free] now," said Karl Popham with Austin Energy.They've been switching over to renewable energy. Popham said their goal is to achieve cleaner air. They've had this goal for years, and have looked at several ways to help slash fossil fuels. One of those initiatives includes having 40% of vehicle miles traveled electrified by 2030. "Right now, every month, about 10% of vehicles registered are electric," said Popham. "That's about a thousand new EVs on the road in the Austin area every month."They hope to cut down emissions from the city's vehicle fleet and are also promoting bicycling. Popham said the Supreme Court's decision won't hold them back. "I don't see it slowing us down or slowing down our drive to be as clean and as renewable as quickly as possible," he said.
When SCOTUS meets WOTUS - A famously messy 2006 Supreme Court ruling on the reach of the federal Clean Water Act over wetlands and isolated waterways is headed once again to the high court this fall.At issue: the “significant nexus test” that let federal regulators cast a wide net over wetlands and waterways.Legal experts say the high court’s conservative majority will adopt a more restrictive interpretation of EPA’s Clean Water Act authority in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which curbed the agency’s authority to regulate emissions from the power sector.“This new, superconservative majority is looking for opportunities to strike down federal rules, and particularly environmental rules,” said Pat Parenteau, a professor at Vermont Law School. “This is an activist court looking to strike down rules. That’s the big lesson from West Virginia.”The court will take up a big wetland case, Sacketts v. EPA, in early October. The case is about Chantell and Michael Sackett’s long battle to build a house on their Idaho property without federal permits. How the court decides that case could shape EPA’s authority and ability to regulate isolated wetlands, tributaries and ephemeral streams as “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, under the Clean Water Act (Greenwire, Jan. 24).This is the Sacketts’ second trip to the Supreme Court. In 2012, the justices sided 9-0 with the couple in their battle for judicial review of an EPA order that stopped them from building their house and threatened fines of more than $30,000 a day.The court has agreed to consider whether the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals erred when it affirmed that the federal government has permitting authority over the Sacketts’ property near northern Idaho’s Priest Lake.The justices will revisit the court’s 4-1-4 ruling in Rapanos v. United States, which ultimately failed to reach a clear conclusion on what approach is best to define government jurisdiction (Greenwire, Feb. 7, 2011).In that case, Michigan landowner John Rapanos wanted to develop a property that was designated a federally protected wetland. Because he hadn’t applied for a permit, EPA sought to bring civil and criminal enforcement actions (Greenwire, March 7, 2017).Justice Antonin Scalia, who issued a plurality opinion, found EPA’s authority and the definition of WOTUS should only extend to relatively permanent waters. Scalia famously based his interpretation on a definition of “waters” from Webster’s New International Dictionary: Second Edition. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Scalia died in 2016 (Greenwire, May 15, 2017).Scalia’s view stands in sharp contrast to that of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s stand-alone opinion in Rapanos. Kennedy’s position — long considered the prevailing legal stance on wetland regulation by both circuit courts and the George W. Bush and Obama administrations — held that wetlands and small waterways should be federally protected if they have a “significant nexus” to an actual navigable waterway, meaning there must be a surface, chemical or biological connection.Whichever way the court rules, its decision will arrive before EPA makes a move to finalize its own definition of WOTUS. The agency recently said a proposed rule won’t arrive until next year (Greenwire, June 22).
Despite Supreme Court’s EPA decision, U.S. is turning away from coal - The chief executives of electric utilities, wary of the perils of climate change, are marching away from coal, as well as other fossil fuels. “Over time it’s clear for reasons largely unrelated to regulations that the U.S. power sector is moving away from coal,” That shift in the outlook among top electric utility executives could mute the impact of Thursday’s Supreme Court decision declaring that the Environmental Protection Agency had overstepped the authority Congress gave it to limit carbon dioxide emissions at power plants. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court said it was “highly unlikely” that Congress would leave the amount of coal-based generation to the discretion of the agency. And it said the case fell under a “major questions doctrine” that required “clear congressional authorization.”In the case West Virginia v. EPA, the court sided with more than a dozen state attorneys general and a pair of mining companies that said the now-defunct Clean Power Plan, proposed by President Barack Obama, improperly gave the EPA the ability to regulate electric utility emissions. In the dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the justices’ opinions could endanger not only controls on carbon emissions but also a wide range of regulations throughout the government.But outside the courtroom, reviving the fossil fuel business isn’t going to be simple.“We don’t really see that there would be any immediate impact on our transition plans,” said Vicky Sullivan, director of climate policy at Duke Energy. “We still plan to transition out of coal by 2035 and we don’t see the Supreme Court’s decision having a material impact on that.”Last year, Duke Energy burned coal to supply 22 percent of its power needs, after inching up slightly from 2020 when the pandemic hit. But Duke plans to shrink that share to 5 percent by 2030 and zero by 2035.Nationwide, U.S. coal output tumbled 35 percent from 897 million short tons in 2015 to 578 million short tons in 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration. The Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign claims 357 coal-fired power plants have closed down, with 173 remaining. And the unused Clean Power Plan, which was the center of Thursday’s case, was supposed to shrink coal’s share of U.S. generation to 27 percent by 2030; instead it fell to 21.8 percent by last year, according to the Environmental Integrity Project.
Gas instead of coal? EPA tells TVA to look again - EPA said the Tennessee Valley Authority should reconsider an initial decision to replace its largest coal plant with a natural gas one, arguing that there are cheaper and cleaner options to combat climate change.The nation’s largest public power utility is weighing new generation choices as it prepares to close the massive Cumberland Fossil Plant, which is near the Tennessee-Kentucky border. TVA must follow the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the federal government to analyze environmental impacts of major decisions, particularly with infrastructure.EPA’s statements, filed last week, are the latest in a tug of war between the federal government and TVA over carbon-reduction efforts. They also follow comments by leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which pressed TVA in January to realign its trajectory to match the Biden administration’s goal of a decarbonized U.S. power sector by 2035 (Energywire, Jan. 14.) “The EPA believes it is essential for TVA to improve the proposed action and [environmental impact statement] because of the urgency of the climate crisis,” EPA said in technical comments.The tone and length of EPA’s remarks are unusual in this situation, one environmentalist said.“I think this from the EPA is significant,” Bri Knisley, Tennessee campaign manager for Appalachian Voices, said in an interview.“It’s important for TVA to be in line with the administration’s goals for climate. But also, TVA’s plans aren’t good for local communities, not with this preferred alternative,” she said.
Decade-long fight to stop Illinois’ last new coal mine succeeds — In a momentous victory for Illinois water and community activism, the permit for Sunrise Coal’s proposed Bulldog Mine has expired due to lack of use, effectively killing what would have been Illinois’ last new coal mine. The permit, issued by Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), was granted in April 2019 but required the mine to begin operations in some form, such as a parking lot for example, by April 2022 or expire. Sunrise Coal did not break ground or request an extension, and the land reclamation bond has been returned, signaling a permanent end to the proposed mine. Efforts to stop the Bulldog Mine began more than a decade ago when local and regional community members joined together to form Stand Up To Coal (SUTC), a 100 percent grassroots and volunteer organization. Prairie Rivers Network supported SUTC’s fight to stop the mine from the outset, joining them at public hearings, planning community gatherings, and preparing comments on the potential mine’s impact. The proposed Bulldog Mine near Homer and Sidell could have caused significant environmental harm in the area and negatively impacted nearby communities. The proposed mine endangered private wells and could have contaminated groundwater due to coal slurry impoundments on the site. Subsidence could have altered the flow of water leading to flooding. Local residents would have suffered from airborne coal dust pollution while nearby streams were poisoned by mine discharge. The Salt Fork of the Vermillion River, beloved for its beauty, biological diversity and recreational opportunities, would have received discharges from this mine through its tributary, the Olive Branch. “This victory has taken years of sustained efforts working side-by-side with other organizations and individuals planning, communicating, attending numerous public meetings and hearings, and much more,” said Suzanne Smith of Stand Up To Coal in a news release. “The termination of this permit is everything we’ve been fighting for. Our land, our water and our air are no longer under threat from a future coal mine.”
Geography matters: Hydrogen hub proposals spring up across North America | S&P Global Market Intelligence The U.S. government's multibillion-dollar effort to spur a national hydrogen economy has prompted developers to step forward with at least two dozen public- and private-sector hydrogen hub initiatives to date. Before federal funding was available, Obsidian Renewables LLC had already started planning for its Obsidian Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub anchored by a green hydrogen production facility in Hermiston, Ore., powered by "behind-the-meter" wind and solar. Now the Oregon-headquartered renewable energy developer hopes to join forces with proponents of other hydrogen projects to pitch a Pacific Northwest hub to the U.S. Energy Department. In 2021, the U.S. bipartisan infrastructure law committed $9.5 billion in federal funding for "clean" hydrogen, including $8 billion for the development of at least four regional hydrogen hubs, $1 billion to reduce the costs of green hydrogen and $500 million for clean hydrogen recycling and manufacturing. The "DOE has made very clear they don't want to see multiple proposals from specific regions. They don't want to deal with hundreds of proposals. They want big ones," said Ken Dragoon, director of hydrogen development at Obsidian. "One of the big challenges with these hydrogen hubs is, once the $8 billion notion was released, everybody and their brother has decided that they've got a hydrogen hub proposal." The Canadian government, meanwhile, projects hydrogen to deliver 30% of the country's end-use energy by 2050. The Canadian federal government has yet to float a specific dollar figure solely devoted to hydrogen. But multiple provinces have followed up with their own plans, including Alberta, the biggest hydrogen producer in the country, setting a goal of C$30 billion in capital investment to develop the clean-burning gas. Hydrogen can be used to store and transport energy for a range of potential end uses, including heating, transportation, metals production, fertilizer and electric power generation. Some industry and policy experts have called hydrogen the "holy grail" for decarbonization because hydrogen produces only water when burned, unlike fossil fuels' carbon releases. But hydrogen production can have a more variable carbon footprint, depending on the power source. Green hydrogen, powered by renewable energy, and pink hydrogen, powered by nuclear energy, are produced by electrolysis, or the separation of hydrogen and oxygen in a water molecule. But the zero-emission process is also the most expensive. Instead, about 95% of hydrogen worldwide is produced by steam reforming of natural gas, referred to as gray hydrogen. Blue hydrogen is produced the same way as gray, but carbon dioxide emissions are mitigated using carbon capture and storage, a nascent technology that captures the greenhouse gas from smokestacks and pipes it underground.
Emerging small nuclear reactors may significantly contribute to grid decarbonization by 2050: study -- Small domestic advanced nuclear reactors could play a major role in decarbonizing electricity in the U.S. by providing carbon-free energy, balancing out solar and wind resources, and being installed at shuttered coal and other fossil plants, according to a study released July 6 by the Breakthrough Institute.These alternatives to large-scale nuclear reactors also were touted by Breakthrough representatives during a June 30 webinar for their ability to provide carbon-free heat and steam to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial and chemical sectors. But the initial costs, as with many emerging technologies, are steep and require a large amount of capital investments, sooner rather than later, experts say. Breakthrough estimated that costs will fall with increased deployment. But other barriers that need to come down, Breakthrough said, are state laws prohibiting or restricting new nuclear plants to allow installations of small reactors in various geographical regions. Advanced nuclear reactor technologies up to 345 MW under development may skirt the problems of large nuclear plants when it comes to cost overruns, construction delays and risks of accidents, said Jigar Shah, director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office. They also may help provide zero emissions to the power system at a lower cost by mid-century, he and other speakers added at a June 30 Breakthrough Institute webinar presenting new modeling results. The modeling by Vibrant Clean Energy looked at 150 MW light-water Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs, 345 MW advanced reactors with thermal energy storage and 80 MW high-temperature gas reactors. These technologies at scale could provide 19 to 48 GW in 2035 across the U.S. and reach up to 470 GW by 2050, according to Adam Stein, Breakthrough’s director for Nuclear Energy and Innovation. However, for this to happen, there must be many new nuclear deployments in the late 2020s and early 2030s, Shah said.“We cannot miss this moment,” he said during the webinar. But meeting that timeline “is not going to happen,” said M.V. Ramana, nuclear energy and fissile materials expert, and University of British Columbia Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. He told Utility Dive this emerging industry has significant economies of scale challenges compared to large nuclear plants and thus higher costs per megawatt, requiring hundreds or thousands of units to be built and under contract to become significant players in the market.
Biden administration proposes rule requiring states, cities to set transportation climate targets - A proposed rule released by the Biden administration Thursday would require states and cities to set carbon emission reduction targets for transportation. The draft rule would require state transportation departments and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) with National Highway System mileage within their boundaries to both measure their transportation-related emissions and develop reduction targets. This would build on existing regulations that require those institutions to track other forms of air pollutants. Transportation is the single largest source of carbon emissions. Under the terms of the rule, both state departments of transportation and MPOs would be required to report their progress on meeting their emissions goals twice a year. The proposal contains no specific requirements for the goals, saying it would allow states and cities to determine which targets “are appropriate for their communities and … work for their respective climate change and other policy priorities.” “With today’s announcement, we are taking an important step forward in tackling transportation’s share of the climate challenge, and we don’t have a moment to waste,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “Our approach gives states the flexibility they need to set their own emission reduction targets, while providing them with resources from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to meet those targets and protect their communities.” The bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law by President Biden in November put just under $6.5 billion toward helping local and state governments reduce highway-related emissions. The funds, announced in April, are contingent on recipients developing an emissions reduction strategy. In a statement Thursday, Evergreen Action Chief of Staff Lena Moffitt called the proposal “a strong step to ensure states drive down greenhouse gas pollution from the most climate polluting sector of our economy.” “We are encouraged to see the Department of Transportation (DOT) taking necessary action in line with Evergreen’s recommendations to ensure investments in America’s 21st century transportation infrastructure can be deployed in a way that will help deliver on President Biden’s climate commitments,” she said.
Elon Musk's Tesla is no longer the world's largest EV producer -Chinese automaker BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett, has surpassed Tesla as the world's leading electric vehicle seller.BYD sold 638,157 electric or plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles in the first six months of 2022, according to company filingspublished on July 3.The figure represents a nearly 325% year-on-year increase from the same period last year. In June alone, BYD sold 133,762 electric or plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles. In the first two quarters of 2022, BYD sold 323,519 battery electric vehicles and 314,638 plug-in hybrids. Tesla, on the other hand, delivered a total of 564,743 vehicles in the first six months of the year, according to figures in their firstand second quarter reports.Tesla noted in the reports that it had contended with supply chain challenges and factory shutdowns over the course of the year. BYD's shares have risen 36% since January and the company was able to avoid the lockdown-spurred factory closures, Business Insiderreported. Tesla, however, was forced to temporarily close its factory in Shanghai during a COVID-19 outbreak in the city earlier this year.
Federal rebates can help schools get cleaner buses -A program funded by last year’s federal infrastructure law could help hundreds of Ohio school districts replace aging diesel school buses, but applications for this year’s funding competition are due within the next six weeks.Clean air advocates are trying to get the word out about the U.S. EPA’s 2022 Clean School Bus Program, which offers rebates to help public schools replace up to 25 diesel buses with electric, propane, or compressed natural gas vehicles.The program prioritizes rural and tribal schools, as well as districts with at least 20% of students living in poverty. More than 235 Ohio school districts are on the priority list.The deadline for completed applications is Aug. 19.Overall, the grant program is “wonderful,” especially for priority districts that want electric school buses, said attorney Susan Mudd, who heads the Environmental Law & Policy Center’s electric school bus campaign. “It removes the current significant upfront cost barrier and gets them into a situation where their long-term situation is so much better.”Award amounts for priority districts range from up to $25,000 for propane buses up to $375,000 for battery-electric buses, plus up to $20,000 for electric vehicle charging. Districts that aren’t in priority categories would get roughly a third less funding if selected.Last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized the rebates as part of a five-year program. Half of the $500 million available through this year’s round of applications will go for zero-emission buses. The other half will be for clean school buses, which include CNG and propane vehicles.Whether they’re on the priority list or not, school districts must meet several criteria. With some exceptions, diesel buses being replaced must be from model year 2010 or older, and districts must scrap them if they get funding. Private fleets can’t directly apply, but they may be able to enter into contracts for private fleet buses if new buses will serve the districts for at least five years after delivery. The EPA will review applications in September. The agency will select winning applicants in random order, but priority provides advantages, both in getting awards and in the amount of the awards. Notifications will go out in October.
Federal incentives needed for 'wholesale shift' to medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks: Third Way - The total cost of ownership of electric trucks is declining and in some instances may already be cheaper than gas or diesel options, but federal policies and incentives are still required to encourage a “wholesale shift,” public policy think tank Third Way said in a June 28 memo. The trucking industry is wary that electric versions are “not cheap enough,” Third Way concluded. If additional upfront costs can be recouped within five years, companies that buy trucks will make the switch more quickly, the group said. Policies proposed by Third Way to reduce total cost of ownership include suspension of federal excise taxes on zero-emission trucks, tax credits for the manufacture and purchase of the trucks, and additional funding for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.There are 52 plants in the United States that currently assemble medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and of those, 42 are either already producing zero-emission trucks or are planning for them by 2025, according to Third Way’s memo.The group has also published an interactive map showing where the trucks are produced.“The US trucking industry is inching toward the production of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks,” according to the memo. “Fleet businesses will swap out gasoline and diesel trucks when the price and cost fit their balance sheets.”But the industry is not quite there, meaning federal policies are needed to advance adoption of heavy-duty trucking. The transportation sector is vital to decarbonization, say experts, and trucking will play a major role.Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles represented only 6% of registered U.S. vehicles in 2018, according to the Electrification Coalition, but were responsible for more than a quarter of the nation’s transportation sector fuel consumption and 23% of the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions.Medium- and heavy-duty trucks “have only recently begun to receive attention from the industry and policy makers,” the Electrification Coalition said in its 2020 report on electrifying freight. “While the electrification of freight vehicles is very promising, not every vehicle type may be presently suited for electrification,” the group said. However, “while some of the solutions from the light-duty sector can be adopted for use ... the technology is quickly evolving.” In New York, a coalition of customer and conservation groups has asked regulators to begin considering issues surrounding medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles. So far, the state’s efforts have focused on light-duty vehicles.
Coal, fracking and nuclear: Imminent decisions on energy projects will set UK’s energy and climate course --Three major energy decisions are due to be made this week that will play a significant role in setting the agenda on how the government is responding to the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis and changing energy demands.Perhaps the most controversial is the plan to open the UK’s first deepcoal mine in over 30 years. A decision on planning permission for the mine in Cumbria is expected imminently, and will come immediately after the government’s independent advisors on the climate – theclimate change committee (CCC) – said the new mine is "utterly indefensible".The plan is to extract coking coal – used in blast furnaces during steel production – from beneath the Irish Sea, with 80 per cent of it being exported to other countries. The UK currently relies on Russia for around 50 per cent of its coking coal, but the UK and Europe are trying to move away from that dependency amid sanctions imposed because of of the war in Ukraine.Supporters of the proposed mine have said it will create up to 500 jobs, though there are concerns this figure could be exaggerated. Despite previously saying he was "not in favour of more coal", Boris Johnson has indicated he could now be in favour of more coal, saying last month that "plainly it makes no sense to be importing coal, particularly for metallurgical purposes, when we have our own domestic resources." Campaigners have also said the business case for the mine is weak as steel manufacturers are seeking to move away from polluting coal, so the size of the market for coking coal is diminishing.In one county further south, in Lancashire, residents who once thought the spectre of fracking had been banished for good, are now anxiously awaiting a decision on whether the government will lift its moratorium on the process. Scientists at the British Geological Survey are due to complete a government-commissioned review of fracking which could allow drilling for shale gas to go ahead. The evidence will be handed to Mr Johnson and business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng who could act to allow drilling companies to begin work. One of the main firms, Cuadrilla, which owns the Preston New Road site in Lancashire, where experimental fracking caused earthquakes, has put pressure on the government to lift the moratorium by offering payments for local communities which could be worth "hundreds of millions of pounds".Cuadrilla also claimed the industry could create 70,000 jobs in the UK. However, fracking expansions will definitely release significant amounts of greenhouse gases including methane, which has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years it spends in the atmosphere. It may seem then that a drive to build fossil-fuel-free nuclear power stations is exactly the solution to the energy conundrum. The government has said it wants to give the go-ahead to a new nuclear power project every year to 2030.This week the government is set to decide on whether to give planning permission to the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk.Local campaigners have described the potential development as the "wrong project in the wrong place", due to environmental concerns including the huge amount of seawater which would be pumped into the power station to be used for cooling. They also say it could impact numerous species, and they are concerned about the impact on the site, which is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, surrounded by protected habitats including RSPB Minsmere.There are also concerns about Suffolk’s fast-eroding coast, and the necessary flood defences which would also have an environmental impact on the area.
Europe will count natural gas and nuclear as green energy in some circumstances - The European Union voted on Wednesday to keep some specific uses of natural gas and nuclear energy in its taxonomy of sustainable sources of energy.Europe's taxonomy is its classification system for defining "environmentally sustainable economic activities" for investors, policymakers and companies. This official opinion of the EU matters because it affects funding for projects as the region charts its path to address climate change. In theory, the taxonomy "aims to boost green investments and prevent 'greenwashing,'" according to the EU's parliament.The vote on natural gas and nuclear energy follows one that was passed in February, which amounted to a referendum on what had been a particularly controversial piece of the ruling. Natural gas emits 58.5% as much carbon dioxide as coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association. Nuclear power does not generate any emissions, though it draws criticism surrounding the problem of storing radioactive waste.While the region did vote to keep nuclear and natural gas in its green taxonomy, it did not give those sources of energy a free pass to be included in every situation. Generally speaking, using natural gas to generate electricity or to heat or cool many homes at once will be considered sustainable, while other uses may be excluded. They will have to be below certain emissions thresholds, and are only approved to 2030 or 2035, depending on the specific situation.New nuclear plants using the most advanced technologies and modifications to extend the life of existing plants may be approved to 2040 or 2045.The EU is still required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% at the end of the decade and to become climate neutral in 2050, in accordance with European Climate Law. But Wednesday's vote shows that at the same time the EU wants to encourage private investment in natural gas and nuclear as the region makes the transition from fossil fuels, particularly coal, to clean energy.
'Striking hypocrisy' | Thunberg fury as EU lawmakers back green label for nuclear and gas- The European Parliament to the dismay of green and climate groups has rejected a motion to oppose the inclusion of nuclear power and fossil gas as environmentally sustainable economic activities under certain conditions, opening the way for easier access to financing for the technologies. A majority of 328 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted against a resolution to oppose the inclusion of nuclear and gas in the so-called EU taxonomy as proposed by the European Commission earlier this year, while 278 MEPs voted in favour, and 33 abstained. Unless 20 EU member states representing 65% of the economic bloc’s population reject the taxonomy, or it is thrown out by the European Court of Justice, it will enter into force next year. “The European Parliament just voted to label fossil gas as 'green' energy. This will delay a desperately needed real sustainable transition and deepen our dependency on Russian fuels,” Swedish climate icon Greta Thunberg tweeted. “The hypocrisy is striking, but unfortunately not surprising.”The taxonomy proposal enjoys the backing by France, Finland and several Eastern European EU states that want to build or expand atomic power, but the inclusion of nuclear has been strongly opposed by Germany, Austria, Spain and Luxembourg, which consider it greenwashing and fear it will lead to the massive channelling of public funds into outdated technologies. Germany, however, had pushed for the inclusion of fossil gas into the mechanism as a 'bridge technology' as the country needs to keep the lights on as it is exiting nuclear and coal simultaneously. Its massive dependency on Russian gas imports in recent months has made clear, though, that Berlin's strategy hitherto has been a grave mistake. While the real impact of the taxonomy on finance flows is unclear, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) warned including gas and nuclear on the EU’s list of environmentally sustainable activities sets a dangerous precedent and shows how politicians in Europe are held hostage by the vested interests of the incumbent gas and nuclear industries. “It extinguishes any hope that the EU taxonomy will be a global gold standard or even a meaningful benchmark that investors can look to for guidance,” IEEFA director for energy finance studies, Arjun Flora, said. “The decision fails to protect the European investor community and consumers alike from the financial risks inherent in polluting fossil gas or toxic nuclear projects.“The EU will now be more vulnerable to greenwashing and the proliferation of expensive stranded LNG terminals, pipelines and nuclear waste – costs which will ultimately be borne by taxpayers for generations to come.” Austrian climate minister Leonore Gewessler according to local media reports has said her country has already prepared action for annulment at the European Court of Justice against the inclusion of nuclear in the EU taxonomy. “It is neither credible, ambitious nor knowledge-based, endangers our future and is more than irresponsible,” Gewesseler is quoted as saying by the Puls 24 news website. Finnish utility Fortum, which operates nuclear power in Finland and owns gas-heavy German utility Uniper, said the vote "recognises the vital contribution of CO2-free nuclear power in the EU decarbonisation efforts." "We also see that the taxonomy framework as approved today, can play an important role in facilitating the transition from fossil to clean gases, and in developing the European hydrogen economy," Fortum said in a statement.
Low Rhine Water Risks Worsening Europe Energy Crunch - Water levels on Europe’s Rhine River are again dwindling -- and this time it’s at the risk of the continent’s efforts to boost its energy security. A heatwave has reduced parts of the river, western Europe’s most important waterway, to the lowest seasonal levels in at least 15 years. That could affect the delivery of everything from coal to oil products as the region races to stockpile energy supplies ahead of winter. “Low water levels on the Rhine mean that barges cannot load steam coal at full capacity” for power plants in Germany, said Guillaume Perret, founder of energy consultancy Perret Associates. “This could be a double whammy for the German utilities, as they were already facing a shortage of barges.” For now, most utilities have ample stockpiles, though that could change if the situation runs into late next month, he added. Europe is in the grip of its worst energy crunch in decades amid heightened tensions with Moscow due to the war in Ukraine. Russia -- a major natural gas supplier -- has already cut flows to several nations, and more disruptions may be on the way. The conflict has upended trade flows as countries seek alternate fuel sources. There are few places where that’s more evident than on the Rhine, an approximately 800-mile (1,288-kilometer) artery that runs from Switzerland to the North Sea. It’s a vital route for the delivery of goods from the bustling ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp to buyers in inland Europe. The water level at Kaub, a bottleneck point near Frankfurt, is at the lowest seasonal level since at least 2007, according to data from the German waterways administration. The situation is similar near Duisburg and Dusseldorf. Dry spells occasionally restrict traffic on the Rhine, forcing barges to carry smaller loads. A barge with 2,500 tons of capacity loading diesel-type fuel in the Rotterdam region sailing beyond Kaub can only take on about 1,600 tons of product, maritime brokerage Riverlake said in a report this week. “If there are low water levels in combination with limited diesel supplies, some storage tanks in Germany could run out, it happened before,” said Jelle Vreeman, a senior broker at the company. “Significant barge capacity is already taken off the market” because of the demand to cover deliveries during summer, he added. A prolonged heatwave could create delays for winter energy supplies when the continent needs them most. High temperatures and lower-than-average rainfall are expected through next week. Scientists say this could become a continual problem in the years ahead as climate change worsens. The stakes are particularly high for Germany, Europe’s largest economy. The nation plans to import 10 million more tons of thermal coal than usual this year to help power it through winter, saving gas for industry and heating. The Rhine saw the transport of about 17 million tons of coal and 28 million tons of mineral oil products in 2020, both declines on the previous year, according to the river’s navigation commission. Germany is now considering reviving dormant coal plants as power prices jump to record levels. But it’s happening at a time when barges are already in tight supply, in part because many were sold off in recent years amid a planned coal phase-out. The re-direction of some barges to help ship grain out of Ukraine has also limited their availability in western Europe..
ECB test of bank climate risk deals far softer blow than feared - Europe’s landmark test of banks’ resilience to global warming was far softer than many lenders had expected, according to people familiar with the matter. Even the toughest hypothetical scenarios in the European Central Bank’s climate stress test didn’t result in losses that would make a meaningful dent in capital buffers, said officials at six big euro-area banks that took part. The ECB is due to publish aggregate results of the test on July 8. Banks participating in the exercise had to estimate how events such as floods would impact mortgage values, or how big a hit they faced if corporate clients defaulted after a spike in carbon prices. The test has been presented as a learning exercise for banks and regulators alike. But the industry is already using the results to lobby against efforts by some ECB officials keen for lenders to set aside more money to cover climate risks. Bloomberg spoke to banks from four countries who said they would remain above their minimum regulatory capital levels in the various scenarios in the ECB test. That includes the so-called hot-house world, in which political leaders fail to act and global warming reaches around 3 degrees Celsius. The hypothetical results come as a relief to bankers used to stress tests that factor in economic shocks to assess their financial strength, with outcomes usually feeding through to capital requirements. Executives at the banks said they benefited from mitigating factors in the scenarios, the spread-out nature of losses and the ability to adjust their balance sheets over the coming decades. The ECB has said it won’t break out figures for individual banks when it publishes the results at the end of the week. An ECB spokesman declined to comment. The ECB has publicly faulted banks for not having enough data or adequate models for calculating the risk they face from climate change. The scope of the test is also limited to a portion of banks’ balance sheets, meaning it doesn’t give a complete picture of the risks they face. Top ECB officials had previously said that the test would only have an indirect effect on bank capital requirements this year, but that they plan to eventually treat global warming as they would any other risk.
Energy enters a perilous era of supply chain risks -Hackers targeting Ukraine hit a network of satellite modems and shut down the country’s internet service — hours before Russian troops crossed the border. At around the same time, the remote operator of 5,800 wind turbines across central Europe also lost communications. The jolt to both internet and electricity services in late February — affecting critical infrastructure hundreds of miles apart and tossing tens of thousands of people off the internet — sent an unmistakable signal to European leaders: They’re entering a perilous new era of cyber risks. The Feb. 24 cyberattack wasn’t aimed at disrupting European sources of renewable energy, according to investigators. Yet the blitz against Viasat Inc., a California-based provider of high-speed satellite broadband, did just that. Today, it’s held up as an unsettling example of just how difficult it is to secure the interconnected digital networks that run modern-day power grids. The North American grid has long been described as one of the most complex machines on Earth. And as the energy sector becomes more connected, cyber risks that cut across the global supply chain are becoming a greater threat. “If anything, our grids have gotten more complex over the last couple of decades,” said Lesley Carhart, principal industrial incident responder at industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc. “You have your three grids and you got this hodgepodge of interconnected transmission and distribution providers, getting generation from a multitude of sources.” The electric grid is a patchwork of power generators, transmission lines and distribution centers. Interconnection points help ensure an outage in Texas doesn’t spread all the way to California. But while the nodes serving different regions are not physically connected, the use of common digital technology across the larger grid has propped open the door to digital sabotage. “Now, an operator or an equipment vendor may have generation assets in the Eastern Interconnection, Western Interconnection, Texas, Quebec, all over the place,” said Tim Conway, technical director at the SANS Institute, a cyber educational and training nonprofit. The hack targeting Viasat, the satellite broadband company, triggered a cascading loss of communications. The hack reminded utilities that it’s no longer enough to secure a control room. “Your threats are also inherited by your customers and suppliers,” said Ben Miller, vice president of professional services and research at Dragos. “So you have to take those into consideration.” The satellite modem hack didn’t lead to a loss of wind power generation in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. But the loss of communications to thousands of wind turbines operated by the German engineering firm Enercon is “probably one of the worst nightmares that any operation may have,” said Samuel Linares, managing director of Accenture Security’s renewable energy business. There are haves and have-nots when it comes to securing wind farms and major solar projects, Linares said. “In the end, most of them are all utilities,” he said. “They have been dealing with cybersecurity for a number of years.” New wind farms are being built with security by design, he said. That means embedding security systems across the entire system, from start to finish. But for legacy technology, cybersecurity is a bigger challenge, Linares said. The concern is the inability for technicians and cybersecurity experts to see inside legacy technology and stamp out an attack.
EU Lawmakers Vote to Make Airplane Travel Almost Green by 2050 - -- European Union lawmakers backed a rapid increase in so-called sustainable aviation fuels, seen by the industry as the best way to clean up the second-most polluting transport sector. Parliament voted to raise the share of sustainable aviation fuel available in the region’s airports to 6% by 2030, one percentage point higher than initially proposed by the European Commission last year. They backed plans to boost that to 85% by 2050, of which half must be made using captured carbon dioxide and renewable energy. It marks a major overhaul of the aviation sector, which is seen as difficult to decarbonize given the lack of zero-emission planes and is second only to road vehicles in terms of transport pollution. Now that Parliament has finalized its position, negotiations can begin with EU member states over the final shape of regulations. “This positive vote will contribute to turning the aviation sector from one of the most polluting sectors in the EU to one of the greenest modes of transport,” said Erik Bergkvist, a negotiator from the Socialists and Democrats political group in Parliament. It brings “us one step closer to our climate ambitions,” he said. In the run-up to the vote, green groups and airlines were concerned that a definition of sustainable aviation fuels would be watered down to include products that could harm food production and damage the environment, particularly forested areas. In the end, lawmakers voted to exclude some of the most harmful biofuels, such as those derived from palm and soy. Others fuels, like those produced from animal fats, can be used until the end of 2034, while lawmakers opened the door to technologies like renewable electricity and hydrogen.
Votes Clear Path for $1.2B Lordstown Power Plant - Youngstown Business Journal - The Village Board of Public Affairs and Village Council on Tuesday approved a service agreement with the city of Warren that would directly supply water to the Trumbull Energy Center, a proposed $1.2 billion combined cycle energy plant. The approvals came after weeks of contention over the use of Warren water for the project. …
State reaches settlement agreement in NEXUS pipeline appeal - Pipeline company to pay $950 million statement for 2019 tax year. — Fremont City Schools and several other Sandusky County school districts, townships and public entities can expect to see additional tax revenues from the NEXUS pipeline after the state's tax commissioner reached a settlement on the pipeline owner's valuation appeal.The valuation appeal dragged on for more than three years.Jerri Miller, Sandusky County's auditor, said Wednesday the final settlement announced last month for Nexus was $950 million statewide for tax year 2019. The Sandusky County auditor said the settlement was for about two-thirds of the original assessed values.The settlement agreement is not appealable by either NEXUS or the Ohio Department of Taxation (ODT).She said county auditors in each county along the pipeline's route retain the right to appeal for up to 60 days from receipt of notice of the decision from the state."I don't think any will appeal," Miller said.In 2019, the owners of the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline asked ODT to reduce the taxable value of its natural gas pipeline statewide by almost half, according to the Canton Repository.The state had set the initial statewide valuation at $1.4 billion. While NEXUS’ valuation was under review, its owners paid taxes based on the value they believed the pipe was worth, not the state’s assigned taxable value, as they were permitted to do. Ohio Tax Commissioner Jeffrey A. McClain settled the three-year dispute with NEXUS officials over how much the roughly 256-mile interstate natural gas transmission pipeline is worth in Ohio.Fremont schools' Superintendent Jon Detwiler said NEXUS had been paying at 42% during the appeal.
NEXUS pipeline owes Stark County schools, governments $5 million - The owners of the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline owe millions of dollars to Ohio schools, libraries and governmental agencies, with roughly $5 million due to Stark County. Ohio Tax Commissioner Jeffrey A. McClain has settled a three-year dispute with NEXUS officials over how much the roughly 256-mile interstate natural gas transmission pipeline is worth in Ohio. The pipeline is a partnership between Detroit-based DT Midstream and Enbridge, a Canadian company. McClain notified county auditors last week about the settlement, and the auditors have since been running the calculations to determine how much their affected entities are owed if the settlement stands. While neither the Ohio Department of Taxation or NEXUS can appeal the agreement, the auditors of the 12 affected counties have 60 days to object.Besides Stark, the counties affected by the settlement are Columbiana, Erie, Fulton, Henry, Huron, Lorain, Lucas, Medina, Sandusky, Summit and Wayne. Initial statewide estimates projected the pipeline would boost tax revenue by $83.7 million during its first year in operation. Stark County, which saw the pipeline cross Washington, Nimishillen, Marlboro and Lake townships, was expected to see a $8.9 million tax boost the first year and $41.7 million over the first five years of operation. But then an oversupply of natural gas caused natural gas prices to drop to all-time lows and reduced the amount of gas flowing through the pipelines. In 2019, the pipeline owners asked the Ohio Department of Taxation to reduce the taxable value of its natural gas pipeline statewide by almost half. The state had set the statewide valuation at $1.4 billion. While NEXUS’ valuation was under review, its owners paid taxes based on the value they believed the pipe was worth, not the state’s assigned taxable value, as they were permitted to do. Last week’s statewide settlement resets the taxable value of the pipeline for 2019 at $950 million statewide. The subsequent years’ values take the 2019 valuation and subtract for depreciation. Separately, some Stark County schools, libraries and governmental entities still are awaiting a resolution on the taxable value for the Rover Pipeline. A hearing to review Rover’s appeal is scheduled to begin Aug. 1 before the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals. Rover’s twin 42-inch-diameter mainlines cross Pike, Bethlehem and Sugar Creek townships in Stark County and traverse Carroll, Tuscarawas, Harrison, Wayne, Ashland and Richland counties.
FERC Defeats Ohio City's Challenge to Nexus Pipeline Approval - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission adequately explained why it granted a certificate for Enbridge Inc.'s 256-mile Nexus Gas Transmission project, and its approval was lawful, even though the project will be used to export natural gas to Canada, the D.C. Circuit said Friday. Nexus is “indisputably using its proposed pipeline to transport gas in interstate commerce,” according to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Therefore, it’s a natural gas company and FERC could study its application under Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act, the court said. The ruling was a loss for the city ...
DC Circ. Backs FERC Redo Of $2.1B Pipeline Approval – Law360 - The DC Circuit on Friday said The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has now adequately justified its decision granting Nexus Gas Transmission LLC eminent domain authority for its $2.1 billion pipeline, after previously direction the agency to beef up its legal arguments. The appeals court said FERC had satisfied its 2019 request to better explain why the agency could consider gas export contracts as evidence that the Nexus pipeline running through Ohio and Michigan was needed. The three-judge panel also rejected the city of Oberlin, Ohio’s arguments that FERC unlawfully relied on those contracts to justify issuing a construction certificate to the… appeals court said FERC had satisfied its 2019 request to better explain why the agency could consider gas export contracts as evidence. It supplies markets in Michigan, Ohio and Canada with gas from Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, court papers said.
City of Oberlin, Ohio v. FERC, No. 20-1492 (DC Cir. 2022) - Justia Opinion Summary: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) granted NEXUS Gas Transmission, LLC (“Nexus”) a certificate of public convenience and necessity to construct and operate a natural gas pipeline from Ohio to Michigan. After FERC granted Nexus the certificate, the City of Oberlin (“City”) petitioned for review claiming, among other things, that FERC did not adequately justify its reliance on agreements to transport gas ultimately bound for export to Canada as evidence of need for the pipeline. The DC Circuit denied the petition, explaining that the FERC’s explanation on remand from was reasonable and because its decision comported with the Natural Gas Act and the Takings Clause. The court wrote FERC’s justification for considering the agreements to transport gas bound for export is well reasoned and comports with both the Natural Gas Act and the Takings Clause. FERC’s alternative explanation that it would have granted Nexus a certificate even without considering the export agreements also passes muster.
Wayne County hazardous waste site OK'd for changes in landfill storage - State environmental regulators have approved a Wayne County hazardous waste facility's request for a modified operating license.The approval allows the facility, Wayne Disposal Inc. in Van Buren Township, to redesign its liner and incorporate geosynthetic clay liners into portions of the 120-acre landfill instead of compacted clay.The modified license "also requires extensive groundwater, soil and air monitoring, on an ongoing basis," the state said in a fact sheet about the project.Wayne Disposal Inc. is owned and operated by U.S. Ecology. It is nestled between Willow Run Airport to the north and Interstate 94 to the south in western Wayne County near Belleville. The company is not seeking to expand its overall footprint.Inspectors have not found the facility to be in violation of the Clean Air Act or Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in the last three years, according to online U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, signed in 1976, sets standards for solid and hazardous waste disposal.Inspectors found Wayne Disposal Inc. to be out of compliance with the Clean Water Act for two quarters in the last three years — at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. The violations were not considered significant. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy issued the facility a notice of violation under the Clean Water Act in 2020. The landfill has had state approval to accept hazardous waste since 1990 and federal approval to accept PCBs — polychlorinated biphenyls, man-made chemicals that were banned in 1979 and shown to cause health issues including cancer — since 1997.The EPA also is considering a request from the facility to modify its PCB approval and liner system, which "would allow WDI to continue to develop its current PCB capacity of 12 million cubic yards." The liners would be placed in portions of the landfill already approved to accept PCB waste, the EPA said. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tentatively plans to approve the request.The landfill found itself at the center of controversy over fracking in 2014 when it announced it would be importing hydraulic fracturing waste from Pennsylvania. At the time, it was one of only 17 facilities in the U.S. qualified to handle fracking waste, known as "technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material."Opponents said the material shouldn't be shipped through and stored in a state with such vast freshwater resources. They also took issue with the process of fracking itself, which ultimately produces natural gas, a fossil fuel used to create electricity.
A Vast Refinery Site in Philadelphia Is Being Redeveloped and Called ‘The Bellwether District.’ But for Black Residents Nearby, Justice Awaits - One minute, the 3-year-old was playing tag in the grass, while the hulking remains of a 150-year-old oil refinery loomed nearby. Then, suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.Many residents here in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia live with asthma and other chronic health conditions that they, advocates and even some medical experts attribute to the close proximity of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refinery, which was destroyed in an explosion in June 2019 and closed shortly afterward.Now, at a recent gathering of her neighbors and environmentalists in a local park to celebrate the refinery’s closure, the toddler was experiencing an asthma attack. When an inhaler offered no relief, family members rushed her to a nearby hospital where she was treated, released and made a full recovery.“Look at all the damage that’s been done,” the toddler’s grandmother, Sheryl Russell, 45, said of the health ailments that many residents trace to the refinery. “And it’s, like, where do they pay? They need to pay for that.” The closure of the 1,300-acre refinery here—once the largest on the East Coast—had been cheered as a major victory for those working at the intersection of equity, social justice and environmentalism. Yet in the three years since the refinery closed, the kind of sustained change sought by residents and environmental activists has proved elusive.Despite the refinery’s closure and demolition, the site where it once stood is still emitting harmful chemicals. Last month, the results of an analysis near the former plant were published showing that legacy pollution in the form of benzene—a chemical linked to cancer and other illnesses—was twice the federal threshold and at the second-highest levels in the country.A coalition of residents and activists and the developers who now own the refinery site have been involved in tense negotiations over a neighborhood investment and revitalization plan that helps accelerate the approval process so that development projects at the former plant can move forward. Despite assurances by the site’s new owners, Hilco Redevelopment Partners, some neighbors are concerned about the possibility of future industrial work there that could negatively impact the community.And residents—who, for nearly eight generations, have dealt with adverse health conditions—are worried about the lingering effects of the cleanup operations at the former refinery, which first opened five years after the last enslaved people were liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation.
New WVU Program Trains Next Generation of Toxicologists to Collect, Analyze Air Samples from Mining, Fracking Sites -- West Virginia University is launching a toxicology training program that offers students something no other academic program does: experience collecting air samples, identifying the toxicants they contain and determining how those toxicants might harm a community’s health.The National Institutes of Health has awarded WVU $1.7 million for the program, which bridges the disciplines of toxicology and systems-based medicine—disciplines that are traditionally distinct from one another. Over five years, the 40 doctoral students who participate will collect air samples in the local environment and then re-aerosolize and analyze them in WVU’s Inhalation Facility to assess their toxicity“With colleagues in the School of Public Health, they’re going to do what we refer to as ‘Environmental Immersions,’” said Timothy Nurkiewicz, who directs the Facility and chairs the School of Medicine’s Department of Physiology and Pharmacology. “They go out into the field downwind of mountaintop mining sites or fracking platforms, and they sample the air in real time. They can actually collect those samples, bring them back for inhalation exposures, and perform their studies like that. That’s something no other program in the country has.” The Inhalation Facility provides a tightly-controlled environment where researchers, both faculty and students alike, can replicate the inhalation exposures that people face in occupational, environmental and personal settings. These replications make it possible to carry out experiments that reveal the exposures’ dose limits, health effects and mechanisms of toxicity.The program’s participants will use the Inhalation Facility to investigate how inhaling various toxins can harm the respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, endocrine, reproductive and other systems.“One of my big concerns with modern science is that students are largely studying cells and molecules on a very constrained scale,” Nurkiewicz said. “They don’t fully appreciate how our body systems work. They can’t tell the forest from the trees. This training program is centered around our Inhalation Facility, which is the core for all of our exposures. The students will work with those exposures to study the various systems of the body and determine how inhalation of specific toxicants impacts their function and health.” “In essence, we’ll train the next generation of toxicologists much like I was trained over the years,” Nurkiewicz said. “I was originally trained as a microvascular physiologist, and then I learned inhalation toxicology because of my colleagues at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Well, that’s not a normal combination. There’s no program in that, right? So, this training program recognizes that we’ve been very successful here. Students will have the best of both worlds. They will still learn their initially-chosen discipline, but it will ultimately be viewed through the lens of toxicology.”
Manchin: Biden could invoke Defense Production Act to complete natural gas pipeline - Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Thursday called on President Biden to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) if necessary to complete a U.S. natural gas pipeline following the ban on oil imports from Russia. The West Virginia Democrat — at a Thursday hearing of the Senate Energy Committee, which he chairs — called the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline “the quickest thing that we can get, it’s more energy into the market that’s going to be needed. “I’ve been preaching to the heavens for a long time on this one. It can be done with the Defense Production Act,” Manchin added. “What we do know is that Russia has weaponized energy. They have used it as a geopolitical weapon. The thing I know about an adversary or a bully is if they have a weapon, you better have one that will match it or be better than theirs. And we do, we just haven’t used it,” Manchin said, in reference to American energy stores. Manchin was a leading proponent of the U.S. barring Russian oil imports after the nation invaded Ukraine, a step the Biden administration eventually took last week. Manchin, a pivotal vote who has frequently bucked his party’s legislative agenda, called the Biden administration’s opposition at the time “so wrong.” The Mountain Valley Pipeline began construction in 2014, and once completed is set to carry natural gas between southwestern Virginia and northwestern West Virginia. Manchin said at the hearing that the pipeline could be completed in four to six months and added that he has also introduced legislation to remove regulatory hurdles. Under the DPA, which Biden has previously used for matters relating to wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, the president can direct private companies to prioritize developing materials crucial to national defense interests. As gas prices spike, environmentalist groups and Democrats to Manchin’s left on climate issues have also called on Biden to invoke the DPA to deploy renewable energy. Press secretary Jen Psaki was asked at the Thursday White House press briefing whether use of the law is under consideration to increase oil production domestically, and she suggested the administration was not inclined to pay oil companies for “what they probably already have the capacity to do.”
Northport Marina reopens after diesel spill — A diesel spill caused Northport Marina to shut down, then reopen. The spill came from a discharge of diesel fuel into the marina from a yacht, according to Northport Village Marina Harbormaster Bill Rosemurgy. The yacht is owned by actor Tim Allen. The spill was first reported Sunday afternoon at approximately 5 p.m. According to Rosemurgy, the spill is mostly contained within the marina, which remained closed until Monday evening. According to Leelanau Township Fire Chief Hugh Cook, the leak stemmed from a fuel filter issue on the boat that resulted in spewing diesel fuel all throughout the engine compartment. Once there was too much fuel in the engine compartment, the bilge pump dumped it out into the marina. Cook said that the owner of the boat was not made aware of the leak until they docked at the gas dock, and onlookers told them they were spewing out diesel fuel. Allen said the fuel filter gasket popped while he was rounding the corner of Omena Bay. He confirmed that he didn’t know the fuel was leaking until it was pointed out to him. Rosemurgy said 30 gallons might not sound like a lot of fuel, but that diesel fuel tends to spread faster on the water because it is more oily compared to gasoline. According to Allen, rescuers from the U.S. Coast Guard said that diesel spills tend to look a lot worse than they actually are. Northport Village Marina deployed booms and absorbent pads Sunday night, according to Rosemurgy. Mackinac Environmental deployed more pads, and they have a boat onsite helping with the clean up. The Leelanau Township Fire Department assisted as well. Rosemurgy said the U.S. Coast Guard was made aware of the spill Sunday afternoon, and they have been in touch with officers in the Sault Ste. Marie Station. A U.S. Coast Guard official from the station said that their pollution team has been made aware of the situation, and they are providing oversight to the marina. \ The boat owner, Allen, will be responsible for paying for all of the clean-up measures, Cook said. At this point, he does not believe that the spill has affected animal life in the area. Visitor Helena Marano was concerned about the wildlife, as she saw several dead ducklings, carp and pike in the marina, and tried to wash off a duckling covered in fuel. “It died in our hands,” Marano said. According to Rosemurgy, the marina reopened around 7 p.m. He also said that the beach south of the marina where the playground was closed Monday morning because of obvious amounts of diesel along the beach and in the sand. “I looked at it and said to myself ‘I wouldn’t let my kids swim here, so I’m not going to let anyone else’s kids swim here,’” Rosemurgy said. “That’s about as scientific as it was.” He said the beach will remain closed until it is all cleaned up, which they hope will be by the end of Monday.
Experts question safety of fuel export at Chatham's Elba Island, other sites - The sky-blue storage tanks, which first went operational in the 1970s, contain liquefied natural gas and tower above the Savannah River. New safety questions arose in 2019 when Elba became one of seven LNG export facilities in the nation. A June 8 explosion at a major Texas LNG exporter heightened Matthews’ worries. Now Matthews wonders what might happen if gas escaped from those storage units and drifted across Chatham County and what economic blow the city could take in the event of a significant incident such as occurred at the Texas export facility. “Most people don’t even know what those blue tanks are,” Matthews said. “If there is a leak, it could all be over in 15 minutes.” The Texas pipeline explosion remains under investigation, but it serves as a reminder that despite the LNG industry’s strong safety record, accidents do happen. Risks have shifted at Elba as the facility moves focus from imports to exports. However, experts say evolving hazards are not widely understood and the U.S. regulatory body that oversees LNG facilities has been slow to revise its standards. The company that operates Elba Island says its facility is operating safely and the company has multiple plans in place for potential mishaps or incidents.
Few states have seen more major gas leaks than Georgia, report finds - Few states see more natural gas leaks from pipelines than Georgia does, according to a new analysis of federal incident data, leading to millions of dollars in damages and at least two deaths here since 2010. Georgia had 59 reported pipeline leaks from 2010 to October of last year — the 10th most of any state — according to a recent report by Environment America, U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund (U.S. PIRG) and Frontier Group. Of those, 25 caused fires and six triggered explosions. In addition to the fatalities, at least nine people were injured in those incidents, data from the report shows. The natural gas leaks included in the report were those that caused injuries, deaths or extensive property damage, which are required to be reported to the federal government. Leaks in Georgia resulted in more than $30 million in gas losses, repairs and property damage during the time frame, according to the news release. Leaks present the most visible examples of the dangers of natural gas. Last August, a fire hit a pipeline underneath a bridge along Cheshire Bridge Road in Atlanta, and the bridge was compromised. Businesses along the street still feel the weight of the bridge’s closure.The estimated related cost of the Cheshire Bridge Road incident — from property damage, the emergency response and lost gas — is more than $10.3 million, according to an incident report. The gas leaks report found there were almost 2,600 reported leaks nationally, and 368 of those caused explosions from 2010 to October 2021. Nationally, leaks cost $4 billion, the report said. Despite ranking in the top 10, the number of leaks in Georgia was modest compared to those in other states. Texas, for instance, reported 287, followed by California with 229 since 2010. Matthew Casale, U.S. PIRG’s environment campaigns director, said gas leak dangers aren’t limited to just a few states. The leaks caused 122 fatalities and 603 injuries across the nation since 2010, according to the report. Casale said investments in the gas system should prioritize the most dangerous leaks, but that ultimately, society should move away from gas.
Could Supreme Court ruling thwart FERC's clean energy plans? - The landmark Supreme Court decision last week restricting EPA’s regulation of climate-warming emissions could spill over to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is seen as critical for advancing clean energy. In a 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act did not authorize EPA to craft a broad rule targeting emissions from power plants like the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The court majority justified the ruling using the “major questions” doctrine, a relatively new legal theory that holds that Congress must clearly express when agencies are allowed to decide matters of “vast economic and political significance” (Greenwire, June 30). Some observers say that could stunt potential new rules from agencies such as FERC, particularly on issues that pertain to climate change.“The major questions doctrine, as they articulated it now, is so broad you could apply it to any major rulemaking,” said Harvey Reiter, a partner at Stinson LLP whose focus includes energy regulations. “[The decision] talks about cases of great ‘economic and political significance,’ but that could characterize any major rule of any agency.”Charged with overseeing wholesale power markets and interstate energy projects, FERC is weighing rules that could transform the electric power sector and help facilitate the deployment of solar, wind and other clean energy resources (Energywire, June 17). With support from its Democratic majority, the five-person commission this year also proposed changing how it reviews new natural gas projects to account for effects on the climate, nearby landowners and environmental justice communities (Energywire, March 25).Some legal experts say those actions fall clearly within FERC’s authority to ensure “just and reasonable” energy rates — as outlined in the Federal Power Act — and to approve gas pipelines that are shown to be in the public interest. But others said the Supreme Court decision may give ammunition to industry groups and others who’ve argued for a more narrow reading of what FERC can and cannot do, experts said.“Even though agencies are different and have different statutory mandates, any agency that’s thinking about being ambitious in addressing climate change now has to worry that a federal court may use the language of the major questions doctrine to attack whatever the agency is doing,” said Joel Eisen, a professor of law at the University of Richmond.In particular, a proposal issued in February to assess natural gas pipelines’ greenhouse gas emissions could be at risk of being abandoned or changed significantly due to concerns about the major questions doctrine, some analysts said.After the commission approved the proposal in February, Republican Commissioner Mark Christie invoked the major questions doctrine in opposing the policy. He criticized the measure, which attempted to outline a framework for quantifying new gas projects’ greenhouse gas emissions, in part because Congress had not authorized FERC to take such a step, he said (Energywire, Feb. 18).The proposal mostly focused on the direct emissions released by pipelines but could have also been used to address “emissions resulting from the downstream combustion” of gas in most cases. Upstream emissions — such as those released during natural gas extraction or processing — could have also been considered by the commission prior to the approval of a pipeline, according to the proposal. “The fundamental changes the majority imposes today … clearly exceed the Commission’s legal authority under the NGA and NEPA and, in so doing, violate the United States Supreme Court’s major questions doctrine,” Christie said in his dissent, using acronyms for the Natural Gas Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Natural Gas Futures Slip Amid Expectations for Lighter Domestic Demand -- Natural gas futures slipped lower Tuesday, extending the extensive sell-off from a week earlier. A mid-July reprieve from oppressively hot weather patterns and the potential for another stout storage print weighed on prices. -- The August Nymex gas futures contract settled at $5.523/MMBtu, down 20.7 cents day/day. September fell 22.5 cents to $5.487. With heat scorching the Lower 48 in the near term, NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. gained 30.0 cents to $5.760. Major weather models continued to show strong heat through the first half of the month, according to NatGasWeather, though some easing in temperatures may be on the horizon. The American and European models “both remain plenty hot enough most days through July 15-16 as highs of 90s to 100s rule most of the southern two-thirds of the U.S.,” the firm said. “The pattern is neutral or closer to seasonal July 16-19 as the hot ridge weakens slightly and shifts over the west-central U.S., while at the same time weather systems with showers and comfortable temperatures are favored across the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley and Northeast for near-normal national demand.” EBW Analytics Group’s Eli Rubin, senior analyst, provided a similar assessment. “Strong near-term heat exceeding 13 cooling degree days all week may help provide physical support for cash market prices,” Rubin said. “The locus of heat shifting westward and northward, however, appears to have lessened cooling demand risks for mid-to-late July.” This could enable utilities to maintain solid levels of injections into natural gas storage in July. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) last week reported a larger-than-expected 82 Bcf injection into storage. It surpassed the highest of estimates ahead of the report by 2 Bcf. A June fire at the Freeport LNG export facility curbed U.S. export capacity by about 2.0 Bcf/d through at least the end of summer. That gas is now available for domestic use, including storage. Analysts at The Schork Report noted that the market is about 40% through the injection season, and it is averaging a steady pace. Utilities have added enough to supplies to cover about two-fifths of last winter’s deliveries. The median of early estimates for Thursday’s EIA inventory report, which covers the period ended June 24, hovers around 70 Bcf. That compares with an injection of 73 Bcf in the comparable week last year and a five-year average injection of 73 Bcf. Still, the storage to date trails historic averages. Total working gas in storage as of June 24 was 2,251 Bcf — 322 Bcf below the five-year average, according to EIA. The Schork team estimates that storage will come in at around 3.44 Tcf at the end of the injection season. That would fall short of the five-year average of nearly 3.66 Tcf.
U.S. natgas steady as expected big storage build offsets hot weather (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures were little changed on Wednesday as expectations that utilities added more gas than usual to storage last week offset a big drop in daily output and forecasts for hotter weather and more air conditioning demand next week than previously predicted. That lack of price movement also came as power demand in Texas hit another all-time high on Tuesday and will likely keep breaking that record all week during a lingering heatwave. Analysts forecast U.S. utilities added a bigger than usual 74 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas to storage during the week ended June 24 as the ongoing shutdown of the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas leaves more gas in the United States. Front-month gas futures for August delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell 1.3 cents, or 0.2%, to settle at $5.510 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). With the U.S. Federal Reserve expected to keep raising interest rates, open interest in NYMEX futures fell on Tuesday to its lowest since July 2016 for a third day in a row as investors cut back on risky assets like commodities. Data provider Refinitiv said average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states rose to 96.0 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in July, from 95.1 bcfd in June. That compares with a monthly record of 96.1 bcfd in December 2021. On a daily basis, U.S. output was on track to drop 1.8 bcfd on Wednesday to a preliminary 94.7 bcfd. That would be the biggest one-day drop since early February, but 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 95.8 bcfd this week to 99.2 bcfd next week. The forecast for next week was higher than Refinitiv's outlook on Tuesday. Since the start of the year, the U.S. front-month is up 48% as much higher prices in Europe and Asia feed strong demand for U.S. LNG exports. That is especially true since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine stoked fears Moscow would cut gas supplies to Europe. Gas was trading around $52 per mmBtu in Europe and $39 in Asia. The average amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants dropped to 11.2 bcfd so far in July, the same as June, due to the Freeport shutdown on June 8. That compares with 12.5 bcfd in May and a monthly record of 12.9 bcfd in March. The seven big U.S. export plants can turn about 13.6 bcfd of gas into LNG. Freeport, the second-biggest U.S. LNG export plant, was consuming about 2 bcfd of gas before it shut. So long as Freeport 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 more than 40% from a near 14-year high over $9 per mmBtu in early June just before the Freeport outage.
U.S. natgas futures up 4% on output decline ahead of storage report - U.S. natural gas futures rose about 4% on Thursday as daily output fell over the past couple of days and on forecasts for higher demand this week than previously expected. The price gain came ahead of a federal report expected to show utilities added more gas to storage last week than usual despite hotter than normal weather as the ongoing outage at the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas leaves more gas in the United States. Analysts forecast U.S. utilities added 74 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas to storage during the week ended July 1. That compares with an increase of 25 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2017-2021) average increase of 60 bcf. If correct, last week’s increase would boost stockpiles to 2.325 trillion cubic feet (tcf), or 11.7% below the five-year average of 2.633 tcf for this time of the year. 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. Front-month gas futures NGc1 for August delivery were up 21.7 cents, or 3.9%, at $5.727 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 8:43 a.m. EDT (1243 GMT). That puts the U.S. front-month up about 53% so far this year as much higher prices in Europe and Asia keep demand for U.S. LNG exports strong, especially since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine stoked fears Moscow would cut gas supplies to Europe. Gas was trading around $55 per mmBtu in Europe and $39 in Asia. Since mid-June, Russia has exported around 3.7 bcfd of gas on the three main lines into Germany – Nord Stream 1 (Russia-Germany), Yamal (Russia-Belarus-Poland-Germany) and the Russia-Ukraine-Slovakia-Czech Republic-Germany route. NG/EU That is down from around 6.5 bcfd in early June and an average of 9.4 bcfd in July 2021. Power demand in Texas was expected to keep breaking records this week and next as a heatwave lingers over the state. The average amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants has held at 11.2 bcfd so far in July, the same as June. That was down from 12.5 bcfd in May and a monthly record of 12.9 bcfd in March due to the Freeport outage. Having that extra gas in the United States during the Freeport outage has already caused U.S. prices to drop about 40% from a near 14-year high above $9 per mmBtu in early June, just before the LNG plant shut.
NYMEX August natural gas futures rally amid storage-driven short-squeeze | S&P Global Commodity Insights - Buyers came out following the release of a bullish weekly natural gas storage report, which sent NYMEX August natural gas futures rallying 78.7 cents to settle at $6.297/MMBtu on July 7. Roughly one month ago, NYMEX gas futures were trading in the $9.60s/MMBtu area and have since tumbled by a hefty 49% to lows in the $5.30s/MMBtu area earlier this week. Bullish gas market traders have been looking for anything remotely price-supportive as a reason to trigger a short-covering rally. Following the release of the weekly storage data by the Energy Information Administration for the week ended July 1, which showed a much smaller than projected 60 Bcf storage build, NYMEX gas futures soared. In the midst of a heavy-handed short-squeeze, gas futures prices vaulted to an intraday high of $6.381/MMBtu. The data, which brings working gas in storage to 2,311 Bcf for the reflective storage week, was viewed as notably bullish as most market estimates were looking for an injection in the upper-60s/Bcf to low-70s/Bcf. According to the EIA data, inventories were 261 Bcf less than last year at this time and 322 Bcf below the five-year average of 2,633 Bcf. The smaller storage build could be attributed to tightening underlying supply/demand fundamentals stemming from rising LNG exports and wobbling dry gas production volumes that are being affected by maintenance operations. However, the storage data may have been a bit sandbagged. Sandbagging means that some market players and analysts were purposefully setting their storage build estimates higher so that a potentially lower storage number would be construed as overly bullish relative to market expectations. It could also be that some market participants were projecting higher storage build estimates simply due to the recent chain of surprisingly larger-than-expected storage builds that have been published over the last few weeks. Early-bird market estimates for the next EIA storage report for the week ending July 8 are for a build in the neighborhood of 59 Bcf to 65 Bcf. Another component to the strength in NYMEX front-month gas futures is the 15-day outlook coming from the Global Forecast System and European weather models. The major weather forecast models suggest above-average temperatures will be on tap for most of the US for the next several days, which will include potentially record hot conditions in Texas, the largest gas-consuming state in the US. However, a trough is slated to redevelop over the East, ushering in cooler temperatures to the eastern third of the nation by early next week. While this may be a short-lived cooldown to the Great Lakes and the Northeast, the models are forecasting those below-average temperatures will remain in place in the Southeast region of the US, and there may even be a hot weather reprieve in Texas toward the end of the week 2 (six- to 10-day) timeframe. Meanwhile, it should be noted that the major weather forecast models are also showing a threat of a prolonged heat wave in Europe, similar to the devastating 2003 heatwave. This hot temperature event is forecast to kick off in the days ahead and could remain anchored in place for weeks, which will likely continue to support elevated LNG export volumes leaving the US to Europe.
Gas group sees lower-carbon LNG projects key for North America supply role | S&P Global Commodity Insights - The lower-carbon natural gas liquefaction and LNG export projects being developed in the US and Canada will play an important part in a global energy market that increasingly looks for decarbonization methods while gas use is projected to grow, the International Gas Union said in a July 6 report.The IGU referred to Venture Global's plans to capture and store up to 500,000 mt of CO2 annually at its Calcasieu Pass and Plaquemines liquefaction sites in Louisiana. The company also is planning to have carbon capture and storage facilities at its proposed CP2 project in Louisiana, which has yet to reach a final investment decision.In Canada, the under-construction LNG Canada project led by Shell in Kitimat, British Columbia, with liquefaction capacity of 18 million mt/year, and the smaller-scale Cedar LNG and Woodfibre LNG projects, also in British Columbia, intend to be powered by hydropower to reduce emissions associated with the liquefaction facilities."Low-carbon LNG is expected to play a key role in the global energy system," as "LNG offtakers will be more cautious about the environmental and emissions performance of procured cargoes as the urgency to meet decarbonization targets intensifies," IGU said in the report."Over the past year, we have seen an increased focus on decarbonization among liquefaction facilities," said IGU, which is based in Europe and advocates for increased gas use.Another US LNG company planning to include CCS facilities, not mentioned in the IGU report section on lower-carbon projects, is NextDecade's Rio Grande project that is looking to store up to 5 million mt/year of CO2 at the 27-MPTA project planned near Brownsville, Texas. Other decarbonization measures at LNG export facilities include all-electric motors to support the liquefaction compressors, which can utilize renewable resources based on the power supplies of the local utility, and gas supplies that have a reduced carbon footprint due to upstream or pipeline transportation measures, IGU said. The Hammerfest LNG project in Norway and Freeport LNG project in Texas are two projects featuring electric motors, IGU pointed out, asserting that gas use in combination with renewable resources "will be the two major pillars of decarbonization."
Michigan panel wants details on Great Lakes oil tunnel plan - (AP) — A Michigan regulatory panel said Thursday that it needs more information about safety risks before it can rule on Enbridge Energy's plan to extend an oil pipeline through a tunnel beneath a waterway linking two of the Great Lakes. The state Public Service Commission voted 3-0 to seek further details about the potential for explosions and fires involving electrical equipment during construction of the tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. The commission's approval would be required for Enbridge to replace two existing Line 5 pipes in the straits, which connect Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, with a new segment that would run through the proposed underground tunnel. “This has been an extensive process,” Chairman Dan Scripps said. “We want to make sure that we get it right.” Enbridge and the state of Michigan are mired in legal battles over Line 5. The 69-year-old underground pipeline carries Canadian oil and natural gas liquids used for propane through northern Michigan and Wisconsin to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario. A 4-mile-long (6.4-kilometer-long) section divides into dual pipes that cross the bottom of the straits. Enbridge is defying Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's 2020 order to shut down the line, a move long sought by environmental groups and Native American tribes who fear a rupture would devastate the lakes. The company says the line is in good condition and contends in a federal lawsuit that the Democratic governor doesn't have the jurisdiction to shut it down. Enbridge, based in Calgary, Alberta, reached a deal with former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder in 2018 to build the $500 million tunnel. Enbridge has obtained permits from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and awaits word from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as well as Michigan Public Service Commission. The commission said last year it would not pass judgment on whether the entire 645-mile (1,038-kilometer) line should continue operating, focusing instead on the underwater section. Its three members are Whitmer appointees. Scripps and Tremaine Phillips are Democrats, while Katherine Peretick is an independent. In its order Thursday, the commission said testimony, exhibits and briefings included too little about tunnel engineering and hazards. Also lacking is information about safety and maintenance of the dual pipelines, “including leak detection systems and shutdown procedures,” the order said. Interviewed by telephone after the meeting in Lansing, Scripps said Enbridge had pegged the likelihood of an oil release from the tunnel pipe as “one in a million." The commission wants to know how the figure was calculated, he said, as well as steps to eliminate even that possibility.
Biden opens door to more offshore drilling, despite earlier climate vow - President Biden’s administration opened the door Friday to moreoffshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters over the next five years, setting a potential course for future U.S. fossil fuel extraction just a day after suffering a major climate setback at the Supreme Court.The proposed program for offshore drilling between 2023 and 2028would ban exploration off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. But by leaving the possibility for new drilling in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska, the announcement falls short of Biden’s campaign promise to end federal fossil fuel leasing for good.The plan may move the country further from its pledge to slash the nation’s planet-warming pollution in half by 2030 compared with 2005 levels and help avert even fiercer fires, storms and drought driven by rising temperatures. Biden’s climate agenda now hinges on whether Democrats can pass a reconciliation package in the Senate that includes robust environmental policies.“The Supreme Court just put a lead ball around his ankle with regard to his executive authority,” said John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “If you don’t get reconciliation, together with the constraints that the Supreme Court has put on, I think there’s no way you can get the 50 percent reduction by the end of the decade.” But the offshore plan, along with other events this week, underscores the political and legal limits in the United States to tackle global warming, and carries risks for Democrats as Americans experience record-breaking gasoline prices ahead of November’s midterm election and as many in Biden’s base demand stricter limits on fossil fuels.The consequences of warming 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels by continuing to burn other fossil fuels are enormous for humanity: If left unchecked, global warming may stall headway on combating hunger, poverty and disease worldwide. The International Energy Agency has urged halting investment in new fossil fuel supplies to meet that goal.The Interior Department is considering 10 potential auctions in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland emphasized that the plan has not been finalized and that her department is considering the option of having no lease sales at all. The plan narrows areas considered for oil and gas leasing from one proposed under President Donald Trump in 2018.
Biden offshore plan puts leasing halt on the table -The White House today advanced an offshore oil and gas plan that laid out two main alternatives: close the ocean to new oil and gas leasing or preserve the status quo by continuing to hold auctions, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico. The Biden administration published the highly anticipated draft plan without highlighting a preferred decision and is taking public comment for 90 days, with a final decision coming at an unspecified later date. “This announcement is not a decision — it’s a process step,” an Interior Department official said. “It’s meant to engage the American people, bring them into this conversation. And let it unfold from there.” He noted the “climate imperative” facing the administration as it advances this plan as well as its ongoing interest in reforming the oil and gas program in line with a report the administration released last year. The leasing option laid out in the plan envisions scheduling up to 11 oil and gas auctions between 2023 and 2028. The plan highlights the precarious path President Joe Biden faces in reshaping the federal oil and natural gas program to serve a larger climate agenda during a period of high energy prices. With the plan not finalized, offshore leasing will not restart until at least next year. The draft does propose limiting potential leasing to areas with existing oil and gas infrastructure and active activity, cutting out the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It weighs up to 10 lease auctions in the Gulf and one potential sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. But administration officials said the final plan could have fewer or none depending on public comment. The regional restriction would do little to disrupt oil and gas activities. Right now, the Gulf of Mexico is in effect the only offshore oil and gas region in the country, responsible for roughly 97 percent of offshore production. If the final proposal moves forward with leasing, it could follow the strategy the administration so far has carved out for its onshore oil and gas decisions, where it hasn’t embraced calls to end new leasing or drilling but restricted the public lands that will be made available for development and increased the royalties drillers pay for producing public minerals. The Biden administration had come under fire for not proposing a draft offshore leasing plan sooner, with GOP lawmakers and the oil industry expressing frustration at what they saw as a de facto leasing moratorium that continued even after a federal judge ordered an end to the pause on new auctions ordered by Biden when he first took office. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in a statement he was pleased the administration had released the plan but disappointed by its consideration of no new leasing.
Industry groups call for expansion of offshore lease sales as DOI plans to limit access - Industry groups reacted to the Department of Interior’s release of its five-year offshore drilling plan that seeks to block new offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, saying it would be an overall disadvantage to America and its energy security. The Department of Interior on Friday released its five-year offshore leasing plan, which they are required to do by law. It contains much ambiguity and uncertainty for the industry, signaling a plan for 11 lease sales, but not guaranteeing any lease sales, Energy Workforce & Technology Council CEO Leslie Beyer said. “Also, the plan limits access to two of our bordering oceans,” Beyer said. “If the Administration's goal is truly to bring down energy costs and provide energy security for our nation, the Department should be expanding offshore drilling access to boost production to meet demand instead of limiting leases and continuing to disincentivize domestic production.” The American Petroleum Institute (API) Senior Vice President of Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs Frank Macchiarola said the announcement leaves open the possibility of no new offshore lease sales, the continuation of a policy that has gone on for far too long. “Because of their failure to act, the U.S. is now in the unprecedented position of having a substantial gap between programs for the first time since this process began in the early 1980s, leaving U.S. producers at a significant disadvantage on the global stage and putting our economic and national security at risk,” Macchiarola said. National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito the Biden administration must act swiftly to finalize and implement the offshore oil and gas leasing program. “We are in the middle of a substantial, unnecessary, and avoidable gap in offshore leasing that is having serious impacts for both near-term and long-term investment in U.S. energy production,” Milito said. “The gap in offshore lease sales – and all of negative impacts associated with reduced domestic production – will continue for the foreseeable future until a final leasing program is in place and lease sales resume.” The proposed leasing plan is just one step in that process, he said, adding it is imperative that the Administration act without any further delays and finalize the program as proposed, without reduced acreage. At a time of historic tightness in the global oil marketplace and associated high prices for Americans, energy policies are needed that promote continued and growing supplies from U.S. producing regions. “Every administration – whether they were Republican or Democrat – have recognized the strategic advantages of the U.S. offshore and fulfilled their statutory obligation to maintain an offshore leasing program and continuously hold lease sales. This is the first year that the U.S. will not hold an offshore lease sale since 1965,” Milito said.
201K gallons of oil spill from pipeline in Tennessee (AP) — Officials are cleaning up a massive oil spill from a multistate pipeline that ruptured in rural Tennessee.According to the state Department of Environment and Conservation, approximately 201,600 gallons of crude oil spilled from the pipeline on June 29 and entered Horse Creek in Henderson, some 88 miles northeast of Memphis. The department says the spill was “secured” on June 30 and there were no reported impacts to nearby drinking water wells, no water contact advisories issued and no fish kills observed. Officials say a mowing contractor struck the Mid-Valley Pipeline Company’s pipeline. Parent company Energy Transfer said in a statement on Wednesday that the pipeline was repaired and cleanup was concluding.
Tennessee just had its second-largest crude oil spill ever, with 200,000 gallons leaking into rural town - A burst pipeline has leaked more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil in the small town of Henderson, Tenn., making it the second-largest crude oil spill in state history. The Mid-Valley Pipeline Company, a roughly 1,000-mile crude oil pipeline, is the source of the leak, about 130 miles southwest of Nashville. The pipeline dumped about 4,800 barrels of crude oil, which is equivalent to 201,600 gallons, into the surrounding area and into a local creek in Chester County last Wednesday, according to the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Materials Administration, also known as PHMSA. The Mid-Valley Pipeline Company transmission route starts in Texas, passes through Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio, and ends in Michigan. Mid-Valley Pipeline Company is owned by Energy Transfer Partners. Crude oil spills of this magnitude are rare. The largest crude oil spill recorded in the state was an approximately 357,000-gallon spill in Clarksville in 1988, and it was also on the Mid-Valley Pipeline Company system, according to PHMSA data that dates back to 1986. Initial reports suggest that a mower hit and ruptured the pipeline.
Proposed silica mine wins state permit but faces Ste. Genevieve County roadblock --A recently formed silica sand mining company has won a key state permit for its site in Ste. Genevieve County, but a county health ordinance remains in the company’s way. On Thursday, the same day the Missouri Department of Natural Resources granted NexGen Silica a surface mining permit, the company sued the Ste. Genevieve County Commission and the health department in Ste. Genevieve County Circuit Court in an attempt to strike down the county ordinance. The actions last week were the latest developments in a monthslong fight between NexGen Silica and residents who live near the proposed mine.Opponents have raised concerns over possible effects to local wells and on air quality in and around the site, which is within miles of public lands such as Hawn State Park. The residents’ group, called Operation Sand, had pushed the County Commission to approve the health ordinance in May to stymie the mine proposal. One of the leaders of Operation Sand, Jillian Ditch, said Tuesday she wasn’t surprised the Department of Natural Resources issued a surface mining permit to NexGen.“Operation Sand and myself, we believe in the health ordinance,” Ditch said. “We know that it’s sound and valid and it will be upheld in court.” Circuit Judge Timothy Inman was assigned to the case on Friday but recused himself the same day. The company’s 46-page lawsuit argues the ordinance is “preempted by the Missouri statutes, was passed using a defective and unlawful procedure, and is unconstitutional.”Nexgen Silica intends to produce frack sand and/or industrial sands, moving the materials for transport on the Mississippi River at Ste. Genevieve, the company said in April.While frack sand is used in natural gas drilling, industrial sand has a wide range of applications, from glass to computer chips, Clark Bollinger, general manager for Nexgen Silica, said at the time.
The price of frac sand has spiked 150% for Permian oil producers— Bumping along the desolate highways of the Permian Basin, the world’s busiest oil field, there are long stretches where all you see are drilling rigs, sage brush and miles upon miles of sand. That’s why it’s so strange that Texas crude producers are facing a sand shortage of more than 1 million tons and prices that have jumped 150%. Frac sand, which gets blasted through shale rocks to unlock oil and natural gas, is averaging $55 a ton, up from $22 at the end of 2021, data from energy-research firm Lium show. Demand is climbing as oil explorers turn the taps back on after Covid-driven cutbacks. But like in so many pockets of the economy, the recovery is sparking a mismatch. Sand suppliers have seen disruptions, labor shortages and trucking bottlenecks. The chief executive officer of US Silica Holdings Inc., the largest publicly traded frac-sand miner, has dubbed the tight market “sandemonium” and said his company is sold out. That’s where Steve Brock and his upstart sand-mining operation, Nomad Proppant LLC, come in. Since the early days of the shale revolution more than a decade ago, fracing operators have relied on mined sand that’s delivered to their sites by truck — across distances as long as 100 miles. Brock, Nomad’s chief commercial officer, wants to turn that model on its head. His idea: Why not just use the sand that’s right under your feet? Nomad has developed machinery that can go directly to the frac wells (give or take 10 to 20 miles), vastly reducing the burden of freight costs and the time-consuming process of trucking. “We’re not brain surgeons here — all we’re doing is finding the best spots and washing and delivering the sand,” said Brock, 34. “Frankly, that it took us this long to get here is pretty wild.”
Oil and gas production creates record tax revenue for State of Texas – Railroad Commission of Texas Chairman Wayne Christian applauds the Texas oil and gas industry following the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts’ announcement of record-breaking tax revenues from the industry. “Despite President Biden’s delusional desire to transition away from fossil fuels, Comptroller Hegar’s announcement reinforces the fact that oil and gas literally fuels every facet of our lives from energy to food and beyond,” said Railroad Commission Chairman Wayne Christian. “In addition to paying record-breaking tax revenue which funds our schools, roads, first responders and more, Texas’ oil and gas industry is our economy’s lifeblood supporting roughly one-third of our state’s economy and paying an average salary of $130,000. Oil and gas production is also so much more than simply fueling our energy use and funding our government, it produces about 96% of everyday consumer items including electricity, gasoline, plastics, medicine and countless others.” The Comptroller recently announced the oil and gas industry paid record-breaking taxes to the state. In June, the oil production tax generated $679 million – up 87% from June 2021 and the highest monthly collection on record. For the same month, the natural gas production tax generated $439 million – up 176% from June 2021 and the highest monthly collection on record.
Oilfield services jobs rise again for eight straight months of growth - Employment in the U.S. oilfield services and equipment sector rose by an estimated 4,999 jobs to 633,198 in June, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and analysis by the Energy Workforce & Technology Council, and after adjustments to May numbers. May adjusted number of 628,190 is down from the preliminary of 628,793. Gains in June were made in five out of seven categories tracked, with the largest gains coming in support activities in mining (oil and gas share) and oil and gas extraction. Slight losses were seen in petroleum and coal products manufacturing, and in fabricated metal product manufacturing. The data reported is the highest since September 2021 when total jobs rebounded to 643,057, but still off the pre-pandemic mark in February 2020 of 706,528. The growth in June comes as overall U.S. employers added 372,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate remains at 3.6%. Job increases came mostly in healthcare, and leisure and hospitality in June.
US Waha hub forward gas basis discounts widen as Permian output pushes capacity --Forward gas traders are bracing for the return of steep basis discounts at the West Texas Waha Hub by early fourth quarter as anticipated gains in Permian Basin production hit the spot market before a series of recently announced brownfield pipeline expansions can enter service. Over the past six months, Waha’s October and November 2022 forwards have experimented with steep, and previously unanticipated, basis discounts. In early May and again in mid-June, the hub’s two autumn contracts briefly traded at more than $1.80/MMBtu below the Henry Hub. A recent, and sharp. devaluation in the benchmark US gas price has allowed Waha to close the gap slightly. According to Platts’ latest M2MS forwards assessments, October and November are now pricing at a discount of about $1.30-$1.40/MMBtu—still well below the 80-90 cents range seen in January. Weaker shoulder-season prices at Waha, which have hit the spring 2023 contracts as well, come as Permian Basin production shows signs of upward momentum. Since February, output there has climbed by a brow-raising 700 MMcf/d, or about 5%, to average 14.5 Bcf/d last month. In May, production averaged its highest on record at nearly 14.7 Bcf/d, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed. Production gains this year come as operators in the basin continue to step up drilling activity.
Invisible and toxic in New Mexico - Pollution from oil and gas facilities can harm the health of those who live near them. That’s disproportionately Indigenous people in NM, a new map shows. In her 30 years working as a health care professional in the Navajo Nation, Adella Begaye witnessed the health impacts of extractive industries on Indigenous communities in the Southwest. “We know these toxins can impact the respiratory system, your heart and the lungs. All parts of the body,” she said, speaking to the harms of pollution from the uranium, coal, and oil and gas industries. . In New Mexico, the second-largest oil-producing state in the U.S., residents’ proximity to oil and gas facilities has become a growing public health concern.According to the Oil and Gas Threat Map by the nonprofits FracTracker Alliance and Earthworks, over 144,000 people in New Mexico live within a half-mile of an oil and gas facility. That number includes 20% of the state’s Indigenous residents.This “threat radius” is correlated with adverse health outcomes, including cancer, respiratory illness,fetal defects, blood disorders, and neurological problems stemming from chemicals associated with oil and gas production. “There are billowing clouds of methane and toxics like benzene from pretty much every oil and gas facility,” said Earthwork’s Information Systems Director Alan Septoff during a presentation of the updated map. Pollutants from more than 62,000 oil and gas facilities in New Mexico include the carcinogen benzene, hydrogen sulfide (similar in toxicity to carbon monoxide), and “volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone (smog),” according to the EPA. A spokesperson from the New Mexico Environment Department confirmed oil and gas activities impact the health of people living nearby. “The most widespread reported symptoms include respiratory problems like asthma and coughing, eye, nose, and throat irritation, headaches, nausea, dizziness, trouble sleeping, and fatigue,” spokesperson Mathew Maez wrote in an email.According to the American Lung Association, the four major oil- and gas-producing counties in New Mexico received failing grades for high ozone days. “That means that people are being exposed to asthma-exacerbating air pollution,”
Kinder Morgan Reports Massive Gas Release From Colorado Pipeline -An equipment malfunction resulted in 25 million cubic feet of gas being released. Kinder Morgan Inc. reported a massive release of natural gas from its TransColorado Pipeline following an equipment malfunction at a compressor station in Olathe, Colorado. About 25 million cubic feet of natural gas was released June 25, the company said in an e-mailed statement. “Following the incident, all appropriate regulatory agencies were notified,” said the company. “An investigation into the cause and quantity of the release is being conducted.”The primary component of natural gas is methane, which has 84 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Industrial Commission formally supports WBI Energy's 'Wahpeton Expansion' natural gas pipeline project -- North Dakota’s Industrial Commission is on record supporting a project to bring more natural gas to southeast North Dakota. It’s called the “Wahpeton Expansion Project,” proposed by WBI Energy. It would run from Mapleton to Wahpeton, and would also serve Kindred. The project includes approximately 60.5 miles of 12 inch diameter pipe from Mapleton to Wahpeton. "That part of North Dakota does not have reliable or adequate natural gas supply," said North Dakota Pipeline Authority director Justin Kringstad. "The supply can be intermittent. So this new pipeline would allow direct connection to an existing North Dakota gas line, with reliable, 365 day a year gas supply." The proposal is now before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
MHA Nation hopes to sell waste natural gas to proposed $2B hydrogen hub -- The Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota lights up at night like candles on a birthday cake in a darkened room, illuminated by scads of oil well rigs that are flaring off millions of dollars worth of natural gas annually. It’s Mark Fox’s wish that the burning will stop, with hopes that his Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation (MHA) may someday be able to sell the gas that today is simply wasted and use the proceeds to improve the lives of tribal members.His wish is getting a big boost from an unlikely quarter: a federal initiative to wean the nation off fossil fuels and use hydrogen as a main source of energy for transportation and energy-intensive industries such as steelmaking and fertilizer manufacturing.The tribe has signed a non-disclosure agreement and memorandum of understanding with Bakken Energy LLC and Mitsubishi Power Americas Inc. to supply natural gas to a coal gasification plant near Beulah that would be converted to produce “blue” hydrogen. If the project comes to fruition, it would be the largest producer of clean hydrogen in North America, according to a statement from Mitsubishi Power. “So now instead of burning it into the night, the tribe would be paid for their gas — rather than flaring it and no one gets paid,” Fox told Tribal Business News.The stakes are high, both in terms of revenues lost and what it could mean to improve the lives of the MHA Nation. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, North Dakota has been the nation’s second-largest crude oil-producing state since 2012, and it has nearly 3 percent of the nation’s total natural gas reserves. But because the state does not have enough pipeline capacity to transport all of its natural gas, large amounts of the gas production are flared at the wellhead.“State regulators prefer burning the associated gas that is extracted during oil production to having the gas vent into the air when possible because methane, the main component of natural gas, is a more potent greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that is the main product of flaring,” according to the agency. The Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University determined that “oil and gas operators on reservation land reported flaring more than 199 billion cubic feet of natural gas from 2012 to 2020, valued at more than $600 million.” The center’s independent analysis of satellite data indicated that the amount of gas flared from reservation wells may be underreported by 42 billion cubic feet of gas during that period. Fox said the MHA Nation, which has slightly more than 17,000 individual citizens, could use the revenues of flared gas to improve roads, build schools and clinics and increase law enforcement efforts. The nation encompasses about 1 million acres of land in western North Dakota bisected by the Missouri River.
Federal oil lease sale in Montana stirs little interest -As federal oil and gas leases go, the first Montana sale in nearly two years was no firecracker.Post-sale data for the June 30 event shows 865 federal acres in Montana fetching a combined $68,073. The data is presented by EnergyNet, which manages the Bureau of Land Management’s online leasing program. The sale, which included parcels in Montana and North Dakota, produced more than $7.3 million in receipts. North Dakota acres received as much as $52,001 an acre.This was the Bureau of Land Management’s first Montana-Dakota lease sale since Sept. 22, 2020. It was brought about by a court order striking down an onshore-lease suspension made by President Joe Biden days after taking office. As a candidate, Biden had campaigned on ending oil and gas drilling on federal land, a key part of the president’s plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions.The sale seemed to satisfy neither the petroleum industry nor environmentalists. The petroleum industry criticized the Biden administration for offering up 140,000 across eight states, a number the industry said was too small. There were also objections to an increase in the public’s share of the proceeds from any oil or natural gas extracted. The new royalty rate of 18.75%, up from 12.5%, is more in line with royalties collected by states for mineral leases on state land. Montana’s state rate is 16.67%.
Oil and gas, green groups both pan reduced lease sale - Oil and gas companies successfully bid for the right to develop 71,251 federal acres across the West in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s first onshore oil and gas lease sale since President Joe Biden took office. Most of the newly leased federal minerals are in Wyoming — 67,627 subsurface acres, according to the BLM. But the industry didn’t get nearly what it wanted.The BLM offered just 21% of the 570,000 lease acres initially nominated in Wyoming, withdrawing large tracts that fall within greater sage grouse “core habitat.” Oil and gas companies picked up just 55% of the reduced 119,565 acres offered for lease in Wyoming.“It’s just clear that this administration is doing everything it can to make it more difficult for leasing on public lands, which is detrimental to the state of Wyoming given our place as the leader of development on public lands in the U.S.,” Petroleum Association of Wyoming Director of Communications Ryan McConnaughey said.The delayed and significantly reduced lease sale was a meager step in the right direction, according to environmental groups pressuring federal regulators and the Biden administration to make good on promises to reform the oil and gas leasing program.“We obviously wish [the BLM] would have lived up to their commitment to take a timeout on leasing and acknowledge that there’s a lot that’s under lease already,” WildEarth Guardians Climate and Energy Program Director Jeremy Nichols said.Hopeful drillers had nominated nearly 570,000 acres of federal oil and gas in Wyoming at the beginning of the Biden administration — an unusually large request that nonetheless fit a trajectory of increasingly larger quarterly oil and gas lease salesestablished under the Trump administration. Amidst administrative appeals, lawsuits, a new administration and Biden’s 2021indefinite moratorium on BLM oil and gas lease sales (since struck down in the courts), both the Interior Department and the BLM withdrew parcels, citing various concerns. Some were whittled away based on potential impacts to cultural resources and other competing public interests, but most — more than 380,000 acres — were withdrawn because they were located in greater sage grouse core habitat in Wyoming.The iconic Western bird serves as a barometer for the health of the sprawling sagebrush habitat across the West and the more than 100 other species that depend on it. The birdremains imperiled, according to biologists, and its stronghold is in Wyoming.
Calif. gives 'new life' to gas plants in emergency overhaul -California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a controversial measure yesterday that would delay the closure of natural gas plants and expedite energy generation projects in an effort to avoid blackouts over the next five summers. The legislation aims to beef up supply on the state’s electrical grid, as it faces a potential shortfall in times of extreme heat. The language came as part of a raft of late bills attached to the $308 billion state budget. The move angered environmental advocates and groups representing lower-income communities, who said the legislation was rushed through without scrutiny or public input — and could harm the state’s green goals and public health. The new law shifts power for buying emergency generation projects to the state Department of Water Resources (DWR), allocating at least $2.2 billion to the task. The California Energy Commission will conduct environmental reviews and can bypass approvals from other state and local agencies that normally would review developments. DWR can use the money to pay for the construction of new plants that use “zero-emissions” fuel like solar, wind and battery storage. For the next year, the agency can buy diesel-powered generators. DWR can also buy power from coastal natural gas power plants that were slated to close between next year and 2029. The law puts no expiration date on that ability. Newsom‘s office said DWR will buy generation as part of a “Strategic Reserve” that will only be used “when we face potential shortfall during extreme climate-change driven events (e.g. heatwaves, wildfire disruptions to transmission).” “The state’s energy plan is focused on ensuring reliability in the face of climate change and affordability for Californians while we accelerate our transition to clean energy,” Erin Mellon, a Newsom spokesperson, said in an email.
California Shows Why Fossil Fuels Are So Hard to Quit - Every five years, this city of 7,000 hosts a rollicking, Old West-themed festival known as Oildorado. High schoolers decorate parade floats with derricks and pump jacks. Young women vie for the crown in a “Maids of Petroleum” beauty pageant. It’s a celebration of an industry that has sustained the local economy for the past century.This is oil country, in a state that leads the country in environmental regulation. With wildfires and drought ravaging California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, wants to end oil drilling in the state by 2045. That has provoked angst and fierce resistance here in Kern County, where oil and gas tax revenues help to pay for everything from elementary schools to firefighters to mosquito control.“Nowhere else in California is tied to oil and gas the way we are, and we can’t replace what that brings overnight,” said Ryan Alsop, chief administrative officer in Kern County, a region north of Los Angeles. “It’s not just tens of thousands of jobs. It’s also hundreds of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue that we rely on to fund our schools, parks, libraries, public safety, public health.”Across the United States, dozens of states and communities rely on fossil fuels to fund aspects of daily life. In Wyoming, more than half of state and local tax revenues comes from fossil fuels. In New Mexico, an oil boom has bankrolled free college for residents and expanded medical care for new mothers. Oil and gas money is so embedded in many local budgets, it’s difficult to imagine a future without it.Disentangling communities from fossil-fuel income poses a major obstacle in the fight against climate change. One study found that if nations followed the urging of scientists and cut emissions from oil, gas and coal deeply enough to avert catastrophic warming, United States tax revenues from oil and gas production, currently about $34 billion per year, could fall by two-thirds by 2050.While Kern County produces 70 percent of California’s oil, it is also the state’s largest supplier of wind and solar power. But renewable energy doesn’t generate as much tax revenue as fossil fuels, partly because California exempts solar panels from property taxes to spur construction. And jobs in the wind and solar industries generally don’t pay as much or last as long as those in the oil fields.So Kern County is feuding with the governor. Local officials, whohave unsuccessfully sued to block Governor Newsom’s restrictions on drilling, are backing a plan for up to 43,000 new wells and havethreatened to halt solar projects in response to the state’s oil crackdown.Whether Kern County can transition to cleaner energy could offer a model, or a cautionary tale, to the rest of the nation.“California is about 10 years ahead of other places on climate policy, but I expect we’ll see similar issues pop up across the United States,” said Kyle Meng, an economist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “When you look at how deeply oil and gas is woven into the fabric of many communities, providing money for schools and hospitals and roads, the shift to clean energy can get really complicated, really fast.”
Biden administration backs Alaska LNG in new environmental study - The Biden administration has endorsed Alaska’s $38 billion natural gas project in an expanded environmental review that concludes the energy project would have little effect on greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan — a vocal opponent of the administration’s restrictions on fossil fuel development — called the Department of Energy’s environmental impact statement “a glowing report on the importance of this project.”
Administration weighs options for Alaska drilling project that would produce 629M barrels of oil -The Biden administration is weighing several options for the future of a major proposed drilling project in Alaska that could produce massive quantities of oil and significantly contribute to climate change. The administration released an environmental review that said that at its peak, the project could produce more than 180,000 barrels of oil per day and produce a total of 629 million barrels overall over the course of a 30-year duration. It found that the project could contribute between 278 million and nearly 287 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to climate change over the same time period. That’s the equivalent of the carbon dioxide contribution of between about 59.9 million and 61.8 million cars that are driven for a year. The review contains several “alternatives” for the ultimate decision that the administration may make on the project including blocking it, allowing it to proceed as sponsor ConocoPhillips proposed and shrinking the project. The document doesn’t list a “preferred” option, and a spokesperson for the department confirmed that all of them would be given equal consideration. The document’s release comes after a court tossed the Trump-era approval of the project, known as the Willow Project, last year. A judge argued that the analysis behind that approval was flawed for environmental reasons, including a lack of consideration of climate impacts. The judge ordered the Biden administration to redo it.
Oil from U.S. reserves sent overseas as gasoline prices stay high — More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency reserves release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices hit record highs.About 1 million barrels per day is being released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) through October. The flow is draining the SPR, which last month fell to the lowest since 1986. U.S. crude futures are above $100 per barrel and gasoline and diesel prices above $5 a gallon in one-fifth of the nation. U.S. officials have said oil prices could be higher if the SPR had not been tapped. “The SPR remains a critical energy security tool to address global crude oil supply disruptions,” a Department of Energy spokesperson said, adding that the emergency releases helped ensure stable supply of crude oil. The fourth-largest U.S. oil refiner, Phillips 66, shipped about 470,000 barrels of sour crude from the Big Hill SPR storage site in Texas to Trieste, Italy, according to U.S. Customs data. Trieste is home to a pipeline that sends oil to refineries in central Europe. Atlantic Trading & Marketing (ATMI), an arm of French oil major TotalEnergies, exported 2 cargoes of 560,000 barrels each, the data showed. Phillips 66 declined to comment on trading activity. ATMI did not respond to a request for comment. Cargoes of SPR crude were also headed to the Netherlands and to a Reliance refinery in India, an industry source said. A third cargo headed to China, another source said. At least one cargo of crude from the West Hackberry SPR site in Louisiana was set to be exported in July, a shipping source added. “Crude and fuel prices would likely be higher if (the SPR releases) hadn’t happened, but at the same time, it isn’t really having the effect that was assumed,” The latest exports follow three vessels that carried SPR crude to Europe in April helping replace Russian crude supplies. U.S. crude inventories are the lowest since 2004 as refineries run near peak levels. Refineries in the U.S. Gulf coast were at 97.9% utilization, the most in three and a half years.
Has There Been Any Follow Up on DOE Energy Meeting? - Has there been any follow up on the energy meeting that U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm held? That was one of the questions posed to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a press briefing earlier this week. Answering the question, Jean-Pierre said, “as you know, that meeting went very well”. “We are … still looking to get to solution. We think that was a first step. There’s going to be more conversations … We just don’t have more to share on the next steps, specific next steps and what has been presented to the President,” the White House Press Secretary added in her response. “But clearly, we’re looking for solutions. We want to get that capacity up. We want to make sure that refineries are increasing their capacity so that we can get … gasoline out there, we can get diesel out there so that the cost[s] for the American people … come on down,” Jean-Pierre continued. “And so that’s what we’re going to continue to work on,” the press secretary went on to say. The average price of regular gasoline in the U.S. on July 7 was $4.752 per gallon, according to the AAA gas prices website. Yesterday’s average was $4.779 per gallon, the week ago average was $4.857 per gallon, the month ago average was $4.919 per gallon and the year ago average was $3.137 per gallon, the AAA site showed. The highest recorded average price for regular gasoline was seen on June 14 at $5.016 per gallon, according to the site. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed last month that Granholm led an in-person meeting with the CEOs and executives of seven major U.S. oil companies at the DOE headquarters in the morning of June 23. In an organization statement at the time, the DOE said the meeting took a productive focus on dissecting the current global problems of supply and refining, generating an opportunity for industry to work with government to help deliver needed relief to American consumers.
Biden's 51 years of bad blood with Big Oil - The fight started decades ago, when Biden was an up-and-coming county councilman with an eye on a U.S. Senate seat. President Joe Biden has been feuding with Big Oil since he was a 28-year-old county councilman in Delaware who went to war against a Shell refinery. “If Shell wants to build a refinery, let them build it,” Biden said during his brief stint as a local politician, the Wilmington News Journal reported at the time. “But first let them write it in blood that they won’t pollute.” He helped galvanize political opposition to the planned refinery, which was never built.Biden’s fight against the oil giant was a centerpiece of his two years on the New Castle County Council, where he served from 1971 until 1972. He leaned on his reputation for battling Big Oil to win his 1972 Senate race — catapulting a political career that ultimately landed in the White House.As president, Biden’s clash with the industry continues, but the stakes are higher. He’s hoping to prod drillers and refiners to step up production in an attempt to ease soaring fuel costs. But his public criticism of industry — and the industry’s disdain for his rhetoric and his policies — could make it harder for the administration and the industry to work together to lower gas prices.Earlier this month, Biden publicly quipped that an oil executive was “mildly sensitive” after the executive had accused Biden of vilifying the industry. E nergy Secretary Jennifer Granholm appeared to make amends on the administration’s behalf, but the relationship between Team Biden and Big Oil isn’t great (Greenwire, June 24).
Three charges laid for 2019 spill from Newfoundland's Hibernia offshore oil platform— Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore oil regulator is laying charges in connection with a 2019 oil spill in the Hibernia field, which sits about 315 kilometres off the coast of St. John's. The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board says it charged Hibernia Management and Development Company with three offences related to the spill. That company operates the Hibernia oilfield, which is owned by several oil giants including ExxonMobil Canada, Chevron and Suncor. The regulator alleges that the company failed to stop work or activity that was likely to cause pollution and that it didn't follow risk-management processes. The third charge is connected to an alleged violation of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, which prohibits spills in the province's offshore area. The July 17, 2019, incident resulted in an estimated 12,000 litres of oil spilling into the Atlantic Ocean.
Fossil Fuel Interests Are Behind Canada’s Blue Hydrogen Push - Talk to fossil fuel execs, government ministers, and industry reps these days and they’ll all tell a similar story: Blue hydrogen is the clean fuel of the future that will help Canada and the world get to net-zero emissions. It’ll power everything from airplanes to long-haul trucks and will even heat our homes. Canadian media has called blue hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas and has its emissions captured, “a key part” of the nation’s emissions-reduction strategy and “fairly clean” — a claim that echoes an infographic from ATCO, a major Canadian energy company, that said blue hydrogen produces “nearly zero emissions.”The Canadian government is relying heavily on this fuel source to deliver the promises in its net-zero emissions goals. In December 2020, the government released a hydrogen strategy that suggests that rapid expansion of the hydrogen industry — including “large-scale blue hydrogen production” by 2030 — could help the country “achieve our net-zero goal all while creating jobs, growing our economy and protecting the environment.”Alberta, long the heart of Canada’s oil and gas industry, is banking on hydrogen, too. “It was really starting to settle in that we had probably had the last [oil and gas] boom,” then-Mayor of Edmonton Don Iveson told the Narwhal in early 2021. Hydrogen tantalizingly represents continued jobs and investment in the region.Earlier this year, Edmonton hosted the inaugural Canadian Hydrogen Convention, which was sponsored by city and regional government, various Alberta-based business interests, and Canadian and international fossil fuel companies. The city will also be home to a hydrogen hubthat paints a rosy picture of a future in which “buses, trains, heavy trucks, home heating, and farm equipment all run on zero-emissions hydrogen” and the fuel will “ensure long-term economic competitiveness as the world shifts towards a low-carbon future.”“Our province is securing our future as a powerhouse in clean energy production,” claimedPremier Jason Kenney last summer when announcing Alberta’s $1.3 billion investment in the Edmonton hydrogen hub.The problem with this blue rhapsody? It’s not what it seems.The oil and gas industry is counting on both governments and the public buying into blue hydrogen, which has been called a $100 billion dollar opportunity and was featured at a gas industry conference earlier this year. To fuel this hype, the industry has produced inaccurate ormisleading information that claims a combination of hydrogen as a fuel source and carbon capture will make blue hydrogen the energy resource of the future. Kenney is a long-standing critic of climate science and booster of claims that foreign-funded environmental groups are undermining Canadian fossil fuel interests. Yet, as DeSmog’s new mapof hydrogen lobbying actors in Canada shows, among the biggest beneficiaries and proponents of Alberta’s blue hydrogen push are U.S. company Air Products, Shell, Toyota, and France Hydrogène.
Backing fracking? Landmark report could resurrect lost industry this week - The revival of domestic fracking could be finalised this week, as Downing Street scrambles to boost domestic energy supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Industry sources confirmed to City A.M. the British Geological Society (BGS) will hand in its report to the Government in the coming days, providing advice on the latest scientific evidence around shale gas extraction. Fracking involves pumping water, chemicals and sand underground at high pressure to fracture shale rock and release trapped oil and gas. Prime Minister Boris Johnson first imposed a moratorium on fracking in 2019, following a devastating report from a leading industry body which concluded it was not possible to accurately predict the probability or potency of earthquakes linked to fracking operations. However, following the eruption of war in Europe, the Government greenlit a survey into whether there have been new developments in the science of hydraulic fracturing that make the process safer. Cuadrilla, the owner of the country’s two remaining horizontal shale wells in Lincolnshire, has suggested 10 per cent of its site’s 3.76tn cubic metres of gas could meet the UK’s energy needs for the next 50 years If the report from the BGS suggest the process could be made safe, it could result in further production at the site. By contrast, if the BGS’ findings concerning safety are negative, it will likely be the closing chapter for domestic fracking – with the North Sea Transition Authority previously ordering Cuadrilla The IEA’s energy analyst Andy Mayer told City A.M. the alternative to fracking was depending on overseas imports, which would be both more environmentally damaging and more expensive. He said: “The UK’s choice on fossil fuels today is drill and dig, or dither and import.”
UK Gov Energy Reps Stay on as Resignations Mount - The UK Secretary of State at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS), Kwasi Kwarteng, and the UK Minister of State for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change at DBEIS, Greg Hands, have remained in their roles through a flurry of government resignations. Since Tuesday, more than 50 MPs have resigned, according to a tracker on Sky News. This includes the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now suffered more ministerial resignations in one day than any PM in history, Sky News highlighted. Rigzone has asked DBEIS if Kwarteng and Hands plan to submit their resignations. At the time of writing, Rigzone has not heard back from the government. Kwarteng was appointed Secretary of State at the DBEIS on January 8, 2021. The Secretary of State has overall responsibility for the DBEIS, which brings together responsibilities for business, industrial strategy, science, innovation and energy, the UK government website outlines. Hands was appointed Minister of State at the DBEIS on September 16, 2021. His responsibilities include, Net Zero Strategy, low carbon generation, oil and gas, security of supply, international energy, and hydrogen, the UK government site highlights. On Wednesday, the Energy Security Bill, announced as part of the Queen’s Speech, was introduced into Parliament by Kwarteng. A statement on the UK government website described the bill as “the most significant piece of energy legislation in a decade”. “To ensure we are no longer held hostage by rogue states and volatile markets, we must accelerate plans to build a truly clean, affordable, home-grown energy system in Britain,” Kwarteng said in a government statement on Wednesday. “This is the biggest reform of our energy system in a decade. We’re going to slash red tape, get investment into the UK, and grab as much global market share as possible in new technologies to make this plan a reality,” he added in the statement. “The measures in the Energy Security Bill will allow us to stand on our own two feet again, reindustrialize our economy and protect the British people from eye-watering fossil fuel prices into the future,” Kwarteng continued.
Shell Sees $1B Gain in Refining -Shell Plc said soaring margins from fuel production may have added more than $1 billion to the earnings of its refining business last quarter, when gasoline prices broke records in several countries. The trading update from the London-based energy giant is the first indicator of just how much cash was flowing into the coffers of major oil companies due to the inflationary surge in the price of gasoline, which climbed above $5 a gallon in the US for the first time. While the rising cost of energy is strengthening the oil majors after several tough years, it risks a political backlash. US President Joe Biden has directly called on fuel retailers to cut prices and companies are facing windfall taxes in some countries. Shell’s indicative refining margin jumped to $28.04 a barrel in the second quarter from $10.23 in the first three months of the year, the company said in a statement on Thursday. That’s expected to have a positive impact of $800 million to $1.2 billion on the results of its products division, compared with the prior period. Shell’s shares advanced as much as 2.5%, and traded up 1.2% at 1,997.2 pence as of 9:36 a.m. in London. Still, analysts at RBC Europe Ltd. saw the update as “neutral,” citing uncertainty around the “magnitude of working capital outflows.” In May, Shell said that it would be hit by around $7.4 billion of working capital movements. Oil prices have jumped 30% this year as the war in Ukraine stokes supply concerns. Having ramped up its long-term price assumptions, Shell now expects to reverse previous writedowns on asset values by $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion. The company took a $3.9 billion impairment in the first quarter, stemming from its planned exit from ventures in Russia. It will take an additional hit of as much as $350 million from the loss of LNG volumes from the Russian Sakhalin-2 project, it said on Thursday. Trading and optimization results from Shell’s sprawling integrated gas unit fell from the previous quarter, when the business benefited from “exceptional” trading opportunities. The renewables and energy solutions division is expected to report adjusted earnings of $400 million to $900 million for the second quarter amid an “exceptional market environment,” the statement showed. Shell didn’t give an update on the future of its buyback program, having said it completed $8.5 billion of repurchases in the first half of the year. The company has previously signaled an acceleration in returns, saying that shareholder distributions would be in excess of 30% of operating cash flow.
Shell to build Europe's 'largest' renewable hydrogen plant to help power Dutch refinery - Plans to build a major hydrogen plant in the Netherlands will go ahead following a final investment decision by subsidiaries of oil and gas giant Shell. In an announcement Wednesday, Shell said the Holland Hydrogen I facility would be "Europe's largest renewable hydrogen plant" when operations start in 2025. According to Shell, the 200 megawatt electrolyzer will be located in the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest seaport, generating as much as 60,000 kilograms of renewable hydrogen every day. Hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in a wide range of industries. It can be produced in a number of ways. One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. If the electricity used in this process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar then some call it "green" or "renewable" hydrogen. Shell said the electrolyzer in the Netherlands would use renewable power from the Hollandse Kust (noord) offshore wind farm, a 759 MW project set to be operational in 2023. Shell is a part-owner of the wind farm. The hydrogen generated by the plant will be funneled to the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam using a new hydrogen pipeline called HyTransPort. The idea is that this renewable hydrogen "will replace some of the grey hydrogen" — which is produced using fossil fuels — used at the site. "This will partially decarbonise the facility's production of energy products like petrol and diesel and jet fuel," Shell said. In a statement, Anna Mascolo, who is executive vice president for emerging energy solutions at Shell, said renewable hydrogen would, "play a pivotal role in the energy system of the future and this project is an important step in helping hydrogen fulfil that potential."
Norway approves gas production hike to continue record exports — Norway approved higher production from key natural-gas fields in an effort to maintain record exports as Europe reels from cuts in Russian supply. The energy ministry said Monday it had agreed on revisions to permits for the Troll, Gina Krog, Duva, Oseberg, Asgard and Mikkel fields. The move will allow Norway to keep output at full tilt into next year, helping to replace Russian flows that have slumped amid the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Moscow. “The most important thing Norway can do in today’s demanding energy situation for Europe and the world is to facilitate that the companies on the shelf can maintain today’s high production,” Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said in a statement. “The companies are continuously assessing the opportunities they have for delivering more gas and oil.” Gas prices in Europe have soared to the highest level in almost four months as Russia’s shipments drop to multiyear lows and a key gas-export facility in the US suffers a prolonged outage. Norway itself contributed to price gains on Monday as planned strikes there threatened to further tighten the market. The production permits affected by the government’s decision cover volumes to be produced both in 2022 and in 2023, and the adjustments have already been accounted for in Norway’s sales forecast for this year, the ministry said.M
Norway's oil and gas output to be cut as offshore workers begin strike - Norwegian offshore workers began a strike on Tuesday in a stoppage that will cut oil and gas output in the country, said the union leading the industrial action. The strike, in which workers are demanding wage hikes to compensate for rising inflation, comes amid high oil and gas prices, with supplies of gas to Europe especially tight after Russian export cutbacks. Audun Ingvartsen, the leader of the Lederne trade union, confirmed to Reuters that the strike had begun. The union and the lobby representing oil companies said on Monday night that the negotiating parties had not made progress and that a strike was set to begin at midnight local time (0000 CET). The strike will have "a substantial impact on gas exports," the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association said on its website. "About 13 per cent of Norway’s daily gas exports will be lost". Equinor, the operator of the platforms, initiated a shutdown of three fields in the North Sea as a result of a strike, the company said on Tuesday. Tuesday's stoppage at three fields — Gudrun, Oseberg South and Oseberg East — is due to be extended to three other fields — Kristin, Heidrun and Aasta Hansteen — from midnight on Wednesday. A seventh field, Tyrihans, will have to shut because its output is processed from Kristin. Lederne said on Monday it would further escalate the industrial action from July 9, taking workers on strike at three more platforms. On Tuesday, oil and gas output will be reduced by 89,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), of which gas output makes up 27,500 boepd, Equinor reiterated on Tuesday. As the strike deepens from Wednesday, oil output will be cut by 130,000 barrels per day, Equinor said, confirming an earlier estimate. Reuters estimates that this week's action corresponds to around 6.5% of Norway's production. It means that close to a quarter of Norway's gas output could be shut by Saturday, as well as around 15% of its oil production.
European gas rally shows no signs of easing on supply concerns - European natural gas prices rose to the highest level in almost four months on persistent supply concerns amid the worst energy crunch in decades. Benchmark futures jumped as much as 8% for a fifth consecutive advance. European energy markets are in turmoil with Russia’s supplies at multiyear lows, coupled with intense competition for liquefied natural gas with Asia, where prices soared to the highest ever seen during the summer. Traders are also closely watching exports from Norway, where strikes planned for this week threaten to cut gas and oil production. Output at three fields began shutting on Tuesday as the labour action started, with two more walkouts planned in the coming days. For now, shipment orders published by Norway’s grid operator show flows little changed for Tuesday. But the strike could escalate on Wednesday and into the weekend if no solution to an ongoing wage dispute is found, according to a local union. “Another day, another fear and liquidity driven spike in European gas and power pricing,” analysts at Alfa Energy Ltd. said in a note. Dutch front-month gas futures, the European benchmark, traded 6.4% higher at 173.29 euros per megawatt-hour by 11:07 a.m. in Amsterdam. The UK equivalent jumped as much as 13%. German 2023 power is trading at a record, near the highest-ever level for the benchmark. Another near-term risk is that the Nord Stream pipeline — Europe’s key channel for gas from Russia — won’t restart after 10 days of maintenance that begin July 11. That’s a development the region’s biggest consumer, Germany, is already considering as an option. German gas giant Uniper SE is in talks with the government over a potential bailout package of as much as 9 billion euros, ($9.3 billion) according to a person familiar with the situation. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has warned the gas crunch risks triggering a collapse in the market, similar to the role of Lehman Brothers in the financial crisis. “News out of Germany only fanned the flames,” Alfa Energy said.
European gas prices fall after Norway’s government steps in to end oil and gas strike - European gas prices on Wednesday fell away from four-month highs after Norway's government intervened to bring an end to an oil and gas strike that threatened to exacerbate the region's deepening energy crisis. The front-month gas price at the Dutch TTF hub, a European benchmark for natural gas trading, was last seen trading 2.5% lower at 161 euros ($164.6) per megawatt-hour. The contract briefly climbed above 178 euros per megawatt-hour amid intensifying supply fears in the previous session, reaching its highest level since early March. Norway's government late on Tuesday proposed "compulsory wage arbitration" to effectively bring an end to the industrial action by offshore workers. "The announced escalation has critical implications in the current situation, both in relation to the energy crisis and the geopolitical situation we're facing with war in Europe," Labor Minister Marte Mjos Persen said in a statement. Under Norwegian legislation, the government can intervene in certain conditions to force parties in a labor dispute to a wage board that will decide on the matter. "The parties themselves are generally responsible for finding a solution in such instances. But when the conflict could result in such far-reaching societal impacts for all of Europe, I have no other choice than to intervene in the conflict," Persen said. Offshore oil and gas workers walked out of their jobs on Tuesday. The Lederne trade union, which has more than 1,300 members, called the strike as the cost of inflation outpaced proposed revised salaries.
Norway's government halted an oil and gas worker strike that could have cut natural-gas exports by 60% and worsened Europe's energy crisis -Norway's government has stepped in to halt a strike by oil and gas workers that would have slashed natural-gas exports by up to about 60%, exacerbating the energy crisis in Europe.The strike by the Lederne union that started Tuesday could have been disastrous for Europe. Norway is the continent's second-largest energy supplier after Russia — which is already slowing natural-gas supplies via a key pipeline to Germany.Planned escalation would have cut about 56% of the country's gas exports by Saturday, said the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association, an employers' group. In the worst-case scenario, Belgium and the UK would not have been able to receive piped gas from Norway starting Saturday, Norwegian pipeline operator Gassco told Reuters.The escalation in industrial action would also have cut oi production by 341,000 barrels a day, the employers' group said. That has been averted by the government's intervention on Tuesday."The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy believes that it would be indefensible to cease gas production in the scope entailed by this strike over the next few days," Norway's labor minister, Marte Mjøs Persen, said in a statement."Production is falling dramatically, and this is highly critical in a situation where the EU and the UK are entirely dependent on their energy partnership with Norway."The Norwegian government has the power to intervene in labor disputes under certain conditions, per Reuters. It has proposed compulsory wage arbitration between the Lederne union and employers.Mjøs Persen said the Norwegian government typically exercises "significant restraint" before intervening in industrial action, but "the serious consequences of the announced escalations have forced my hand."About 15% of Norway's offshore oil and gas workers are members of the Lederne labor union that was on strike, according to Reuters.They were demanding wage increases to deal with rising inflation, which hit 5.7% in May — the highest since 1988, according toNorway's statistics agency. Lederne union members voted down a proposed wage agreement last week, according to Reuters. Other oil and gas labor unions in the country accepted the deal.Lederne union leader Audun Ingvartse said in a Tuesday statement he was "surprised" the Norwegian government has intervened in the industrial action in less than a day, but the union respects the authorities' reasons for the response. He added union members would be returning to work "as soon as possible."
Fire at Mongstad Extinguished -Equinor revealed on Sunday that a fire had been extinguished at the Mongstad site. “The situation is being handled by the emergency response organization,” the company noted on July 3. “A controlled combustion has been conducted from the leakage point. The fire is now extinguished,” Equinor added. The company noted on July 3 that the work to maintain and secure the affected system continued and said further examinations and any repairs will be conducted before the affected part of the processing plant can be restarted. In an earlier release on the same day, Equinor revealed that a fire had been reported at Mongstad. The incident was reported at 5:46 CET to Equinor’s emergency response organization and the plant was evacuated, apart from critical personnel handling operations and emergency response, Equinor highlighted, adding that no personnel injuries were reported. “Public rescue services and authorities have been notified and Equinor's emergency response organization has been mobilized,” Equinor noted in the earlier release. “A controlled burning of trapped volumes through pressure relief is being conducted, with continuous cooling of the surrounding equipment. The main plant is still in operation, but parts of the plant involved in production of some refined products are affected,” Equinor added in the release. “The cause of the fire is not yet clear. Equinor will cooperate with the authorities in uncovering the cause of the incident,” Equinor continued.
Russia is set to switch off the gas for work on a key pipeline — and Germany fears the worst - Russia is poised to temporarily shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline — the European Union's biggest piece of gas import infrastructure — for annual maintenance. The works have stoked fears of further disruption to gas supplies that would undermine the bloc's efforts to prepare for winter. Some fear the Kremlin could use planned maintenance works to turn off the taps for good. The summer maintenance activities on the pipeline, which runs under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, are scheduled to take place from July 11 through to July 21. It comes as European governments scramble to fill underground storage with natural gas supplies in an effort to provide households with enough fuel to keep the lights on and homes warm during winter. The EU, which receives roughly 40% of its gas via Russian pipelines, is trying to rapidly reduce its reliance on Russian hydrocarbons in response to President Vladimir Putin's months-long onslaught in Ukraine. Klaus Mueller, the head of Germany's energy regulator, told CNBC that Russia may continue to squeeze Europe's gas supplies beyond the scheduled end of the maintenance works. No gas is expected to be transported via the pipeline once the annual inspection gets underway, Bundesnetzagentur's Mueller said, adding: "We cannot rule out the possibility that gas transport will not be resumed afterwards for political reasons." Analysts at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group agree. If supply "doesn't come back after maintenance because President Putin plays games or wants to hit Europe while it hurts, then the plan to fill up gas storage by the end of summer will probably not work," Henning Gloystein, director of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group, told CNBC via telephone. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline is majority-owned by Russian gas company Gazprom. One key concern for EU policymakers and the energy sector more broadly is that they have "virtually no idea as to what will happen" because most communications with Gazprom have now broken down, Gloystein said. They had been previously been relatively open and frequent until May.
Russia may keep Nord Stream gas curbed after works, Goldman says - A key Russian pipeline to Europe may not return to full capacity after planned maintenance this month, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said, echoing the concerns of German officials. Nord Stream 1 will shut for works on July 11-21, tightening a market that’s seen prices soar in recent weeks. With Russia having already slashed flows through the pipe to just 40% of normal levels, any move to withhold supplies for longer would severely hurt Europe’s efforts to refill stockpiles for winter. “While we initially assumed a full restoration of NS1 flows following its upcoming maintenance event, we no longer see this as the most probable scenario,” Goldman analysts said in a note. The bank raised its gas-price forecasts for Europe into next year, citing increased risks to supply. European gas is trading at the highest level in almost four months as consumers endure the worst energy crunch in decades, while once rock-solid utilities are struggling to stay afloat. Germany, which relies on Russia for more than a third of its gas imports, said last month that the drop in flows through Nord Stream made it difficult to meet stockpiling targets, and expressed fears that the pipeline may not return to normal capacity following the scheduled works. The International Energy Agency even warned Tuesday that a complete cutoff in flows “cannot be excluded” given Russia’s “unpredictable behaviour.” While Goldman sees a total halt in deliveries as unlikely — since it would slash vital revenues for Moscow — the bank raised its third-quarter forecast for benchmark gas futures to 153 euros a megawatt-hour. Prices could rise above 200 euros in a “worst-case scenario” for Nord Stream shipments, it said. Front-month gas extended gains to trade above 170 euros on Tuesday as supply concerns were compounded by a shutdown of fields in Norway for strike action, and surging prices in Asia.
Germany’s Union Head Warns of Collapse of Entire Industries -Top German industries could face collapse because of cuts in the supplies of Russian natural gas, the country’s top union official warned before crisis talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz starting Monday. “Because of the gas bottlenecks, entire industries are in danger of permanently collapsing: aluminum, glass, the chemical industry,” said Yasmin Fahimi, the head of the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB), in an interview with the newspaper Bild am Sonntag. “Such a collapse would have massive consequences for the entire economy and jobs in Germany.” The energy crisis is already driving inflation to record highs, she said. Fahimi is calling for a price cap on energy for households. The rising costs for Co2 emissions mean further burdens for households and companies, Fahimi added. The crisis could lead to social and labour unrest, she said. Economics Minister Robert Habeck said on Saturday that the government is working on ways to address the surging costs both utilities and their customers face, without giving details. Earlier he had warned that the squeeze on Russian gas supplies risks creating deeper turmoil, likening the situation to the role of Lehman Brothers in triggering the financial crisis in 2008. Russia has reduced shipments through Nord Stream pipeline by 60% and the pipeline is scheduled for a full shutdown this month for maintenance. Germany has raised doubts that Nord Stream will resume supply after that.
Uniper kicks off German LNG terminal construction - German utility Uniper has started construction work on the site of the country’s first liquefied natural gas import terminal in an effort to fast-track the development ahead of the winter spike in gas demand. The terminal will involve the installation of a floating gas storage and regasification vessel, chartered from Greece’s Dynagas, in the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven, which is the only German deep-water port than can be accessed without tidal constraints. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs & Climate Protection and Uniper are aiming to commission the LNG import terminal during the upcoming winter season. The facility will provide annual import capacity of 7.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas, or about 8.5% of the country’s annual gas consumption, Uniper said. The company said the state Trade Supervisory Authority in the city of Oldenburg approved the early start of work on the terminal, along with onshore and seaward port infrastructure. Uniper submitted the application for the required permit and early start of construction to the Oldenburg authorities at the beginning of June.
Gazprom proposes extending gas sales for rubles to LNG -- Gazprom proposes extending gas sales for rubles to liquefied natural gas, Kiril Polous, who is in charge of Gazprom's long-term development programs, said during a State Duma Energy Committee round table at which Russia's Energy Strategy for until 2050 was discussed.
Austria starts to eject Gazprom from gas storage facility - (Reuters) Austria is following through on a “use it or lose it” threat to eject Russia’s Gazprom from its large Haidach gas storage facility for systematically failing to fill its portion of the capacity there, the government said on Wednesday. Austria obtains around 80% of its gas from Russia but since the war in Ukraine it has accused Moscow of weaponising that supply and has been seeking alternatives. Fearing that Russia will cut it off, it is racing to fill its gas storage facilities, which are at just under half their capacity. Since Gazprom has not been filling its portion of the Haidach facility near Salzburg, the conservative-led government told the Russian firm in May that if it did not use its storage there the capacity would be handed over to others. Legislation making that possible came into force on July 1. “If customers do not store (gas) then the capacity must be handed over to others. It is critical infrastructure. We need it now in such a crisis. That is exactly what is happening now in the case of Gazprom and its storage at Haidach,” energy minister Leonore Gewessler told a news conference, adding that gas regulator E-Control had started the process of ejecting Gazprom.
Germany and Ukraine in disagreement over Russian gas -Germany is seeking to bolster waning energy supplies, but Ukraine has accused Berlin of giving in to Russian "blackmail" after Moscow blamed reduced supplies on the need for repairs, not market conditions amid the Ukraine crisis.Germany has said it hopes to convince Canada to deliver a turbine needed to maintain the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, with Russia waiting on the machine's arrival before increasing supplies.Germany is seeking to bolster waning energy supplies, but Ukraine has accused Berlin of giving in to Russian "blackmail" after Moscow blamed reduced supplies on the need for repairs, not market conditions amid the Ukraine crisis.The turbine is currently undergoing maintenance at a Canadian site owned by German industrial giant Siemens.Russian energy behemoth Gazprom last month blamed the issue for a reduction in supplies to Germany via the controversial pipeline, with Berlin facing a serious energy crisis.Berlin says it has been in regular contact with Ottawa in recent weeks in order to ensure the turbine's swift transfer back to Europe without Canada falling foul of Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia. German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Friday that Berlin — already concerned by a wider pipeline maintenance session set to start on Monday and for around ten days — had received "positive signals" from Canada.
Natural Gas Soars 700%, Becoming Driving Force in the New Cold War -- One morning in early June, a fire broke out at an obscure facility in Texas that takes natural gas from US shale basins, chills it into a liquid and ships it overseas. It was extinguished in 40 minutes or so. No one was injured. It sounds like a story for the local press, at most — except that more than three weeks later, financial and political shockwaves are still reverberating across Europe, Asia and beyond. That’s because natural gas is the hottest commodity in the world right now. It’s a key driver of global inflation, posting price jumps that are extreme even by the standards of today’s turbulent markets — some 700% in Europe since the start of last year, pushing the continent to the brink of recession. It’s at the heart of a dawning era of confrontation between the great powers, one so intense that in capitals across the West, plans to fight climate change are getting relegated to the back-burner. In short, natural gas now rivals oil as the fuel that shapes geopolitics. And there isn’t enough of it to go around. It’s the war in Ukraine that catalyzed the gas crisis to a new level, by taking out a crucial chunk of supply. Russia is cutting back on pipeline deliveries to Europe — which says it wants to stop buying from Moscow anyway, if not quite yet. The scramble to fill that gap is turning into a worldwide stampede, as countries race to secure scarce cargoes of liquefied natural gas ahead of the northern-hemisphere winter. Germany says gas shortfalls could trigger a Lehman Brothers-like collapse, as Europe’s economic powerhouse faces the unprecedented prospect of businesses and consumers running out of power. The main Nord Stream pipeline that carries Russian gas to Germany is due to shut down on July 11 for ten days of maintenance, and there’s growing fear that Moscow may not reopen it. Group of Seven leaders are seeking ways to curb Russia’s gas earnings, which help finance the invasion of Ukraine — and backing new LNG investments. And poorer countries that built energy systems around cheap gas are now struggling to afford it. “The world is now thinking about gas as it once thought about oil, and the essential role that gas plays in modern economies and the need for secure and diverse supply have become very visible.” Many countries have turned to natural gas as part of a transition to cleaner energy, as they seek to phase out use of dirtier fossil fuels like coal and in some cases nuclear power too. Major producers — like the US, which has quickly risen up the ranks of LNG exporters to rival Qatar as the world’s biggest — are seeing surging demand for their output. Forty-four countries imported LNG last year, almost twice as many as a decade ago. But the fuel is much harder to shift around the planet than oil, because it has to be liquefied at places like the Freeport plant in Texas. And that’s why a minor explosion at a facility seen as nothing special by industry insiders — it’s not the biggest or most sophisticated of the seven terminals that send LNG from American shores – had such an outsized impact. Gas prices in Europe and Asia surged more than 60% in the weeks since Freeport was forced to temporarily shut down, a period that’s also seen further supply cuts by Russia. In the US, by contrast, prices for the fuel plunged almost 40% — because the outage means more of the gas will remain available for domestic use. There were already plenty of signs of extreme tightness in the market. War and Covid may be roiling every commodity from wheat to aluminum and zinc, but little compares to the stomach-churning volatility of global gas prices. In Asia, the fuel is now about three times as expensive as a year ago. In Europe, it’s one of the main reasons why inflation just hit a fresh record.
Russian lawmakers back windfall tax on Gazprom amid gas rally - Russian lawmakers approved a temporary windfall tax on energy giant Gazprom PJSC, a move that will channel billions of dollars into state coffers as natural-gas prices soar. The producer is set to pay an additional 1.25 trillion roubles ($22.2 billion) in mineral extraction tax from September to November, or 416 billion roubles each month, according to a bill adopted by the lower house of parliament on Tuesday. It still requires approval from the upper chamber and the president. European gas prices have more than doubled this year as Russia’s war in Ukraine — and resulting international sanctions — drive up risks to supply. Gazprom’s exports to its key markets have shrunk since March as some nations were cut off entirely while others saw flows through major pipelines curtailed. Despite lower shipments, the Russian exporter has gained from surging prices. The windfall tax, once approved, will direct more of those proceeds to the government — Gazprom’s largest shareholder — rather than to all investors. Last week, shareholders at the company’s annual meeting voted against a record dividend payout of 1.24 trillion roubles, deciding such a move would be “unreasonable” in the current environment, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Famil Sadygov said. Since the state owns just over 50% of Gazprom, the new tax would be twice as lucrative for the budget than the proposed dividend. “Of course, we must be ready to fulfill our obligations to pay taxes in an increased amount,” Sadygov said last week, adding that Gazprom’s priorities include expanding its domestic network and preparing for the winter season.
IEA: High prices, uncertainty will slow growth in gas demand - The International Energy Agency says high prices for natural gas and supply fears due to the war in Ukraine will slow the growth in demand for the fossil fuel in the coming years. In a report published Tuesday, the Paris-based agency forecast global demand for natural gas will rise by 140 billion cubic meters between 2021 and 2025. That’s less than half the increase of 370 bcm seen in the previous five-year period, which included the pandemic downturn. The revised forecast is mostly due to expectations of slower economic growth rather than buyers switching from gas to coal, oil or renewable energy. While the burning of gas emits less planet-warming carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels, methane released during the extraction process is a significant driver of climate change. “Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine is seriously disrupting gas markets that were already showing signs of tightness,” said Keisuke Sadamori, the agency’s director of energy markets and security. Efforts by European Union countries to wean themselves off Russian gas will lead to a fall in pipeline exports from Russia to the 27-nation bloc of 55-75%, the IEA said. At the same time the EU’s purchases of liquefied natural gas have diverted deliveries intended for other regions, such as Asia, which is predicted to account for half the demand growth by 2025. “We are now seeing inevitable price spikes as countries around the world compete for LNG shipments, but the most sustainable response to today’s global energy crisis is stronger efforts and policies to use energy more efficiently and to accelerate clean energy transitions,” said Sadamori. The agency’s quarterly report said capacity is partly constrained by a slump in gas infrastructure investments in the mid-2010s and pandemic-related construction delays. Recent new investments are not likely to affect gas supplies until after 2025, it said.
Shell buys stake in Qatari gas field expansion project -Oil and gas company Shell has joined QatarEnergy’s $29bn project to expand production at the world’s biggest natural gas field, becoming the fifth and final international partner.The United Kingdom-based company took a 6.25 percent stake for an undisclosed sum, joining TotalEnergies, Eni, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil in the North Field East project.The North Field expansion is the biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project ever seen, QatarEnergy said. It comes at a time of intense geopolitical tensions over energy supplies as the ongoing war in Ukraine pushed European countries to stop using Russian resources.The expansion is predicted to increase Qatar’s LNG production from the current 77 million tonnes a year to 110 million tonnes by 2027.“As one of the largest players in the LNG business, [Shell] have a lot to bring to help meet global energy demand and security,” said Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, who is also the QatarEnergy president and CEO. QatarEnergy estimates that the North Field, which extends under the Gulf into Iranian territory, holds about 10 percent of the world’s known gas reserves.
Turkey looking to transit Turkmen gas via Azerbaijan - As Europe seeks alternatives to Russian gas, Turkey has – for the first time in two decades – said that it is examining the possibility of transiting gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey via Azerbaijan.Fuat Oktay, Turkey’s vice president, said on June 2 that Turkey was examining three options for getting gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey and that it was conducting studies on all three.All three would use Turkey’s TANAP gas pipeline, which now carries only Azerbaijani gas and runs from northeastern Turkey to the border with Greece.Ankara's move appears to have been prompted by efforts by the European Union to secure new supplies of gas following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In response to European sanctions against Russia, Russia has retaliated by cutting energy supplies to Europe, raising fears of serious gas shortages on the continent.Although Oktay didn't specifically mention transiting the gas on to Europe, the TANAP pipeline is the sole pipeline carrying Azerbaijani gas through Turkey to Greece. There it connects to the TAP pipeline carrying gas to Albania, Bulgaria, and Italy and onward to central European markets. The TANAP pipeline has nearly 15 billion cubic meters a year of spare capacity, while the TAP pipeline has around 10 billion cubic meters a year. Brussels would like to see that capacity used to transit more gas to Europe.Although short on detail, Oktay's announcement was significant, as it was the first time in over 20 years that Ankara has become directly involved in proposals to transit gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey.
Sinopec Acquires Trillion Cubic Meters of Shale Gas Resources in Southwestern Sichuan, China -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (HKG: 0386, "Sinopec") has reported that it has achieved a daily production capacity of 530,000 cubic meters of shale gas on June 30 in its Xinye Well-1 in Qijiang, Chongqing, confirming the 100 billion cubic meters of shale gas reserves in its Xinchang shale gas structure. As of now, Sinopec has established the shale gas resource belt of "Xinchang South – Dongxi – Dingshan – Lintanchang" (the "Belt") in the southeastern Sichuan Basin, with overall shale gas resource volume reaching 1.19305 trillion cubic meters, the second trillion-level shale gas reserve of Sinopec following its Fuling shale gas field that will contribute to ensure China's energy security. The Xinye Well-1 has a depth of 5,756 meters, and the structure belt has a large favorable area and resources of shale gas, making it a key area for Sinopec's strategic exploration and production of shale gas. The average well depth of the Belt is over 3,500 meters, among which the deepest drilled Dingye Well-8's shale gas layer has a depth of 4,614 meters. The challenges of developing deep deposits include complex ground stress and deep burial depth. Sinopec attaches great importance to exploring deep shale gas and innovated theories and technologies including fracturing for deep shale gas wells as well as achieving domestic production of fracturing equipment, tools and materials. Sinopec has realized 100 percent drilling ration of high-quality shale.
Russia moves to take control of Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project - Shell owns a 27.5 percent share in a significant oil and gas project that Russia has tried to take over. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, issued an executive order on Thursday to take control of the Sakhalin-2 project. As the economic repercussions of the Ukraine war extend, the decision may push Shell and Japan’s Mitsui and Mitsubishi to sell off their investments. “We are aware of the decree and are examining its consequences,” the oil colossus Shell said. According to the decree, Sakhalin Energy Investment’s rights and liabilities will be transferred to a new company. Due to the war in Ukraine, Shell said in February that it will sell its holdings in Russia, including the iconic Sakhalin 2 complex in the country’s far east. It declared in April that leaving Russia will cost it £3.8 billion. Gazprom owns and operates half of the project, which supplies 4% of the current global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. The regulation states that while Gazprom will preserve its stake, other investors must submit requests for stakes in the new company to the Russian government within a month. Then, the government will decide if they may keep a stake. According to prior reports by The Daily Telegraph and Reuters, Shell has been in discussions with prospective bidders for its stake in the project, including some from China and India. Ben van Beurden, the company’s chief executive, stated on Wednesday that Shell was “making good progress” in its decision to leave the joint venture.
JPMorgan warns oil may hit $380 a barrel if Russia begins retaliatory production cuts -Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions and skyrocketing energy rates, global oil prices may hit $380 a barrel if the US and European curbs compel Russia to inflict retaliatory crude output cuts, Bloomberg reported citing analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. It was after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that the Western allies led by the US imposed several sanctions, and worked out a complicated mechanism to cap the price fetched by Russian oil. According to JPMorgan analysts including Natasha Kaneva, currently Russia enjoys a strong financial position and it can afford to slash daily crude production by 5 million barrels. The analysts noted that Russia’s crude production cuts could be disastrous for the world, as a cut of 3 million barrels will elevate London crude prices to $190. In the worst-case scenario, if the output is cut by 5 million barrels, the price could reach as high as $380 a barrel. “The most obvious and likely risk with a price cap is that Russia might choose retaliate by reducing exports as a way to inflict pain on the West,” wrote the analysts.
The G7 Is Still Pushing Its Nutty Russia Oil Price Cap Idea - by Yves Smith - Even observers who are generally very well informed but not strongly interested in finance are ridiculing the barmy idea of imposing a price cap on Russian oil sales. This move is perceived to be necessary because the other Western-devised sanctions against Russian energy sales, of first trying to embargo them, then realizing that that would amount to shooting too many economies in the head, then having what amounted to a partial embargo drive oil prices way up, made Russia fat and happy on lower petroleum sales.This brilliant bunch, not having worked out that they are unable to anticipate obvious effects of their moves to pummel Russia, are doggedly trying to get a bad idea first floated by Mario Draghi, then touted by Janet Yellen, then taken up at the last G7 meeting, of imposing an oil price cap on Russia off the ground.Mind you, the scheme should have been relegated to the dustbin by now. The only way something like this might have a dim possibility of success is if you got a very substantial majority of buyers to hang together. China already rejected the idea in particularly tart terms, expressing its hostility to the nerve of the G7 trying to insert itself in trade relations between Russia and China. Whoever wrote the Global Times editorial was having quite the go at the G7:Yet, the problem is that G7 nations are no longer major buyers of Russian oil, and as an unrelated third party, the G7 has neither the qualification nor the market power to dictate energy trade among China, India and Russia.Western media reports so far suggested that the West may impose such a price cap through insurance. About 95 percent of the world’s tanker fleet is insured through the International Group of Protection & Indemnity Clubs in London and some companies in other European countries. G7 could tell crude buyers that if they want to continue using the insurance service for Russian oil shipment, they need to agree to a “capped price.”But even that could also fail to pressure Russia, as Russia has already prepared an alternative by offering insurance through the Russian National Reinsurance Company, according to media reports.Even though tankers make a point of carrying insurance, as an insider pointed out, “All that does is give you the right to sue the insurer.”Needless to say, China having taken such a forceful stand makes it easier for India and the Global South to say no, aside from the fact that they have other reasons to play nice with Russia (like fertilizer sales).Oh, and another wee problem is in the highly unlikely event that the G7 were to get somewhere with this idea, Russia has made clear it’s not going along with the price cap. Goldman warned that prices could jump to over $200 a barrel and JP Morgan, as high as $380, if Russia decided to stare the West down and withhold supply. Deputy chariman of Russia’s security council, Dimitry Medvedvev, apparently follows Western analysts. From Reuters:Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday a reported proposal from Japan to cap the price of Russian oil at around half its current level would lead to significantly less oil on the market and could push prices above $300-$400 a barrel.Commenting on the proposal, which was reportedly put forward by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Medvedev said Japan “would have neither oil nor gas from Russia, as well as no participation in the Sakhalin-2 LNG project” as a result.Russia is restructuring the Sakhalin-2 LNG joint venture. Russia is the majority owner. Minority owner Shell has said it wants to sell its stake…and Russia cleared its throat, since Russia is not going to allow Shell to freely transfer a strategically important asset, particularly since the world has too many unfriendlies now. So Russia is requiring the minority owners Shell, plus Mitsubishi and Mistui, to reapply. The Japanese companies together own 22%.
India isn’t likely to stop buying Russian oil any time soon. Here’s why - Despite criticism from the West, India is not backing down on its commitment to buying Russian oil. As Brent crude retreats back to near $100 a barrel, foreign policy experts say India's drive to buy oil will only escalate as inflation concerns take center stage. "India is getting negative attention for the acquisition of oil by the U.S. and Europe… but India has made a judgement that its national interests dictate — keeping oil prices in the best position that it can is vital for domestic stability and economic interests," said Frank Wisner, former U.S. ambassador to India and an international affairs advisor at Squire Patton Boggs. As the world's third largest oil importer, India is vulnerable to rising oil prices. Further, pressure is growing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to tame rampant inflation for his 1.3 billion citizens. "The availability and price of Russian oil is too attractive," added Wisner. Analysts at Nomura say for every $1 increase in the price of oil, India's import bill increases by $2.1 billion. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, India's imports of Russian oil have surged. Early data from June shows India's supply of Russian crude reached nearly 1 million barrels per day, up from 800,000 barrels per day in May, according to Again Capital. Currently, Russian oil makes up 25% of India's energy imports, due in part to the sanctions placed on Iran. Still, critics blame India for financing Russia's wartime efforts in Ukraine. However, Americans frustrated with higher prices should take note of this observation: "Oil prices would likely be $8 to $10 higher if India was not buying the volumes of Russian crude that it is," said John Kilduff, founding partner of Again Capital. Experts say recession concerns could reduce the amount of oil India buys, but they are making no major changes in estimates at this point. Last week, G7 leaders floated the idea of implementing a price cap on Russian oil. However, strategists — including RBC Capital's Helima Croft — say this could backfire, especially now that the price of oil is trading off its highs. "I don't think the Russians are ever going to accept a price cap… discounts become more challenging in a lower priced environment," said Croft. It's less likely that the U.S. would punish India for its oil purchases, given the important role the country plays in the U.S.'s efforts to challenge China's rise in the East, foreign policy experts said. "The United States prioritizes its Indo-Pacific strategy: Without India, there is no 'Indo' in Indo-Pacific," said Manjari Chatterjee Miller, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The rest of the Quad countries are all Pacific powers," she added, referring to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which includes the U.S., Japan, India and Australia. Rolling out sanctions or other measures to reprimand India could also cause a blowback. "India is also a very touchy power as the U.S. has realized in its long dealings with the country: Penalizing India would be a very serious setback to the bilateral partnership, and even the Quad," added Miller.
Russia's Medvedev Warns US Trying To Punish A Nuclear Power 'Risks Existence Of Humanity' -- Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday warned the US against trying to punish Russia for its war in Ukraine, saying that doing so would risk humanity since Moscow has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. "The idea of punishing a country that has one of the largest nuclear potentials is absurd. And potentially poses a threat to the existence of humanity," Medvedev wrote on Telegram. Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy of Russia’s Security Council, had warned earlier in the war that if the US destabilizes Russia like it did Iraq and other countries, it could lead to a nuclear "dystopia." As of 2020, Russia was estimated to have 6,375 nuclear warheads, and the US said it possessed 5,750 warheads.Even though it’s widely believed that a direct conflict between the US and Russia could quickly turn nuclear, it doesn’t appear to be a factor in the Biden administration’s response to the war in Ukraine. Instead, the US is pouring billions of dollars in weapons into the country and continues to escalate its involvement in the war.In his Telegram post, Medvedev also called out the US for hypocrisy for trying to put Russia on trial for war crimes, citing the millions killed by the US since World War II in countries like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many others."So who’s going to give us a show trial? Those who kill people and commit war crimes with impunity, but do not meet real condemnation in the international structures financed by them?" Medvedev said, according to a Google translation of his Telegram post.US Attorney General Merrick Garland recently visited Ukraine and pledged support for international efforts to investigate alleged Russian war crimes. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened an investigation in Ukraine, but the US is not a party to the court and has impeded its effort to investigate alleged war crimes committed by the US and Israel.
Pipeline Critical to Kazakh Oil Exports Ordered to Halt Operations by Russian Court – On July 6, a Russian court ordered the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) to suspend operations for 30 days. CPC carries oil from Kazakhstan into Russia and to the edge of the Black Sea. Although it handles just over 1 percent of global oil, CPC is critical for Kazakhstan; around 80 percent of Kazakhstan’s oil exports move through the Novorossiysk oil terminal.The timing of the decision has naturally raised some eyebrows, coming just two days after Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told European Council President Charles Michel via phone that Nur-Sultan was “ready to use its hydrocarbon potential for the sake of stabilization of the global and European markets.” Early last month, the European Union imposed a partial ban on Russian oil imports as part of a sixth package of sanctions in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the ban on seaborne Russian crude oil does not take effect until December. As a Bloomberg article pointed out in late June Russian exports of oil to Europe had already begun to creep back up, largely due to shipments to Russian-owned refineries in Italy and increased purchases by Turkey. In any case, Europe’s aim is to decrease its imports of Russian oil and Kazakhstan stands as an option — but Kazakh exports to Europe depend on Russian pipelines. The chain of events doesn’t necessarily suggest Kazakhstan-Russian tensions, though some with surely draw that conclusion. Rather, the dirty work of transporting oil and the constraints Kazakhstan faces due to a lack of d iversification of export routes are at the heart of the issue. On the latter, Kazakhstan faces a geographic conundrum: With Russia or China the main avenues available for oil exports, diversification is not so simple. A CPC press release about the stoppage explains that in late April, Rostransnadzor, the Russian federal agency which supervises transport, including pipelines, ordered an audit of the company that operates the Russian portion of the pipeline, CPC-R. After the audit concluded in May, it “revealed a number of documentary violations under the Oil Spill Response (OSR) Plan.” On June 6, CPC was issued a citation, which mandated that the violations be addressed by the end of November 2022. But Rostransnadzor appealed to the court on July 5 for an immediate 90-day halt to operations at Novorossiysk. The court ruled for a 30-day suspension, which CPC said it would appeal.
Oil Traders in Panic After Russia CPC Terminal Order - A Russian court order to halt oil loadings from a port in the Black Sea has unnerved European crude traders already reeling from the tightest regional market in years, sending prices for competing barrels spiraling. On Tuesday, a Russian court ordered a 30-day stoppage of the CPC Terminal, through which more than 30 million barrels of mostly Kazakh crude gets exported each month. It said the halt is because the facility violated its oil-spill prevention plan. If it comes to pass, the stoppage would be another blow to a European oil market that’s lost large amounts of supply to unrest in Libya, and seen sharply reduced shipments from elsewhere. For now the terminal is running as normal. Azeri Light oil, popular among European refiners because of its low sulfur levels, jumped to a premium of more than $10 a barrel to benchmark Dated Brent, the highest level several traders were able to remember. Further afield, Nigeria’s Forcados crude was offered at a premium of $14 a barrel. The CPC stoppage is meant to begin after a bailiff arrives. That hasn’t happened yet, and the terminal operator, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, has asked the higher regional court to delay the order suspending operations, arguing a sudden stop could cause permanent damage. European refiners are now mostly keeping away from Russia’s Urals crude following the invasion into Ukraine, putting a greater emphasis on other sources of supply. But Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Libya, the North Sea and West Africa -- all major suppliers to Europe -- already saw their combined monthly exports decline by a combined 1.04 million barrels a day in June, tanker tracking compiled by Bloomberg show. Exports from Libya have fallen to about a third of last year’s level amid the worsening political crisis. Should the court order go ahead, it would strip Europe of at least another 1 million barrels a day. Several oil traders in the region expressed concerns over the possible shutdown, saying spot prices could go up even further because of an urgent need for alternative grades. Some refineries that already bought CPC cargoes for August loading said they were worried whether their shipments will now be delayed. CPC loadings are planned at about 1.24 million barrels a day in July, slightly less than 1.4 million to 1.5 million barrels a day in the first quarter, mainly due to planned maintenance at Kazakhstan’s giant Kashagan field. The US and its allies are trying to punish Moscow in the oil market for the country’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting speculation the court order is a politically motivated response that may have less of an impact on supply in practice.
SL President dials Putin; explores options for buying oil, bolstering ties - Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday said he had a "very productive" conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to negotiate a credit line for purchasing discounted oil from Moscow to "defeat" the worst economic challenges faced by the island nation. During their conversation, Rajapaksa also urged Putin to restart the services of the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot to the country. Sri Lanka is going through the worst economic crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948, and needs to obtain at least USD 4 billion to tide over the acute shortage in foreign exchange reserves. Had a very productive telecon with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. While thanking him for all the support extended by his government to overcome the challenges of the past, I requested an offer of credit support to import fuel to Lanka in defeating the current economic challenges, President Rajapaksa said in a tweet. The two presidents discussed issues of bilateral economic cooperation, in particular in energy, agriculture and transport, according to a press statement released by the Kremlin in Moscow. In May, Sri Lanka had purchased 90,000 tonnes of oil from Russia. Western countries have largely halted energy imports from Russia as part of the punitive sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine in February. A spike in global oil prices has forced a number of developing countries to buy Russian crude, which is being offered at steep discounts. A Sri Lankan delegation is also scheduled to leave for Russia on July 9 to hold several rounds of preliminary discussions with high-ranking representatives in Moscow on obtaining fuel, fertilisers, gas, loans and humanitarian aid, according to web portal Colombo Page. The Sri Lankan President said that during his telephonic conversation with Putin, they agreed to bolster bilateral ties in sectors like tourism, trade and culture. Rajapaksa also urged Putin to restart the services of Aeroflot in the country, which was suspended last month. Further, I humbly made a request to restart @Aeroflot_World operations in Lanka. We unanimously agreed that strengthening bilateral relations in sectors such as tourism, trade and culture was paramount in reinforcing the friendship our two nations share, he said in another tweet.
India's export curbs, tax hike to exacerbate global diesel, petrol shortage --India's latest measures aimed at boosting domestic oil supplies could reduce its diesel and gasoline exports in the second half of the year, keeping global supplies tight and underpinning prices, traders and analysts said. The world is grappling with tight gasoline and diesel supplies as Western sanctions have reduced exports from Russia while demand has surged in a post-pandemic recovery. India's curbs follow similar measures taken by China that have reduced oil product exports from the world's No. 2 refiner. In order to reap record margins, India, the world's No. 3 oil importer, has ramped up imports of cheap Russian oil and increased oil product exports. However, the country announced on July 1 a windfall tax on local oil producers and refiners and imposed new restrictions on export volumes in a bid to increase local supplies to meet rising demand and raise federal revenues. "The export tax hike could see third-quarter diesel exports come in 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) lower to 640,000 bpd on average than our original estimate before the policy changes," consultancy Energy Aspects said in a note. "Indian exports will not drop to zero as the new rules just make it relatively less economic to export while also putting a maximum threshold on private refiners' export volumes." Consultancy FGE has revised down its forecasts for the country's gasoline exports by 50,000 bpd and diesel exports by 90,000 bpd for the remainder of 2022. In the first five months this year, India's gasoline and diesel exports jumped more than 16% on year to 150.75 million barrels, government data showed. Cargoes were mainly headed to the Asia Pacific, Africa and Europe, according to Kpler. Indian refiners are required to sell domestic buyers the equivalent of at least 30% of their diesel export volumes. For gasoline, it's 50%.
India Will Not Lift Windfall Tax On Oil Firms Until Crude Drops By $40 - India’s windfall tax on oil companies and refiners, introduced last week, could stay for a very long time, as the government plans to withdraw it only when oil prices drop by $40 per barrel from current levels, Indian Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj told Reuters on Monday.India last week introduced a windfall tax on oil producers and refiners who are exporting more due to the high international price of crude oil and refined products. What’s more, fuel exporters will be required to sell at least some of their product domestically. The new taxes will serve as an incentive to keep more product at home and export less—a reality that will further tighten international markets for oil and oil products.“As exports are becoming highly remunerative, it has been seen that certain refiners are drying out their pumps in the domestic market,” a government-issued statement read.The windfall tax took effect on July 1 and could be in effect for a very long time, considering that India says it will terminate the windfall tax only when international crude oil prices fall by $40 per barrel from current levels.Early on Monday, Brent Crude was trading at over $113 per barrel, up by 1.32% on the day.Speaking to Reuters, the Revenue Secretary Bajaj said today that “The taxation would be reviewed every 15 days.”“If crude prices fall, then windfall gains will cease and windfall taxes would also be removed,” Bajaj added, noting that the government expects windfall gains for oil firms would evaporate once the price of oil slumps by $40 a barrel from current levels.India’s imports of Russian crude have soared in recent weeks as its refiners take advantage of the steep discounts at which Russian grades sell relative to Brent. Many refiners have also boosted their fuel exports to take advantage of the high refining margins globally amid a fuel crunch in many regions.
Iran ready to raise output as market may face shortage in next few months -Iran, whose energy trade is pressed by US sanctions, is ready to pump more oil as the world needs the crude to balance supply and demand and calm prices before travel seasons in the US and Europe, the oil minister Javad Owji said, according to economic daily Donyay-e Eqtesad on July 2. Iran could increase production to levels before the sanctions, he said, without giving an estimate of current output. "There are some worries about oil supply shortage in the coming months," he said, despite some concerns about economic slowdown and possible curbs to demand because of geopolitical tensions. Iran's oil production was 3.8 million b/d before the Trump administration imposed sanctions in 2018. The OPEC member recently said its oil production capacity has topped that figure. In May, according to the Platts survey by S&P Global Commodity Insights, output was 2.58 million b/d, holding at the highest level since March 2019. "The oil market is in such situation that return of Iran's oil to the market can partially respond to customers and help the global markets reach balance and tranquility," Owji said. "Particularly, we will be watching global demand increase for oil and oil products as the summer and travel seasons in the Unites States and Europe are approaching," he said.
Iran’s daily refining capacity exceeds 2.2m barrels: OPEC - Tehran Times -- Iran's refining capacity has increased by more than 480,000 bpd from 2011 to 2021, according to OPEC's Annual Statistical Bulletin. Iran's refining capacity in 2011 was reported to be 1.715 million bpd. Despite all the external challenges like the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S. sanctions, the Iranian oil and gas sector has been developing at a fast pace and the country is passing new milestones in this industry every day. Various sectors of Iran’s oil and gas industry including exploration, production, processing, and distribution are all among the world’s top charts and the country is taking new steps to develop the industry even further. Among different sectors of this industry, refining is a major one being seriously paid attention for development. Back in September 2021, Oil Minister Javad Oji had said that the country’s oil refining capacity will be increased by 1.5 folds by the end of the current government’s incumbency (in four years). He mentioned promoting the quantity and quality of the current refineries’ products and the construction of new refineries as some major plans of the Oil Ministry in the new government. According to the defined schedule for the quantitative and qualitative development of existing refineries and planning for the construction of new refineries in the next four to five years, the country's daily oil refining capacity will increase by one and a half times to 3.5 million barrels, the minister stated. “Following the improvement of the quality of petroleum products and the increase of the quality of gasoline and gas oil, which is very important for us in the field of environment, the discussion of quantitative and qualitative development plans of refineries is seriously on the agenda of the current government”, he added.
Iran’s oil revenues exceed $25bn last year: OPEC - A report released by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) indicates that Iran earned more than $25 billion in revenue from oil exports in 2021. OPEC reported $560 billion in revenue from oil sales in 2021 in its annual report, which shows a 77 percent increase in comparison with a year earlier. The revenues of 13 members of OPEC from oil exports stood at $317 billion in 2020. Iran also earned more than $25.313 billion from oil sales in 2021. Iran’s revenue from oil sales tripled in that period as compared to the last year’s corresponding period. Iran had earned over $7.914 billion worth of income as a result of oil exports in 2020.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait discuss boosting Neutral Zone oil production - Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti officials for the Neutral Zone -- the oil-producing area that straddles the border between the two countries -- met on July 3 to discuss ways to "develop and exploit the natural resources in the divided region," Kuwait's state-run news agency Kuna reported, citing a statement from the Kuwait oil ministry. Discussions included boosting production from the current 170,000-175,000 b/d to 500,000 b/d, though 250,000-300,000 b/d is more likely in the next five years, a source with knowledge of the operations told S&P Global Commodity Insights. "There are operational challenges" likely to keep production from going any higher, the person said. The fields located in the Neutral Zone lie in onshore and offshore territory shared by the two nations. The offshore Al-Khajfi is operated by Saudi Arabia's Aramco Gulf Operations Co. and Kuwait Gulf Oil Co., a unit of Kuwait Petroleum Corp., while the onshore Wafra is operated by KGOC and Saudi Arabian Chevron. New sources of oil and natural gas are being sought as a ratcheting of western sanctions on Russian oil flows, including the EU's ban on most imports by the end of the year, is expected to tighten global supplies, as demand has picked up with the summer driving season in the northern hemisphere. But widening concerns over a global recession and rampant inflation have weighed on the market, contributing to volatile prices in recent weeks. Dated Brent has climbed 58% this year to $121.54/b as of July 1, according to Platts assessments by S&P Global Commodity Insights. The July 3 Neutral Zone meeting was held at the headquarters of the joint Wafra operations in Kuwait, according to Kuna. Kuwait's undersecretary of the oil ministry, Nimr Fahd al-Malik al-Sabah, who is head of the Kuwait side, attended the meeting along with the head of the Saudi side, Muhammad al-Brahim, assistant Saudi energy minister, Kuna said. The countries agreed in 1970 to co-manage and share crude production from the zone equally. However, they were offline for more than four years until 2020, due to a political dispute that was resolved with the signing of an agreement in December 2019.
Nigeria’s crude output falling below expectation – A financial service company, Vetiva, says despite the efforts by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries to unwind production caps, Nigeria’s crude output has fallen below expectation. The company in its half-year economic outlook titled “A strange labyrinth”, cited operational and security challenges as the reason for the development. An oil & gas analyst at Vetiva, Victoria Ejugwu, expressed worries that while oil prices have soared higher, the industry continues to contract due to underproduction. “Despite the fact that OPEC has been unwinding production caps, Nigeria’s crude output has fallen below expectation. This has been due to some operational problems, as well as issues stemming from insecurity. Given this, our outlook for the country’s production is somewhat cautious, and do not expect a significant deviation from current production levels. While oil prices have soared higher, the industry continues to contract, due to underproduction. Given this, we anticipate further contraction in Q3’22 that is, -7.00perctn and a marginal 0.1percent growth in Q4’22” The oil and gas analyst predicted that the downstream players would continue to see low margins in the coming months. “With the oil price rally we have seen this year, the Nigerian government continues to maintain subsidy payments, keeping PMS retail pump price at N165/litre. As such, gross margins of about five per cent from PMS sales have remained thin. Although the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Bill is supposed to bring about market deregulation, however, given that the general elections are around the corner, full deregulation is not expected in the near term. On this note, downstream players would continue to see low margins in the coming months”
Oil Firms Waste N169.4bn Gas in Five Months - Gas that would have fetched the nation about N169.4 billion amid a strain in earnings has been wasted by oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria through gas flaring. Data released by the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) disclosed that the gas wasted by these energy firms was between January and May 2022. In measurement, the culprits flared 116.4 billion Standard Cubic Feet (SCF) of gas in the period under review and would have generated 11,600 gigawatts hour of electricity. The flared gas led to 6.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. The companies are also liable for fines totalling $232.7 million, about N96.8 billion; which according to NOSDRA, are hardly ever collected. NOSDRA’s analysis of the gas flared in the period revealed that in January 2022, a total of 29.97 billion SCF of gas was flared by the companies; in February, 27.12 billion SCF was flared; while in March, April and May, 16.49 billion SCF, 21.48 billion SCF and 21.3 billion SCF were flared respectively. Furthermore, NOSDRA stated that most of the defaulting firms in the months under review operated in onshore oil fields, flaring 59 billion SCF of gas, valued at $206.5 million, about N85.9 billion. NOSDRA noted that the gas flared by companies operating onshore was capable of generating 5,900 gigawatts hour of electricity, equivalent to 3.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions; while the firms were liable for penalties of $118 million, about N49.09 billion. Giving a breakdown of gas flared onshore in the five months period of 2022, the oil spill and gas flare watchdog disclosed that in January, February and March, 19.14 billion SCF; 14.03 billion SCF and 10.49 billion SCF of gas was flared, respectively; while 6.63 billion SCF and 8.72 billion SCF of gas was flared in April and May 2022, respectively.On the other hand, NOSDRA reported that oil and gas companies operating offshore flared 57.4 billion SCF of gas, valued at $200.7 million, about N83.49 billion; capable of generating 5,700-gigawatt hours of electricity; engendered 3.0 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions; and attracted fines of $114.7 million, about N47.72 billion. Giving a breakdown of the gas flared offshore in the five-month period, NOSDRA stated that 10.83 billion SCF of gas; 13.09 billion SCF of gas; 6.0 billion SCF of gas; 14.85 billion SCF and 12.58 billion SCF of gas was flared in January, February, March, April and May 2022, respectively.
Nigeria lost $1 billion in revenue to crude oil theft in Q1 2022 -Due to crude oil theft, Nigeria lost a staggering $1 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2022, endangering the economy of Africa’s top producer.This was disclosed by Gbenga Komolafe, the head of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission in a statement seen by Reuters. Nigeria loses millions of barrels of crude oil each year to theft and vandalism, including the theft of crude from a network of pipelines run by large oil companies. This illustrates how lax security results in significant financial losses for the nation.Only about 132 million barrels of the 141 million barrels of oil produced in the first quarter of 2022 were received at export terminals, according to Gbenga Komolafe, the chairman of NUPRC.Komolafe said, “This indicates that over nine million barrels of oil have been lost to crude theft…this equates to a loss of government revenue of approximately $1 billion…in just one quarter,”He added, “This trend poses an existential threat to the oil and gas sector and, by extension, to the Nigerian economy if left unchecked.”Theft of crude oil grew from 103,000 barrels per day in 2021 to 108,000 barrels per day on average in the first quarter of 2022, according to Komolafe. Nairametrics reported that Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba has ordered tactical and intelligence commanders of the Force to deploy assets towards tackling perpetrators of economic crimes aimed at sabotaging Nigeria’s revenue-generating value chains, including crude oil vandalism. Nairametrics also reported earlier this year that Austin Avuru, founding MD/CEO of Seplat Energy and Executive Chairman AA Holdings warned that Nigeria’s oil production has reached an emergency critical status. He stated that some oil production wells don’t get to see 80% of production making it to the terminals due to oil theft. The theft resulted in the Bonny Oil & Gas Terminal, a pipeline that transports crude from the oil-rich Niger Delta to export vessels among other places, declaring a state of force majeure, which made the atmosphere unfriendly and discouraging for investors.
Nigeria faces uphill battle to tackle its oil spill issues - Nigeria has long had issues with safety, not least in keeping workers safe from militants. The government has shown little sign of tackling the problem among legal operations, let alone the safety challenges of widespread illicit bunkering and refining. Over the last 10 years, local companies have seized the advantage of IOCs exiting Nigeria to acquire mature assets. These assets pose challenges, though, in their ageing infrastructure and historic difficulties with local communities. A number of recent incidents have highlighted the safety challenge in Nigeria. In November 2021, a wellhead owned by Aiteo Group began spraying crude into the Santa Barbara River, taking around one month to stop the spill. An explosion in February 2022 destroyed the 50-year old Trinity Spirit FPSO, leaving a number of workers dead and widespread pollution. Furthermore, with rampant theft and illicit refining in the Niger Delta, accidents are never too far away. Most commonly these involve spills and deficient environmental processes but, on occasion, there are major incidents. A fire at an illegal refinery in Imo State, in April this year, killed more than 100 people. Oil theft has increased in recent months, according to a number of reports. Nigeria’s official production has dropped over the last few months, with Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) estimating the country lost $1 billion to theft in the first quarter. Nigeria’s government has limited leeway to tackle the insurgency in the Niger Delta. High costs on servicing its debt, combined with subsidy payments, leave it struggling for cash, making a newly energised amnesty programme unlikely.
China Allows Refiners to Export 40 Percent Less Fuel -China issued its latest batch of fuel export quota for the year, but total allowances are still around 40% less than the same point in 2021. Some 5 million tons of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel quotas were awarded, according to refinery executives who received preliminary notices from the Ministry of Commerce and a note from local consultant OilChem. The executives asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak to media. The commerce ministry didn’t immediately reply to a fax seeking comment. That takes issuance in 2022 to 22.5 million tons, compared with 37 million tons for the same period last year. Beijing controls how much fuel both state-owned and private refiners can export, and has been seeking to limit shipments as part of efforts to reduce pollution and consolidate the sector. A large chunk of China’s refining capacity is currently not being used as the economy recovers from virus lockdowns. The latest issuance shows Beijing isn’t interested in ramping up exports to meet surging demand from fuel-starved global markets. That’s in stark contrast to the US, where there’s a relative lack of capacity and refineries are running near their limits. Based on the preliminary notices, PetroChina Co. received 1.47 million tons of quota and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. got 1.27 million tons. Sinochem Group and Zhejiang Petrochemical Co. were assigned 840,000 tons each, while CNOOC Ltd. got 460,000 tons. NPI, an unit affiliated with Zhenhua Oil Co. obtained 100,000 tons and China Aviation Oil Corp. received 20,000 tons.
Black Mountain Energy & Highwire plan flared gas cryptomine at Australian fracking site - Oil & gas company Black Mountain Energy is partnering with cryptomining firm Highwire to deploy flare-gas mining facilities at a fracking project in Australia.In a notice posted to the ASX, Black Mountain said it had received a non-binding Letter of Intent from Highwire Energy Partners LLC to use well-testing gas that would otherwise be flared at the Valhalla fracking project in the Canning Basin of Western Australia, to power mobile cryptocurrency servers. US-based Highwire reportedly intends to negotiate the purchase of up to 5 terajoules per day of gas and the installation of up to 25MW of generation to support its operations.Speaking to the Market Herald, Black Mountain Energy CEO Rhett Bennett said: "Flaring natural gas certainly is not ESG [environment, social, and governance]-friendly. So the ability to utilize that gas for power and ultimately create a product, in this form crypto, is a much better solution." Black Mountain is focused on drilling for gas in Western Australia’s Canning Basin. Located in the Fitzroy Trough, west of Fitzroy River and about 2,500km from Perth, Project Valhalla has a permit area covering 3,662 square km. The company says the site contains 11.8 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of prospective gas resources and 1.5TCF of contingent gas resources.Anti-fracking organization, Lock the Gate Alliance, said the idea was "the height of arrogance," “madness,” and labeled the proposal a "parasitic project.""The Kimberley is home to the largest area of intact tropical savanna in the world. It can't be put at risk for fracking, let alone Bitcoin mining," a spokesperson said. “If Bitcoin miners want to mine Bitcoin in Australia, they should be forced to use renewable energy — not climate crisis-inducing fracked gas."Oil & gas extraction sites routinely waste natural gas, burning it off in "flares." These burn methane and release CO2, but they do it inefficiently, releasing a significant amount of methane, which is a greenhouse gas that is more potent than CO2 - albeit with a much shorter lifetime in the atmosphere. As with the likes of Crusoe Energy, Earth Wind & Power (EWP), Bit River, EZ Blockchain, NGON, Giga Energy, and Validus Power, Highwire Energy aims to utilize stranded and oversupplied natural gas to mine cryptocurrency. These companies claim burning the gas for mining operations is more environmentally friendly – burning more efficiently to create more CO2, and preventing more methane from being released into the atmosphere. Highwire uses proprietary containerized mining servers about 4m x 4m in size on well sites and powers them using a field generator run off the natural gas from that well. The company is already running similar operations in the state of Wyoming in partnership with Moser Energy Systems. Elsewhere in Australia, Tasmania Data Infrastructure has recently announced plans to develop a cryptomine data at the Que River Mine Site in Tasmania. Operations are anticipated to commence in Q4 2022; launching with 5MW, the site has a potential expansion capacity 'in excess of 100MW.' The company is working with Mawson to procure and roll out the hardware and equipment housing.
OPEC+ Is Still 2.5 Million Bpd Below Its Production Target -- OPEC+ pumped more than 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) below its target in June, despite a rebound in Russia’s oil production that helped the group’s output rise by 730,000 bpd from May, according to the Argus survey published on Friday.Saudi Arabia and Iraq, OPEC’s largest and second-largest producers, raised their output as domestic demand from power plants that burn oil increased seasonally. Russia, the largest non-OPEC producer part of the OPEC+ pact, saw its production rebound last month and rise by 550,000 bpd compared to May.Russia’s oil production rose in June and was approaching the levels last seen in February, just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Most of the rebound was due to higher intake from domestic refiners. Elsewhere in the OPEC+ group, non-OPEC Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan saw production declines in June due to maintenance at key oilfields, the Argus survey showed.Kazakhstan’s crude oil supply to the global markets has just become more uncertain in the coming weeks after a Russian court this week ordered the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which operates a key export route for crude oil from the huge oilfield Tengiz, to suspend activities for 30 days, citing environmental violations. OPEC’s Nigeria continued to experience severe production problems. Its output slumped to a 17-month low in June as shipments of the Forcados and Qua Iboe crudes fell, per the Argus survey.Nigeria was also the main driver of lower production at all 13 OPEC members in June, the monthly Reuters survey showed last week. OPEC’s crude oil production fell in June compared to May due to outages in Libya and Nigeria, and the 10 cartel producers bound by the OPEC+ pact lifted their combined production by just 20,000 bpd last month, according to the survey. Last week, OPEC+ confirmed a 648,000 bpd production hike for August, with which it will have effectively rolled back all the cuts it started in May 2020 in response to the crash in demand. The group, however, continues to significantly undershoot its targets.OPEC Secretary General: The Oil And Gas Industry Is Under Siege - The oil and gas industry is "under siege" OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said on Tuesday. After years of underinvestment on a global scale, the oil and gas industry is now "facing huge challenges along multiple fronts," the Secretary General told delegates at an industry conference in Lagos. "These threaten our investment potential now and in the long term, to put it bluntly, my dear friends, the oil and gas industry is under siege," Barkindo said, citing geopolitical developments in Europe. Barkindo also suggested that the supply shortage that would eventually come for the industry as a result of that underinvestment—and as a result of some country's attempted shift away from fossil fuels—could be mitigated if more oil were allowed to be exported from OPEC members Iran and Venezuela. While nations look to ditch fossil fuels and capacity falls, oil demand continues to grow, sending crude oil prices ever higher, Barkindo said, adding that "For us in Nigeria, fossil fuel will always have a share in our energy mix, for the foreseeable future. We will not at this time abandon fossil fuels. We have adopted gas as a transition fuel." OPEC's Secretary General sees global oil demand increasing through 2045. Meanwhile, refining capacity in OECD countries fell by 3.3 percent last year. "The ongoing war in Ukraine, a COVID-19 pandemic which is still with us, and the inflationary pressures across the globe have come together in a perfect storm that is causing significant volatility and uncertainty in the commodity markets in general. More importantly, in the world of energy," Barkindo explained. Crude oil prices fell by more than 8% on Tuesday afternoon on the fear that the world could soon see a recession, denting oil demand.
OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo dies at age 63 -Mohammad Barkindo, a Nigerian politician and secretary-general of oil producer group OPEC, died at the age of 63, just days before he was set to finish his term at the organization. The head of Nigeria's National Petroleum Corp., Mele Kyari, announced the news in a tweet Wednesday, which was later confirmed by OPEC. "We lost our esteemed Dr Muhammad Sanusi Barkindo," a tweet early Wednesday morning from his verified Twitter handle read. "He died at about 11pm yesterday 5th July 2022. Certainly a great loss to his immediate family, the NNPC, our country Nigeria, the OPEC and the global energy community. Burial arrangements will be announced shortly." The cause of death has not been announced. Barkindo's unexpected death came as a shock to members of the oil and gas world, many of whom describe him as a giant in the industry. His career spanned over four decades and included work at Nigeria's National Petroleum Corp., Duke Oil, Nigeria's Foreign Ministry and Energy Ministry, as well as OPEC. Since taking the helm as secretary-general of OPEC in 2016, Barkindo oversaw tumultuous times for the oil producer group, which witnessed volatile markets rocked by historic events including the Covid-19 pandemic, the creation of the OPEC+ alliance with Russia and other non-OPEC states, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While the organization lost two members, Qatar and Ecuador, during that time, Barkindo is nonetheless credited with guiding unity among the group's members in an effort to stabilize global oil markets.
Oil prices slip as recession fears rumble on, tight supply stems losses - Oil prices fell in early Asian trade on Monday, paring gains from the previous session as fears of global recession weighed on the market even as supply remains tight amid lower OPEC output, unrest in Libya and sanctions on Russia. Brent crude futures slipped 35 cents, or 0.3 per cent, to $111.28 a barrel at 0016 GMT, having jumped 2.4 per cent on Friday. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures similarly dropped 32 cents, or 0.3 per cent, to $108.11 a barrel, after climbing 2.5 per cent on Friday. While recession fears have weighed on the market over the past two weeks, supply concerns linger, preventing steeper price falls. "Energy markets remain laden with specific supply risks that makes being short a nervy experience," Commonwealth Bank commodities analyst Tobin Gorey said. Output from the 10 members of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in June fell 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 28.52 million bpd - a long way off their pledged increase of about 275,000 bpd, a Reuters survey showed. Declines in Nigeria and Libya offset increases by Saudi Arabia and other large producers, and Libya faces further supply disruption due to escalating political unrest. "This makes the likelihood of the group (OPEC) meeting its newly increased production quotas even more unlikely," ANZ Research analysts said in a note. Libya's exports have dropped to between 365,000 bpd and 409,000 bpd, down about 865,000 bpd compared to normal levels, the National Oil Corp said last week. In a further hit to supply, a planned strike by Norwegian oil and gas workers this week could cut the country's oil and condensate output by 130,000 bpd. Traders will be watching out for official prices for August from top oil exporter Saudi Arabia for signs of how tight the market is, with refiners bracing for another sharp increase close to the record level set in May. Nine refining sources surveyed by Reuters expected Saudi's flagship Arab Light crude official selling price could rise by about $2.40 a barrel from the previous month.
Oil up as supply outages outweigh demand fears - Oil prices edged higher on Monday as output disruptions in Libya and planned shutdowns in Norway offset concerns that an economic slowdown would dampen demand. International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $111.92 per barrel at 0705 GMT for a 0.26% increase after the previous session closed at $111.63 a barrel. American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was at $108.62 per barrel at the same time for a 0.17% gain after the previous session closed at $108.43 a barrel. Prices fell in early trading in Asian markets as data last week showed that manufacturing activity in the US dropped by more than expected last month, adding to fears of an economic recession and consequent weak demand. However, prices soon rebounded on Monday over prevailing supply fears in Norway and Libya. A planned strike by Norwegian energy sector workers is due to have a substantial impact on gas exports, with 13% losses expected in daily gas exports, according to the employers' group, the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association (NOG). The country will also incur a daily oil output loss of 130,000 barrels, NOG added. On Thursday, the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) declared a force majeure at the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports and the El Feel oilfield, while a force majeure at the ports of Brega and Zueitina is still in effect. Daily exports ranged between 365,000 and 409,000 barrels per day (bpd), a drop of 865,000 bpd compared to production under "normal circumstances," according to NOC.Oil holds above $110 as tight supply balanced by recession risk - Oil held gains as investors assessed still-strong underlying market signals against concerns a recession will eventually sap demand. West Texas Intermediate traded above $110 a barrel in Asia after a long holiday weekend in the US. The benchmark is about 2% higher than Friday’s close as there was no settlement on Monday. Key market timespreads remain robust, indicating that there’s solid demand for near-term crude supplies. Oil has started the third quarter in strong form after dropping in June, when concerns about an economic slowdown spurred the commodity’s the first monthly loss this year. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has roiled crude flows and lifted prices, the jump in energy costs has fanned inflation. That’s pushed central banks to raise rates, triggering risks growth will stall. “I don’t think sentiment has fundamentally shifted to a positive tone yet,” said Daniel Hynes, senior commodities strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. “Further signs of tightness in the physical market will be required.” Still, the crude market remains in backwardation, a bullish structure marked by near-term prices trading above longer-dated ones. Brent’s prompt spread — the difference between its two nearest contracts — was above $4 a barrel in backwardation on Tuesday, up from about $2.50 a barrel a month ago. Prices: WTI for August delivery traded at $110.66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:37 a.m. in Singapore, up 2.1% from Friday’s close. Brent for September settlement added 0.4% to $113.89 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. Traders are also tracking China’s efforts to contain renewed Covid-19 outbreaks and enable Asia’s largest economy to reopen fully. That would bolster consumption and offset the drag from slowdowns in the US and Europe. “China is the real wildcard here: it’s going to be two steps forward, one step back,” said ANZ’s Hynes. “A demand recovery in China could potentially offset weakness in developed economies as central banks tighten monetary policy.”
Oil prices plummet as recession risks come to forefront - Oil dropped alongside broader markets after being pressured by the growing risks of an economic slowdown. West Texas Intermediate dropped as much as 3.8% to trade below $105 a barrel. Prices were pressured lower on Tuesday as equities fell and the dollar surged, making commodities priced in the currency less attractive. Citigroup Inc. said that crude could fall to $65 this year in the event of a recession, a call in stark contrast to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s most bullish $380 a barrel scenario. “In the very near term the Dow & S&P will have a major factor on crude direction as recession fears remain,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial. Fundamentally, there are concerns that fuel demand could “drop significantly now that the 4th of July holiday is behind us.” While futures have been pressured by the threat of a global economic slowdown, key market timespreads remain robust, indicating that there’s solid demand for near-term supplies. A strike in Norway and supply disruption in Libya have exacerbated that strength of late. Prices: WTI for August delivery fell $3.90 to $104.53 a barrel at 9:27 a.m. in New York There was no settle on Monday due to the July 4 holiday Brent for September settlement dropped $5.02 to $108.48 a barrel. Oil’s rally has prompted western leaders to demand the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, including Saudi Arabia and its allies pump more. The kingdom hiked its official selling prices to Asia on Tuesday. Its flagship Arab Light crude price will be $9.30 above its regional benchmark in August, an increase of $2.80.
Citi warns oil may collapse to $65 by the year-end on recession - Crude oil could collapse to $65 a barrel by the end of this year and slump to $45 by end-2023 if a demand-crippling recession hits, Citigroup Inc. has warned. That outlook is based on an absence of any intervention by OPEC+ producers and a decline in oil investments, analysts including Francesco Martoccia and Ed Morse said in a report. Brent, the global crude benchmark, last traded near $113 a barrel. Oil has soared this year following the invasion of Ukraine, and banks are now trying to chart its course into 2023 as central banks raise interest rates and recessionary risks mount. Citi’s outlook compared the current energy market with crises of the 1970s. At present, the bank’s economists do not expect the US to dip into recession. “For oil, the historical evidence suggests that oil demand goes negative only in the worst global recessions,” the Citi analysts said in the July 5 note. “But oil prices fall in all recessions to roughly the marginal cost.”
Oil tumbles more than 9%, breaks below $100 as recession fears mount - Oil prices tumbled Tuesday with the U.S. benchmark falling below $100 as recession fears grow, sparking fears that an economic slowdown will cut demand for petroleum products. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, settled 8.24%, or $8.93, lower at $99.50 per barrel. At one point WTI slid more than 10%, trading as low as $97.43 per barrel. The contract last traded under $100 on May 11. International benchmark Brent crude settled 9.45%, or $10.73, lower at $102.77 per barrel. Ritterbusch and Associates attributed the move to "tightness in global oil balances increasingly being countered by strong likelihood of recession that has begun to curtail oil demand." "[T]he oil market appears to be homing in on some recent weakening in apparent demand for gasoline and diesel," the firm wrote in a note to clients. Both contracts posted losses in June, snapping six straight months of gains as recession fears cause Wall Street to reconsider the demand outlook. "In a recession scenario with rising unemployment, household and corporate bankruptcies, commodities would chase a falling cost curve as costs deflate and margins turn negative to drive supply curtailments," the firm wrote in a note to clients. Citi has been one of the few oil bears at a time when other firms, such as Goldman Sachs, have called for oil to hit $140 or more.
Oil plummets below $100 as recession risks come to forefront - Oil prices tumbled Tuesday with the U.S. benchmark falling below $100 as recession fears grow, sparking fears that an economic slowdown will cut demand for petroleum products. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, slid 8.4%, or $9.14, to trade at $99.29 per barrel. The contract last traded under $100 on May 11. International benchmark Brent crude shed 9.1%, or $10.34, to trade at $103.16 per barrel Tuesday. Oil was pressured in a low liquidity session on Tuesday as equities fell and the dollar surged, making commodities priced in the currency less attractive. Citigroup Inc. said that crude could fall to $65 this year in the event of a recession, a call in stark contrast to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s most bullish $380 a barrel scenario.
Crude oil price tumbles $10/bbl, WTI falls below $100/bbl as recession fears mount -Oil plummeted by about $10 a barrel on Tuesday as concerns of a global recession curtailing demand overshadowed a strike by Norwegian oil and gas workers that could cut exports and exacerbate supply shortages.Global benchmark Brent crude was down $10.65, or 9.4%, at $102.85 a barrel by 12:46 p.m. EDT (1645 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell $9.36, or 8.6%, to $99.07 a barrel from Friday’s close. There was no WTI settlement on Monday because of a U.S. holiday. “The market is getting tight, but still we’re getting creamed and the only way you can explain that away is fear of recession in every risk asset,” said Robert Yawger, director, energy futures at Mizuho in New York. “You’re feeling the pressure.”
Oil tumbles as much as 10%, breaks below $100 as recession fears mount - Oil prices tumbled Tuesday with the U.S. benchmark falling below $100 as recession fears grow, sparking fears that an economic slowdown will cut demand for petroleum products. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, settled 8.24%, or $8.93, lower at $99.50 per barrel. At one point WTI slid more than 10%, trading as low as $97.43 per barrel. The contract last traded under $100 on May 11. International benchmark Brent crude settled 9.45%, or $10.73, lower at $102.77 per barrel. Ritterbusch and Associates attributed the move to "tightness in global oil balances increasingly being countered by strong likelihood of recession that has begun to curtail oil demand." "[T]he oil market appears to be homing in on some recent weakening in apparent demand for gasoline and diesel," the firm wrote in a note to clients. Both contracts posted losses in June, snapping six straight months of gains as recession fears cause Wall Street to reconsider the demand outlook. "In a recession scenario with rising unemployment, household and corporate bankruptcies, commodities would chase a falling cost curve as costs deflate and margins turn negative to drive supply curtailments," the firm wrote in a note to clients. Citi has been one of the few oil bears at a time when other firms, such as Goldman Sachs, have called for oil to hit $140 or more. Prices have been elevated since Russia invaded Ukraine, raising concerns about global shortages given the nation's role as a key commodities supplier, especially to Europe. WTI spiked to a high of $130.50 per barrel in March, while Brent came within striking distance of $140. It was each contract's highest level since 2008. But oil was on the move even ahead of Russia's invasion thanks to tight supply and rebounding demand. High commodity prices have been a major contributor to surging inflation, which is at the highest in 40 years. Prices at the pump topped $5 per gallon earlier this summer, with the national average hitting a high of $5.016 on June 14. The national average has since pulled back amid oil's decline, and sat at $4.80 on Tuesday. Despite the recent decline some experts say oil prices are likely to remain elevated. "Recessions don't have a great track record of killing demand. Product inventories are at critically low levels, which also suggests restocking will keep crude oil demand strong," Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at TD Securities, said Tuesday in a note. The firm added that minimal progress has been made on solving structural supply issues in the oil market, meaning that even if demand growth slows prices will remain supported. "Financial markets are trying to price in a recession. Physical markets are telling you something really different," Jeffrey Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC Tuesday. When it comes to oil, Currie said it's the tightest physical market on record. "We're at critically low inventories across the space," he said. Goldman has a $140 target on Brent.
WTF happened to WTI? - FT Alphaville - Commodities had a rough Tuesday, having been led downwards by oil. The front-end US benchmark West Texas Intermediate contract settled at $99.50 a barrel, down 8.2 per cent, having lost more than 10 per cent earlier. Brent was 9.5 per cent lower at $102.77 per barrel, its second biggest one-day absolute fall on record in dollar terms. Both markets are struggling to rally much this morning. Why? The commentariat was quick to claim that recession fears were curtailing oil demand and knocking the price floor out (an argument set out in easily quotable form by Citigroup that morning, coincidentally). That there was no reason for recession fears to have redoubled seemed not to matter. No new data had arrived to move the demand side, whereas stories such as Saudi Arabia raising crude export prices and US-Iran negotiations faltering were supportive of the expectation that supply would remain tight. Strike-breaking in Norway, potentially restoring about 130,000 barrels to the market, was positive but not unexpected and not overly significant. That’s why, beyond the front end, all remained calm. Time-spreads — the price differential between two consecutive futures contracts — were showing no sign of distress, as Goldman Sachs notes: Front-month Brent timespreads, diesel and gasoline cracks all weathered the fall in flat price, only down slightly on the day. In fact, the most notable move in oil prices in the past few days was the strength in crude timespreads and physical prices, reflective of a market still in deficit. This is consistent with our tracking of oil fundamentals, with an estimated global c.1 mb/d deficit in June, with China back to drawing inventories as well. [ . . . ] While the odds of a recession are indeed rising, it is premature for the oil market to be succumbing to such concerns. The global economy is still growing with the rise in oil demand this year set to significantly outperform GDP growth, buttressed by the post-COVID re-opening in Asia-Pacific as well as the resumption in international travel. For most of the year Goldman’s been championing a commodities supercycle argument, which has probably contributed to some crowded positions across the complex. Meanwhile, deteriorating market conditions resulted in sharply increased margin requirements on energy, agricultural and metals derivatives, as per the Bank of England’s Financial Stability report for July: In that context, Tuesday’s commodities market ripple is as likely to be explained by a risk-off trade that just happened to have oil at the sharp end. Back to Goldman: As is repeatedly the case with oil, the move lower was then exacerbated by technical factors and trend-following [Commodity Trading Advisor] flows, such as Brent trading through its 100-day moving average, as well as through the strikes of puts with large open interest (where negative gamma effects invariably accelerate large price sell-off). It is important to finally note that this sell-off occurred amidst seasonally low post-July 4 trading liquidity. From this perspective, this sell-off in oil prices is not all that surprising, similar in set-up and magnitude as the one after Thanksgiving 2021, most recently.
Oil prices bounce back from Tuesday tumble as supply concerns return - Oil prices rose as much as nearly 3% on Wednesday before paring some gains as investors piled back into the market after a heavy rout in the previous session, with supply concerns returning to the fore even as worries about a global recession linger. Brent crude futures rose as much as $3.08, or 2.9%, to $105.85 a barrel in early trade after plunging 9.5% on Tuesday, the biggest daily drop since March. It was last up 92 cents, or 0.9%, at $103.69 a barrel at 0243 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude climbed to a session high of $102.14 a barrel, up $2.64, or 2.7%, after closing below $100 for the first time since late April. It was last up 46 cents, or 0.5%, at $99.96 a barrel. "The fundamental story regarding global tightness is still there ... The sell-off was definitely overdone," OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said on Tuesday that the industry was "under siege" due to years of under-investment, adding shortages could be eased if extra supplies from Iran and Venezuela were allowed. Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev also warned that a reported proposal from Japan to cap the price of Russian oil at around half its current level would lead to significantly less oil in the market and push prices above $300-$400 a barrel. On the other hand, the Norwegian government on Tuesday intervened to end a strike in the petroleum sector that had cut oil and gas output, a union leader and the labour ministry said, ending a stalemate that could have worsened Europe's energy crunch. By Saturday, the strike would have cut daily gas exports by 1,117,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe), or 56% of daily gas exports, while 341,000 of barrels of oil would have been lost, the Norwegian Oil and Gas (NOG) employers' lobby said. Worries about a recession, however, have continued to weigh on markets. By some early estimates, the world's largest economy may have shrunk in the three months from April through June. That would be the second straight quarter of contraction, considered the definition of a technical recession. More G10 central banks raised interest rates in June than in any month for at least two decades, Reuters calculations showed. With inflation at multi-decade highs, the pace of policy-tightening is not expected to let up in the second half of 2022. "Although crude oil still faces the problem of a supply shortage, key factors that led to the sharp selloff in oil yesterday remain," He cited policy tightening by global central banks and a likely interest rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve as pressuring commodities prices. "Thus, today's rebound could be a short-term correction for bears and oil prices are likely to remain under pressure in the near future."
Oil Continues to Fall on Recession Fears | Rigzone - Oil extended its drop for a second day as fears of a global slowdown outweighed continued supply disruptions and market tightness. West Texas Intermediate settled below $100 after trading in a $7 range on Wednesday. The two-day decline comes as concerns over an economic recession, as well as months of dwindling liquidity, undermine the idea of oil being used as a hedge against inflation. Meanwhile, Citigroup Inc.’s Ed Morse said the outlook for oil demand will likely see further downward revisions amid higher fuel prices. “Almost everybody has reduced their expectations of demand for the year,” Morse said in a Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday. Oil has opened the third quarter on volatile footing. With central banks, including the Federal Reserve, hiking interest rates to tame inflation, investors have been pricing in the consequences of a slowdown, even as physical crude markets continue to show signs of vigor and Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on. While this week’s price weakness has been borne out of concern of a global recession and technical selling, there’s been little change to fundamentals. Nearby Brent futures are trading at a giant premium to later months -- indicating market strength -- while disruption to global oil production has been mounting amid a risk to Kazkahstan’s crude exports. WTI for August delivery fell 97 cents to settle at $98.53 a barrel in New York. Brent for September settlement dropped $2.08 to settle at $100.69 a barrel. “While the odds of a recession are indeed rising, it’s premature for the oil market to be succumbing to such concerns,” Goldman Sachs & Co. analysts including Damien Courvalin said in a note. “The global economy is still growing, with the rise in oil demand this year set to significantly outperform GDP growth.” In China, there are signs of rising demand as the world’s biggest importer emerges from virus lockdowns. Overall consumption of gasoline and diesel last month was at almost 90% of June 2019 levels, according to people with knowledge of the energy industry.
WTI Extends Losses After Unexpected Crude Build - Oil prices continued to slide on apparent recession fears today with Brent joining WTI below $100, with low liquidity exacerbating the moves."We view this move as driven by growing recession fears in the face of low trading liquidity, with technicals exacerbating the selloff," the bank's analysts, including Damien Courvalin, the head of energy research, wrote in a note on Wednesday. "The declines in prices and refining margins since mid-June are now equivalent to the oil market pricing in an 1.1% downward revision to 2H22-2023 global GDP (gross domestic product) growth expectations."Citi's Ed Morse said “Almost everybody has reduced their expectations of demand for the year."Talk of demand destruction continues but the rubber meets the road when inventory and supply data hits.API
- Crude +3.825mm (-1.1mm exp)
- Cushing +459k
- Gasoline -1.814mm
- Distillates -635k
US Crude stockpiles unexpectedly rose last week, according to API... WTI was hovering around $98.60 ahead of the API data and dipped modestly on the printCircling back to the start, the Goldman analysts said the selloff had overshot as "demand destruction through high prices is the only solver left as still declining inventories approach critically low levels."“While the odds of a recession are indeed rising, it’s premature for the oil market to be succumbing to such concerns,” Goldman Sachs & Co. analysts including Damien Courvalin said in a note. “The global economy is still growing, with the rise in oil demand this year set to significantly outperform GDP growth.”
Oil prices rise by over $5 as tight supply outweighs recession fears -Oil prices surged on Thursday, rebounding from steep losses the previous two sessions, as investors returned their focus to tight supply despite nagging fears of a potential global recession. Brent crude futures were up $5.39, or 5.4%, at $106.08 a barrel by 12:23 p.m. EDT (1623 GMT). U.S. WTI crude futures climbed $5.61, or 5.7%, to $104.14 a barrel. Trade was volatile. At session lows, prices were down about $2. Wall Street's main indexes opened higher, making up for some losses last week tied to recession fears as central banks aggressively hike interest rates to fight inflation. "With Russian oil supplies set to drop as the year progresses and it runs out of Western parts to maintain fields, and with the rest of OPEC hopelessly uninvested in maintaining production capacity, I fear the days of $100 oil will be with us for some time yet," On the supply side, traders are bracing for oil supply disruptions at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which has been told by a Russian court to suspend activity for 30 days. Exports via the CPC, which handles about 1% of global oil supplies, were still flowing as of Wednesday morning. Further squeezing global supplies, Washington tightened sanctions on OPEC member Iran on Wednesday, pressuring Tehran as it seeks to revive a 2015 Iran nuclear deal and unleash its exports. Oil prices have dropped in the past few weeks as investors worried that a sharp economic slowdown could slam demand for commodities. U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose by 8.2 million barrels last week, driven by an increase in inventories and as refiners cut output, the Energy Information Administration said. However, product supplied, the best proxy for U.S. consumer demand, was up in the latest week to 20.5 million bpd. = On Wednesday, Brent and WTI settled at their lowest since April 11. On Tuesday, WTI slid 8% while Brent tumbled 9% - a $10.73 drop that was the third biggest for the contract since it started trading in 1988. "Recession fears continue to grow and that obviously does raise some concerns for the demand outlook," s\ "However, supportive fundamentals should mean that further downside is relatively limited."
WTI Drops After Huge Surprise Crude Build, Crack Spread Soars On Product Draws - Oil prices were soaring this morning, with WTI rebounding dramatically back above $100 on the heels of demand stress (China reopening) and supply fears (Texas power outage rumors constricting production/refinery capacity and a possible blockage of Kazakhstan's exports).WTI is back at $104 after dipping to $96.50 last night after API reported a surprise crude build and follows comments from Goldman that the sell-off was overdone..."We view this move as driven by growing recession fears in the face of low trading liquidity, with technicals exacerbating the selloff," the bank's analysts, including Damien Courvalin, the head of energy research, wrote in a note on Wednesday. "The declines in prices and refining margins since mid-June are now equivalent to the oil market pricing in an 1.1% downward revision to 2H22-2023 global GDP (gross domestic product) growth expectations." So will the official data confirm the API build... and/or any signs of demand destruction? DOE:
- Crude +8.23mm (-1.1mm exp)
- Cushing +69k
- Gasoline -2.49mm
- Distillates -1.266mm
The official DOE data confirmed and exceeded API's surprise crude build data, but also showed draws on the product side...Notably there was another major SPR draw last week (-5.8mm) which likely offsets some of the anxiety over the huge crude build...US Crude production remained flat at 12.1mm b/d - the highest since April 2020...Refinery Capacity is still running near record high levels, although it did drop modestly last week after a string of problems on the West Coast weighed on runs.
Oil Spreads Rocket as Traders Scour for US Crude Supplies - -- The heart of the US physical oil markets is screaming for supplies even as headline prices swing due to worries about a global recession. The US crude prompt timespread, which closely reflects the supply and demand balances at the country’s biggest storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, has surged to the highest level since March at nearly $4 a barrel. Stockpiles at the delivery point for benchmark US crude futures are hovering at levels that are considered a minimum requirement to maintain operations. In the Permian Basin’s hub in Midland, Texas, it’s a similar story. Barrels available in July are trading at around $3.50 a barrel above those in August, dealers said. Last week, the spread was narrower by $1 a barrel, they added. Inventories at Midland have drawn over 400,000 barrels since last month, said Geoffrey Craig, global energy analyst at Ursa Space, which uses satellite data to track storage levels. Compared with last year, stockpiles in this area are about 600,000 barrels lower. The shortages are somewhat at odds with the larger narrative in oil markets this week. Headline prices have whipsawed as fears of a global recession have gripped the market, prompting worries about whether demand can withstand a weak economy. “A lot of old school analysts, including me, are pointing at the spreads as a good reason not to believe in a big liquidation fire sale,” said Robert Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA. “The super backwardation implies shortage,” he said. Backwardation is a market pattern where the supplies for immediate delivery are trading at a premium to those in the future. Beyond the spreads, there are other bullish signs. Demand for US crude in overseas markets remains robust. Despite weekly fluctuations, on a four-week basis, outflows are keeping above the 3 million barrel a day mark, a sweet spot among traders in the industry when determining the health of the market. In addition, offshore Louisiana crudes this week are trading at the strongest levels against Nymex oil futures in roughly two months.
EIA Inventory Report Arrests The Oil Price Bounce - Crude oil prices moved lower after the Energy Information Administration reportedan inventory build of 8.2 million barrels for the week to July 1.This compared with a draw of 2.8 million barrels for the previous week.A day earlier, the API had estimated a crude oil inventory build of close to 4 million barrels, which contributed to a decline in oil prices, which had, however, started to reverse at the time of writing.Brent had rebounded above $100 per barrel in pre-noon Asian trade on Thursday after dipping below the three-digit threshold for the first time in months earlier this week.Later in the day, West Texas Intermediate also rebounded above $100, with both benchmarks gaining more than 4 percent as of the time of writing.According to analysts, the price decline was a sign that traders were beginning to worry about demand destruction as the world moves into a recession. However, it appears that supply worry has prevailed.In fuels, the EIA reported inventory declines for last week.Gasoline inventories shed 2.5 million barrels, with production averaging 10.3 million barrels daily.This compared with an inventory build of 2.6 million barrels for the previous week, with production averaging 9.5 million barrels daily.In middle distillates, the authority estimated an inventory decline of 1.3 million barrels for the week to July first, with production averaging 5.4 million barrels daily.This compared with an inventory increase of 2.6 million barrels for the previous reporting period, and production averaging 5.1 million barrels daily.Brent crude has shed close to $20 over the past week, with WTI down by over $13 per barrel. The decline is being entirely attributed to worries about a recession rather than actual demand destruction resulting from excessively high prices.“If a recession m aterializes and inflation continues to push prices for almost everything higher, oil demand is almost certain to fall, bringing prices with it,” Louise Dickson from Rystad Energy told the New York Times this week.
Oil Prices Regained Footing on Thursday from Steep Falls in the Previous Two Sessions - Oil prices regained footing on Thursday from steep falls in the previous two sessions, as investors returned their focus to tight supplies even as fears persisted over the demand outlook amid risks of a global recession. Not even the unexpected 8.2 million barrel rise in U.S. crude oil inventories could keep prices down, as stockpiles for both gasoline and distillates fell more than expected. Gasoline inventories declined by 2.5 million barrels. At current levels, gasoline inventories are about 8% below the five-year average for this time of the year. Meanwhile, domestic oil production remained unchanged at 12.1 million bpd. This is a bullish development for oil markets as it shows that domestic oil producers are not ready to increase production at a fast pace despite high oil prices. August WTI gained $4.20 per barrel, or 4.26% to $102.73. Brent for September delivery added $3.96, or 3.93%, to settle at $104.65 a barrel. As far as gasoline goes, prices at the pump have retreated from June’s never-before-seen levels but remain stubbornly high. Some relief could be in sight. U.S. gasoline futures have dropped more than 11% this week, following a decline in oil prices as recession fears spark concerns around a drop-off in demand. Other factors that could send gas prices higher again include a hurricane or any refining-related issues, with refineries already running near peak capacity. RBOB Gasoline for August delivery gained 18.38 cents per gallon, or 5.68% to $3.4204, while August heating oil gained 26.33 cents per gallon, or 7.72% to $3.6739. WTI’s failure to hold below the key psychological level of $100 reignited the bull run. Thursday’s trading shows that WTI oil remains stuck in the $100 – $120 range. The recent attempt to settle below the $100 level was unsuccessful, and WTI oil quickly moved back into the previous trading range. Looking forward, some Wall Street firms believe oil prices will regain prior highs, which would mean only temporary relief at the pump. Goldman Sachs is calling for Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, to hit $140 this summer. It traded at $106.35 on Thursday. Meanwhile Citi has been an oil bear for some time and on Tuesday said Brent could hit $65 by the end of the year should the economy tip into recession. Traders will remain focused on global economic outlook in the upcoming trading sessions as a potential recession remains the key threat to oil markets. Japan has recently announced that it is dealing with the seventh wave of coronavirus, so healthcare news will also need monitoring. The EIA reported that U.S. SPR crude stocks fell by 5.8 million barrels in the week ending July 1st to 492.03 million barrels, the lowest level since December 1985. U.S. crude oil stocks increased by 8.2 million barrels to 4123.8 million barrels. The EIA also reported that U.S. exports of total petroleum products increased last week to a record high. Product exports increased to nearly 7 million bpd. Meanwhile, product supplied of jet fuel increased to 1.8 million bpd, the highest since December 2019. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said that plans to introduce price caps on Russian oil will "collapse" and Russia will find ways to ensure revenues for its budget. ‘
Oil dips as investors torn by tight supply worries and recession fears -Oil prices slipped in early Asian trade on Friday, following a rebound in the previous session, as investors remained torn between worries over tight global supplies and fears a recession could dampen oil demand. Brent crude futures fell 39 cents, or 0.4%, to $104.26 a barrel by 0013 GMT, dropping away from a near 4% rebound on Thursday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude slipped 35 cents, or 0.3%, to $102.38 a barrel, having settled 4.2% higher a day earlier. Both contracts are set to decline for a second week. Trade this week was marked by a sharp sell-off on Tuesday, where WTI slid 8% and Brent tumbled 9%. Brent's $10.73 drop was the third biggest for the contract since it started trading in 1988. "The sell-off in the commodity markets got a reprieve as traders shrugged off recession fears and turned their focus back to the undersupply issues," CMC Markets analyst Tina Teng said in a note. "However, the economic uncertainties remain with the inverted benchmark bond yields pointing to an unavoidable recession, which may continue to weigh on commodity prices." Central banks across the world are raising interest rates to tame inflation, spurring fears that rising borrowing costs could push countries into recession and reduce oil demand. Data from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed on Thursday that product supplied, the best proxy for U.S. consumer demand, rose to 20.5 million barrels per day in the most recent week. Overall gasoline and distillate demand over the past four weeks, however, was down a little more than 5% from the year-ago period.
Oil Heads for Weekly Loss as Growth Fears Trump Supply Tightness - -- Oil is set for a weekly loss after choppy trading in which concerns over a demand-sapping global slowdown clashed against signals that supplies remain tight. West Texas Intermediate slipped toward $102 a barrel in early Asian trading, putting the US benchmark on course for a weekly fall of more than 5%. Prices have swung in a range of more than $16 this week, which saw both WTI and Brent briefly drop below $100. Investors remain concerned that restrictive US monetary policy could herald a recession, and oil has been dragged lower alongside other commodities. Two of the Federal Reserve’s most hawkish policy makers, Christopher Waller and James Bullard, backed raising interest rates by another 75 basis points this month to curb red-hot inflation, while also playing down concerns of a slump. Still, physical market signals remain robust, especially in the US. In addition, there may be interruptions to supplies. A crucial export route for Kazakh oil risks being suspended as it appeals a Russian court order for it to temporarily shut down. Crude’s volatile trading means it’s down about 15% from last month’s high but still up more than 35% this year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The complex market outlook has spurred banks to offer starkly different scenarios for prices, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. remaining broadly bullish while Citigroup Inc. has said the commodity is at risk of a tumble.
Oil rises 2% but posts weekly loss on recession fears -- Oil prices rose about 2% in volatile trade on Friday but were still heading for a weekly decline as investors worried about a potential recession-driven demand downturn even as global fuel supplies remained tight. Central banks around the world are raising interest rates to tame inflation, spurring fears that rising borrowing costs could stifle growth, while mass COVID-19 testing in Shanghai this week caused worries about potential lockdowns that could also hit oil demand. Brent crude futures rose $2.37, or 2.3%, to settle at $107.02 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose $2.06, or 2%, to settle at $104.79 a barrel. Both benchmarks traded in negative territory and then rebounded from session lows. Brent posted a weekly decline of about 4.1% and WTI a loss of 3.4%, following on from the first monthly decline since November. Prices tumbled on Tuesday, when Brent's $10.73 drop was the contract's third-biggest daily fall since it started trading in 1988. U.S. non-farm payrolls data showed the economy added more jobs than expected in June, a sign of persistent labor market strength that gives the Federal Reserve ammunition to deliver another 75-basis-point rate hike this month. "The oil market is looking at the jobs report as a double-edged sword," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group. "The jobs number was positive from a demand perspective. On the bearish side, the market is concerned that if the jobs market is strong, the Fed can be more aggressive with raising rates." U.S. energy firms this week added two oil rigs, bringing the total to 597, highest since March 2020, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co said. Oil prices soared during the first half of 2022. Brent neared the record high of $147 after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February, adding to supply concerns. "Economic worries may have roiled oil prices this week, but the market is still flashing bullish signals. This is because supply tightness is more likely to intensify from this point than to ease," said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM. Western bans on Russian oil exports have supported prices and sparked a re-routing of flows while the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied producers struggle to deliver on pledged production increases. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West that continued sanctions against Moscow risked triggering "catastrophic" energy price rises for consumers around the world.
Oil Posts Weekly Loss after Choppy Trading | Rigzone - Oil posted a weekly decline as volatile trading and recession fears overshadowed a fundamentally tight supply picture. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose to settle over $104 a barrel on Friday but it wasn’t enough to stave off a weekly decline of 3.6%. Investors remain concerned that restrictive US monetary policy could herald a recession. Still, physical signals remain robust, especially in the US, where the prompt timespread, which closely reflects the supply and demand balances at the country’s biggest storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, surged to the highest level since March earlier in the week. “We believe it is premature for commodities to succumb to recession concerns when the global economy is still growing and markets remain in deficit on strong demand,” said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts, including Jeffrey Currie, in note to clients. Crude’s volatile trading means that it’s well down from last month’s high but still up more than 35% this year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The complex market outlook has spurred banks to offer starkly different scenarios for prices, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. remaining broadly bullish while Citigroup Inc. has said the commodity is at risk of a significant tumble. Meanwhile, in the Permian Basin’s hub in Midland, Texas, inventories are about 600,000 barrels lower than last year, according to Geoffrey Craig, global energy analyst at Ursa Space. Outside of the US, a key export route for Kazakh oil risks being suspended as it appeals a Russian court order for it to temporarily shut down. Prices: WTI for August delivery added $2.06 to settle at $104.79 a barrel. The contract is down 3.4% this week. Brent for September settlement gained $2.37 to settle at $107.02 a barrel. In China, meanwhile, investors are tracking efforts by Beijing to buttress growth after anti-virus lockdowns hurt the economy and energy consumption in the first half. The Ministry of Finance may allow local governments to sell 1.5 trillion yuan ($220 billion) of special bonds for infrastructure funding.
US Imposes Sanctions On Iran Oil Producers After Failure To Revive Nuclear Deal --So much for Iranian oil flooding the market.After days, and weeks and months and years of failed attempts to revive the JCPOA, aka the Iranian nuclear deal, on Wednesday the Biden administration announced it was putting sanctions on 15 individuals and entities who have been involved in illicit sales and shipments of millions of dollars' worth of Iranian oil.The newest sanctions, unveiled by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, come as the latest efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal failed just last week."The United States is designating 15 individuals and entities that engaged in the illicit sales and shipment of Iranian petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products. These entities, located in Iran, Vietnam, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Hong Kong, have supported Iranian energy trade generating millions of dollars' worth of illicit revenue," Blinken said in a statement. We are imposing sanctions on Iranian petroleum and petrochemical producers, transporters, and front companies. Absent a commitment from Iran to return to the JCPOA, an outcome we continue to pursue, we will keep using our authorities to target Iran's exports of energy products. — Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) July 6, 2022"While the United States is committed to achieving an agreement with Iran that seeks a mutual return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, we will continue to use all our authorities to enforce sanctions on the sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals," added Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson.Blinken said that the three Iran-based entities sanctioned by the State Department include: Zagros Tarabaran-E Arya, which is a shipper of Iranian petroleum products; Persian Gulf Star Oil Company is the largest producer of gas condensate in Iran; and East Ocean Rashin Shipping Co. Ltd., which is a port agent and freight forwarder of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products."The United States has been sincere and steadfast in pursuing a path of meaningful diplomacy to achieve a mutual return to full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It is Iran that has, to-date, failed to demonstrate a similar commitment to that path. Absent a change in course from Iran, we will continue to use our sanctions authorities to target exports of petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products from Iran," Blinken said.Bottom line: the Biden admin has lost patience with Iran, having realized Tehran never intended to bring the JCPOA deal to closure on mutually acceptable terms. Expect creeping sanctions to accelerate and to envelop more and more official Iranian entities as long as Tehran continues toying with Biden. And since there is no reason why Iran should change its behavior - after all the middle east oil producer sells as much as oil as it wants to China who ignores US sanctions and buys both Iranian and Russian oil at significant discounts (in fact, Iran is now competing to undercut Russia on oil price) - the only loser here are US consumers and motorists who will not benefit from the potential pool 1-2 mmb/d of legitimate Iranian exports which would sharply lower US gas prices. Instead the only winner here will be China.
Iraqi Kurdistan 'defies' Baghdad with oil and gas law change - The parliament of the northern Iraqi Kurdistan region last week amended the region’s oil and gas law, further complicating tensions with the Iraqi federal government that sees the region’s oil sector as illegal.Iraq's Supreme Federal Court ruled in February that Kurdistan's Oil and Gas Law No. 22 passed by the Kurdistan parliament in 2007 to regulate its oil and gas industry is unconstitutional. The court then ordered the Iraqi government to take measures and force the Kurdish authorities to hand over their crude supplies to the Iraqi federal government. Kurdish authorities rejected the decision and described it as "politically motivated", saying the court's ruling was not aligned with the Iraqi constitution.The parliament on Wednesday and with the vote of 71 MPs passed the first amendment of the Kurdistan region’s oil and gas law No. (22) for the year 2007. The amendment draft was sent by the KRG to the parliament.“Only article four of the law, which is related to the structure of the Kurdistan region’s supreme council for oil and gas, was amended, accordingly the chief of staff of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) council of ministers added to council,” Ali Hama-Salih, head of the energy and natural resources parliamentary committee told The New Arab.“The amendment lacks defining the region’s oil policy and the establishment of key institutions in the oil and gas sector.”With the new amendment, the council will become a six-member assembly, and the new member is from the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Accordingly, the KDP will have three members, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) two members, and the Movement for Change (Gorran) will have one member.“We did not vote for the amendment, since first we did not deem it necessary. During the past four years the region’s supreme council for oil and gas did not convene, it was supposed to convene and send its report to the Kurdistan parliament,” Gulstan Saeed, chairwoman of Gorran’s parliamentary bloc told TNA in a phone call.“Secondly, the amendment makes the KDP the absolute decision maker in the council as the head of the council, whose vote will be decisive in case of equal votes, is from the KDP. Thus, the KDP can make any decision in the council even if members from PUK and Gorran did not vote or attend.” Saeed said that amending the law is “a kind of challenge” to the decision by the ISFC, and it would increase risks to the region’s oil and gas sector.
Gunfire that killed Palestinian-American journalist likely came from Israeli military positions, U.S. says - The bullet that killed an American journalist in the Palestinian city of Jenin in May likely came from Israeli military positions, but its exact origin could not be determined and the shooting was most likely unintentional, according to a third-party analysis overseen by U.S. officials. The “extremely detailed forensic analysis” could not reach a “definitive conclusion” regarding who shot the Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement on Monday. Experts said the bullet was badly damaged, preventing a clear conclusion. Since Abu Akleh’s death on May 11, tension has mounted over who should be held accountable. Multiple independent investigations have found support for witnesses’ accounts that Israeli military forces killed the journalist, who was wearing identifiable press gear and a helmet while covering an Israeli raid in the West Bank city for the news outlet Al Jazeera. Israeli officials have repeatedly denied the military’s involvement in the shooting. Though the bullet’s origin could not be determined, the U.S. security coordinator, who oversaw the analysis, “concluded that gunfire from IDF positions was likely responsible for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh,” Price said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. The coordinator was granted access to both Israeli and Palestinian investigations.
Russian Gazprom-Linked Executive Found Dead in His Swimming Pool -- A Russian executive with connections to the energy industry was found dead in his swimming pool on Monday with a gunshot wound to the head, according to local media. Yuri Baranov, 61, had a point-blank gunshot wound to the head, and a Grand Power pistol was found nearby in his villa outside St Petersburg, local outlet 47news reported. Two spent shell casings were found at the bottom of the pool, per the outlet.It is the fifth death of a Gazprom-linked executive in recent months and one of numerous deaths of high-level executives linked to the Russian energy industry.The company Voronov founded, Astra Shipping, specialized in contracts in the Arctic from the state-controlled gas corporation, according to 47news. Security footage reviewed by police showed that nobody had entered or left the villa since July 1, the outlet reported. That day, Voronov left his St Petersburg home to head to the villa and had been drinking heavily for two weeks prior, his wife told the outlet. She alleged that he had run into trouble with dishonest contractors, 47news reported, without naming any specific company. Records reviewed by the outlet showed the company had high debt levels in 2020 and 2021. There has been a grim catalogue of Gazprom-linked deaths in recent months, some of which have been cast as suspicious by family members and colleagues. In April, Sergey Protosenya was found hanged in his Spanish villa with a gun next to him, with the bodies of his wife and daughter, who were shot, nearby.Protosenya was the former vice-president of Novatek, a gas company with close connections to Gazprombank, Gazprom's financial arm. The day before Protosenya's body was discovered, police found Gazprombank's former vice-president, Vladislav Avayev, dead in Moscow along with the bodies of his wife and two daughters. State media reported that investigators believed he killed his family before turning the gun on himself. In February, 61-year-old Gazprom executive Alexander Tyulyakov was found hanged in his St Petersburg garage, Novaya Gazeta reported. Police told the outlet a suicide note was found near his body, but that they questioned its authenticity.
Canada's trade surplus jumps to highest since 2008 on oil surge - Canada’s merchandise trade surplus widened to the largest in 14 years as the nation benefits from surging global prices for its crude oil. Exports exceeded imports by $5.3 billion in May, the highest since August 2008. The surplus was more than double economists’ forecasts and the $2.2 billion surplus reported for April. Total exports rose 4.1 per cent, led by a 9.2 per cent jump in crude oil shipments. Rising prices for energy and other commodities over the past year have helped the nation swing into recurring surpluses for the first time since 2014, acting as a buffer to global economic headwinds and shoring up the nation’s currency. Embedded Image In the first five months of 2022, the nation recorded a cumulative $15.9 billion of surpluses. Canada had a trade deficit of $1.5 billion in the same period last year. But the surge in oil is also making the country increasingly reliant on fossil fuels. Energy exports rose 5.7 per cent to $20.4 billion in May, representing 30 per cent of total shipments -- an all-time high share. The bulk of that is fossil fuels like crude oil and natural gas, which made up 29 per cent of exports in May. Canada’s trade surplus with US, its largest trading partner and biggest market for oil, hit a record $14 billion in May. Economists were anticipating the surplus would widen to $2.4 billion in May, from $1.5 billion initially reported for April. Statistics Canada revised data going back to January that showed the nation’s exports were stronger than initially estimated. The export gain in May wasn’t just a price phenomenon, with volumes up 1.7 per cent. Imports fell in May -- both in nominal and volume terms -- pulling back gains from earlier this year. Exports also increased for non-energy products, which rose 3.5 per cent on aircraft shipments. Service exports rose 1.7 per cent, while import services were up 0.5 per cent in May.
The Coming Sanctions-Induced Economic Tsunami? by Yves Smith - It’s not hard to see that as rough as economic conditions are now, they are set to get worse. And it’s not hard to see that despite the considerable blowback from the sanctions against Russia, the West is not going to relent.Here’s a simple baseline forecast. Russia wins in Ukraine. The West may try to define it somehow as not a victory, but it’s hard to see how Russia does not take the entire Black Sea coast plus Ukraine east of the Dneiper by the end of the year, and I hazard to guess sooner, say October-November. What Russia decides to do with the western part is path dependent and so in play (consider how possible military coup/Zelensky flight, Democratic November wipeout, rising political strife in Europe, Poland deciding to get expansionist could all factor into Russian decisions). Some Russians are already getting cocky:The West will remain fixated on making Russia pay for taking Ukraine. But the West lacks the ability to do so via conventional warfare (see this devastating analysis, The Return of Industrial Warfare, which shows that the West lacks the manufacturing capacity to match, let alone beat, Russia). So the only means left is economic war. Despite the fact that the West is losing decisively there too, it is determined to escalate, no matter how much harm it does to itself.Russia has been measured in its responses. Perhaps the Russian leadership hoped that the West would recognize the balance of power and cool off after Russia force a Minsk-Accords-type solution plus a guarantee of neutrality upon Ukraine, which seemed a possible outcome as of the end-of-March negotiations in Istanbul, which the UK and US got Zelensky to undo. Russia knows there’s no point in negotiating with the West, or at least not the current actors.Russia is nevertheless far from tit-for-tat-level retaliation; one assumes if nothing else Russia is now playing to China and India and the Global South to show that it is being pretty reasonable given the givens and trying to balance respecting contracts with not being ripped off. Merely requiring gas for roubles, and now “other commodities for roubles” as a way to prevent another $300 billion in foreign exchange reserves from being stolen was hardly a big ask,1 yet some buyers went ballistic. Poland and Bulgaria refused to comply with the new payment procedure and so Russia stopped shipping their contracted amounts.Now the Western press is regularly complaining that Russia is not sending all the gas that is is “supposed” to. Austria complained in June (on the fourth day this happened) that was only getting 50% of the gas it expected. The article made no mention of the fact that this was in the period when Gazprom pointed, and it was confirmed, that Siemens had sent turbine used in St. Petersburg to Montreal and Canada would not send it back, and Gazprom had to cut deliveries on Nord Stream 1 by 40%. The other nation-level shortfalls could be due to Germany backfilling Poland and Bulgaria.Recall also that Russia sanctioned 31 Gazprom European entities connected to Gazprom Germania because Germany stole Gazprom assets there, including storage facilities. At least one of those entities was Austrian.In other words, it’s hard to unpack how much of the alleged shortfalls are the direct result of sanctions-related measures and specific counter-sanctions by Russia, as opposed to the Russia jerking the EU around because it can. So far, it looks to be mainly or entirely the former, but with more and more provocations like the Kaliningrad partial blockade, there’s a lot of room for Russia to get nasty.
Goldman: "The World Is On The Brink Of A Rather Severe Recession" - Goldman, which like Morgan Stanley and unlike Nomura and Deutsche Bank, refuses to make a recession its base case (but is quick to make it very clear that in case of recession the S&P will drop to 3,150), has looked back at all the 77 recessions across the globe since 1961 to provide context around the current economic environment in a report titled "Revisiting Recession Facts" (available to pro subs). The report's bottom-line according to Goldman's Chris Hussey: some of what we are seeing today -- economic overheating and large increases in rates -- suggests that the world could be on the brink of a rather severe recession." That said, the bank highlights several other aspects of the current environment which provide a buffer against a notable turndown in activity. And for once we agree with Goldman, according to which the key thing to watch is the "fiscal and monetary response to a downturn." And since Democrats will lose Congress this November and there will be no new fiscal stimulus until 2025 at the earliest, we would add that the only thing to watch is the monetary response, i.e., when the Fed will i) cut rates back to zero, ii) resume QE and/or iii) cut rates negative.Before we dig into the Goldman report, which looks at key facts about the frequency and severity of recessions analyzing 77 recessions in advanced economies since 1961, here are the main findings:
- According to Goldman, the odds that the economy enters a recession in the next year at 30% in the US, 40% in the Euro area, and 45% in the UK.
- Goldman's subjective recession probabilities are significantly higher than the average 15% annual unconditional probability of advanced economies to enter a recession since the 1960s.
- The unemployment rate has risen by 2.7% in the median advanced economy recession since the 60s with larger increases in the 1980s and the UK but smaller increases in Japan. The distribution is slightly skewed towards larger increases in more severe recessions.
- Economic overheating—high unit labor cost growth and high core inflation—and large cumulative increases in the policy rate often precede severe recessions. In contrast, elevated private sector financial surpluses often foreshadow less severe recessions.
- Currently, across the advanced economies, unit labor cost growth, core inflation, and the expected total increase in the policy rate are generally running at levels similar to the runup of the typical advanced economy recession. Higher measures of economic overheating in the US, UK, and Canada than in Japan and the Euro area suggest that the next recession may be somewhat less shallow in these English-speaking G10 economies. In contrast, the private sector financial balance has been much higher than ahead of the typical recession for all economies, hinting at a shallow next recession.
- Other factors outside the historical dataset paint a mixed picture. On the pessimistic side, the monetary and fiscal policy response might be more limited than usual and energy disruptions are the main risk in Europe. On the optimistic side, long run inflation and wage expectations still appear mostly anchored and substantial supply side improvement opportunities remain.
With that in mind, let's delve deeper into the report starting with...
Copper sinks to 17-month low as recession fears dominate trade - Copper fell to the lowest level in 17 months, with metals extending losses as global recession fears continue to damp the demand outlook for commodities. Sentiment remains sour for the industrial materials used in everything from construction to new energy vehicles. Copper, widely considered an economic bellwether, is trading solidly below $8 000 a ton, after metals posted their worst quarterly slump since the 2008 financial crisis.Concerns that the US may be heading into recession are dominating copper trading, Citic Futures Co. said in a note. Prices will likely drop in the medium to longer term, though a technical correction higher is possible in the near term, it said.For zinc, which is used to galvanize steel, prices also risk a further pullback, with China, the top producer, set to ship its domestic surplus to western countries to fill the shortfall that’s emerged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Deteriorating demand and China’s shift to becoming a net exporter is expected to alleviate tightness in the metal, according to UBS AG.Copper fell as much as 2.3% to $7 825 a ton on the London Metal Exchange, its lowest since February 2021, before trading at $7 842.50 as of 12:11 p.m. local time. All metals declined, with aluminium down 2.7% and tin falling 3%.
"Very Unusual Situation": 2% Of All Global Freight Is At A Standstill In North Sea Due To Historic Congestion -- Yesterday, when writing the congratulatory note to coal which has emerged victorious - and with a record high price - over the rotting, humiliated corpses of millions of virtue signaling fake muppets, we said that as a result of the unprecedented surge in imports by desperate European nations, "the flood of imports is contributing to major congestion at the ports."Today, Reuters picks up on this latest troubling side-effect of fanatic environmentalist idiocy, and writes that according to an expert from Germany’s IfW economic institute, more than 2% of global freight capacity is at a standstill in the North Sea, a “very unusual” situation for the ports there."There is currently no end in sight to the congestion in container shipping,” said IfW’s Vincent Stamer, adding that traffic jams were also growing outside Chinese ports, a troubling reminder that supply chains remain painfully clogged up despite covid lockdowns becoming a distant memory. “For Germany and the EU, this affects overseas trade in particular, especially with Asia, where consumer electronics, furniture and textiles, for example, are shipped from.”Logistics companies have been struggling for months with shipping container schedules, which have been thrown into disarray due to the war in Ukraine and lockdowns in China. The latest snag emerged when the burst in coal and LNG imports by European countries revealed that port infrastructure is woefully unprepared for the jump in traffic.
No anchor left for Turkey’s inflation as it nears 80% peak - One of the world’s worst inflation crises closed in further on another grim milestone in Turkey, and government efforts to help the population cope with the fallout only threaten to make it worse. Price growth has been in the double digits almost without interruption since the start of 2017, but it exploded this year near a quarter-century high on the back of soaring energy and other commodity costs. Data on Monday showed annual inflation accelerated for a 13th straight month to 78.6% in June, an uptick that was slightly less than forecast by economists. Further upward pressure came from energy prices, which soared 151.3% from a year earlier, while food inflation reached almost 94%. “We observe typical spiralling inflation in Turkey now, as there is no anchor for price makers,” Deutsche Bank AG economists including Fatih Akcelik said in a report before the data release. A combination of self-inflicted damage and price pressures from abroad have stirred up a storm in Turkey that the International Monetary Fund estimates will result in the world’s highest inflation this year after Venezuela, Sudan and Zimbabwe. More details:
- A core inflation index, which strips out the impact from volatile items including food and energy, rose in June to an annual 57.3%, from 56% in the previous month
- Producer prices, an early indicator of inflation, have been growing by more than 100% for five straight months. They rose by an annual 138.3% in June
- Transportation prices saw the biggest annual increase in June, followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages and furnishings and household equipment
- In the country’s most populous city of Istanbul, retail inflation accelerated to an annual 94% in June.
The central bank, which just over two months ago predicted inflation could already start slowing as early as June, hasn’t raised policy interest rates in over a year after a round of monetary easing in late 2021, responding only with measures to cool off consumer lending. Declines in the lira against the dollar continued in June, adding to this year’s worst performance in emerging markets that’s stoking inflation by making imported goods more expensive. The lira slightly weakened after the inflation report and was trading down 0.4% at 16.8163 per the dollar at 11:06 a.m. Istanbul.
Global hunger figures rose to 828M in 2021, UN says – - One in 10 people around the world faced hunger in 2021, according to a U.N. report released on Wednesday. The report, produced jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme, UNICEF, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Health Organization, found that between 702 million and 828 million people suffered from hunger last year. That's at least 50 million more than the year before it, indicating that efforts to eliminate hunger and malnutrition are sliding. The number of people who were food insecure, meaning they lacked regular access to nutritious food needed to live a healthy life, rose to around 2.3 billion in 2021 — 350 million more than before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of these, nearly 924 million people faced severe food insecurity, meaning they have run out of food at some point in the year or have gone without food for a day or more — an increase of 207 million in two years. The gender gap between men and women affected by hunger has also risen, the report found, with hunger more prevalent among women than men. World Food Programme chief David Beasley warned the number of people going hungry could rise even more in 2022, partly due to the impact of the war in Ukraine on international supply chains and food prices. “There is a real danger these numbers will climb even higher in the months ahead,” he said in a statement. “The global price spikes in food, fuel and fertilizers that we are seeing as a result of the crisis in Ukraine threaten to push countries around the world into famine.” The report listed conflict, climate extremes and economic shocks as the major drivers behind the latest rise in food insecurity and malnutrition. Looking forward, the authors said the world “must take bolder action to build resilience against future shocks” but warned that most of the food and agricultural support currently in place is “not aligned with the objective of promoting healthy diets and in many cases is actually inadvertently undermining food security and nutrition outcomes.” Without serious action, the report said, the number of people still facing hunger in 2030 — the date by which the U.N. aims to achieve zero hunger as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — will be 670 million, or 8 percent of the world population, which is the same as in 2015 when the 2030 agenda was launched.
Trade restrictions making food crisis worse: World Bank -- Bans and restrictions on food exports are “counterproductive” against the global food crisis and drive rising domestic prices “even higher,” World Bank directors said Wednesday. In a blog post, World Bank Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships Mari Elka Pangestu and Managing Director of Operations Axel van Trotsenburg called for export restrictions to be “halted and reversed” to combat the worsening crisis.The current price surge has been fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain bottlenecks, the high cost of energy and other global issues, but is exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, a top global food supplier. The conflict not only disrupted production in Ukraine but also blocked critical ports in the Black Sea.The directors compared this year’s crisis with the global food crisis of 2008, during which 36 countries imposed export restrictions. As of June 2022, 34 countries have active restrictions.Bans imposed since the start of the war in Ukraine have increased the price of rice by more than 12 percent, of wheat by 9 percent and of maize by about 6 percent, a World Bank reportfound. Between mid-2007 and mid-2008, the global food crisis saw an increase in the price of rice by as much as 180 percent, of wheat by 120 percent and of maize by 70 percent.In 2020, Ukraine was the world’s fifth-largest supplier of wheat, and Russia was the top exporter of fertilizer.In early June, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres gave remarks warning that, “without fertilizers, shortages will spread from corn and wheat to all staple crops, including rice, with a devastating impact on billions of people in Asia and South America, too.”
Japan's ex-leader Shinzo Abe assassinated during a speech (AP) — Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated Friday on a street in western Japan by a gunman who opened fire on him from behind as he delivered a campaign speech — an attack that stunned a nation with some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere. The 67-year-old Abe, who was Japan’s longest-serving leader when he resigned in 2020, collapsed bleeding and was airlifted to a nearby hospital in Nara, although he was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was later pronounced dead after receiving massive blood transfusions, officials said. Nara Medical University emergency department chief Hidetada Fukushima said Abe suffered major damage to his heart, along with two neck wounds that damaged an artery. He never regained his vital signs, Fukushima said. Police at the shooting scene arrested Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, a former member of Japan's navy, on suspicion of murder. Police said he used a gun that was obviously homemade — about 15 inches (40 centimeters) long — and they confiscated similar weapons and his personal computer when they raided his nearby one-room apartment. Police said Yamagami was responding calmly to questions and had admitted to attacking Abe, telling investigators he had plotted to kill him because he believed rumors about the former leader's connection to a certain organization that police did not identify.
China Tightens Rules For Online Platforms, Requiring Companies To Authenticate Users' Identities - The Cyberspace Administration of China issued new regulations on June 27 requiring all online platform operators to authenticate users’ identities and verify the account information submitted by users during registration. The new regulations require the network information service provider to display user IP addresses on their page of account information, which would facilitate Beijing’s monitoring of user locations. The new rules will take effect on Aug. 1, when companies will need to validate every user’s online identity.
Twitter sues Indian government in pushback against orders to remove content - Twitter filed a lawsuit against the Indian government on Tuesday, pushing back against orders to censor content on its platform.The lawsuit, filed in the Karnataka High Court against the Union Government of India, listed Twitter Inc. as the petitioner.The news, first reported by Reuters, cited a source familiar with the matter and added that the social media giant’s legal challenge alleges abuse of power by officials.India’s Information and Technology Ministry had asked the social media platform to take down multiple accounts and tweets that were noncompliant with its new laws that allow the government to block access to content in the interest of national security.The government had recently demanded the U.S.-based company take down tweets from Indian journalist Rana Ayyub, who is critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government.Twitter also sent a notice to Indian journalist Mohammed Zubair, who was recently arrested over his tweets, and said that the Indian government had sent a notice saying his account violates the laws of the country.Opponents of Modi’s government have accused his administration of using India’s laws to clamp down on dissent and criticism. U.S.-based pro-democracy organization Freedom House recently expressed concern that the Indian government ordered Twitter to restrict its tweets and said that Internet freedom in India weakened for a fourth straight year in 2021.
Burning Trains Reveal Wrath of Millions Without Jobs in India - -- A military recruitment plan in India that sparked last month’s violent protests is turning the spotlight on an unemployment crisis plaguing the $3.2 trillion economy, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign pledges on jobs. Behind the unrest is a new policy to enlist young men as soldiers on four-year contracts without pension, replacing the current 15-year service that entails full retirement benefits. Modi's government says the program will boost employment by supplying a trained, disciplined workforce to local industry. Critics say that it would be similar to hiring for the gig economy and won’t lead to high-quality jobs. The program has already started luring a record number of applicants, but it has also provoked a furious backlash from some quarters. Many pinning their hopes on the military for a secure future say the shortened term has delivered a gut-punch to their career plans. Some others say it deprives them of higher education in their prime years, and worse still, offers no job assurance after completion. Angry youth facing bleak job prospects blocked rail traffic, highways in many states for days about three weeks ago. Some even set trains on fire. The intensity of those protests has largely died down now, but the rage hasn’t. With the backing of opposition parties and other powerful lobby groups such as farmers, they’re all betting Modi will drop the idea, just like he buckled under pressure earlier to scrap planned farm-produce and land-ownership reforms. Modi, however, is undeterred. After vowing to create millions of jobs in his campaign speeches, he is under tremendous pressure to show he’s making progress on those promises. The army hiring program — called “Agnipath,” or path of fire in Hindi — is one of his key game plans to win a third consecutive five-year term. Yet, with the next national elections less than two years away, time isn’t on his side. Runaway inflation is threatening to derail a fragile post-pandemic economic recovery, while discontent continues to simmer over unemployment.
Russia Asserts Full Control Over Luhansk Region With Fall Of Lysychansk -Fresh of their victory over the key stronghold of Sievierodonetsk, Russian forces have claimed victory over its sister city of Lysychansk, which puts Russia in total control of the Luhansk province. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu affirmed as much in a Sunday statement, while the Ukrainian regional governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, said the "city is on fire". "Sergei Shoigu has informed the commander in chief of the Russian armed forces, Vladimir Putin, of the liberation of the People's Republic of Luhansk [LPR]," the defense ministry said in a statement. Lysychansk, via Telegram Russia's military and its separatist allies are now "full control of Lysychansk and other nearby towns, notably Belogorovka, Novodruzhesk, Maloryazantseve and Bila Hora," the statement added. As for the aforementioned regional governor Haidai, he wrote on Telegram that "the Russians are reinforcing their positions in the Lysychansk region." "The Russians are entrenched in the Lysychansk district, the city is on fire. The occupiers probably deployed all their forces at Lysychansk. They attacked the city with inexplicably brutal tactics," Haidai said. As Luhansk and its breakaway pro-Russian republic is one of the two key regions that form Donbas, this puts Moscow a major step closer to achieving its stated goal of liberating all of the Donbas.
Russia Says It Destroyed Two US-Supplied HIMARS Rocket Systems In Ukraine - Russia’s defense ministry announced Wednesday that its forces operating in Ukraine have destroyed two US-supplied rocket systems recently transferred to Ukrainian forces under authorization of the Biden administration. In particular, Moscow is claiming it took out a pair of advanced High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which have served to greatly expand the targeting range of the Ukrainian army. Earlier in the war, Russia vowed to attack any foreign supplied weapons or convoys it finds on the battlefield, further saying it would hold the supplying nations "responsible". There's as yet no independent confirmation, and it's unlikely that the Ukrainian side would confirm even if true. Kiev has reportedly denied it. If accurate, it would be a devastating rollback of efforts to give Kiev longer range rockets, given at this point the Ukrainians likely only possess less than half a dozen HIMARS. It also takes time to train the Ukrainians on the complicated mobile systems being transferred.This could mean the destruction of half of the US-made HIMARS deployed by the Ukrainians. Reuters recounts, "Ukraine had received only four HIMARS systems as of early July, the European Council on Foreign Relations said in a report. The U.S. has pledged to deliver eight by mid-July."Further according to Reuters, citing the Russian military:It also said Russian forces destroyed two ammunition depots storing rockets for the HIMARS near the frontline in a village south of Kramatorsk in Ukraine's Donetsk region - the main focus for Russian troops following the capture of Luhansk over the weekend.The ministry released video footage which it said showed the strike. Reuters could not independently verify the strike.
The Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk province — one of the last holdout territories in eastern Ukraine — is urging the 350,000 people who remain to flee - The governor of the last remaining eastern province partly under Ukraine's control urged his more than 350,000 residents to flee as Russia escalated its offensive and air alerts were issued across nearly the entire country.Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said getting people out of Donetsk province is necessary to save lives and enable the Ukrainian army better to defend towns from the Russian advance."The destiny of the whole country will be decided by the Donetsk region," Kyrylenko told reporters in Kramatrosk, the province's administrative center and home to the Ukrainian military's regional headquarters."Once there are less people, we will be able to concentrate more on our enemy and perform our main tasks," Kyrylenko said.The governor's call for residents to leave appeared to represent one of the biggest suggested evacuations of the war, although it's unclear whether people will be willing and safely able to flee. According to the UN refugee agency, more than 7.1 million Ukrainians are estimated to be displaced within Ukraine, and more than 4.8 million refugees left the country since Russia's invasion started on February 24.
Shorting British, American and Baltic Intelligence – Going Long on Vladimir Putin - By John Helmer the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia -- Philip Short, a journalist from the BBC, has published a new book which claims to be a biography of Vladimir Putin. It isn’t. What it is instead is a biography of one hundred and twenty-three westerners — what they claim to know about Russia’s leader and what for commercial motive, reason of state, or vanity they have told Short in interviews he conducted for his book. They include spies he names without their cover – John Scarlett, Richard Dearlove, Richard Bridge, Kate Horner, Martin Nicholson, and Pablo Miller from the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6); Hans-Georg Wieck and August Hanning of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND); Jean-Francois Clair, Raymond Nart, and Yves Bonnet of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST); Seppo Tiitinen of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO); Mark Kelton, Michael Morell, Peter Clement, Michael Sulick, Michael Morgan, Paul Kolbe, and William Green of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Juri Pihl, head of the Estonian Internal Security Service, and Eerik-Niiles Kross, chief of Estonian intelligence; and several dozen other ambassadors, consuls, advisers, headquarters staff, journalists, and think-tankers.Not one of the spies was operational in Moscow for the past twenty-one years of Putin’s terms in office.There is a flash of originality in this book. Not a single source on which Catherine Belton’s book on Putin relies has been interviewed by Short; in his references to Belton’s claims Short reports they “appear to be untrue”. He reaches the same conclusion about two other books about Putin,Karen Dawisha’s and Masha Gessen’s. “Neither book pretends to be a balanced account”, Short says. Dawisha’s book “is marred by numerous errors of fact”. “All three”, Short warns, “set out the case for the prosecution, and like all prosecutors, the authors select their evidence accordingly.” “Readers must decide for themselves,” Short concludes his book, “what is plausible, what sounds false, what rings true and what does not.” This is how Short ends on page 679 with what most biographers begin on page 1.
Greece forces refugees to participate in brutal “pushbacks” on Turkish border - Greek border authorities are enslaving asylum seekers and coercing them to participate in illegal police “pushback” operations forcing desperate refugees back across the border into Turkey. Those involved are promised transit through Greece into Europe. Six asylum seekers who participated in pushback operations along the Evros river, running across the land border with Turkey in north-eastern Greece, gave testimony to a joint investigation by the Guardian, Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and ARD Report München. The journalists also interviewed Greek police sources, and residents in surrounding towns and villages. The media outlets published their month-long investigation simultaneously on June 28, and in the Greek language Reporters United. The revelations confirm numerous accounts of “proxies” being used in pushback operations, most recently in a report published in April by NGO Human Rights Watch. Pushbacks have increased since 2020, with the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR recording almost 540 incidents since then across Greece’s land and sea borders. This represents a fraction of the pushbacks that have taken place. The NGO Aegean Boat Report, which monitors the Greek government’s pushback operations across the Greek-Turkish sea border, recorded 81 such incidents in the last month alone. Bassel, a man in his late 20s, was arrested in late 2020, according to Reporters United, as part of a group of Syrians “after they crossed the river in an inflatable dinghy. They were beaten and stripped to their underwear before being taken to the police station [in the border town of Tychero] in a vehicle without number plates. There they took their belongings and locked them in a cell with 150 other detainees.” At the police station, Bassel was “confronted with an appalling choice” according to Lighthouse Reports. Threatened with smuggling charges because he spoke English: “His only way out, they told him, was to do the Greeks’ dirty work for them. He would be kept locked up during the day and released at night to push back his own compatriots and other desperate asylum seekers. In return he would be given a travel permit that would enable him to escape Greece for Western Europe.” Reporters United described in chilling detail what goes on during a pushback operation: At night police transported the ‘slaves’ and the migrants to be ‘pushed back’ separately. The ‘slaves’ prepared the boats under the supervision of the policemen who were armed. During the pushbacks the border guards’ collaborators would often force migrants to take off all their clothes and if they found that they still had money hidden on them they would take it and beat them. This practice was corroborated by a police source. After that was the difficult part of getting across the river. Bassel recounted how he had to tie the rope onto a tree on the Turkish side of the river in order to pull the boat. The ‘slaves’ would then lead the migrants onto the boats. Usually 20 per trip (18 asylum seekers and two ‘slaves’ one at the front and one at the back of the boat) until all the migrants had been pushed back across. Bassel has said that he saw people drowning in the river. The policy of coercing migrants to participate in pushbacks was approved by the government. According to Reporters United one of the investigation’s police sources revealed “the idea was proposed to politicians as a means of protecting officers from direct involvement in pushbacks, given that they are afraid of being exposed to danger from skirmishes with Turkish forces or with smugglers.”
EU Commission President Once Again in Hot Water (Or At Least Should Be) Over Her Opaque Dealings With Pfizer --Concerns are rising about the EU Commission’s ongoing opacity over its relations with Pfizer. But this is not the first time von der Leyen has been caught deleting sensitive information regarding deals with large corporations. As readers may recall, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen found herself in hot water late last year after being accused of deleting mobile phone communications with Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer. In April 2021, the Commission’s negotiations with Pfizer were drawing to a close precisely at a time that a desperate von del Leyen was taking heavy flak for failing to make the Commission’s advance purchase agreements with AstraZeneca legally airtight. As the NYT reported, much of the negotiations to seal a deal to buy/sell 1.8 billion doses of Pfizer BioNTech’s vaccine were conducted via phone and text messages. None of those communications have been made public. In fact, they appear to have been destroyed. At the same time, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been kept in the dark about much of the content of the Commission’s contracts with vaccine makers, which has led several MEPs to file a suit with the European Court of Justice in April. The Commission has only published heavily redacted versions of its advance purchase agreement and contract with Pfizer, which lacked information about vaccine production, pricing, delivery, payment, clinical trials, liability and indemnification. In May 2021, the Belgian journalist Alexander Fanta made a freedom of information (FOI) request for von der Leyen’s text messages with Pfizer. The Commission’s initial response was to stonewall her, arguing that its “record-keeping policy would in principle exclude instant messaging.” Indeed, as Fanta notes in a recent Politico article, the Commission has never archived a single text message, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that text messages are playing an increasingly important role in EU politics.European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly got involved later in the year. Her inquiry concluded that the European Commission’s refusal to properly consider the request constitutes “maladministration”: O’Reilly also asked the Commission to conduct a more extensive search for the text messages in question. That was last December. Last week, the Commission finally gave a formal response, seven months after O’Reilly’s request. The message was simple: the Commission cannot and does not need to find the text messages. Now, text messages may be ephemeral — especially if you delete them as quickly as possible — but the results of them are not. In this case, we are talking about the results of negotiations between the CEO of one of the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturers and the president of the EU’s executive branch, which is clearly a matter of intense public interest. After all, the eventual outcome of those negotiations was a deal worth tens of billions of euros, paid for with public funds — for a vaccine that the Commission has considered making mandatory for all EU citizens. Yet those citizens, as well as their elected representatives in the European Parliament, are being kept in the dark about the terms and conditions of that deal.
Eurozone inflation hits another record high - Driven by rising energy costs, consumer prices in Eurozone jumped 8.6% over the year through June, hitting another record high since the creation of the Euro in 1999. Euro area annual inflation is expected to be 8.6% in June 2022, up from 8.1% in May according to a flash estimate from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Looking at the main components of euro area inflation, energy is expected to have the highest annual rate in June (41.9%, compared with 39.1% in May), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (8.9%, compared with 7.5% in May), non-energy industrial goods (4.3%, compared with 4.2% in May) and services (3.4%, compared with 3.5% in May).1 The data reflect an escalating squeeze on households and firms across the 19-member currency bloc, where France, Italy and Spain reported new all-time highs this week, Bloomberg’s Andrew Langley noted.2 “Germany, the continent’s No. 1 economy, only saw a slowdown thanks to fuel-tax cuts and public-transport discounts that are temporary. “In the Baltic region, price growth has shot past 20%. Governments have weighed in with billions of euros in support, but their ability to help is limited after spending huge sums during the pandemic.”
Germany's much-vaunted trade surplus disappears as import prices surge --Germany is no longer exporting more than what it buys from other countries, highlighting the strains that the nation and other European economies are facing from surging energy and food prices.Data released Monday showed that in May, Germany posted a foreign trade deficit of 1 billion euros ($1.03 billion). This marks a significant moment for the German economy, which had reported trade surpluses for several decades. Bloomberg reported that 1991 was the last time the country reported a monthly trade deficit.Its high level of exports had been an important economic driver and the trade surplus was even attacked by former President Donald Trump, who wanted Americans to buy more U.S.-made products."Germany's vaunted trade surplus is gone," Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said in a note Tuesday, adding that "higher prices for imports of energy, food and materials are goosing up the import bill."Germany's exports in the month of May were still 11.7% higher than a year ago, according to the country's statistics office, though 0.5% lower from the previous month.However, the imports bill went up by 27.8% from a year ago and it was no longer offset by its sales abroad.Germany — just like many other European nations — has been paying more for energy and food, particularly in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia, a key exporter of energy into Europe, reduced gas flows to the bloc, bringing new insecurities to the energy market and driving up prices. In addition, Ukraine, an important exporter of wheat and other food-related items, has not been able to send its products abroad at the same rate as before the war. Farmers are also not able to sow and plant at the same rate as before either — potentially driving up food prices when harvest time comes.
Pandemic is driving poverty in Germany to new highs - The poverty rate in Germany reached a new high of 16.6 percent of the population in 2021. According to the Poverty Report 2022 of the Paritätischer Gesamtverband charity association, entitled “Between Pandemic and Inflation,” 13.8 million people lived in poverty, 600,000 more than before the pandemic began. The poverty threshold was regarded as a monthly income of €1,148 for a single household, €1,492 for a single parent with one child, and €2,410 for a couple household with two small children. Since the report covers 2021 it does not consider the impact of the dramatic increase in inflation since the beginning of the year. Since 2006, the trend in the annual poverty reports has been upward. Ulrich Schneider, Chief Executive of the Paritätischer Gesamtverband, said at the presentation of the report, “The current poverty record is the peak of a trend that has had Germany firmly in its grip for 15 years now. This trend began in 2006. Since then, the poverty rate has risen from 14 to 16.6 percent, despite all the economic successes of this country. The number of poor people increased by more than 2 million in those 15 years—from 11.5 to 13.8 million.” This trend accelerated in the two pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. The poverty rate climbed from 15.9 to 16.6 percent. “This is the steepest increase in two years ever measured by the micro census,” as Schneider explained. “Never before in recent times has poverty spread so rapidly in Germany as during the pandemic. The increase is unprecedented.” In 2021, in particular, the economic effects of the pandemic fully impacted on poverty trends. In 2020, poverty had risen from 15.9 to 16.1 percent. What is striking, is the sharp increase in poverty among the employed and especially among the self-employed. Among the latter, the poverty rate increased by 46 percent, rising from 9 to 13.1 percent. Numerous other reports also confirm that many self-employed people suffered financial losses during the pandemic. But poverty among those with an employment contract—people who are poor despite working—also rose unusually sharply during the pandemic, from 7.9 to 8.4 percent. The key factors here were income losses due to short-time working and the fact that employees on low wages were hit hardest by pandemic-related income losses.
Cabinet resignations seek ouster of Boris Johnson - Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid quit their ministerial roles today to force out Boris Johnson as prime minister.The move comes from two senior cabinet members at various times advanced as leadership challengers. The immediate reason cited is Johnson’s appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip in February this year, despite Johnson knowing of sexual misconduct allegations against him. But it brings to a new pitch the civil war within the Conservative party after months of scandal over drinks parties during lockdowns that have led to the Tories haemorrhaging support even in their heartlands.Sajid Javid said in his statement that the British people “rightly expect integrity from their government,” declaring that the electorate no longer viewed the government as either “popular” or “competent in acting in the national interest… The vote of confidence last month showed that a large number of our colleagues agree.”Sunak announced his resignation within half an hour on Twitter, in almost identical terms, writing, “The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously.”These resignations alone--and half a dozen more have followed though not yet at ministerial level--make it difficult for Johnson to continue in office. More cabinet ministers will resign and Johnson “will be shown the door”, said Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.
Keep calm and carry on — as chaos engulfs Boris Johnson- POLITICO — There will be no Boris Johnson bust in some future White House. But like Winston Churchill, the man Johnson styles himself after, he will be dragged from high office amid scandal. It’s now a matter of when, not if.Johnson played against type to lock in Britain’s path to net-zero emissions, but after a bungled Covid response — which almost cost him his life — he will be remembered chiefly for something he left (the European Union) rather than anything he built.For Americans used to the Donald Trump playbook — from Twitter abuse to sexual misconduct accusations and impeachment to insurrection — the details of Johnson’s scandals may seem baffling.But other democracies don’t hold themselves to the standards of Trump.And though Johnson often acts like he is not bound by political convention or gravity, the British prime ministership is not the American presidency.Britain doesn’t have a written constitution, and the prime minister is not directly elected. The role is barely mentioned in British law — meaning those who occupy 10 Downing Street are merely first among equals in the British Cabinet, and staying there is a confidence game.Virtually no one in Britain retains confidence in Johnson: Only 18 percent of voters want him to stay, he’s lost the country’s powerful media editors and 148 of his own MPs voted to express “no confidence” in him last month.At last count, 37 of Johnson’s ministers and senior officials resignedin 24 hours starting Tuesday night. The tsunami began with Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid quitting within minutes Tuesday evening, forcing Johnson into a late-night Cabinet reshuffle. More ultra loyalists jumped ship Wednesday morning, and another group of five resigned together after Johnson’s defiant performance in Parliament Wednesday afternoon. His most senior defender — Foreign Secretary Liz Truss — was nowhere to be seen, jumping on a plane to Bali, Indonesia, for a G-20 meeting.Late Wednesday, Johnson fired senior minister Michael Gove, another loyalist.Johnson’ new chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, was in the job less than a day before turning on him. Former Conservative Minister Rory Stewart noted: “We are now entering the stage where it will be almost impossible for Boris Johnson to replace and fill his ministry positions.”With nearly all his authority gone, Johnson is on course to leave the prime ministership neck-deep in scandals.In the latest Westminister sex scandal — there were nine others in 2022 alone— it turned out that Johnson knew for three years that his loyal lieutenant Chris Pincher has been accused of sexually assaulting young men on multiple occasions. Senior staff warned Johnson in person.The problem isn’t one person or scandal — it’s all of it. Read bellwether columnist Alice Thomson on why, for the sake of Britain’s democracy, enough is enough.Because of Britain’s constitutional mish-mash, Johnson could stagger on for weeks or months — something he says he wants to do.The man who made it to Downing Street by insisting on Leave, now refuses to. “Fuck that” was his pithy reply to a colleague who asked if he considered resigning Tuesday, The Times of London reported.
One scandal too many: British PM Boris Johnson resigns (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation Thursday amid a mass revolt by top members of his government, marking an end to three tumultuous years in power in which he brazenly bent and sometimes broke the rules of British politics. Months of defiance ended almost with a shrug as Johnson stood outside No. 10 Downing St. and conceded that his party wanted him gone. “Them’s the breaks,” he said. The brash, 58-year-old politician who took Britain out of the European Union and steered it through COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine was brought down by one scandal too many — this one involving his appointment of a politician who had been accused of sexual misconduct. The messiest of prime ministers did not leave cleanly. Johnson stepped down immediately as Conservative Party leader but said he would remain as prime minister until the party chooses his successor. The timetable for that process will be announced next week, he said. But many in the party want him gone before then, and his government has been shredded by scores of resignations. Among the possible candidates to succeed him: former Health Secretary Sajid Javid, former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace. After the latest scandal broke, Johnson clung to power for days, defiantly telling lawmakers on Wednesday that he had a “colossal mandate” from the voters and intended to get on with the business of governing. But he was forced to concede defeat Thursday morning after one of his closest allies, newly appointed Treasury chief Nadhim Zahawi, publicly told him to resign for the good of the country. “In the last few days, I tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we’re delivering so much and when we have such a vast mandate,” Johnson said. “I regret not to have been successful in those arguments, and of course it’s painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself.’’
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