Fed’s QT: Total Assets Drop by $91 Billion from Peak (QE created money, QT Destroys Money) by Wolf Richter -The Federal Reserve’s quantitative tightening (QT) finished its second month of the three-month phase-in period. Total assets on the Fed’s weekly balance sheet as of August 3, released this afternoon, fell by $17 billion from the prior week, and by $91 billion from the peak in April, to $8.87 trillion, the lowest since February 2.QE created money that the Fed pumped into the financial markets via its primary dealers, from where it began circulating and chasing assets, including in non-financial markets such as housing and commercial real estate. The purpose and effect were to repress yields and create asset price inflation. And it finally also helped create raging consumer price inflation.QT does the opposite: It destroys money and has all the opposite effects – not for day-traders but over the longer term. QT is one of the tools the Fed is using to crack down on this now raging consumer price inflation.Treasury securities: -$52 billion from peak. July: -$30 billion roll-off +$4.6 billion in TIPS Inflation Compensation.Treasury notes and bonds roll off mid-month and at the end of the month, when they mature. Today’s balance sheet includes the roll-off at the end of July.Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) pay inflation compensation that is added to the principal value of the TIPS. When TIPS mature, holders receive the amount of original face value plus the accumulated inflation compensation that was added to the principal.The Fed currently hold $374 billion in TIPS. The amount of inflation compensation amounts to about $1 billion to $1.5 billion per balance-sheet week, or about $4 billion to $5 billion per calendar month, which adds to the balance of Treasury securities.The QT phase-in plan (from June through August) calls for the Fed to let $30 billion in Treasury securities roll off per calendar month, as they mature. And the Fed did exactly that in July.So why did Treasury securities decline by only $25.2 billion, and not $30 billion that rolled off? TIPS inflation compensation!The Fed let $30 billion in Treasuries roll off without replacement, which reduced the balance by $30 billion. The Fed received from the government $4.6 billion in inflation compensation, which increased the balance by $4.6 billion Net effect: the total balance fell by $25.2 billion.Inflation compensation being added to the balance of Treasury securitiesevery week is why the reduction in the balance will be less every month than the actual roll-off.In the chart below, note the steady increase of around $1-1.5 billion a week after QE had ended from mid-March through June 6, which is the inflation compensation from TIPS. The amount of Treasury securities has now fallen by $52 billion from the peak on June 6, to $5.72 trillion, the lowest since January 26: MBS, the peculiar creatures with the big delay. How MBS can come off the balance sheet:
- Pass-through principal payments – the primary way
- When issuers “call” MBS
- When MBS mature, but they’re usually “called” before they mature
- When the Fed sells them, which it has said it might do some day in the future.
Unusually large U.S. jobs number stokes case for 'unusually large' rate hike (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve faces renewed pressure to deliver another 75 basis point interest rate hike at its upcoming meeting in September as fresh data showed job gains unexpectedly accelerating and overall employment at a record high despite soaring inflation and rising borrowing costs. The economy added 528,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said in its closely watched employment report on Friday, a far larger-than-expected number than expected. Data for June was revised higher to show 398,000 jobs created instead of the previously reported 372,000, while the unemployment rate fell to a pre-pandemic low of 3.5%. The strength of the labor market is a double-edged sword for Fed officials. They see it as an encouraging sign they can continue to raise rates to tame inflation without causing a sharp spike in the unemployment rate, but also a concerning one given the labor market will need to cool to help ease price pressures. Friday's blowout number of job gains will likely on balance give policymakers further pause for thought on whether they are raising rates quickly enough to bring down inflation. An extremely tight jobs market has been fueling strong wage growth and Friday's report showed average hourly earnings rising more than expected, to 5.2% from one year previously. Investors in futures contracts tied to the Fed's benchmark overnight interest rate immediately upped their bets the central bank would raise its policy rate by 75 basis points in September to an almost 70% probability, up from around 40% before the employment report. "Today’s numbers should mollify recession fears but amplify concerns that the Fed has a lot more work to do," said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan, who revised his call up to a three quarter point hike in September. "The inflation worries motivating the Fed will only be heightened by this jobs report." Fed Chair Jerome Powell already flagged last week the central bank may consider another "unusually large" rate hike at the Sept. 20-21 meeting, seen as a decision between a 50 basis point or 75 basis point move, with officials guided in their decision making by a ream of critical data points covering inflation, employment, consumer spending and economic growth between now and then. [L1N2ZG1RF] There is now only one more monthly jobs report before that meeting while inflation has for months confounded expectations that it would ease and remains, by the Fed's preferred measure, more than three times the target.
Good News on Jobs May Mean Bad News Later as Hiring Spree Defies Fed - America’s job market is remarkably strong, a report on Friday made clear, with unemployment at the lowest rate in half a century, wages rising fast and companies hiring at a breakneck pace.But the good news now could become a problem for President Biden later.Mr. Biden and his aides pointed to the hiring spree as evidence that United States is not in a recession and celebrated the report, which showed that employers in the United States added 528,000 jobs in July and that pay picked up by 5.2 percent from a year earlier. But the still-blistering pace of hiring and wage growth means the Federal Reserve may need to act more decisively to restrain the economy as it seeks to wrestle inflation under control.Fed officials have been waiting for signs that the economy, and particularly the job market, is slowing. They hope that employers’ voracious need for workers will come into balance with the supply of available applicants, because that would take pressure off wages, in turn paving the way for businesses like restaurants, hotels and retailers to temper their price increases.The moderation has remained elusive, and that could keep central bankers raising interest rates rapidly in an effort to cool down the economy and restrain the fastest inflation in four decades. As the Fed adjusts policy aggressively, it could increase the risk that the economy tips into a recession, instead of slowing gently into the so-called soft landing that central bankers have been trying to engineer.“We’re very unlikely to be falling into a recession in the near term,” said Michael Gapen, head of U.S. economics research at Bank of America. “But I’d also say that numbers like this raise the risk of a sharper landing farther down the road.”Interest rates are a blunt tool, and historically, big Fed adjustments have often set off recessions. Stock prices fell after Friday’s release, a sign that investors are worried that the new figures increased the odds of a bad economic outcome down the line. Even as investors zeroed in on the risks, the White House greeted the jobs data as good news and a clear sign that the economy is not in a recession even though gross domestic product growth has faltered this year. Still, the report appeared to undermine the administration’s view of where the economy is headed. Mr. Biden and White House officials have been making the case for months that job growth would soon slow. They said that deceleration would be a welcome sign of the economy’s transition to more sustainable growth with lower inflation. The lack of such a slowdown could be a sign of more stubborn inflation than administration economists had hoped, though White House officials offered no hint Friday that they were worried about it.
Parsing the latest FOMC decision -- American Banker podcast - 45 Minutes - Bond Buyer Managing Editor Gary Siegel speaks with Matt Miskin of John Hancock about the just completed Federal Open Market Committee meeting and what to expect from the FOMC and the economy going forward.
Summers warns of ‘economic distress’ as Fed’s Powell holds out hope - A debate over whether the U.S. is in a recession is consuming Washington. But some in the nation’s capital are asking a more complicated question: Does the U.S. need a recession? Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said last week the central bank isn’t trying to cause a recession by raising interest rates and doesn’t think it needs to as the Fed aggressively moves to get decades-high inflation under control. Some economists — including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers — say Powell is being much too optimistic about the Fed’s ability to tame prices without pushing unemployment much higher. The implication: The Fed chief, who has sought to elevate the central bank’s focus on boosting the labor market, may be forced to accept millions of job losses and a significant recession to curb inflation. “Unless we have a set of very surprising and positive developments,” Summers told POLITICO, “we’re not likely to see the inflation rate come all the way down to [the Fed’s] target without there being some level of meaningful economic distress.” Summers, who was also a top adviser in the Obama White House, has derided earlier Fed forecasts as “delusional.” The outcome has far-reaching implications for the country, including for countless American families who have benefited from an extraordinarily strong labor market but also grappled with historic price surges that have eaten up pay raises and strained household budgets. It also presents an enormous challenge for Joe Biden’s presidency, since a miscalculation by the Fed could result in a nosediving economy, persistently high inflation, or worse, both. While the Fed in June saw the unemployment rate hitting 4.1 percent by the end of 2024, some economists say it may need to rise to nearly 6 percent, and stay there for some time, to bring inflation down — an increase that would undoubtedly coincide with a recession. Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, said it’s not a question anymore of whether the Fed can avoid a recession, but whether it will accept a mild downturn that slowly grinds down inflation, or a bigger one that does the job quickly. “The Fed’s optimal scenario is that we get there with only a modest increase in unemployment,” Swonk said. “I think within the Fed, there’s some acknowledgment that it may have to be more than that.”
Libor jumps to highest since 2008 on Fed hike expectations The three-month London interbank offered rate for dollars climbed to a nearly 14-year high as traders brace for steady interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, backing away from speculation the central bank will ease up as the economy shows signs of cooling. The Libor rate rose for the fourth straight session, climbing roughly 2.5 basis points to 2.83%, the highest since November 2008. The spread of Libor over overnight index swaps was slightly narrower at around 17.3 basis points. The move in Libor follows Tuesday's surge in Treasury yields after several Fed policymakers indicated that they're not close to done fighting inflation, prompting traders to reduce bets on rate cuts next year. Fed swaps are pricing about 61 basis points of additional hikes for the September meeting, indicating some expectations the central bank will enact another three-quarter-point move at its next gathering. The tightening of Fed policy has seen benchmarks across the front end of the U.S. rates market increase this year, including the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, the officially preferred successor to Libor. That rate — which is based on pricing in repurchase agreement markets — on Tuesday jumped 2 basis points to 2.30%, its highest level since 2019, the New York Fed said Wednesday. The three-month Treasury bill, meanwhile, traded at a yield above 2.5% on Wednesday, close to its highest level since 2008.Libor benchmarks are a key set of rates that continue to underpin hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, bonds and other floating-rate instruments even as they are being phased out. Changes in them are caused by a variety of factors, but recent increases have in large part been driven by expectations for where the Fed is likely to set its overnight lending rate.
An 18-year research analyst who believes the Fed's rate hikes aren't enough to tame inflation warns the S&P 500 could plunge another 47% in a worst-case scenario - On days this year that the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, thestock market rallied significantly. And then the day after each raise, it sold off significantly. This is the pattern that Gordon Johnson, the CEO and founder of GLJ Research and an analyst of about 18 years, has observed since the fight to tame inflation began in mid-March.For example, after the Fed announced its second hike of this cycle on May 4, the Nasdaq 100 rose 3.4%, he said. The next day, the index fell 5%. On June 15, a similar pattern unfolded: the index was up 2.49%, only to drop by 4% the following day. It would seem the market is sending mixed signals about the efficacy of the Fed's rate hikes. Johnson felt the same way about Jerome Powell's speech on Wednesday: while the Fed chairman sounded hawkish on the fight against inflation, Johnson believes the current rate hikes aren't enough. His firm provides in-depth coverage of companies in sectors such as steel, iron ore, electric vehicles, solar energy, lithium-ion production, and cannabis. He told Insider that he has pegged about 85% of stocks at a "sell" rating. His outlook is bearish for the rest of the year, to say the least. June's consumer price index, which is a measurement of the change in prices for goods and services, increased by 9.1% from a year ago. The Fed's current benchmark fund rate of about 2.5% is still way too accommodating, he said. He believes the central bank needs to get extremely aggressive or inflation will stay elevated. "The Taylor rule suggests that the Fed funds rate has to be at CPI inflation for inflation to start to come down. So them doing 75-basis-point hikes, while large in some people's eyes, is still a joke and that is what the market is saying," Johnson said. It's clear that Powell is focused on getting inflation down to 2%, he noted. But this can only be achieved through declining economic activity. Yet, nominal spending continues to grow at an accelerated rate fueled by high wealth, high wage growth, and high credit growth, he added. All of these factors would need to significantly slow down before inflation can be tamed. As of now, these variables have yet to show signs of a slowdown. He pointed to year-over-year credit growth, which is trending at all-time highs. Wage growth also remains strong at 6.7%, also at historic highs, he noted. Finally, household net worth rose to a record $150 trillion earlier this year, and it's still sitting at near all-time highs, he added. If that's not enough, the bond market is also sending a contradictory signal. When interest rates are raised, bond yields should be going up, but that's not what's happening, Johnson said. Yields on the 3-, 10-, and 30-year bonds are going down. This is because the bond market, along with the overall stock market, which keeps rallying, is expecting rates to be cut in early 2023, which means it's basically calling the Fed's bluff, he noted.
Rising inflation is a global problem: U.S. policy choices are not to blame - EPI Blog - Consumer price data for June 2022 showed another month of rapid inflation, with overall inflation rising 9.1% year-over-year and core inflation (which doesn’t include volatile energy and food prices) rising by 5.9%. This level of inflation has obviously become a major political issue this year. But however this issue resonates politically, as an economic matter a common narrative that blames the Biden administration and its policy choices for causing the inflation is deeply misleading.This is not simply a case for exonerating the Biden administration’s choices—how the recent inflationary outbreak is interpreted will have huge consequences for how policymakers respond. A loud chorus of economic analysts and influential policymakers the need for the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates sharply to slow growth to “rein in” inflation. This approach risks terrible consequences and threatens to cast aside the amazing policy achievement of a full jobs recovery from the pandemic recession.In the COVID-19 recession, the economy lost over 22 million jobs. But by June 2022 (after 28 months), the level of employment in the U.S. matched the last month pre-pandemic (February 2020). Compare this with job growth after the Great Recession of 2008-09, when it took more than six years (75 months) to regain the just under 9 million jobs lost and match pre-recession employment levels. The far faster recovery from the COVID-19 recession was significantly driven by a much more aggressive fiscal policy response.This more aggressive fiscal response is often blamed for the inflation outbreak over the past 18 months. The most persuasive evidence casting doubt on this interpretation is a comparison of inflation between the U.S. and a large set of other rich countries that undertook a wide array of fiscal responses. Despite the different fiscal responses, essentially all of these countries have experienced a rapid acceleration of core inflation. This means that today’s inflation is not a uniquely U.S. problem, and therefore not connected to the necessary and effective economic policies that spearheaded the rapid economic recovery we see today.In Figure A, we focus on core inflation (stripping out the prices of energy and food) because that is widely considered a better target for basing decisions about macroeconomic stabilization. Energy and food prices are not just volatile, they are also set on global markets, meaning that their price changes carry very little information about whether the U.S. economy specifically is currently experiencing macroeconomic imbalances. It’s also useful to highlight core inflation because much commentary has claimed that inflation in other advanced economies is overwhelmingly about energy and food prices, and far less about core prices. This claim is not supported by the data in Figure A.As Figure A shows, all but one Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country saw an acceleration in core inflation. More significantly, this international comparison tells us that the U.S. is not an outlier in its experience with accelerating core inflation (the one obvious outlier in this data—Turkey—is currently experiencing inflation over 40% and is not included in the figure). The U.S. is on the higher side of inflation experiences, but far from the top and not that far above the average (or even the median) for all other OECD countries. The upshot of the figure is clear: A global phenomenon—accelerating inflation— demands a global explanation, and “Biden policies” obviously do not provide that.
Q2 Real GDP Per Capita: -1.2% Versus the -0.9% Headline Real GDP - The Advance Estimate for Q2 GDP came in at -0.9% (-0.93% to two decimals), down from -1.6% (1.57% to two decimals) in Q4 2021. With a per-capita adjustment, the headline number is lower at -1.16% to two decimal points.Here is a chart of real GDP per capita growth since 1960. For this analysis, we've chained in today's dollar for the inflation adjustment. The per-capita calculation is based on quarterly aggregates of mid-month population estimates by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which date from 1959 (hence our 1960 starting date for this chart, even though quarterly GDP has is available since 1947). The population data is available in the FRED series POPTHM. The logarithmic vertical axis ensures that the highlighted contractions have the same relative scale. The chart includes an exponential regression through the data using the Excel GROWTH function to give us a sense of the historical trend. The regression illustrates the fact that the trend since the Great Recession has a visibly lower slope than the long-term trend. In fact, the current GDP per-capita is 8.3% below the pre-recession trend (2008).
Five High Frequency Indicators for the Economy -- These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment. Notes: I've added back gasoline supplied to see if there is an impact from higher gasoline prices. Apple has discontinued "Apple mobility", and restaurant traffic is mostly back to normal. The TSA is providing daily travel numbers. This data is as of July 31st.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 7-day average is down 11.1% from the same day in 2019 (88.9% 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 - with some ups and downs, usually related to the timing of holidays.This data shows domestic box office for each week and the median for the years 2016 through 2019 (dashed light blue). The data is from BoxOfficeMojo through July 28th. Movie ticket sales were at $194 million last week, down about 29% 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 July 23rd. The occupancy rate was down 6.0% compared to the same week in 2019. The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is close to 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 July 22nd, gasoline supplied was down 4.4% 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 (HT BR). This graph shows weekly turnstile entries since 2015. Currently traffic is less than half of normal. This data is through Friday, July 29th.
President Xi Jinping Speaks with US President Joe Biden on the Phone - www.fmprc.gov.cn (from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs) On the evening of 28 July, President Xi Jinping spoke with US President Joe Biden on the phone at the request of the latter. The two Presidents had a candid communication and exchange on China-US relations and issues of interest. President Xi pointed out that in the world today, the trends of turbulence and transformation are evolving, and deficits in development and security are looming large. Faced with a world of change and disorder, the international community and the people around the world expect China and the US to take the lead in upholding world peace and security and in promoting global development and prosperity. This is the responsibility of China and the US as two major countries.President Xi underscored that to approach and define China-US relations in terms of strategic competition and view China as the primary rival and the most serious long-term challenge would be misperceiving China-US relations and misreading China’s development, and would mislead the people of the two countries and the international community. The two sides need to maintain communication at all levels and make good use of existing channels to promote bilateral cooperation. Recognizing the many challenges facing the global economy, President Xi underscored the need for China and the US to maintain communication on such important issues as coordinating macroeconomic policies, keeping global industrial and supply chains stable, and protecting global energy and food security. Attempts at decoupling or severing supply chains in defiance of underlying laws would not help boost the US economy. They would only make the world economy more vulnerable. The two sides need to work for deescalation of regional hotspots, help rid the world of COVID-19 as early as possible, reduce the risk of stagflation and recession, and uphold the international system centering on the UN and the international order underpinned by international law.President Xi elaborated on China’s principled position on the Taiwan question. President Xi highlighted that the historical ins and outs of the Taiwan question are crystal clear, and so are the fact and status quo that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China. The three Sino-US joint communiqués embody the political commitments made by the two sides, and the one-China principle is the political foundation for China-US relations. China firmly opposes separatist moves toward “Taiwan independence” and interference by external forces, and never allows any room for “Taiwan independence” forces in whatever form. The position of the Chinese government and people on the Taiwan question is consistent, and resolutely safeguarding China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity is the firm will of the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people. The public opinion cannot be defied. Those who play with fire will perish by it. It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this. The US should honor the one-China principle and implement the three joint communiqués both in word and in deed.
China To Pelosi: You Will 'Perish' Over Taiwan - “The position of the Chinese government and people on the Taiwan question is consistent, and resolutely safeguarding China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity is the firm will of the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people,” Chinese ruler Xi Jinping told President Joe Biden during their phone call on July 28, according to the Chinese foreign ministry. “The public opinion cannot be defied. Those who play with fire will perish by it.” “Perish”? Xi’s dire-sounding warning, issued in connection with reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to go to Taiwan, suggests either that Xi Jinping perceives Biden to be so weak that he can push him around or that China’s internal problems are so severe that the Communist Party must create an external crisis to distract the Chinese people. In the worst case, both are true.For about a decade, Chinese leaders have believed the United States has been in terminal decline, and their regime will soon ascend to global dominance.Biden, at least in their minds, has confirmed this view. His calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan and his failure to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine left Beijing thinking that it can now do what it wants to Taiwan.At the same time, Xi’s threat could be the result of regime insecurity. He needs an external crisis so that the Chinese people won’t think too much about the internal ones. Inside China, coronavirus continues to infect the population, and Xi’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy is causing widespread resentment as well as undermining the ailing economy.China’s economy, despite the report of 0.4% year-to-year growth in the second quarter, is almost certainly contracting.At the same time, the debt crisis, delayed for more than a decade, has been hitting the country. Evergrande Group and other large property developers are defaulting on bond and other obligations, apartment projects remain unfinished, buyers of flats are participating in a nationwide “mortgage boycott” by not paying banks, the boycott has spread to suppliers of the developers, and financial institutions across the country are tight on cash. There are bank runs, especially in Henan province, but banks in the financial capital of Shanghai are also in poor condition.Because property sales have plunged—the sales of the top 100 developers fell 50.3% in the first half of this year—local governments, dependent on property revenue, cannot meet obligations.
Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan, defying China’s warnings to U.S. - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) arrived in Taiwan late Tuesday, defying Chinese warnings against visiting the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its territory and setting the stage for a sharp escalation in tensions between China and the United States. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia's war in Ukraine. Pelosi’s plane landed at Songshan airport in Taipei just before 11 p.m. local time. Wearing a face mask, she was greeted by Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, and staff from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei. Pelosi’s visit has enraged China, which for years has sought to diplomatically isolate the island and views such exchanges with high-level foreign dignitaries as support for Taiwanese independence. The Chinese Communist Party claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that is home to 23 million people, as its territory despite never having ruled it. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pledged to “reunify” Taiwan with China by force if necessary. Just after Pelosi’s arrival, China’s official Xinhua News Agency released an announcement from the People’s Liberation Army that “important military training operations” and live ammunition drills would take place in six areas surrounding Taiwan between Thursday and Sunday — after the House speaker’s visit. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the visit as “a serious violation of the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués,” adding, “China firmly opposes and sternly condemns this, and has made serious démarche and strong protest to the United States.” Pelosi, in a statement issued moments after her arrival, said, “Our congressional delegation’s visit to Taiwan honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant Democracy.” She defended her trip. And in an opinion piece for The Washington Post, Pelosi wrote, “We take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy. As Russia wages its premeditated, illegal war against Ukraine, killing thousands of innocents — even children — it is essential that America and our allies make clear that we never give in to autocrats.”
China sends warships to surround Taiwan amid Pelosi visit - China’s defense ministry announced Tuesday that its military would conduct “targeted” drills and missile tests around Taiwan in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s arrival there on Tuesday, in Beijing’s latest escalation since news emerged of the speaker’s highly anticipated trip. The “targeted military operations” are designed to “safeguard national sovereignty” in response to Pelosi’s visit, the defense ministry said Tuesday, vowing to “resolutely thwart external interference and ‘Taiwan’s independence’ separatist attempts.” Experts raised alarms over the exercise, with some noting that the drills would overlap with Taiwan’s territorial waters. M. Taylor Fravel, director of the MIT Security Studies Program, said the drills appear to be “unprecedented,” noting that they would be “the largest number of exercises to be conducted very close to the island of Taiwan itself, and the first to take place on all sides surrounding Taiwan. The drills could also include Chinese missiles overflying the island, Fravel said. In another provocation, 21 Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense zone on Tuesday, Taiwan’s defense ministry announced. U.S. officials, however, have concluded that China’s threats against Pelosi — including a suggestion that her plane could be shot down — are nothing more than an intimidation tactic. The Pentagon earlier Tuesday deployed four U.S. warships, including an aircraft carrier, in waters east of Taiwan on what the U.S. Navy said were routine deployments. The carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, is positioned far from Taiwan, according to one U.S. official. Pelosi, on a closely watched tour across Asia this week, has garnered much attention amid reporting that she would ignore warnings from China and become the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to visit Taiwan since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich visited in 1997. China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, had threatened to launch an unspecified but forceful response should Pelosi visit the island.
Pelosi Arrives In Seoul, But South Korea's President Won't Meet With Her -- Nancy Pelosi has arrived in South Korea, continuing her Asia tour - now leaving in her wake a tense Taiwan situation that's seeing Chinese PLA forces encircle the island with live fire drills - but South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol will not meet with her. While he had a pre-scheduled "holiday" which was announced in advance, there's been widespread speculation in the region that this was intentional (given weeks ago it was being reported she may go to Taiwan), so that Seoul can avoid bringing down China's wrath. Even Foreign Minister Park Jin happens to be out of the country - so there will be no Pelosi meeting with the nation's top diplomat either.As House Speaker, Pelosi is second in line to the US presidency. Instead of meeting with South Korea's head of state, she'll instead greet National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo and leaders of the ruling conservative People Power Party, along with the opposition Democratic Party of KoreaThe Korea Times says officials in Seoul are all too wary and nervous over the timing of Pelosi's visit."Amid the deepening U.S.-China rivalry, China has threatened military actions and it could invoke a U.S. response in kind, which would eventually affect South Korea, because of the South's alliance with the U.S.," director of the U.S.-China Policy Institute at Ajou University Kim Heung-kyu was cited as saying in the publication. It marks Pelosi's first visit to South Korea since 2015, and she's expected to encourage the country to deepen its support for Washington's shoring up coordination among regional partners and allies to counter Chinese aggression.
Beijing cuts U.S. cooperation to protest Pelosi’s Taiwan visit - Beijing targeted a limited range of U.S.-China military and diplomatic cooperation initiatives Friday in China’s latest expression of public rage over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 19-hour visit to Taiwan earlier this week. In a terse eight-point statement, China’s Foreign Ministry announced the cancellation of upcoming military-to-military talks and suspended joint efforts to tackle the climate crisis and China’s role in the U.S. opioid crisis. Minister Jing Quan of the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. said Friday that China has “also decided to adopt sanctions on Speaker Pelosi and her immediate family members.”Beijing has telegraphed these moves for days as part of what China’s Foreign Ministry has described as responses to “domineering, arbitrary and unscrupulous” U.S. intentions toward the self-governing island. But the limited reach of that retaliation suggests Beijing is pulling its punches with carefully calibrated responses to insulate the already fraught bilateral relationship from serious harm.The Chinese list of targeted cooperation areas excluded trade and health security related to the pandemic, suggesting an official effort to mitigate potential blowback that could harm China’s interests. “This seems underwhelming … there are plenty of things in the realm of what I call core concerns of China that they are leaving untouched,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center. At the top of Beijing’s list of targeted bilateral cooperation items was the cancellation of three upcoming military-to-military meetings, including the China-U.S. Theater Commanders talks, Defense Policy Coordination talks and Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings. Those cancellations are worrisome given the inadequacy of existing U.S.-China military crisis communications at a time when People’s Liberation Army forces are conducting an unprecedented level of ongoing live fire military drills in the vicinity of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier.
Pentagon chiefs’ calls to China go unanswered amid Taiwan crisis - Top Chinese military officials have not returned multiple calls from their American counterparts this week as a crisis erupted in the Pacific over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, according to three people with knowledge of the attempts. Beijing’s ghosting of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley comes as China continues launching missiles and positioning warships and aircraft in unprecedented military drills around Taiwan. Officials and experts say China’s silence is a shortsighted and reckless move that increases the risk of escalation in an already tense situation. U.S. military leaders strive to maintain open lines of communication even with potential adversaries such as China to prevent accidents and other miscalculations that could turn into a full-blown conflict. But the last call Milley had with his Chinese counterpart, Chief of the Joint Staff Gen. Li Zuocheng, was on July 7, the Pentagon said. The two spoke by secure video teleconference about the need to maintain open lines of communication, as well as reducing risk, according to a readout from Milley’s office. Austin, meanwhile, met in person with Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe in June on the sideline of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “The secretary has repeatedly emphasized the importance of fully open lines of communication with China’s defense leaders to ensure that we can avoid any miscalculations, and that remains true,” Todd Breasseale, the Pentagon’s acting press secretary, told POLITICO in an email.
U.S. orders aircraft carrier to remain in the region amid China-Taiwan tensions - The Pentagon has directed the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to remain in the area near Taiwan “to monitor the situation” as China launches missiles in the region, the White House announced on Thursday. In addition, the U.S. has delayed a planned test of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile to avoid increasing tensions, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. “As China engages in destabilizing military exercises around Taiwan, the United States is demonstrating instead the behavior of a responsible nuclear power, by reducing the risks of miscalculation and misperception,” Kirby said of the decision.In response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s visit to Taiwan, Beijing has kicked off live-fire exercises, launching missiles over Taiwan and positioning warships around the island.White House: The Reagan Carrier Strike Group is based in Japan and operates in the Western Pacific. In recent days the ship has sailed in the East China and Philippine seas.“We will not seek, nor do we want, a crisis,” Kirby said. “At the same time, we will not be deterred from operating in the seas and the skies of the Western Pacific.”The Minuteman test had been scheduled for this week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and is being delayed for a short period, The Wall Street Journal first reported.
White House summons Chinese ambassador for rebuke on Taiwan response - Ambassador Qin Gang was called to the White House after China launched ballistic missiles in response to a visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The fallout over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan escalated sharply Friday as China reacted angrily to having its ambassador summoned to the White House, said it would cancel or suspend dialogue with the United States on several issues and sanctioned Pelosi and her family.After China responded to Pelosi’s visit by firing missiles into the waters around Taiwan, the White House responded Thursday by telling Ambassador Qin Gang that China’s recent military actions — including firing missiles into the waters around Taiwan — were “irresponsible and at odds with our long-standing goal of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in a statement provided to The Washington Post.Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking to reporters in Cambodia, delivered an equally sharp message to China. “There is no justification for this extreme, disproportionate, and escalatory military response,” he said, adding, “These provocative actions are a significant escalation. . . .They’ve taken dangerous acts to a new level.” Like other U.S. officials, Blinken sought to balance a message that the United States does not seek confrontation with a signal that it will not back down to aggressive actions from China. “We will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows,” he said.The fast-moving events have forced President Biden to manage potentially volatile confrontations between the United States and two other world powers. Even as tensions bubble between the United States and China over Pelosi’s trip, Biden is striving to keep Beijing from aiding Russia in its scorched-earth war against Ukraine.But the meeting with Qin did not appear to deter China. On Friday, China said it is canceling or suspending dialogue with the United States on issues including climate change, military relations and anti-drug efforts. Beijing also announced unspecified sanctions on Pelosi and her immediate family in retaliation for what it called a “malicious and provocative” insistence on visiting Taiwan over Beijing’s strong opposition.Since 2020, China has deployed sanctions against former U.S. officials with increasing frequency, often as retribution for criticism of human rights abuses, but Pelosi (D-Calif.) is one of the most senior sitting U.S. politicians to be personally censured by Beijing.
Endgame Taiwan? US Plans Further China Eyepoking with Planned Military Transit of the Taiwan Strait by Yves Smith --It may seem far too early to make any calls about how the escalating power struggle between the US and China will resolve itself. But in reality, the end point is certain. The open question is how long and bloody the path there will be.As we’ll argue, the Chinese threat display of wargames that were technically not a blockade of Taiwan but more than sufficient to show it could be done, and also pointedly breached a polite former acceptance of Taiwan’s claims to air and water ways, were directed most of all to the population of Taiwan. It was already not happy about this level of US provocation: According to a poll quoted in The Guardian, almost two-thirds of Taiwanese said Pelosi's visit was destabilising. And then they blame China for "breaking the status quo"... So China by its so-far narrow barring of Taiwenese goods is in combination with its military show is sending a message that this situation can be resolved the hard way if it has to go that way. One can think of China’s action as an extremely heavy-handed, frontal version of the color revolution/regime game change the US likes to play. But the US is determined to try to undermine China’s latest gambit. A new story from RT: US Navy ships and planes will transit the Taiwan Strait in the next two weeks, the White House announced on Thursday. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned Chinese military drills in the area and said the Pentagon had ordered the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and her escorts to remain near Taiwan to “monitor the situation.” The Reagan and her accompanying ships are based in Japan and were deployed to the East China Sea in recent days, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Taipei against Chinese objections. Beijing has responded to Pelosi’s visit by launching extensive drills around Taiwan and firing a dozen missiles across the island. Amid heightened tensions, US President Joe Biden decided it would be “prudent” to order the US aircraft carrier strike group to stay in the area “for a little bit longer than they were originally planned,” according to Kirby. The spokesman also condemned the Chinese missile tests as “irresponsible” and “at odds with our longstanding goal of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan strait and in the region.”The UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea does limit territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, while the Taiwan Strait is 86 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. So even if China asserted its position that Taiwan is part of China, that would in theory enable it to restrict access to only 24 nautical miles of the Strait.However, the US is not party to the UN Convention of the Laws of the Seas, so it’s pretty cynical for the US then to invoke it when convenient. And why is the US not a party? Per Wikipedia, one reason is “In 1983 President Ronald Reagan, through Proclamation No. 5030, claimed a 200-mile exclusive economic zone.”China invokes the same notion of a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone and further asserts it can limit military activity in that areas. And it does have some company for this view, so it is more an aggressive than an insane position.An armada making a show of its right to trawl the waters is arguably not “close-in surveillance and reconnaissance” but one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. It will be interesting to see how the press in the Global South, particularly India, reacts.These developments sadly prove out an observation we made on Gonzalo Lira’s roundtable with Alexander Mercouris and Brian Berletic, that the Pelosi visit was not just a crisis but a watershed event.1 Taiwanese were presumably happy with the status quo ante. But those relatively untroubled days are over. The US and the secessionist forces in Taiwan will lose. And that should be an obvious call. It therefore should also be obvious that the US is making Taiwan its victim. It pushed China too far in its tolerance of the ambiguous status of Taiwan and embarrassed Chinese leadership over not having a concrete date or plan for reunification, despite the mantra of its inevitability. But the even bigger offense from China’s perspective has been the arming of Taiwan, since many of the supposedly defensive weapons the US has been selling to Taiwan also have offensive uses. And China was never going to tolerate an unduly well-equipped Taiwan.
Why Give a Damn About Pelosi? How About the Nuclear Strike We Would Have Made on China Over Formosa? (video & transcript) Yves here. Paul Jay gives some critically important backstory over a staredown the US had with China over what was then Formosa in 1958, based on classified information from Daniel Ellsberg. The early part of the interview, where he treats Pelosi as an “irrelevant figure” shows a misunderstanding of Chinese perception, and even that of commentators in Parliamentary systems, where they default to seeing the leadership party (assuming it is not hamstrung by a coalition or as with Theresa May, a razor thin majority) as in charge. The idea that Pelosi could and was defying an admittedly weak President was hard for them to swallow. Part of the reason she could, at least according to press reports, is that Biden didn’t want to look weak on China by forcing her to stay away from Taiwan.That is a long-winded way of saying regardless of your reaction to Paul Jay’s take on the Pelosi visit, his discussion of how the US was ready to drop a nuclear bomb on China if it attacked Formosa was winning, is important, if disconcerting.
Opinion | The crisis over Taiwan will unfold for long after Pelosi comes home - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her delegation have landed in Taiwan, where the immediate worry is the small, but serious possibility, of direct military confrontation with China. But the larger impact of Pelosi’s visit will play out after she goes home, over weeks, months and years.The pace and intensity of U.S.-China competition are set to go up, changing the relationship forever, with Taiwan caught squarely in the middle. For several weeks, President Biden’s senior national security officials privately tried to persuade Pelosi to delay her trip, arguing that the risks of Chinese retaliation were not worth the benefits of a high-profile visit at this time. But as confirmation of her impending arrival leaked out Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly expressed support for her trip and urged China not to escalate the already tense situation.To avoid the appearance of provocation, the U.S. Air Force plane carrying the Pelosi delegation flew around the Philippines on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei. No U.S. fighter planes flanked Pelosi’s jet, although there was plenty of U.S. military firepower nearby, just in case. The administration’s urgent priority is to reduce the risk of a miscalculation that could spark a confrontation.But several administration sources told me that while the Chinese military is likely to make some aggressive moves today, such as shooting off missiles or flying jets close to Taiwan, China’s leaders will also probably try to avoid a military confrontation over Taiwan — at least for the time being. Beijing’s response will come in phases and not primarily in the military domain. That could forever change the U.S.-China relationship and subject Taiwan to longer-term pain.“China appears to be positioning itself to take further steps in the coming days and perhaps over longer time horizons,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday.In his phone call this past week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden both defended Pelosi’s right to travel to Taiwan and also reaffirmed that U.S. policy toward Taiwan had not changed, officials told me. U.S. officials have been telling their Chinese government interlocutors that Pelosi’s trip is not an intentional provocation, but Chinese leaders don’t believe that Biden is powerless to stop her.
How Biden bungled the Pelosi trip - Speaker Nancy Pelosi concluded her whirlwind 19-hour visit to Taiwan last Wednesday, leaving behind fevered messaging on both sides of the Taiwan Strait about the significance of her visit. But she returned to a muddled mess in Washington, bracketed by warningsfrom journalists and China experts about the long-term damage that her visit may have inflicted and rare GOP lawmaker applause for thumbing her nose at Beijing.What may linger longest is how the Biden administration’s fumbling of the public narrative for Pelosi’s trip bolstered the Chinese government’s depiction of her journey as an inflammatory escalation in U.S. engagement with Taiwan.Taiwan expressed near-rapture — electronic welcome billboards with heart emojis lit up the Taipei 101 skyscraper and Pelosi was bestowed with a government honor called the Order of the Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon. Beijing’s response ranged from rabid to unhinged, complete with calls for President Joe Biden to “restrain” the third-highest elected official in the United States from committing “perverse acts” against China’s territorial integrity.Such clarity was glaringly absent in Washington, D.C., in the run-up to her trip. Instead, U.S. officials rendered a drum beat of gaffes, contradictions and denials that Beijing adroitly exploited in a propaganda offensive aimed to compel Pelosi into changing her travel plans. “By openly arguing among ourselves about Pelosi’s travel, we made the trip a public spectacle, forcing Beijing to react,” said David R. Stilwell, former assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. “Had we done the trip quietly, as we usually do, it would have generated none of the brinkmanship we’re seeing now.” Those arguments began when Biden cast public doubt on the wisdom of Pelosi’s Taiwan visit by suggesting that the Pentagon saw it as too risky. “The military thinks it’s not a good idea right now,” Biden said last month.The president perhaps can be forgiven for an errant comment that suggested White House interference in the legislative branch’s business. It was hot. He was jet-lagged from his recent Middle East travels. And a PCR test the next day revealed that he’d probably been wrestling with Covid as he spoke with reporters.But Pelosi added accelerant to what would rapidly become a media dumpster fire by suggesting the next day that the Pentagon had warned that her plane “would get shot down” if she traveled to Taipei.But after unhelpfully signaling discomfort with the visit, the White House stayed mum.
USA Treasury Takes More Iran Oil Action - The U.S. Department of the Treasury (DOT) announced Monday that its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has taken action against companies “used by Iran’s Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co … to facilitate the sale of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products from Iran to East Asia”. The action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order 13846 and follows OFAC’s July 6 designation of an Iranian oil and petrochemical network selling Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals to purchasers in East Asia, and a June 16, 2022, designation of an international sanctions evasion network supporting Iranian petrochemical sales, DOT noted. Under the action, the following companies are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13846; Blue Cactus Heavy Equipment and Machinery Spare Parts Trading L.L.C., Farwell Canyon HK Limited, Shekufei International Trading Co., Limited, and PZNFR Trading Limited. DOT also outlined that, in a separate but related action, it was designating two entities “that have engaged in the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing of Iranian petroleum and petroleum products, including providing logistical support to the Iranian petroleum trade, pursuant to E.O. 13846”. As a result of Monday’s action, all property and interests in property of the targets that are in the U.S., or in the possession or control of U.S. persons, must be blocked and reported to OFAC, DOT highlighted. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked and OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons, or within the United States, that involve any property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons, DOT noted. Persons that engage in certain transactions with the individuals and entities designated on Monday may be exposed to sanctions or subject to an enforcement action, DOT warned. Furthermore, unless an exception applies, any foreign financial institution that knowingly facilitates a significant transaction for any of the individuals or entities designated Monday could be subject to U.S. sanctions, DOT stated.
State Department warns anti-American violence may increase after al-Zawahiri killing -- The U.S. State Department on Tuesday issued a “Worldwide Caution” warning that anti-American violence abroad may increase following the U.S. drone strike that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri over the weekend. “Current information suggests that terrorist organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in multiple regions across the globe. These attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics including suicide operations, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings, and bombings,” the State Department wrote in the alert. The death of al-Zawahiri, a key planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and a former deputy to Osama bin Laden, has triggered “a higher potential for anti-American violence,” the department warned, as al Qaeda and others respond to the U.S. move. The alert counseled Americans abroad to check the State Department site for travel advisories, watch local news for updates and stay connected to U.S. embassies and consulates in the destination country. U.S. facilities abroad “may temporarily close or periodically suspend public services” as threats and security situations are evaluated and dealt with. Security issues and political violence “often take place without any warning.”
Russia Says US "Directly Involved" In Ukraine War -The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday said Washington was "directly involved" in the war in Ukraine after a Ukrainian official detailed Kyiv’s cooperation with the US before launching strikes with US-provided HIMARS rockets.Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, told The Telegraph that Ukrainian officials consulted with US officials before launching HIMARS strikes and that the US has veto power over the attacks.Skibitsky insisted that the US wasn’t providing "direct targeting information," but suggested Ukraine was using satellite imagery provided by the US and Britain. "I can’t tell you whether [we are directly tasking] British and American satellites, but we have very good satellite imagery," Skibitsky said.Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that this cooperation "proves that contrary to the assurances by the White House and the Pentagon, Washington is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine."The MoD statement said additionally: "It is the Biden administration that is directly responsible for all Kyiv-approved rocket attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in populated areas of Donbas and other regions, which have resulted in mass deaths of civilians."The comments from the Russian Defense Ministry highlight the danger of the US’s deep involvement in the war, which risks provoking a response from Moscow. Russian officials have cited US military aid as a reason to push further into Ukrainian territory.
Trump meets with Hungary’s Orban - Former President Trump on Tuesday met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a far-right nationalist and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump wrote in a post on his social networking platform Truth Social that he and Orbán “discussed many interesting topics” and celebrated the Hungarian prime minister’s election victory in April. The two have long held close ties, with Trump hosting the Hungarian leader at the White House in 2019. In January, Trump endorsed Orbán in his race to win a fourth term in office, calling him a “strong leader” who has “done a powerful and wonderful job in protecting Hungary, stopping illegal immigration.” The Hungarian leader won the April election in a landslide victory. Orbán, seen as an autocratic leader by many, was snubbed last year by President Biden, who declined to invite the European leader to a democracy summit he hosted. More recently, Orbán faced backlash for saying countries with a large share of migrants were “no longer nations” but a “conglomeration of peoples.” “There is a world in which European peoples are mixed together with those arriving from outside Europe. Now that is a mixed-race world,” he said during a speech last month. “And there is our world, where people from within Europe mix with one another, move around, work, and relocate.”
Democrats race to ready Inflation Reduction Act for vote this week - Senate Democrats on Tuesday raced to ready their health-care, climate and tax legislation for a grueling floor fight as soon as this week, even as some in the party remained fearful about the potential for last-minute political disruptions. Six days after striking a deal to the shock of Washington, Democratic leaders found themselves with much to do in anticipation of a final vote. They needed to shore up support among their own ranks, steel themselves for new Republican attacks and prepare for the possibility that a coronavirus outbreak could rattle even the best-laid plans around the Inflation Reduction Act. The long list left President Biden’s agenda hanging in the balance, just three months before voters are set to head to the polls to decide if Democrats should keep their majorities in the House and the Senate. But party lawmakers still expressed a measure of confidence Tuesday that they might avoid the same stunning defeat on Capitol Hill that scuttled their economic ambitions last year. For now, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has yet to secure the support of one of his caucus members: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), a fiscal hawk and political moderate, has not yet revealed her views on the bill. Her aides have said she is reviewing the legislation, and privately, she has been “exchanging texts back and forth,” Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday. But other political tensions surfaced late Tuesday, after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took to the chamber floor to call attention to the provisions Democrats had slashed in a bid to win Manchin’s vote. Sanders pointed to the failed attempts to expand Medicare, the loss of free prekindergarten for youngsters and a raft of other safety-net programs for low-income Americans. Sanders said the legislation had “some good and important provisions,” but that Democrats should “study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it.” In the meantime, party lawmakers have faced intensifying criticism from Republicans, who long have opposed their plans to combat climate change, reduce health-care costs and revise the U.S. tax code. On Tuesday, top GOP lawmakers continued to paint the Democratic package as a tax increase on Americans, citing an analysis that only looked at some of the elements in the broader spending bill. The Republican attacks drew a sharp rebuttal from Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who said in a letter obtained by The Washington Post on Tuesday that the bill would have “no effect” on taxes paid by Americans earning under $400,000 annually, in keeping with Biden’s pledge during the 2020 election. “The legislation would either reduce or have no effect on the taxes due or paid by any family with income less than $400,000 and is fully consistent with the President’s pledge,” Yellen said in the letter, distributed to congressional offices. “The loophole closers apply to large corporations and investment professionals making $400,000 or more per year.”
How Joe Manchin Shaped the Climate Change Bill - The New York Times— In a twist of fate, Congress is suddenly poised to pass the most ambitious climate bill in United States history, largely written by a senator from a coal state who became a millionaire from his family coal business and who has taken more campaign cash from the oil and gas industry than any of his colleagues have.That senator, Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, managed to win several major concessions for the fossil fuel industry in the $369 billion climate and energy package, which was made public on Wednesday by Senate Democrats. Mr. Manchin’s vote is critical in the evenly divided chamber because no Republicans support the bill.The measure requires the federal government to auction off more public lands and waters for oil drilling. It expands tax credits forcarbon capture technology that could allow coal or gas-burning power plants to keep operating with lower emissions. Mr. Manchin also secured a promise from Democratic leaders to vote on a separate measure to speed up the process of issuing permits for energy infrastructure, potentially smoothing the way for projects like a natural gas pipeline in West Virginia.Yet most environmental groups and Democrats were jubilant about the final bill, which would also pump hundreds of billions of dollarsinto low-carbon energy technologies — like wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles — and would put the United States on track to slash its greenhouse gas emissions to roughly 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.“We just made a deal with Joe Manchin,” said Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, who had pushed for more expansive climate provisions. “I don’t think anybody should have expected that this is the bill I would have written.” But even with the fossil fuel provisions, he said, the measure is “the most significant move in the right direction that the United States has ever taken.”The legislation, if it passes, is expected to bring big benefits to West Virginia. It would make permanent a federal trust fund to support coal miners with black lung disease. It would offer new incentives for companies to build wind and solar farms in areas where coal mines or coal plants have recently closed. And it would provide generous tax credits for nascent technologies like carbon capture and storage and low-emissions hydrogen fuels, which Mr. Manchin has supported.“Those are his pet projects,” James Van Nostrand, a law professor at West Virginia University, said. “I think he’s going to say, ‘I used my strategic position to bring back benefits for West Virginia.’ And he’ll probably do pretty well in the next election.”Mr. Manchin has consistently said he is open to tackling climate change, despite representing a deeply conservative state where 69 percent of voters backed Donald J. Trump in 2020. But he has also insisted that the country cannot afford to turn its back on fossil fuels altogether.“We must stop pretending that there is only one way to combat global climate change or achieve American energy independence,” Mr. Manchin said in a statement announcing the deal on Wednesday. “As the superpower of the world, it is vital we not undermine our superpower status by removing dependable and affordable fossil fuel energy before new technologies are ready to reliably carry the load.”
Democrats’ side deal with Manchin would speed up projects, West Virginia gas -- A side agreement reached between Democratic leadership and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) as part of their broader deal on an economic package would overhaul the nation’s process for approving new energy projects, including by expediting a gas pipeline proposed for West Virginia, according to a one-page summary obtained by The Washington Post.To win Manchin’s support for the climate, energy and health-care package that was etched last week, Democratic leaders agreed to attempt to advance separate legislation on expediting energy projects. These changes would fall outside the bounds of the Senate budget procedure the party is using to pass its budget bill, making it impossible for Democrats to approve that with just 51 votes. The new agreement would require 60 votes to be approved and would need GOP support to be signed into law. Republicans have supported similar measures in the past, but the agreement could face defections from liberal Democrats, who have warned against making it easier to open new oil and gas projects. The side deal would set new two-year limits, or maximum timelines, for environmental reviews for “major” projects, the summary says. It would also aim to streamline the government processes for deciding approvals for energy projects by centralizing decision-making with one lead agency, the summary adds. The bill would also attempt to clear the way for the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would transport Appalachian shale gas about 300 miles from West Virginia to Virginia. This pipeline is a key priority of Manchin’s.Other provisions would limit legal challenges to energy projects and give the Energy Department more authority to approve electric transmission lines that are deemed to be “in the national interest,” according to the document. One provision in the agreement could make it harder for government agencies to deny new approvals based on certain environmental impacts that are not directly caused by the project itself, said Sean Marotta, a partner at the Hogan Lovells law firm who represents pipeline companies. “This is a pretty vague outline, but if you had this kind of efficient streamlining it could lead to the necessary build-out of energy infrastructure not just for fossil fuels but for all types of energy that are necessary for reliability and decarbonization,” said Neil Chatterjee, former commissioner and chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Still, the agreement poses new challenges for Democratic lawmakers who are weighing these permitting changes as the necessary price to pay to secure Manchin’s support for hundreds of billions in new clean energy investments. But many Democrats have been wary. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said previously: “I really want to see all the details on the permitting. We all knew that any deal that would be struck between Schumer and Manchin would have a lot of fossil fuels in it. The question is on balance.” The agreement appears to have been the only way to secure Manchin’s vote for the broader climate deal. Manchin had voiced concerns about approving hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies for energy projects that could be defeated by red tape or climate lawsuits, and said the United States must do much more to avoid its dependence on authoritarian petrostates. “Manchin holds all the cards here, and this is his ante,” . “Democrats can only do so much under the reconciliation rules, so they inevitably have to look beyond the scope of the bill to seal the deal.” In both public and private talks, Manchin has made clear that he views approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline as a top priority. Supporters have characterized it as a way to help make the United States an exporter of liquefied natural gas, which the United States is sending to help Europe amid the war in Ukraine. Climate groups have opposed the project, with a 2017 analysis by Oil Change International, an advocacy group, finding that the greenhouse gas emissions from the Mountain Valley Pipeline would approximate 26 coal plants or 19 million passenger cars.
Manchin Won a Pledge From Democrats to Finish a Contested Pipeline - — Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia has secured a promise from Democratic leaders and the White House to complete a highly contested 304-mile gas pipeline in his state, his office said, a major concession won as part of negotiations over a climate and tax bill.Mr. Manchin, who clinched a surprise agreement last week among Democrats to pass landmark climate legislation, made easing permits for energy projects a requirement of the deal. On Monday, his office made public details of the side agreement he struck with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Biden.It would ensure that federal agencies “take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation” of the gas line, known as the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The project — which has been opposed for years by environmentalists, civil rights activists and many Democratic state lawmakers in Virginia — would carry natural gas from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia across nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands before ending in Virginia.The pipeline was originally supposed to be completed by 2018 but environmental groups have successfully challenged a series of federal permits for the project in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth District in Richmond, Va.The court has overturned permits issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, saying that their analyses about adverse impacts on wildlife, sedimentation and erosion were flawed.The delays have been so extensive that the project’s certification from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will expire in October. The developers are seeking an extension for a second time.Jared Margolis, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups fighting the pipeline, acknowledged that Congress does have the ability to override the courts and move the project forward. But, he said, “That’s not going to prevent a challenge” from opponents.The side deal cut by Mr. Manchin and Democratic leaders would give the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit jurisdiction over all future legal challenges, taking the case away from the Fourth District, where environmentalists had found success. Other parts of the agreement would make it harder for opponents to hold up energy projects under the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law, by setting a two-year time limit for challenges. It would also require the president to establish 25 “priority” projects on federal lands that must include fossil fuels and nuclear energy. And it would revise a section of the Clean Water Act in a way that would make it more difficult to block or delay pipeline projects.
'See what sticks': Manchin releases permitting wish list - Sen. Joe Manchin’s office yesterday confirmed a sweeping list of environmental permitting changes that are “under consideration” as Senate Democrats look to advance the biggest climate legislation in U.S. history.The West Virginia Democrat agreed to the budget reconciliation deal after a promise from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Joe Biden to support permitting reforms before the end of the fiscal year.Manchin’s working list includes well-worn GOP concepts, like two-year shot clocks on environmental reviews, changes to Clean Water Act approvals, limitations on judicial review and expanding the scope of the federal permitting council to include mining.The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair’s list also has new ideas, like the creation of a president’s priority list of 25 projects — including related to fossil fuels, nuclear energy, carbon capture and renewables.A Manchin aide said the senator had “secured commitment” from congressional leaders to complete his favored Mountain Valley pipeline, which would transport natural gas from Appalachia to the Southeast. The bill would also give the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit jurisdiction over any further litigation.Manchin seems to be “throwing a lot of different ideas at the wall to see what sticks,” said Nick Loris, a consultant with a conservative clean energy firm C3 Solutions who generally supported the ideas.As a procedural matter, the permitting provisions are expected to be part of separate legislation to be passed in the fall. Manchin over the weekend said there would be “consequences” if Democratic leaders pulled out of the agreement (E&E Daily, Aug. 1).Yet Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who has long a proponent of fast-tracking environmental review, doubted Manchin could guarantee success on a separate measure.“I haven’t seen this permitting bill,” she said.Capito also released a statement yesterday suggesting Democrats move permitting reform legislation before budget reconciliation with climate, tax and healthcare provisions. “Republicans have stood strong in advocating for permitting reform for years,” she said. “Instead of this partisan exercise that the Democrats are pursuing, we should be working together toward a bipartisan compromise to enhance energy production in this country.”
Mountain Valley Pipeline Shield in Manchin Deal Raises Hackles - Sen. Joe Manchin’s legislative deal to press the Biden administration to approve the Mountain Valley Pipeline and make sure appeals avoid a court that has struck down the project’s permits is unusual and could face legal challenges, energy analysts said. Lawmakers have rarely, if ever, pushed agencies to permit a project such as the 304-mile natural gas pipeline project in West Virginia and Virginia that has faced legal setbacks, they said.The deal also would direct all appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, instead of the Fourth Circuit. Lawmakers telling courts how to work on cases “would be problematic, and the authority of Congress to be so prescriptive would likely be challenged in courts as violating the separation of powers,” said James Van Nostrand, a law professor and director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University. Van Nostrand pointed to one example of Congress singling out one energy project for approval: In 1979, Congress essentially carved out the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Tellico Dam following a US Supreme Court decision that precluded the project from moving forward because of its impact on an endangered species, the snail darter. While there was little resistance at the time, “that would not be the case for any action with respect to the MVP, as the project has been heavily litigated and is very high profile at this point,” he said. The deal to require agencies to “take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation” of the pipeline. It was part of broader permitting provisions agreed to by Democratic leaders to woo Manchin (D-W.Va.) to support a separate deal providing tax credits and billions of dollars in spending to address climate change and other issues. If Congress were to pass a presidential priority list for specific permit decisions, it would “likely place enormous pressure on the agency to push a specific project through, regardless of issues raised,” said Suzanne Mattei, an energy policy analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis. “Having Congress institutionalize presidential pressure on an agency would be an extraordinary politicization of the agency’s adjudicative review process,” Mattei said. “Congress should consider the implications.” Construction on the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, which crosses Manchin’s home state of West Virginia, has stalled after a federal court in January rejected a permit to cross a national forest following a challenge by environmentalists.Project’s opponents, who have been successful in challenging the project’s permits in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., expressed outrage and pledged to dig in and ensure it does not come online.“I have never seen this before or heard of anything so illegal being pushed for an infrastructure project approval process,” said Mary Finley-Brook, a geography professor at the University of Richmond who joined pipeline protests in May.“If the MVP gets this type of work around, expect mass resistance,” she said, describing the kind of encampments that sprouted to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline. “We know there are many people who would put their bodies physically in the way to block construction of this dangerous pipeline.”
Inside the Democrats’ Climate Deal with the Devil - Last week, Joe Manchin, the West Virginia senator whose decisive vote in the evenly split upper house has led some to brand him ‘President Manchin’, and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer surprised even the most clued-in political junkies by announcing support for a climate bill that had been declared dead just several weeks before.The 725-page legislation seemed a brief respite from a summer of extreme weather – a brutal heatwave and flooding across the US – as well as soaring inflation, a cost of living crisis and radical Supreme Court rulings that overturned abortion rights and limited the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency.Manchin, the top recipient in the US Congress of fossil fuel cash, had previously killed President Joe Biden’s more ambitious climate package. But there are signs that this time may be different.For one, this is now Manchin’s package. He even named it the Inflation Reduction Act (extraordinary abbreviated to IRA).It’s a far cry from Biden’s Build Back Better plan or the 2019 Green New Deal, the congressional resolution proposed by two Democrats, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The IRA includes nearly $370bn in clean (and dirty) energy as well as healthcare and tax provisions that will lower the costs of prescription drugs and implement a 15% corporate tax on large businesses.But it has already been endorsed by key progressives in Congress, including Markey and Ocasio-Cortez. The IRA followed unprecedented sit-ins by congressional staffers demanding the party leadership reopen climate negotiations before departing Washington DC for the August recess.Through tax credits and rebates, the IRA bill offers domestic green energy incentives, including the manufacture of electric vehicles, wind turbines, heat pumps and solar panels. It also includes a methane fee and establishes a national green bank, which would leverage private funding for green projects and unleash an estimated $290bn in further investment.Democrats and climate experts claim the package will cut carbon emissions by 40% by 2030compared to 2005 levels. Overall, the proposed legislation will make it more affordable for people to access clean technology.But the full picture isn’t quite so rosy, or, in this case green.Unlike last year’s Build Back Better package, the IRA actually incentivizes fossil fuel production. The bill that Manchin killed had the clean electricity program, which would penalize utilities that didn’t transition to renewable energy. The IRA bill’s ‘all of the above’ energy strategy invests in developments that will mean further greenhouse gas emissions. New solar and wind projects arecontingent on approval for oil and gas leases on millions of acres of public land and waters. And there is a provision that locks in new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska. (Many climate groups are now mobilizing against these elements.)Schumer has also agreed to support legislation that will make it easier to approve green energy as well as fossil fuels projects, such as the Mountain Valley Pipeline that Manchin desperately wants.It’s no surprise then that the package was reportedly pushed and subsequently lauded by a diverse coalition of capital that includes Bill Gates and Exxon Mobil executives.So, the IRA is a very dirty and risky trade-off, but one that Democrats will probably take.
'Let's get real': GOP doubts permitting deal will pass - As Democrats gin up support for their big climate bill, Republicans are bracing for a fight, even if that means opposing policies the GOP has supported for years. A group of Republicans held a press conference yesterday casting doubt on the Democrats’ deal to pass permitting reform legislation next month after the budget reconciliation bill becomes law. “Supposedly there is a deal for regulatory reform,” said Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said using air quotes around “deal.” “I’ve never seen anyone who can actually guarantee a final vote. I mean, let’s get real.” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) revealed a list of permitting reforms under consideration, including limiting judicial review for certain projects and modifying Clean Water Act approvals (E&E Daily, Aug. 2). Manchin also said he extracted a promise from President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders to favor permitting of the contentious Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline. It’s something Republicans also want done. But GOP lawmakers are not committing to support the permitting package, which they see as too tied to the Democrats’ budget reconciliation climate, tax and health care bill. Capito yesterday called on Manchin to release legislative text for permitting reform. “Where is the trust factor here?” asked Capito. “Where is the commitment to the working men and women of this country who have great opportunities, great jobs?” Speaking to reporters yesterday, Manchin said of Mountain Valley: “It’s the only thing we have in America we can do within the next six months and bring 2 billion cubic feet of gas into the marketplace. It is going to help us all get through the winters.”
Analysis Deems Biden’s Climate and Tax Bill Fiscally Responsible - - After more than a year of trying — and failing — to pack much of President Biden’s domestic agenda into a single tax-and-spend bill, Democrats appear to have finally found a winning combination. They’ve scrapped most of the president’s plans, dialed down the cost and focused on climate change, health care and a lower budget deficit. As soon as party leaders announced that new bill last week, Republicans began attacking it in familiar terms. They called it a giant tax increase and a foolish expansion of government spending, which they alleged would hurt an economy reeling from rapid inflation. But outside estimates suggest the bill would not cement a giant tax increase or result in profligate federal spending. An analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a congressional nonpartisan scorekeeper for tax legislation, suggests that the bill would raise about $70 billion over 10 years. But the increase would be front-loaded: By 2027, the bill would actually amount to a net tax cut each year, as new credits and other incentives for low-emission energy sources outweighed a new minimum tax on some large corporations. That analysis, along with a broader estimate of the bill’s provisions from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, suggests that the legislation, if passed, would only modestly add to federal spending over the next 10 years. By the end of the decade, the bill would be reducing federal spending, compared with what is scheduled to happen if it does not become law. And because the bill also includes measures to empower the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on corporations and high-earning individuals who evade taxes, it is projected to reduce the federal budget deficit over a decade by about $300 billion. Adding up the headline cost for what Democrats are calling the Inflation Reduction Act is more complicated than it was for many previous tax or spending measures that lawmakers approved. The bill blends tax increases and tax credits, just as Republicans did when they passed President Donald J. Trump’s signature tax package in 2017. But it also includes a spending increase meant to boost tax revenues and a spending cut meant to put more money in consumers’ pockets. Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said the composition of the deal was vastly different from a larger bill that Democrats failed to push through the Senate in the fall. It included several spending programs that were set to expire after a few years, and budget hawks warned that the overall package would add heavily to federal debt if those programs were eventually made permanent, as Washington has been known to do, without offsetting tax increases.
Republicans look to change, discredit climate bill - Republicans are attacking Sen. Joe Manchin’s climate and clean energy deal on all fronts in a last-second lobbying campaign as Democrats try to shepherd the bill through the Senate this week. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on the floor yesterday blasted the West Virginia Democrat’s agreement with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and zeroed in on the bill’s energy provisions. “The Green New Deal Democrats are coming straight after American natural gas with huge tax hikes,” McConnell said, in an apparent reference to the bill’s methane fee. “The result will be higher electricity bills, higher heating costs, less exporting to our European allies, just as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is trying to cut them off,” McConnell said of the climate bill after noting devastating floods in Kentucky. The rhetorical assault is likely to make its way to the campaign trail. Broadly, Republicans are arguing that the bill, the “Inflation Reduction Act,” would raise taxes and raise consumer prices via government spending. At the same time, the GOP is trying to pick apart the bill behind closed doors. Under the Byrd Rule, lawmakers lobby the Senate parliamentarian, who then determines which provisions fit the rules that govern budget reconciliation. Republican leaders on the Senate Finance Committee and Environment and Public Works Committee are already considering which provisions they might be able to challenge, though the details are largely still up in the air (E&E Daily, July 29). Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who sits on EPW, said Republicans are eyeing the methane fee as “a possible challenge.” But he acknowledged that as a revenue raiser, it would likely fit the rules of reconciliation. They’ll also have a chance to offer amendments during the marathon Senate floor session for the reconciliation bill known as “vote-a-rama,” forcing Democrats to take difficult votes and, potentially, altering the substance of the bill. “In previous vote-a-ramas, I’ve had amendments that even passed that improved a bad bill,” Cramer told reporters. Much of the Republican messaging in recent days has centered on an initial score on the bill from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which the GOP claims shows that the bill would hike taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 per year. President Joe Biden pledged during the 2020 campaign that he would not raise taxes on those earning less than $400,000. “Americans are already experiencing the consequences of Democrats’ reckless economic policies,” Senate Finance ranking member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said in a statement over the weekend. “The mislabeled ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ will do nothing to bring the economy out of stagnation and recession, but it will raise billions of dollars in taxes on Americans making less than $400,000.” Democrats, however, pointed out that the estimate, which was conducted at the request of Republicans, does not account for potential tax benefits.
Methane fee likely to survive 'Byrd bath,' lawmakers say - A major provision in the Democratic climate bill that would curtail methane emissions is likely to pass procedural muster with the Senate referee, lawmakers said yesterday. Republicans admitted the methane fee proposed in the reconciliation package’s $369 billion climate and energy portion is unlikely to fall victim to the chamber’s strict budgetary rules governing the process. “My understanding is I don’t think we can do much with the methane,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, told E&E News yesterday. Capito has been a vocal opponent of such a fee (E&E Daily, May 6). EPW Committee lawmakers and staff took their turn in front of the Senate parliamentarian to make their pitches for whether certain provisions within the committee’s jurisdiction qualify for the chamber’s reconciliation guidelines. Known as the “Byrd rule,” so named for the late Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the process is undertaken to ensure that each provision in a budget reconciliation package must have some direct impact on federal spending or revenues. Capito said Republicans focused much of their presentation on provisions that they argued represented “overstepping and legislating” in the bill. They did not say exactly what they challenged. A decision from the parliamentarian could come as soon as today. The structure of the methane fee, however, likely means it will survive the review. “I have to admit I’m not overly optimistic about [removing it] because it is a fee and it is revenue, although I do think it is a peculiar policy in the sense that it’s designed to generate revenue on the one hand in the early years but designed to change the behavior at the end, which means it probably is a wash,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters. The fee would charge companies for excess methane emissions starting at $900 per metric ton in 2024 and then rising to $1,500 per metric ton in 2026. It would apply to waste emissions from facilities reporting more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gases annually. Companies could seek grants from a $700 million program for methane mitigation at conventional wells. The fee also would not go into effect if the Biden administration finalizes a methane rule. Facilities that comply with the regulation would then be exempt. The presentations from the Environment and Public Works Committee marks progress for Democrats as they seek to complete reconciliation by the end of the week. The new swing vote in the Senate, Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), is still waiting for the “Byrd bath” to run its course before making a final decision on the bill. She has asked for changes to a $14 billion tax provision and is seeking an additional $5 billion for drought resilience, POLITICO reported. Manchin spoke to Sinema on the Senate floor Tuesday. He deemed it a “nice talk.” “She’ll make a good decision based on facts, and I’m relying on that,” Manchin told reporters.
Deep in the Democrats' Climate Bill, Analysts See More Wins for Clean Energy Than Gifts for Fossil Fuel Business - Although Senate leaders have included plenty of favors for the fossil fuel industry in the big climate package they hope to advance this week, most analysts have concluded these concessions amount to consolation prizes in a deal where clean energy is the clear winner.At least three separate analyses by think tanks and academic institutions agree that the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions some 40 percent by 2030—within striking distance of President Joe Biden’s pledge to cut emissions in half.More evidence of the legislation’s potential to ignite a clean energy transition can be seen in the reaction it has spurred among the most ardent keepers of the fossil fuel status quo. Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group funded by the petrochemical billionaire Koch family, has launched a campaign blitz to stop the bill. Its online ads in particular are targeting Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who has not yet taken a position and whose support will be critical to getting it across the finish line. Senate Democrats are still waiting for an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and the Senate Parliamentarian before moving forward with the bill. They will need the votes of all 50 of their members, plus Vice President Kamala Harris, to get the legislation passed. After that, the House must agree to the same package or work out any differences with the Senate—all in the weeks leading up to midterm elections when Democrats will be fighting to maintain their majority in Congress.
Could Environmental Justice Concerns Derail the Democrats’ Climate Bill? - The Inflation Reduction Act, a surprise deal struck last week by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Manchin, dedicates nearly $370 billion to climate and energy spending, representing an unprecedented federal investment in the fight against global warming. More than $60 billion of that total is earmarked for projects that in some way advance environmental justice and reduce the nation’s long standing environmental and health inequities.Three separate analyses by think tanks and academic institutions estimate that the climate provisions of the bill could slash U.S. emissions in the ballpark of 40 percent by 2030—just short of President Biden’s goal of cutting them 50 to 52 percent in that time frame. Without the bill, analysts believe the U.S. would lower greenhouse gas emissions by just a quarter over the next 8 years. But despite those potential benefits, many in the environmental justice community have come out against the bill in recent days, pointing to provisions in it that they say will harm the nation’s most vulnerable populations.That’s because in order to get the support of Joe Manchin—the party’s most conservative member, who has made his fortune on fossil fuels and has been the biggest obstacle to President Biden’s environmental agenda—Democrats were forced to include several major concessions to the fossil fuel industry in the package.Those concessions include opening up more federal land and waters to oil and gas drilling, ensuring fossil fuel and clean energy projects get equal access to public land auctions over the next decade, massive investments in controversial carbon removal technologies and clean hydrogen hubs and a commitment from Democratic Senate leadership to streamline the permitting process for energy infrastructure projects, including fossil fuel pipelines.Those provisions would be detrimental to environmental justice communities, Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director at the environmental justice nonprofit UPROSE and board co-chair for the Climate Justice Alliance, told me in an interview. Namely, she said, they would encourage further development of pipelines, gas-fired power plants and other fossil fuel infrastructure, which is already disproportionately located in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
Manchin climate deal may face NEPA roadblock - A provision of the landmark Senate climate and energy budget reconciliation bill could hit a legal stumbling block under the National Environmental Policy Act. Tucked into the end of the nearly $370 billion deal struck last week by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is a requirement for the Interior Department to reinstate a massive 80 million-acre Gulf of Mexico lease sale that a federal judge blocked earlier this year for violating NEPA (Energywire, Jan. 28).If passed into law, the climate bill would lock in continued offshore leasing — even as the Biden administration has faced hurdles in the courts and pressure from environmental groups to abandon future sales to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions.“If the NEPA analysis has to happen before the sale, [the spending bill] would seem to moot the NEPA analysis,” said Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University.Congress does have the authority to exempt certain projects from complying with laws, such as NEPA, and can overrule judicial decisions, legal experts said. But lawmakers have to be explicit in drafting those exemptions.“My only question,” Adler said of the Manchin-Schumer climate deal, “is whether this language is enough to do it.”The text of the climate legislation — which would be Congress’ most significant effort to address climate change — would require Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to revive Lease Sale 257 30 days after the bill becomes law. The November 2021 sale was blocked earlier this year by Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.Contreras, an Obama pick, wrote in his decision that BOEM’s NEPA analysis failed to consider the sale’s impact on foreign oil consumption.
Democrats' climate hopes hinge on Sinema - The fate of the biggest climate bill in U.S. history could now hinge on one Arizona Democrat who’s refusing to publicly back the deal and isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers within her own party. Democrats and climate hawks need Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s support if they’re going to pass party-line legislation to funnel a whopping $370 billion toward programs to tackle climate change and boost clean energy. But Sinema isn’t publicly endorsing the massive deal announced last week by her Democratic colleagues, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. “Senator Sinema does not have comment as she’s reviewing the text and will need to see what comes out of the parliamentarian process,” her spokesperson Hannah Hurley told E&E News today. Because Democrats are trying to pass the bill through a process known as budget reconciliation with a simple majority, the Senate’s rules expert must determine whether their legislation meets the requirements. The massive legislation also aims to raise $739 billion through tax and prescription drug reforms. Climate bill advocates celebrated last week when the surprise climate deal was announced, but the mood has shifted into anxiety over Sinema’s support. “Congress has sat on its hands” for decades “and done nothing on climate change, so to be this close and have one pivotal senator undecided leaves us all holding our breath,” said Jeremy Symons, an environmental and political strategist who has worked for decades on climate legislation. Democrats, environmental advocates and others hoping to secure the bill’s passage are working publicly and behind the scenes to woo the Arizona senator. “Kyrsten Sinema’s a friend of mine, and we work very close together,” Manchin said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said she has a “tremendous amount of input in this piece of legislation.” Manchin added: “I would like to think she would be favorable towards it, but I respect her decision. She’ll make her own decision based on the contents.”
Dems ready to gamble their domestic agenda on Sinema - Senate Democrats will probably start a climactic series of votes on their party-line energy, tax and health care bill this week with very little public indication of where Sen. Kyrsten Sinema stands. They’re willing to risk it. While all of Washington waits on the Arizona Democrat, her previous treatment of high-profile issues shows she’s unlikely to make any statement about how she sees the deal written by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — at least until it’s on the floor. If the past is prologue, she’ll also be a wild card on amendments that Republicans may offer in a bid to alter the bill on the Senate floor during votes later this week. At the center of the Sinematic intrigue is Manchin’s push to narrow a loophole known as carried interest that some investors use to lower their tax rates, a shrinking that she opposes. A mask-clad Manchin spoke to Sinema on the Senate floor for roughly 10 minutes on Tuesday afternoon, animatedly waving his hands during the hushed discussion. He summed it up as a “nice talk” afterward and said “she’ll make a good decision based on facts, and I’m relying on that.” Still, the carried interest tax provision was not in December’s more expensive version of the Democrats-only bill that Sinema had generally signed off on. And its inclusion is a main factor in Sinema’s public neutrality about a bill 49 of her colleagues are expected to support. Still, the party is moving forward with the expectation that the bill will pass without a single GOP vote, taking advantage of strict rules that let Democrats sidestep a filibuster, even as much of the road ahead is still under construction. “I’m going to approach it from the positive side and just say I anticipate Sen. Sinema will be on board,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). Schumer said he’s in touch with Sinema along with the rest of the caucus. He credited Manchin with the carried interest provision’s inclusion: “Sen. Manchin thought it was strong and it has broad support in our caucus.” On Tuesday afternoon, the West Virginian wouldn’t exactly say whether he’d be willing to remove it to get Sinema’s vote, adding that “everyone’s still talking.” He also defended the provision as instilling a “fairness to the system.” Sinema’s Arizona Democratic colleague, Sen. Mark Kelly, declined to address his own conversations with Sinema but touted the bill’s health care and climate provisions. He said his constituents are focused on the drought and wildfires in Arizona and prescription drug prices. “We have an incredible opportunity here to fix this problem,” Kelly said. “I want to see us get something across the finish line.”
Manchin, Sinema ‘exchanging text’ on climate, tax deal - Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) says he is exchanging materials with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to help her better understand the broad tax reform and climate bill he negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and says he is open to her suggestions as Democrats seek 50 votes to put the bill on the floor. Manchin finally got a chance to speak to Sinema after lunch Tuesday, when she was scheduled to preside over the chamber. Manchin was tight-lipped about the details of the conversation but made clear that he’s willing to consider changes she might want to make to the deal, which would raise $739 billion in new revenue over the next decade and reduce the deficit by more than $300 billion. “We had a nice time. We had a nice time. Next?” Manchin said Tuesday when reporters pressed him for details of his chat with Sinema while she sat at the Senate dais. Asked again to shed any light on whether Sinema will vote for the bill, which would give President Biden the biggest legislative victory of this first two years in office, Manchin said his colleague would make her own decision. “We’re exchanging text back and forth,” he said, adding that Sinema is “extremely bright. She works hard. She makes good decisions based on facts. I’m reliant on that.”Manchin said Schumer is “working with all the caucus” to get buy-in from all 50 members to get the budget reconciliation bill to the floor later this week. Even though Sinema played a major role in negotiating the prescription drug reform component of the bill and set the broad parameters of the tax chapter, she learned about the deal at the same time as all of her colleagues and the general public — through a press release. Manchin said he’s open to considering changes suggested by Sinema, including on a proposal to close the carried interest tax loophole, one of his priorities. “We’re just basically exchanging back and forth whatever I have that she hasn’t seen. And our staffs are working together very closely,” he said, adding that he’s also exchanging materials relevant to the bill with other Democratic and Republican senators. Asked if he would be willing to change the bill’s carried interest provision, Manchin responded, “Everyone is still talking.” But Manchin defended closing the loophole that allows money managers to pay capital gains tax rates on income they collect from managing profitable investments. Asked whether Sinema is upset that she didn’t get looped into last week’s talks with Schumer, which produced the surprise deal, Manchin said he didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up when he didn’t know whether an agreement was even possible. “She’s my dear friend,” he said. “But why bring anyone in and all their aspirations get high and the drama we go through and it doesn’t work out? “I wasn’t really sure” a deal could be reached, he said.
Corporate America floods Arizona to flip Sinema on climate and tax deal -Corporate America has launched a two-pronged, eleventh-hour assault on Democrats' reconciliation package by targeting Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the one person that big business hopes can stop — or modify — the $740 billion bill.If successful, the barrage of paid media and personal phone calls will knock out the main provision that terrifies the business community: a 15% minimum book tax that will cost the biggest 150 U.S. companies some $313 billion over 10 years.: The clock is ticking to persuade Sinema to play her hand — and potentially force Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) back to the drawing board on how to pay for the $370 billion in new climate spending."She’s feeling the pressure to vote yes on something,” Danny Seiden, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, told Axios. "I hope that she gets this deal opened back up." "It really hits Arizona businesses hard," he said. "Arizona has done a fantastic job growing our manufacturing sectors." The National Association of Manufacturers and the Arizona Chamber have launched a six-figure digital and TV ad buy — compressed into one week — to saturate the Phoenix and Tucson media markets."Taxes won’t strengthen supply chains, promote energy security, or fill vacant jobs," the narrator says. "Say 'No' to taxes that would devastate Arizona manufacturers." The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is also taking out a full-page ad in both the Arizona Republic and Arizona Daily Star making a policy argument against the corporate minimum tax. Local business leaders have been calling Sinema directly to explain how the tax increase could affect hiring in Arizona. After news of the secret Schumer-Manchin deal broke last Wednesday, corporations realized their balance sheets were in peril. CEOs and private equity titans quickly turned their attention to Sinema, who is reserving her options to modify the climate and deficit-reduction bill.The 15% minimum tax would mostly hit big manufacturers who use tax deductions and credits for capital investments and R&D to minimize their overall tax bill, according to the Wall Street Journal.Opponents of the legislation don’t need Sinema to strangle the bill. They just need her to raise specific objections to some of its key planks, causing the legislative Jenga tower — which raises money from big business, private equity and the pharmaceutical industry to fund climate and health care priorities — to collapse under the weight of its own ambitions.
Sinema Stalls Revamped Reconciliation Bill, Demands Several Changes -- Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), the remaining Democrat holdout to her party's revamped reconciliation package which 'co-holdout' Joe Manchin (D-WV) caved on last week, wants to change aspects of the legislation before she'll sign off on it.According to Politico, citing 'multiple people familiar with the matter,' the Arizona Democrat wants to get rid of language narrowing the so-called carried interest loophole - which allows investment managers to pay lower taxes, as it's not considered part of their ordinary income. According to the report, cutting that provision would eliminate $14 billion of the bill's $739 billion in projected income.Last summer Sinema interned a winery owned by the co-founders of one of the biggest private equity firms in the world. The tax increases she's blocking (tightening the carried interest loophole) would directly benefit her private equity friends. https://t.co/yTHQFv9W4pSinema also wants to add roughly $5 billion in drought resiliency funding - a "key ask for Arizona given the state's problems with water supply," Politico notes.Will Dems go for it? There's no word yet from Democratic leaders but this is a relatively modest ask in the grand scheme of the legislation. Still, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said narrowing carried interest was included at the behest of Manchin, who said it would make the tax code more fair. -PoliticoMeanwhile, Sinema is also pushing to narrow the 15% domestic minimum tax on f inancial profits, also known as the 'book tax,' according to Bloomberg.
Sinema eyes changes to tax, climate portions of reconciliation bill - Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) is eyeing changes to Democrats' $740 billion reconciliation bill — specifically increasing climate funding and restructuring the tax provisions — as the Senate moves rapidly toward final passage before the August recess, Axios has learned. Sinema is the one senator potentially standing in the way of Democrats clinching President Biden's longtime goal of passing an ambitious package tackling climate change, health care and taxes — renamed the "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022." That position gives her a huge amount of leverage as Democrats await a verdict from the Senate parliamentarian over whether the bill complies with the "Byrd Rule," which controls what provisions can be included in the budget reconciliation process. The fact the negotiations were conducted entirely in secret between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) — catching Sinema by surprise — has left her space for an 11th hour intervention. Sinema has so far refused to weigh in on whether or not she will support the bill until the parliamentarian renders her judgment on the measure. Sinema is looking at significantly beefing up the reconciliation bill's funding for droughts and water security in the Southwest, sources familiar with her thought process tell Axios. She views the current $369 billion climate and energy portion of the bill as insufficient for addressing threat resiliency funding. On taxes, Sinema has concerns with the structure of the 15% corporate minimum "book tax" and whether the burden could get passed down to employees, the sources said. Sinema supports cracking down on tax avoidance, but has long voiced her opposition to closing the carried interest loophole. She's concerned that the provision, which would contribute $14 billion toward paying down the bill's $740 billion total, could undermine economic competitiveness, the sources said. Behind the scenes: Sinema has been meeting privately, both virtually and in-person, with key stakeholders in Arizona as she continues to work through her assessment of the bill.Sinema last week visited Flagstaff, Arizona, where she met with local officials who are still reeling from recent flooding and a wildfire that ravaged the state. Arizona is one of the fastest-warming states in the U.S., and the state's largest county, Maricopa County, has already hit a record for heat-related deaths this year. "There are some who were surprised to learn Kyrsten was enthusiastic about the climate provisions last year, because they rightly consider her a centrist. But she's a Senator from Arizona, first and foremost,"
Krysten Sinema Agrees to Climate and Tax Deal, Clearing the Way for Votes - — Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, announced on Thursday evening that she would support moving forward with her party’s climate, tax and health care package, clearing the way for a major piece of President Biden’s domestic agenda to move through the Senate in the coming days. To win Ms. Sinema’s support, Democratic leaders agreed to drop a $14 billion tax increase on some wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives that she had opposed, change the structure of a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations, and include drought money to benefit Arizona. Ms. Sinema said she was ready to move forward with the package, provided that the Senate’s top rules official signed off on it. Ms. Sinema had been the final holdout on the package after Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, struck a deal with top Democrats last week that resurrected a plan that had appeared to have collapsed. It brought Democrats one step closer to enacting the package and salvaging key pieces of their domestic agenda, beginning with a series of votes this weekend. It came just over a week after Mr. Manchin and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, stunned their colleagues with an agreement to include hundreds of billions of dollars for climate and energy programs and tax increases in the legislation, on top of a proposal to reduce the price of prescription drugs and extend expanded health insurance subsidies. With Republicans united in opposition, the measure needs the unanimous support of Democrats to move forward in the 50-50 Senate, so the party cannot afford even one defection. Mr. Schumer confirmed in a statement that he had reached an agreement “that I believe will receive the support of the entire Senate Democratic conference.” He said the revised legislation would be released on Saturday. “The agreement preserves the major components of the Inflation Reduction Act, including reducing prescription drug costs, fighting climate change, closing tax loopholes exploited by big corporations and the wealthy, and reducing the deficit,” he said. The deal will “put us one step closer to enacting this historic legislation into law.” Mr. Biden called on the Senate to quickly pass the measure, praising the deal as “another critical step toward reducing inflation and the cost of living for America’s families.” Ms. Sinema insisted on the removal of a provision that would have limited the preferential tax treatment of income earned by some wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives. Democrats instead added a new 1 percent excise tax that companies would have to pay on the amount of stock that they repurchase, said one Democratic official, who disclosed details of the plan on the condition of anonymity. That provision, the official said, would ensure that the package still reduces the federal deficit by as much as $300 billion, the same amount Democrats aimed for with the original deal and a key priority for Mr. Manchin. Democrats also agreed to a request by Ms. Sinema to include billions of dollars to combat droughts, according to officials briefed on the emerging plan, something that is crucial to Arizona as it suffers from a devastating megadrought. They were expected to restructure the 15 percent minimum tax on corporations to make it less burdensome on manufacturers. Earlier this week, business leaders in Arizona appealed directly to Ms. Sinema to simplify that proposal, which was included in part because she had resisted increasing tax rates as part of the plan.
Sinema signs onto Dems’ party-line bill ahead of momentous Saturday vote -- Senate Democrats cleared a huge hurdle Thursday night by securing Kyrsten Sinema’s support for a modified signature climate, tax and health care proposal, and will move forward on the legislation on Saturday. The Arizona Democratic centrist announced that she’s signed off on the legislation after winning tweaks that include the removal of a narrowed loophole for taxation of certain investment income, a provision known as carried interest. In a statement, Sinema said she’s also won changes that would “protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy.” It was a big, early win for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s caucus, even as some of the bill’s specifics are still clouded in uncertainty. Schumer said in a statement Thursday night that “I believe” the party-line bill will get unanimous Democratic support and previewed the introduction of a final version on Saturday that will “put us one step closer to enacting this historic legislation into law.” He said it preserves “major” pieces of his earlier agreement with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). The new agreement with Sinema includes a new 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks that will bring in $73 billion, far more than the $14 billion raised by the carried interest provision, according to a Democrat familiar with the deal. The deal with Sinema also adds roughly $5 billion in drought resiliency to the bill, according to another person familiar, and changes portions of the corporate minimum tax structure to remove accelerated depreciation of investments from the agreement. That depreciation-related change will cost about $40 billion. All told, the agreement with Sinema is expected to increase the bill’s original $300 billion deficit reduction figure. And it comes hours after she was on the floor whipping colleagues to support the final confirmation of Roopali Desai, her nominee to a fill an open circuit court judgeship. Desai was nominated only two months ago, a lightning-quick confirmation for the Senate.
Democrats go with ‘the least bad’ tax - -Prompted by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Democrats are suddenly jettisoning a chunk of their tax-increase plans in favor of a new levy on stock buybacks. Some wonder what took them so long. The 1 percent excise tax on stock purchases is far less controversial than the things it would replace in their climate, tax and health care package. Democrats faced a wave of complaints that their proposed new minimum tax on corporations, which they’ve now agreed to narrow, would disproportionately hit manufacturers. At the same time, their plan to target the “carried interest” loophole that’s now being dropped had riled powerful Wall Street lobbyists. But the buyback tax, which Democrats have been contemplating for months, has been relatively uncontroversial — at least for a tax increase. That’s probably because it is so small. “It’s not like business endorsed this, but they also didn’t lay across the train tracks to try to stop it,” said Todd Metcalf, a former top Senate tax aide now at the consulting firm PwC. “This is the lowest hanging fruit.” The swap will not only help secure Sinema’s support. It will also allow Democrats to say they are raising taxes on the well-to-do while scratching their long-standing itch to do something about corporate stock repurchases. Democrats were infuriated when, in the wake of Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts, many companies used their savings to buy back stock, enriching shareholders.
Lobbyists are rushing to influence the Inflation Reduction Act - - As Democrats hurry to finalize $739 billion climate, health-care and tax legislation that was revived last week to the surprise of most Washington insiders, business lobbyists and issue advocates are working to support, tweak or derail the bill entirely. The measure, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, would provide the largest investment in U.S. history for clean energy and other efforts to combat climate change. It also aims to lower health-care costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, and it would levy a new minimum corporate tax and bolster the Internal Revenue Service budget to go after tax cheats.The sudden revival of the legislation last week launched a flurry of efforts by groups for and against it, who are using television and newspaper ads and personal outreach to try to sway Democrats to their side before the Senate votes.Much of the fiercest lobbying has focused on the bill’s health-care provisions.Research by Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, which advocates for lower prices, found that the main pharmaceutical lobby PhRMA and its allies spent at least $18.6 million on television and digital ads since July 1, including $1 million on new television ads just since the Democrats’ deal was announced July 27. That $1 million figure does not include ads that were already running when the deal was announced.“Clearly, the pace of spending picked up in the last month or so,” said David Mitchell, president of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now. “They have spent a boatload of money to try and stop this reform.”Some of the pharmaceutical lobby ads tracked by Mitchell’s group include one running in July and August that argues Medicare “price-setting” — the government negotiating with manufacturers over drug prices, as the bill allows — would interfere with seniors’ ability to get the medication they need. That ad ran in Washington, Georgia, Nevada, West Virginia and other markets, according to the research.The ad was put out by the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, a nonprofit group that has run other ads opposing Medicare negotiation. A spokeswoman, Jennifer Burke, said current proposals “will ultimately create an even greater burden for our already ailing health-care system.”A targeted ad from the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease tells Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) that “Medicare price setting is the wrong prescription." (Video: Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease)A PhRMA spokeswoman declined an interview request. The lobbying group held a briefing last week where executives argued the drug-pricing measures would reduce the supply of lifesaving medicines.On the other side of that policy, an array of groups that see it as a way to lower health-care costs for Americans are supporting the measure, including AARP, which launched a new ad buy on Thursday in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia set to run through Monday and totaling around $700,000. The group also has a $3 million ad buy running in the D.C. area and on national cable, urging senators to stand up to Big Pharma.
Climate emergency may be dead, but left keeps pushing - The Democrats’ revived climate spending bill may be the death knell for one long-sought goal of progressives: declaring a climate emergency. Momentum had been building for President Joe Biden to declare such an emergency last month after it seemed Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) had sunk, yet again, a budget reconciliation package that included major climate provisions. In the moment, chances looked good. Climate envoy John Kerry had said that a formal emergency declaration was a matter of “when” not “if.” Biden told reporters he was personally mulling over the particulars. As all this was happening, progressives gathered in the Capitol last week to push for Biden to make the declaration. “It’s not just rhetorical,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said last Wednesday. “It’s not just sending an emotional message that needs to be said. It is actually very practical. … Anyone who cares about American productivity should be for declaring a climate emergency.” And then, later that day, Manchin announced he would support a slimmed-down package that included $369 billion in climate and energy provisions. So for now, a declaration, which could unlock funds to invest in solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles, has been put on the back burner. But that doesn’t mean climate hawks in Congress are going to stop pushing. Indeed, progressives and climate experts say a formal declaration will be necessary for the United States to meet its goal of cutting emissions in half by 2030. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said that “we need a full-court press” to save American homes and businesses from “an ever-worsening avalanche of climate disasters.” He added, “The [‘Inflation Reduction Act’] is a hugely important step toward reducing our carbon pollution, and we should build on it to reach the goals President Biden laid out.” As Khanna sees it, research shows market trends are expected to get the country to roughly a 30 percent emissions dip by the end of the decade. The reconciliation deal would get the country to a 40 percent drop — still shy of what is needed to stave off the cruelest heat, drought and weather throughout the world, according to experts.
Axed from climate deal, these ideas might be revived by Dems - Democrats and environmentalists are giddy with anticipation now that a landmark climate spending bill has a clear shot at passing the Senate. But modeling shows that the “Inflation Reduction Act” wouldn’t cut emissions enough to meet the nation’s climate goals. So lawmakers and activists are already thinking about the climate policies they want to pursue, even if the bill becomes law. An earlier, more ambitious spending package could provide the blueprint. “The work that we did in the House on ‘Build Back Better’ says that anything that doesn’t get passed in a reconciliation bill this year — with two more [Senate] Democrats — we could pass it next year,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a recent interview on an Economist podcast. Despite important changes to the climate package, experts do expect the new bill to achieve most of the same emissions benefits. The “Inflation Reduction Act” would cut U.S. climate pollution 42 percent by decade’s end, according to preliminary modeling by Princeton University’s Zero Lab. The House-passed “Build Back Better Act,” the analysis found, would have cut it 46 percent. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has pledged to slash the nation’s emissions by at least 50 percent over the same period. That would keep the U.S. on track to reach net-zero emissions by midcentury, which is necessary to comply with the Paris Agreement and have a shot at avoiding the virtual collapse of coral reef ecosystems and other climate impacts associated with warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, scientists say. “Let’s not undersell the historic nature of the ‘Inflation Reduction Act,’” said Sam Ricketts, co-founder of the environmental group Evergreen Action, pointing to the bill’s record funding to decarbonize transportation and electricity. “The ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ doesn’t solve any sectoral challenge on its own. But it makes a massive down payment across all of them.” Still, lawmakers and the Biden administration will have to compensate for the $186 billion that was cut from the bill, Ricketts added, along with further investments in hard-to-decarbonize sectors like manufacturing. “This doesn’t solve the problem [of climate change] by any stretch of the imagination. Federal policymakers — including Congress — have a lot more work to do,” he said.
Republican push to overturn Biden permitting rules passes Senate, with Manchin's support - Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin voted with all Republicans to approve a Senate resolution on Thursday to nullify the Biden administration’s changes that tightened environmental rules for major projects. On a 50-47 vote, the Senate passed the Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn a White House rule finalized in April that requires federal agencies to consider indirect and cumulative environmental impacts — including those related to climate change — under National Environmental Policy Act reviews. The resolution is unlikely to pass the House, where Democrats hold a slightly larger majority, and President Joe Biden is also expected to veto the measure if it makes it to his desk. Nonetheless, the symbolic gesture by Manchin comes as the West Virginia Democrat has sought to advance legislation in the coming months that would ease permitting requirements to make it easier to build pipelines and clean energy infrastructure projects such as transmission lines that can take up to a decade to build due to cumbersome environmental rules. Manchin secured a commitment from Democrats leaders on that legislation as under a deal that revived the party-line climate reconciliation bill last week. Republicans had warned ahead of the vote that they were unlikely to work with Manchin on permitting unless he voted for their CRA resolution. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), the lead sponsor of the resolution, told POLITICO earlier this week that it “would be a lack of demonstration of seriousness if my resolution goes down on a party-line vote.” Manchin praised the resolution in a statement as a “step in the right direction.” But he also put the onus back on Republicans, saying, “I hope every Republican that voted for this legislation today will support the bipartisan permitting reform bill when it comes before the Senate in September.” Biden is expected to unveil a second broader rule making additional changes to NEPA as early later this year.
Surprise Senate vote would overturn Biden environmental rule - (AP) — In a surprise victory for Republicans, the Senate on Thursday voted to overturn a Biden administration rule requiring rigorous environmental review of major infrastructure projects such as highways, pipelines and oil wells — an outcome aided by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin, a key player on energy and climate issues and a swing vote in the closely divided Senate, joined Republicans to support the measure, which was approved 50-47. The vote comes as Manchin has proposed a separate list of legislative measures to speed up federal permitting for major projects in return for his support of a Democratic bill to address climate change. Republicans voted unanimously to overturn the Biden permitting rule, while Manchin was the only Democrat to do so. Three senators were absent: Republican John Cornyn of Texas and Democrats Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Jeff Merkley of Oregon. The vote sends the measure to the Democratic-controlled House, where it is unlikely to move forward. Still, the vote signaled strong Senate support for action to reform the often onerous federal permitting process, which can take up to eight to 10 years for highways and other major projects. Streamlining federal review is a top Manchin and GOP priority that is not shared by most Democrats. Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, sponsored the measure to overturn the Biden rule, saying new regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, will further bog down the permitting process and delay critical infrastructure projects the country needs. The Biden rule — which overturns an action by the Trump administration loosening environmental reviews — requires regulators to consider the likely impacts on climate change and nearby communities before approving major projects. The new requirement “is going to add to the red tape" that prevents major infrastructure projects from being approved in a timely manner, Sullivan said. While President Joe Biden has called infrastructure a priority — and pushed for a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year — the new NEPA rule actually “makes it harder to build infrastructure projects” in the United States, Sullivan said. “The only people, in my view, who really like this new system are radical far-left environmental groups that don’t want to build anything ... and probably the Chinese Communist Party,'' he said on the Senate floor. China and other competitors likely “love the fact that it takes 9 to 10 years to permit a bridge in the U.S.A.,'' Sullivan said.
Winners and losers in the 'CHIPS and Science' bill - President Joe Biden was part of a pep rally yesterday for a bill he’s set to sign that boosts the semiconductor industry and jump-starts federal science research.During a virtual event with Michigan Democrats at a semiconductor plant in the state, Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called the bill a “once-in-a-century” investment in industry. She added that it is “a win for workers, it is a win for manufacturers, and it is a win for consumers.”Indeed, there were lots of winners in the “CHIPS and Science” bill, H.R. 4346, which backers say is aimed at competing with China: $54.2 billion in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing as well as subsidies and authorizations for more than $170 billion in new and expanded research programs.The bill would bolster electric car markets and expand research on oceans and emissions.But there were many others who missed out on the party. Backers tried but failed to include billions of dollars for a global climate fund and a provision to tackle international wildlife trafficking.Here are the energy and environment winners and losers for a bill Biden called “historic.”
Senate GOP backtracks after veterans bill firestorm - Senate Republicans are reversing course on a veterans health care bill, signaling they’ll now help it quickly move to President Joe Biden’s desk after weathering several days of intense criticism for delaying the legislation last week. Republicans insist their decision to hold up the bill, which expands health care for veterans exposed to toxic substances while on active duty, was unrelated to the deal on party-line legislation that top Democrats struck last week. The GOP blocked the bill hours after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced an agreement on a health care, climate and tax package — angering Republicans who thought the Democrats-only plan would be much narrower. Regardless of their reasoning, the GOP was quickly forced to play defense against both Democrats and veterans’ advocates who were caught off-guard by Republican delaying tactics after the party greenlit a nearly identical bill in June. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to respond to a question Monday about why the legislation was held up. “It will pass this week,” he said.
Senate sends veterans toxic exposure bill to Biden’s desk - The Senate on Tuesday passed legislation expanding care for veterans who suffer from illnesses because of exposure to toxins during their military service, ending a standoff after Republicans blocked the bill last week. The Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act passed with a vote of 86-11 and aims to expand benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to 3.5 million veterans. The bill now heads to President Biden’s desk, and he is expected to sign it. Tuesday’s vote comes after Senate Republicans unexpectedly blocked the bill during a procedural vote last week. The upper chamber on Wednesday voted 55-42 in favor of the bill, failing to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. Twenty-five Republicans who initially voted to advance the bill in June changed their votes. The upper chamber previously passed the bill in June by a vote of 84-14, and the House passed the bill in July on a bipartisan 342-88 vote. The measure had to go back to the Senate, as the House version included changes. Republicans have argued that the bill would create a “budgetary gimmick” by moving $400 billion spent by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to mandatory spending, where it wouldn’t be subject to annual appropriations like discretionary spending would.
Democrats introduce bill to guarantee cash refunds for canceled flights - Democratic lawmakers on Monday introduced a bill that would require airlines to provide cash refunds to travelers when they cancel or significantly delay a flight. The bill, which would codify a Department of Transportation rule mandating cash refunds, comes as passengers continue to grapple with widespread delays and cancellations stemming from technical problems and a shortage of workers. The measure would also give travelers the right to a cash refund if they cancel their flight at least 48 hours before their scheduled departure. Airlines commonly give travelers a voucher that can be used to purchase another ticket with that carrier and has an expiration date. “Enough is enough: Travelers are sick of wasting their valuable time fighting the airlines to receive their legally-required cash refunds,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “And they are tired of making flight reservations months in advance, only to face a health scare that forces them to choose between canceling a nonrefundable flight, or traveling and risking the health of their fellow passengers.” The Cash Refunds for Flight Cancellations Act is backed by Markey and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.). Reps. Steve Cohen (Tenn.), Jesús García (Ill.) and Jamie Raskin (Md.) are introducing a companion bill in the House. ADVERTISING Supporters of the bill say that airlines often offer customers a voucher without informing them that they are legally entitled to a cash refund if their flight is canceled. They point to a 2021 Wall Street Journal investigation revealing that top airlines racked up $10 billion in unused travel credits at the end of 2020 as travelers canceled their trips due to COVID-19.
Pentagon denies DC request for National Guard migrant help - — The Pentagon rejected a request from the District of Columbia seeking National Guard assistance in what the mayor has called a “growing humanitarian crisis” prompted by thousands of migrants being bused to the city from two southern states. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declined to provide Guard personnel and the use of the D.C. Armory to assist with the reception of migrants into the city, according to U.S. defense officials. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Friday that the district may send an amended, “more specific” request, adding that she believes this is the first time a D.C. request for National Guard has been denied.One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision not yet made public, said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s food and shelter program has provided funding for the problem, and has indicated those funds are sufficient at this point. Bowser, the district’s Democratic mayor, formally asked the White House last month for an open-ended deployment of 150 National Guard members per day as well as a “suitable federal location” for a mass housing and processing center, mentioning the D.C. Armory as a logical candidate. During the spring, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, announced plans to send busloads of migrants to Washington, D.C., in response to President Joe Biden’s decision to lift a pandemic-era emergency health order that restricted migrant entry numbers by denying them a chance to seek asylum. The rule remains in effect under court order. On Friday, Abbott said the first group of migrants from his state had now been bused to New York as well. As of mid-July, about 5,200 migrants had been bused from Texas to D.C. since April. As of Aug. 3, more than 1,300 had been sent from Arizona since May. The governors call the practice a voluntary free ride — paid for by state taxpayers — that gets migrants closer to family or support networks.But Bowser last month dismissed that characterization, saying that the asylum-seekers are being “tricked,” as many don’t get close enough to their final destinations and some are ditched at Union Station near the U.S. Capitol and the White House. Often they arrive with no resources and no clue what to do next.
Biden tests positive again after completing Paxlovid course: The dangers of the “forever COVID” policy -- Late Saturday morning, Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, physician to the President, sent a memorandum to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre informing her that President Joe Biden had tested positive for COVID again after his negative test on Tuesday evening after completing the Pfizer anti-viral medication Paxlovid. He wrote, “After testing negative on Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, and Friday morning, the President tested positive late Saturday morning, by antigen testing. This, in fact, represents ‘rebound’ positivity.” He added, “The President has experienced no reemergence of symptoms and continues to feel quite well. This being the case, there is no reason to reinitiate treatment at this time, but we will obviously continue close observation. However, given his positive antigen test, he will reinitiate strict isolation procedures.” Following the official announcement of Biden’s positive COVID test and the cancellation of his planned travel to Michigan and Delaware, Biden proceeded to minimize the significance of these developments by tweeting, “Folks, today I tested positive for COVID again. This happens with a small minority of folks. I’ve got no symptoms, but I’m going to isolate for the safety of everyone around me. I’m still at work and will be back on the road soon.” Biden is not the only high-level figure in Washington laid low by COVID-19. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, the decisive 50th vote in the Senate on most issues, including Biden’s latest environment and energy legislation, and Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin were also isolating with the infection. Others infected in July were Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, along with Democratic senators Tina Smith, Richard Blumenthal and Tom Carper, Republican senators Lisa Murkowski and Ben Sasse, and eight members of the House of Representatives. The turn of events is a setback for the White House, which had hoped to bank on the president’s illness and quick recovery to assure Americans that coronavirus was now a walk in the park, given the use of the current vaccines and anti-viral therapeutics. Biden’s testing positive for COVID again coincides with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s similar rebound in late June, which has many questioning the complication’s rarity. There is a clear sense of damage control behind the administration’s health advisers efforts to downplay the “rebound.” The corporate media cooperated, barely mentioning in the Sunday interview programs that the 79-year-old US president had come down with a second infection from a disease whose most lethal effects have been on his age group.
Biden’s covid case highlights confusing CDC guidance on ending isolation - Before President Biden emerged from coronavirus isolation Wednesday, he made double-sure he was no longer contagious. He received negative tests Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. To test at all meant Biden was going above and beyond the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for exiting isolation. The CDC has built that guidance around a timeline — a prescribed minimum number of days of isolation — rather than the direct, personalized evidence of virus shedding that rapid antigen tests provide. But the usefulness of these tests was highlighted anew Saturday when Biden, who had taken the antiviral during his illness, tested positive again and returned to isolation in the White House residence. More than 2½ years into the pandemic, and with a highly contagious version of the virus circulating, the CDC guidelines for what to do when falling ill — and when to return to public life — continue to stoke as much confusion as clarity. That’s a reflection of the changing nature of the virus, the inherent unpredictability of an infection, and the demands and expectations of work and home life. With new research showing that people are often infectious for more than five days, the CDC guidance has drawn criticism from some infectious-disease experts. The Biden protocol strikes many of them as the right way to go — because it’s empirical evidence that a person isn’t shedding virus. The CDC does not explicitly recommend a negative test to patients who want to resume activities. It describes such a test, which offers a direct if imperfect measure of contagiousness, as optional. The guidance states that a patient should isolate for at least five days. (Day 1 is the day after your symptoms manifest or your test was collected.) Patients who end isolation should continue to wear a well-fitting mask around others at home or in public through Day 10. “Given that a substantial portion of people do have a rapid positive test after 5 days, I think an updated recommendation should include people having a negative rapid test before coming out of isolation for COVID,” said Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who was the Biden administration’s senior adviser on testing from December until April. Rapid tests are widely available, and “there is new science and practical experience with this virus since December when isolation guidance was issued,” Inglesby said in an email. People who are being required to go back to their workplaces after five days of being sick with covid even if they still have a positive test result “shouldn’t do that,” Inglesby said. “It’s exposing others in the work environment to the risk of COVID spread. CDC guidance on that would be valuable.”Biden has used his brief bout with the coronavirus as a sign that the administration is on top of the pandemic and has made the right moves by relying on vaccinations, testing and new antiviral drugs to lower the death rate. But across the country, hundreds of thousands of people a day are getting infected with the omicron subvariant BA.5 — the exact number is impossible to know — and they have a common, urgent need to know when they are no longer contagious.
Air Travel and Covid in the Biden “Let ‘Er Rip” Era: A Personal Risk Assessment - by Lambert Strether = We know that persons with Covid travel on airplanes; the question becomes how to protect ourselves from them — assuming that we our selves are not infected — under conditions of state abandonment such as those prevailing under the Biden Administration (for example, no mask mandates after the airlines and an aggressive minority of passengers successfully discredited their use). The answer given by government experts is that people should perform a “personal risk assessment”. Unfortunately for this paradigm, breathing is a social relation. There is no risk of catching Covid when one is alone. However, since Covid is airborne 40% of Covid infections are asymptomatic, there’s no way to assess risk when one is with others, sharing their air. Thus, the “Personal Risk Assessment” paradigm has the amusing characteristic of being impossible to perform exactly when it is most needed. It follows that one cannot perform a “Personal Risk Assessment” during a flight on an airplane, at least in the general case where one is not sitting next to somebody with a persistent cough. So we must fall back on heuristics. This post will supply many. My view is that even if Covid is a long-tail phenomenon, the result of my catching it would be ruin, even if the case were not mortal (possibly due to vascular or neurological effects, almost certainly due to financial effects if I end up hospitalized). I think what is true for me is also true for the great majority of the country, so although I may be an outlier in my views, I’m not an outlier on Covid’s potentially ruinous effects. Hence, my standard for safe air is outside air, as measured by CO2 concentration, the lowest possible (Covid is airborne, and although we cannot measure the concentration of virus, CO2 serves as an adequate proxy, since people breathe it out along with the virus, if they have it.) The USDA sets the baseline: CO2 levels in outdoor air typically range from 300 to 400 ppm (0.03% to 0.04%) but can be as high as 600-900 ppm in metropolitan areas. In this post, I’ll see how far the airlines get in meeting my baseline (generously, I’ll take the level of 600-900ppm as acceptable, although 400 is really what I have in mind). First, I’ll look at how the airlines frame their safety concerns (essentially, that ventilation systems make airlines as safe as operating rooms). Next, I’ll look at the realities of safety in the air and on the ground. As we shall see, the airlines’ public relations strategy of focusing on the aircraft cabin is deceptive in a number of ways.
Biden signs legislation giving prosecutors more time to charge PPP fraud - President Biden signed two bills Friday that will expand the window of time for federal prosecutors to charge fraud in connection with the distribution of small-business relief funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bills, which passed Congress with strong bipartisan support, extend the statute of limitations for fraud cases involving government-backed loans. One of the two would specifically bolster the ability of prosecutors to bring charges in connection with Paycheck Protection Program loans that nonbanks made to small-business owners. "Too much of small-business relief funding, which was passed by the Congress, ended up in the hands of those who either didn't need it, or criminal syndicates who outright stole the money," Biden said Friday at a White House signing ceremony. The PPP and Bank Fraud Enforcement Harmonization Act provides prosecutors up to 10 years to investigate potential crimes stemming from Paycheck Protection Program loan applications. Federal bank fraud charges already carried a 10-year statute of limitations, but a similar charge of wire fraud involving a loan application to a nonbank would only give prosecutors five years to bring charges. The second law signed by Biden enables prolonged government scrutiny of funds distributed through the Emergency Injury and Disaster Loans program. The two new laws will expand the runway for prosecutors to pursue both fraud and money laundering charges, according to legal experts. Lenders could find themselves in trouble as prosecutors develop increasingly complex cases involving systemic failures to vet loan applications, the experts said.
Judge rejects bid to delay Oath Keepers Jan. 6 trial - The first trial on seditious conspiracy charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is on track to begin in Washington next month for nine members of the Oath Keepers’ militia, after a federal judge on Tuesday turned down a request by nearly all defendants to put off the courtroom showdown until next year. Defense attorneys argued that publicity related to the House Jan. 6 select committee’s televised hearings and difficulties accessing evidence related to the case warranted putting off the trial from its scheduled Sept. 26 date for the opening of jury selection. However, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta said that a postponement would upend the court’s trial calendar and that trying to schedule the trial to avoid any potential conflict with the House committee would be unwise and likely ineffective. “I can’t move this trial and I’m not going to move this trial,” Mehta said during a hybrid courtroom and videoconference hearing Tuesday that stretched to more than two hours. “It would quite literally wreak havoc for this court’s docket.” Mehta said he was confident the court could find jurors untainted by publicity related to the House hearings. “We are not going to avoid that publicity by moving this trial for a few months,” said the judge, an appointee of President Barack Obama. “I don’t know what they’re going to do and when they’re going to do it. This is a court of law. We cannot wait on the legislative process to move forward.”
Harvard Study: J6 Rioters Were Motivated By Loyalty To Trump, Not QAnon-Belief Or Insurrection Against The Constitution -According to The Crimson, Harvard has completed what it calls the most comprehensive study of the motivations of those involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.Many will not be surprised to learn that most participated out of loyalty to former President Donald Trump.However, the study also found that only eight percent harbored “a desire to start a civil war.” That is inconsistent with the virtual mantra out of the J6 Committee and many in Congress that this was an insurrection rather than a riot. Some of us (including many in the public) have previously questioned that characterization. Yet, it reflects the relatively small number of seditious conspiracy charges brought by the Justice Department. The study found that a plurality of the 417 federally charged defendants were motivated by the “lies about election fraud and enthusiasm for his re-election.” It concluded that “[t]he documents show that Trump and his allies convinced an unquantifiable number of Americans that representative democracy in the United States was not only in decline, but in imminent, existential danger.”The study also found that belief in QAnon “was one of the [defendants’] lesser motives.”The study was hardly pro-Trump and one author even expressed surprise with the results since conspiracy theories “were so prominently displayed in much of the [riot’s] visual imagery.”Once again, none of this exonerates or excuses those who rioted on January 6th or those who fueled the riot. However, the use of “insurrection” by the politicians, pundits, and the press is not an accurate characterization of the motivation of most of the people who went to the Capitol on that day. It was clear that this was a protest that became a riot.There is no question that there were people who came prepared for such a riot, including some who are extremists who likely would have welcomed a civil war. Yet, the vast majority of people on that day were clearly present to protest the certification and wanted Republicans to join those planning to challenge the election. One of the key reasons for the resulting damage was the collapse of security at the Hill. The J6 Committee steadfastly refused to address the myriad of questions of why the Congress was not better prepared despite the obvious dangers of a riot (including warnings before January 6th). The scenes of that day are seared in the memory of many of us. I publicly condemned Trump’s speech while it was being given and I called for a bipartisan vote of censure over his responsibility in the riots. However, there has been an unrelenting effort to make “insurrection” a litmus test for anyone speaking about January 6th. If one does not use that term (and, worse yet, expresses doubts about its accuracy), you run the risk of immediate condemnation as someone excusing or supporting insurrection. This framing also reduces the need to address the question of how this riot was allowed to spiral out of control. The effort to mandate “insurrection” as the only acceptable description prevents the country from speaking with a unified voice. It clearly serves political purposes but only makes a national resolution more difficult as we approach a new presidential election.
Opinion | The Jan. 6 hearings haven't stopped the GOP's anti-democracy movement - Republicans are eroding American democracy day by day. It’s not a fully coordinated effort directed by former president Donald Trump or national party leaders. Instead, GOP officials, particularly at the state and local levels, are regularly taking actions that add up to an antidemocratic movement. They are reducing news media access, making it harder to vote, aggressively gerrymandering legislative districts and using government power to threaten their political enemies. We are not seeing democracy die in darkness but rather democratic decline in the light. = "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" />Here are seven of these actions, all of them taken since June 9. (There are many more I could have highlighted.) Conservatives on the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of a scheme by the state’s GOP-controlled legislature to stop Democratic Gov. Tony Evers not only from appointing his choices to state boards and commissions but also in some cases requiring him to keep in place the selections of his predecessor, Republican Scott Walker. Those Wisconsin judges also banned the use of ballot drop boxes. Georgia Republicans’ Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, started refusing to commit to any candidate debates. U.S. House Republican leaders, who have not released a list of policies they would adopt if they won a majority in November, made one firm commitment: extensive investigations of Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family. Florida Republicans barred some journalists of mainstream media publications from a recent party conference while admitting those from right-wing outlets. Pennsylvania’s election agency was forced to file a lawsuit to get three GOP-controlled counties to count mail-in ballots from recent primaries. Indiana’s Republican attorney general launched an investigation of a doctor in the state after she conducted an abortion for a 10-year-old girl from Ohio who had been raped. I mentioned June 9 for a specific reason: That was the start of the congressional hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The hearings are depicting one huge antidemocratic move — the attempt by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. And they are showing how it was stopped: Trump legitimately lost the election to Joe Biden; institutions, such as the news media and the courts, actively opposed his moves; some individuals, including longtime Republicans and people close to the president, refused to go along or obstructed the scheme.
Justice Department sues Peter Navarro for Trump White House emails - The Justice Department on Wednesday sued former Donald Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro in an effort to force him to turn over emails from his tenure in the White House.Navarro, who worked for the White House during the entirety of Trump’s presidency, had used “at least one non-official email account ... to send and receive messages constituting Presidential records,” the Justice Department said in a court filing. Attorneys also accused him of “wrongfully retaining them” in violation of federal record-keeping laws, as Navarro did not copy the messages into an official government account, nor did he respond to the National Archivist’s initial request for the emails.The Justice Department approached Navarro about producing the missing emails, but he refused to return records “absent a grant of immunity for the act of returning such documents,” the department said.The National Archives first became aware of Navarro’s use of a personal email account last year, according to the filing, after the House select panel investigating the coronavirus pandemic obtained emails showing Navarro used the ProtonMail account for official White House activities.The civil lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.It’s a separate case from Navarro’s indictment for contempt of Congress, which the Justice Department is also handling. The Jan. 6 select committee subpoenaed him for documents and testimony in February, but he refused to comply with their summons, prompting the panel to ask the Justice Department to pursue charges against him. Navarro has also acknowledged receiving a federal grand jury subpoena related to Jan. 6.In a statement, Navarro’s attorneys, John Irving and John Rowley, denied withholding documents from the government.“As detailed in our recent letter to the Archives, Mr. Navarro instructed his lawyers to preserve all such records, and he expects the government to follow standard processes in good faith to allow him to produce records,” Navarro’s lawyers said. “Instead, the government chose to file its lawsuit today.” The letter cited by Navarro’s lawyers had asked for immunity “in advance of any production of materials responsive to your request.”The lawsuit comes as top Trump officials have drawn increased scrutiny for their failures to properly preserve documents and messages. Navarro was not the only Trump administration official who used personal accounts to conduct official business — in a Monday letter to the department’s watchdog, congressional investigators highlighted one of Trump’s top Department of Homeland Security officials, Ken Cuccinelli, for his use of a personal phone for government business and failure to preserve messages.
Dick Cheney calls Trump a 'coward' in ad for daughter's reelection - Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in an ad released Thursday to boost his daughter Liz’s reelection campaign, took direct aim at Donald Trump. Cheney looked directly into the camera in the 60-second ad and lambasted the former president as a “coward.” “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big. I know it. He knows it, and deep down, I think most Republicans know.” Her father’s ad dropped less than two weeks before Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is set to face a tough challenge from a Trump-backed candidate, attorney Harriet Hageman, in her Aug. 16 primary. Cheney has raised millions as her national profile balloons, but it might not be enough to take on Trump and his advisers, who have poured money and energy into her takedown. The former president’s wrath began when Cheney joined nine other House Republicans in voting to impeach him after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Her role as a vocal Trump critic cost Cheney her GOP leadership position, and she was censured by Wyoming’s Republican Party and the Republican National Committee. Trump’s targeting of Cheney grew more intense when she agreed to serve as the top Republican on the House Jan. 6 select committee, where she was the breakout star during a series of revealing hearings about the former president and his inner circle in the days leading up to the attack. In the rup-up to her primary, the Wyoming Republican has only leaned into her newfound role as the face of the anti-Trump GOP. “Lynne and I are so proud of Liz for standing up for the truth, doing what’s right, honoring her oath to the Constitution, as so many in our party are too scared to do so,” Dick Cheney said in the ad, referring to his wife. “Liz is fearless. She never backs down from a fight. There is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again or the Oval Office and she will succeed.”
Wray: Allegations ‘troubling’ about FBI agent covering up Hunter Biden information - FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday that allegations of an FBI agent’s partisan social media posts and efforts to suppress information in the investigation into Hunter Biden’s business activities were “deeply troubling.” Speaking at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Wray appeared to condemn the alleged actions of Timothy Thibault, who he said was an FBI assistant special agent in charge at the Washington field office until “relatively recently.” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who pursued the line of questioning with Wray, said that Thibault — who had been at the FBI for more than 25 years — is now on leave. Kennedy grilled Wray on Thibault’s alleged partisan actions on social media over the past few years, such as “liking” a Washington Post article titled “William Barr has gone rogue” and tweeting to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) that her father — former Vice President Dick Cheney — was a “disgrace.” Kennedy also mentioned Thibault’s retweet of a Lincoln Project post saying that “Donald Trump is a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man.” Kennedy then pressed Wray on allegations that Thibault — who Kennedy said worked on both the investigation of links between Trump and Russia and the ongoing Hunter Biden probe — had “covered up derogatory info about Mr. Biden while working at the FBI.” Wray gave similar answers to Kennedy’s questioning on both the social media posts and covering up of information, saying that he’d seen “descriptions to that effect” but wanted to be “careful” of not interfering with any ongoing personnel matters. But he did concede to finding the allegations about the social media posts “troubling.” “I should say that when I read the letter that describes the kinds of things that you’re talking about, I found it deeply troubling,” he told Kennedy. Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) first raised alarms about Thibault’s alleged partisan actions in May, demanding that the Justice Department and the FBI investigate whether the agent violated department guidelines with his social media posts. Grassley sent a second letter to the Justice Department and the FBI in late July saying that he had received “highly credible” whistleblower accounts alleging that Thibault had downplayed or discredited negative information obtained about Joe Biden’s son during the 2020 election. Wray on Thursday didn’t definitively confirm or deny the allegations against Thibault and seemed to be trying to preserve his ability to act as an impartial decision-maker on potential discipline against the agent. However, the FBI director stressed that the actions Kennedy was describing were “not representative of the FBI.”
Secret Service, DHS, FBI: Trump Appointees Remain at the Helm of Agencies Involved in What the Public Perceives as Evidence Destruction and Coverups – Pam Martens - When an amoral agent has run amok in an organization, the entire cancer has to be removed with the skill of a surgeon or it will metastasize throughout the organization.Against that backdrop, what can possibly account for President Joe Biden allowing Trump appointees to remain at the helm of critical federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies? Clearly, Donald Trump was a rogue President. He regularly engaged in quid pro quo deals. He demanded personal loyalty from his high-ranking agency heads whose oath of office is to “support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” not to personally support Donald Trump. He used his levers of power to enrich his businesses and then oversaw a violent coup d’état on January 6 in an unprecedented rebuke of an orderly presidential transition.If ever there was an administration that needs a scalpel taken to its corrupt infestations, this is it.The Secret Service is now under a criminal investigation for destroying text messages sent by its agents on the day of the insurrection at the Capitol and the day before. But the Director of the Secret Service, James Murray, is a Trump appointee and remains at the helm of the agency.The man who kept from Congress for more than a year the fact that the Secret Service texts had been erased, Joseph Cuffari, is also a Trump appointee. He sits as the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of the Secret Service. After sitting on knowledge of the missing texts for more than a year, he has now declared that he’s launching a criminal investigation into the matter and ordered the Secret Service to cease its own search for the missing texts.On Monday, the Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Carolyn Maloney, together with the Chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Bennie Thompson, who is also chairing the January 6 House Select Committee, sent Cuffari a letter. The letter demanded answers and opened with this:“We are writing with grave new concerns over your lack of transparency and independence, which appear to be jeopardizing the integrity of a crucial investigation run by your office. According to recent reports, your office learned that the Secret Service was missing critical text messages as part of your investigation of the January 6 attack against the U.S. Capitol in May 2021—seven months earlier than previously revealed. The Committees have obtained new evidence that your office may have secretly abandoned efforts to collect text messages from the Secret Service more than a year ago. These documents also indicate that your office may have taken steps to cover up the extent of missing records, raising further concerns about your ability to independently and effectively perform your duties as Inspector General (IG).”Adding to the taint around Cuffari, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that he “previously was accused of misleading federal investigators and running ‘afoul’ of ethics regulations while he was in charge of a Justice Department inspector general field office in Tucson, according to a newly disclosed government report.”The Washington Post has also reported that text messages of former top officials at the Department of Homeland Security have gone missing for the period leading up to January 6. Those officials include former acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf and former acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli, as well as the sitting Deputy Under Secretary for Management at the DHS, Randolph “Tex” Alles, who served previously as Trump’s Director of the Secret Service.Adding to the taint around Trump’s appointees that remain in the Biden administration, yesterday Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Whitehouse indicated that the FBI had been stonewalling his investigation into how the FBI conducted its background check on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, for four years.According to Whitehouse, the FBI had received over 4,500 tips on a tip line it had set up to receive information about Kavanaugh. But instead of investigating those tips at the FBI, the FBI simply handed over the tip information to the White House.
Port Of LA Fends Off 40 Million Cyber Attacks Each Month: Director - The number of cyber intrusions directed at the Port of Los Angeles has doubled since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 40 million each month, according to Executive Director Gene Seroka.Intelligence shows the threats are coming from Russia and parts of Europe, Seroka told BBC July 22.“We have to stay steps ahead of those who want to hurt international commerce,” he said. The cyber intrusions include phishing, malware, and other attempts to breach the port’s systems.“The past two years have proven the vital role that ports hold to our nation’s critical infrastructure, supply chains and economy. It’s paramount we keep the systems as secure as possible,” Seroka said. In response to the increase in cyber threats, the port launched a first-of-its-kind Cyber Resilience Center in January to improve readiness. The system is operated by International Business Machines (IBM) to allow the port and outside companies involved in the supply chain to collect and share signs of threats with each other automatically.“We’ve gone from the cybersecurity Operations Center to a Cyber Resilience Center, which for the first time brings the private sector in under the FBI’s [cyber watch] program,” Seroka told Bloomberg in March.“If someone gets impacted, they can share that data and we can synthesize it across the port community..”None of the cyber attacks have succeeded, Port of Los Angeles spokesman Phillip Sanfield told The Epoch Times.The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach continue to sort through container backups following a deluge of imports during the pandemic. The ports remain the busiest seaports in the Western Hemisphere, processing about 40 percent of seaborne imports and 22 percent of seaborne exports nationwide each year.At its peak, a record 109 ships waited to offload cargo at the port complex in January. That number had dropped sharply to only 21 ships July 29, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California.
Senate Bill Classifying Bitcoin As A Digital Commodity To Be Introduced Today: Report - The bill seeks to empower the CFTC to regulate bitcoin as a digital commodity while excluding securities from also falling under the same category...
- A new bill classifying bitcoin as a digital commodity could be introduced today.
- This move would empower the current watchdog of derivatives and future markets, the CFTC, to gain regulatory jurisdiction over bitcoin.
- The bill seeks to expand on previous definitions in the bitcoin ecosystem while also excluding securities from being digital commodities.
Leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee (SAC) are planning to introduce a bill that would classify bitcoin as a digital commodity, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The category of digital commodity is fairly new.Currently the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversees the regulation for derivatives of commodities, rather than the underlying commodity itself.This bill seeks to empower the CFTC to regulate spot markets for digital commodities which means the regulator would be given the ability to regulate the underlying asset itself.The bill will also exclude securities from simultaneously being labeled a digital commodity. Therefore, any and all cryptocurrencies labeled as a security would fall under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rather than the CFTC.In fact, the SEC has already made multiple appeals to cryptocurrency exchanges suggesting they register with the SEC as security exchanges. This action would place exchanges in the same category as other securities trading platforms like the New York Stock Exchange.Additionally, the bill will reportedly seek to regulate and define brokers, dealers, custodians, and trading facilities. While semantic, these designations go a long way towards curtailing previous attempts at regulating the ecosystem which resulted in mistaken definitions that could have made operating in the space as a transaction validator or service provider extremely difficult – as seen in the previously introduced infrastructure bill.
Kashkari calls CBDC a threat to privacy, defends regional bank independence | American Banker— The Federal Reserve has a neutral stance on whether it pursues its own digital currency, but at least one regional bank president remains deeply skeptical of the idea.Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said consumers already had access to instant digital payments through private-sector platforms without the privacy concerns that arise from a government-backed alternative."I can see why China would do it," Kashkari said. "If they want to monitor every one of your transactions, you could do that with a central bank digital currency. You can't do that with Venmo. If you want to impose negative interest rates, you could do that with a central bank digital currency. You can't do that with Venmo. And if you want to directly tax customer accounts, you could do that with a central bank digital currency. You can't do that with Venmo. I get why China would be interested. Why would the American people be for that?"Kashkari's remarks came during an on-stage Q&A session at the 2022 Journal of Financial Regulation conference at Columbia University on Wednesday. Whether the Fed needs a CBDC has become an increasingly debated topic during the past two years. Advocates say the U.S. should strive for a leading position in the currency digitization rates and detractors call it a solution in search of a problem. The Fed has been studying the concept of a CBDC in recent years in the interest of staying on top of the technology, but Fed leaders have said they would prefer to wait for direction from Congress before rolling out a digital dollar. Still, recent speeches have given the idea more deference and an external push for CBDC authorization is gaining traction.Kashkari said crypto assets broadly are "95% noise, hype and confusion." He said that since it is possible that digital asset technology leads to some type of crucial advancement, it should not be disregarded entirely.In the wide-ranging interview, Kashkari also defended the right for reserve banks to set their own research agendas, something that has been called into question by lawmakers who feel the regional banks are deviating from the Fed's core mission.
SEC charges 11 people in alleged $300 million crypto Ponzi scheme - The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday filed a civil complaint charging 11 people for their roles in creating and promoting an allegedly fraudulent crypto-focused pyramid scheme that raised more than $300 million from investors. The scheme, called Forsage, claimed to be a decentralized smart contract platform, and it allowed millions of retail investors to enter into transactions via smart contracts that operated on the ethereum, tron and binance blockchains. But under the hood, the SEC alleges that for more than two years, the setup functioned like a standard pyramid scheme, in which investors earned profits by recruiting others into the operation. In the SEC's formal complaint, Wall Street's top watchdog calls Forsage a "textbook pyramid and Ponzi scheme," in which Forsage aggressively promoted its smart contracts through online promotions and new investment platforms, while all the while not selling "any actual, consumable product." The complaint goes on to say that "the primary way for investors to make money from Forsage was to recruit others into the scheme." In a statement, the SEC added that Forsage operated a typical Ponzi structure, wherein it allegedly used assets from new investors to pay earlier ones. "As the complaint alleges, Forsage is a fraudulent pyramid scheme launched on a massive scale and aggressively marketed to investors," wrote Carolyn Welshhans, acting chief of the SEC's Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit. "Fraudsters cannot circumvent the federal securities laws by focusing their schemes on smart contracts and blockchains." Forsage, through its support platform, declined to offer a method for contacting the company and did not offer comment. Four of the eleven individuals charged by the SEC are founders of Forsage. Their current whereabouts are unknown, but they were last known to be living in Russia, the Republic of Georgia and Indonesia. The SEC has also charged three U.S.-based promoters who endorsed Forsage on their social media platforms. They were not named in the commission's release. Forsage was launched in January 2020, and regulators around the world had tried a couple of different times to shut it down since then. Cease-and-desist actions were brought against Forsage first in September of 2020 by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines, and later, in March 2021, by the Montana commissioner of securities and insurance. Despite this, the defendants allegedly continued to promote the scheme while denying the claims in several YouTube videos and by other means.
Robinhood crypto unit fined $30 million by New York regulator Robinhood Markets' cryptocurrency arm was fined $30 million by New York's financial regulator after the brokerage was accused of violating anti-money-laundering and cybersecurity rules. The unit must enlist an independent consultant to monitor compliance, according to an order filed Tuesday. The firm disclosed last year that it expected to pay the penalty. The enforcement action by the New York State Department of Financial Services underscores the continued regulatory scrutiny Robinhood faces, even as it pushes a message to investors that it's taking a "safety first" stance toward digital tokens. Robinhood took a faulty approach to crypto trading compliance at a time of rapid growth for the Menlo Park, California-based company, according to the regulator, which alleged that the brokerage lacked sufficient staff and resources to ensure compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering rules. The firm had used a manual system to review transactions, which the financial watchdog called "unacceptable" for a business averaging more than 100,000 transactions a day totaling $5.3 million in September 2019. Automated transaction monitoring is a safeguard against money laundering that would be typical for a company of its size, the regulator said. Robinhood, which is set to report second-quarter results Wednesday, didn't have such automated review systems in place when the investigation began, and it took the company months to transition to one.
Homeless, suicidal, down to last $1,000: Celsius investors beg bankruptcy judge for help - Celsius Network, once a titan of the crypto lending world, is in bankruptcy proceedings and facing down claims that it was running a Ponzi scheme by paying early depositors with the money it got from new users. Some of the 1.7 million customers ensnared by the alleged fraud are now directly pleading with the Southern District of New York to help them get their money back.Christian Ostheimer, a 37-year-old living in Connecticut, wrote in a letter included in court exhibits that he trusted Celsius with his retirement savings and has lost more than $30,000, which has brought him into "unsurmountable tax complications.""It is in your hands, honorable judge to make this a different case were not the lawyers, the attorneys, the big corporations and managers get paid out first but the little man, the mom and pop, the college grad, the granny and grandpa — all those many small unsecured creditors — so that they are not like usual at the end of the chain where they lose everything," wrote Ostheimer.The question of who gets repaid first — should that day ever come — looms heavy over the bankruptcy proceedings.At its peak in October 2021, CEO Alex Mashinsky said the crypto lender had $25 billion in assets under management. Now, Celsius is down to $167 million "in cash on hand," which it says will provide "ample liquidity" to support operations during the restructuring process. Celsius owes its users around $4.7 billion, according to its bankruptcy filing.That filing also shows that Celsius has more than 100,000 creditors, some of whom lent the platform cash without any collateral to back up the arrangement. The list of its top 50 unsecured creditors includes Sam Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research, as well as an investment firm based in the Cayman Islands. Those creditors are likely first in line to get their money back, leaving smaller retail investors holding the bag.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. Celsius spells out in its terms and conditions that any digital asset transferred to the platform constitutes a loan from the user to Celsius. Because there was no collateral put up by Celsius, customer funds were essentially just unsecured loans to the platform. Also in the fine print of Celsius' terms and conditions is a warning that in the event of bankruptcy, "any Eligible Digital Assets used in the Earn Service or as collateral under the Borrow Service may not be recoverable" and that customers "may not have any legal remedies or rights in connection with Celsius' obligations." The disclosure reads like an attempt at blanket immunity from legal wrongdoing, should things ever go south.
Bankrupt crypto lending platform Celsius is trying to hire its CFO back at $92,000 a month - Embattled lending platform Celsius wants to bring back ex-CFO Rod Bolger and pay him about $92,000 a month, prorated over a period of at least six weeks. The embattled lender says it needs Bolger to help it navigate bankruptcy proceedings as an advisor, according to a motion filed with the Southern District of New York. "Because of Mr. Bolger's familiarity with the Debtors' business, the Debtors have requested, and Mr. Bolger has agreed pending the Court's approval, to continue providing advisory and consulting services to the Debtors pursuant to an Advisory Agreement," the filing reads. "In consideration for the advisory services rendered by Mr. Bolger, the Debtors agree to pay Mr. Bolger the sum of CAD $120,000 per month, prorated for partial months."The motion goes on to say that during Bolger's tenure, he led efforts to steady the business during turbulent market volatility this year, guiding the financial aspects of the business and acting as a leader of the company. Ultimately, it is up to New York's Southern District to decide whether to allow Bolger to come onboard with Celsius. There is a Zoom hearing set for Monday, Aug. 8, to consider the motion.Bolger, a former CFO for Royal Bank of Canada and divisions of Bank of America, was previously with the company for five months before resigning on June 30, about three weeks after the platform paused all withdrawals, citing "extreme market conditions." While he worked full-time with the company as CFO, this motion shows that he had a base salary of $750,000 and a performance-based cash bonus of up to 75% of his base, in addition to stock and token options, bringing the top of his total income range to around $1.3 million.Once a titan of the crypto lending world, Celsius is in bankruptcy proceedings and facing down claims that it was running a Ponzi scheme by paying early depositors with the money it got from new users.
Ongoing Solana Hack Hits 8,000 Wallets, Draining $5.2 Million So Far -Approximately 8,000 digital wallets have been hit by hackers to the tune of $5.2 million in digital currency - including solana's SOL token and USD Coin (USDC), according to CNBC, citing blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. The hack was confirmed by Solana Status via Twitter."Engineers from across several ecosystems, in conjunction with audit and security firms, continue to investigate the root cause of an incident that resulted in approximately 8,000 wallets being drained," tweeted the account, which added "This does not appear to be a bug with Solana core code, but in software used by several software wallets popular among users of the network." This does not appear to be a bug with Solana core code, but in software used by several software wallets popular among users of the network. Updates will be posted to https://t.co/ivyoIbdCDP as they become available. 2/2— Solana Status (@SolanaStatus) August 3, 2022Starting Tuesday evening, multiple users began reporting that assets held in “hot” wallets — that is, internet-connected addresses, including Phantom, Slope and Trust Wallet — had been emptied of funds.Phantom said on Twitter that it’s investigating the “reported vulnerability in the solana ecosystem” and doesn’t believe it’s a Phantom-specific issue. Blockchain audit firm OtterSec tweeted that the hack has affected multiple wallets “across a wide variety of platforms.” –CNBC
Warren urges OCC to abandon Trump-era crypto guidance — One of the Senate Banking Committee's top progressive lawmakers circulated a letter this week to pressure the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to abandon Trump-era guidance that cleared the banking sector to explore crypto-related banking activity. In an undated draft letter that circulated among lawmakers on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked acting Comptroller Michael Hsu to formally rescind a series of interpretive letters issued by former acting Comptroller Brian Brooks in late 2020 and early 2021 that gave banks regulatory cover to explore decentralized finance, including digital asset custody and processing stablecoin payments. Last fall, the Biden-era OCC led by Hsu attempted to limit the scope of Brooks's letters, telling banks in a new interpretive letter in November 2021 that they would need to receive approval from their regulators before diving into crypto activity. But Warren's draft letter urges Hsu and the OCC to go further by formally rescinding the crypto guidance entirely. "The interpretive letters issued under your predecessor essentially granted banks unfettered opportunity to engage in certain crypto activities and remains problematic," Warren wrote in the letter. "Under your watch, the OCC issued updated guidance with the aim of reining in potential risks posed by your predecessor's policies," Warren said, referring to Hsu's Interpretive Letter 1179.. "Yet, despite these efforts, we are concerned that the OCC has failed to properly address the shortcomings of the preceding interpretive letters and the risks associated with crypto-related banking activities, which have grown more severe in recent months."
Push to give derivatives regulator more sway over crypto trading gains steam A push in Washington to transform the U.S. derivatives regulator into a top crypto watchdog is gaining steam with a Senate bill that would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sweeping new powers to oversee the asset class. The CFTC, whose purview is now mostly limited to crypto derivatives, would get the ability to police trading in the largest digital assets under the plan introduced Wednesday by Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Republican John Boozman. The legislation backed by the two top members of the Senate Agriculture Committee carries particular heft because their panel oversees the regulator. Senators Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, and John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, are also original cosponsors of the bill. "One in five Americans have used or traded digital assets — but these markets lack the transparency and accountability that they expect from our financial system. Too often, this puts Americans' hard-earned money at risk," Stabenow said in a statement. "That's why we are closing regulatory gaps and requiring that these markets operate under straightforward rules that protect customers and keep our financial system safe." Crypto industry executives have been pressing for the CFTC to get more power as they resist Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler's assertions that many digital coins are securities under the SEC's purview. The new proposal would give the derivatives regulator direct oversight of tokens that qualify as "digital commodities," which according to a summary of the plan include bitcoin and ether — the two largest digital assets. Rostin Behnam, the chairman of the CFTC, has said his agency is well positioned to take on a greater role. The agency has also been working with lawmakers crafting the plan, which is just one of a spate of crypto bills. To become law, it would require multiple votes in the Senate and a version would also need to pass the US House. In addition to new powers, the senators' bill would direct the CFTC to undertake a number of studies.
Brace Yourself for Federally-Insured Bank Failures Caused by Crypto - Pam and Russ Martens - Last Thursday, during a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren apparently grabbed the attention of federal regulators when she stated that Voyager, the crypto platform that filed for bankruptcy protection in early July, was promoting itself as being FDIC-insured. Crypto trading platforms and their lending operations are not federally regulated; they are frequently tied to criminal activity; they are increasingly going bust and/or filing for bankruptcy protection and locking customers out of making withdrawals of their liquid funds and/or their crypto. Letting crypto get anywhere near a federally-insured bank would undermine public confidence in FDIC-insurance and undermine public confidence in the safety and soundness of all federally-insured banks in the U.S. And yet, federal bank regulators have been completely aware for years now that federally-insured banks were becoming intertwined with crypto companies and have chosen to look the other way.Within hours of Senator Warren’s statement at the Senate Banking hearing last Thursday, the FDIC and the Fed released a joint letter it had sent to Voyager Digital that same day. The letter advised as follows:“Voyager has made various representations online, including its website, mobile app, and social media accounts, stating or suggesting that: (1) Voyager itself is FDIC-insured; (2) customers who invested with the Voyager cryptocurrency platform would receive FDIC insurance coverage for all funds provided to, held by, on, or with Voyager; and (3) the FDIC would insure customers against the failure of Voyager itself. These representations are false and misleading and, based on the information we have to date, it appears that the representations likely misled and were relied upon by customers who placed their funds with Voyager and do not have immediate access to their funds.”What Voyager had actually done was to open an “omnibus” account at the FDIC-insured Metropolitan Commercial Bank, which has apparently decided to roll the dice and accept deposits from multiple crypto firms. As of March 31, Metropolitan held over $1.1 billion in crypto-related deposits. The bank is part of the publicly traded Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp (ticker MCB), whose share price has lost 35 percent year-to-date (through last Friday’s close).Because Metropolitan had given Voyager this “omnibus” FDIC-insured account, Voyager used the imprimatur of the FDIC to promote itself as a safe platform. (See Tweet below.)Unfortunately for the stability of the U.S. financial system, Metropolitan Commercial Bank is not the only FDIC-insured bank that has decided to allow the lawless world of crypto to infect its banking operations.FDIC-insured Silvergate Bank is part of the publicly-traded Silvergate Capital Corp., (ticker SI). Silvergate’s website says this about its hot pursuit of crypto: “We began pursuing digital currency customers in 2013 and have been deliberate in our approach to serving this community since then. Today, we have 1,300+ digital currency and fintech customers that are using our platform daily to grow and scale their businesses.”Silvergate Capital’s 10-K (annual report) for the year ending Dec 31, 2021 that it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission acknowledged this about the crypto market that it has so deliberately decided to pursue:“The characteristics of digital currency have been, and may in the future continue to be, exploited to facilitate illegal activity such as fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and ransomware scams; if any of our customers do so or are alleged to have done so, it could adversely affect us…”Silvergate’s 10-K also states that “Deposits from digital currency exchanges represent approximately 58.0% of the Bank’s overall deposits and are held by approximately 94 exchanges.”Let’s pause for a moment to digest that last statement: More than half of a federally-insured bank’s deposits are tied to crypto while federal regulators are twiddling their thumbs and letting it happen. This news comes despite the fact that legendary investor Warren Buffet has called the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, “rat poison squared”; global economist, Nouriel Roubini, told the Senate Banking Committee in 2018 that “Crypto is the Mother of All Scams and (Now Busted) Bubbles While Blockchain Is The Most Over-Hyped Technology Ever, No Better than a Spreadsheet/Database.” More recently, Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, one of the most valuable tech companies in the world, stated that cryptocurrencies are “100% based on greater fool theory.” And just this past June 1, more than 1,600 scientists and software engineers wrote to Committee chairs in Congress to warn that both crypto and blockchain are shams.
M&T, Credit Suisse see biggest jumps in stress capital requirements -M&T Bank Corporation and Credit Suisse Holdings will have to increase their stress capital buffers by more than 2 percentage points based on their performance in this year's Federal Reserve stress test.By October 1, M&T must increase its tier one equity capital ratio from the 2.5% minimum to 4.7%, while Credit Suisse will have to increase its buffer from 6.9% to 9%. Eleven other banks that participated in the annual stress test will also see their capital requirements increase for 2023, including DWS — a separately tested subsidiary of Deutsche Bank — which must increase its holdings by 1.5%, and Santander, which must add 1.2%, according to the Fed's large bank capital requirements report, released Thursday. Several others, including Bank of America, JPMorgan and Huntington Bancshares must increase their buffers by just under 1 percentage point. Seven banks will have lower stress capital requirements, including UBS, which will see its buffer shrink by 2.3%. Stress capital buffers are calculated by adding a bank's projected decline in tier one capital under the stress test scenario to its forecasted dividend payments for the coming four quarters. The minimum stress capital buffer is 2.5%.Overall, tier one capital ratios among the 33 banks tested in this year's scenario, which was intentionally more severe than last year's evaluation, declined by 2.7%. In the 2021 scenario, which was calibrated to be less harsh because of the economic uncertainty at that time, capital reserves fell 2.5%.The stress capital buffer is one of several bank capital requirements imposed on large banks to ensure they have enough risk-free capital to continue providing loans through periods of significant economic distress. The minimum tier one capital requirement is 4.5%. The largest institutions deemed Global Systemically Important Banks — Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo — also must maintain an additional capital reserve known as the GSIB surcharge. For next year, the surcharge ranges from 1% to 3%, depending on the institution. While the percentages are small, the additional requirements of increased stress capital buffers mean banks must shed riskier assets fairly quickly. Some large banks, including JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America, are already in the process of paring down their balance sheets.All 33 banks tested in this year's stress test weathered the scenario with well above the minimum capital requirement of 4.5%. But because aggregate capital declined more in this year's test than last year, Fed policy dictates that capital requirements must increase.Banks and bank advocates argue this has become an unfair arrangement. They say if banks can withstand a collective loss of $600 billion — as was the case in this year's scenario — without dipping below the minimum requirement, they must be sufficiently capitalized.Others say the fact that no banks are failing the test is an indication that the scenarios are not severe enough. Groups on both sides of the issue will look to Michael Barr, the Fed's newly installed vice chair for supervision, to take up the matter as part of his pledge to execute a holistic review of bank capital standards.
Lawmakers amplify scrutiny of U.S. Bank after sham accounts fine - — Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee pressed U.S. Bank for more details about fake consumer accounts that were recently revealed by regulators — the latest sign of government scrutiny as the nation's fifth-largest bank pursues approval of a major acquisition.In a letter sent Thursday morning and first reported by American Banker, the Democratic senators told U.S. Bank Chairman and CEO Andrew Cecere that they were "deeply concerned" by recent revelations of misconduct at the bank, a unit of Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined U.S. Bank $37.5 million last week for opening so-called sham accounts without customer permission."It is unacceptable that U.S. Bank provided incentives to and pressured its employees to take advantage of their unique access to a veritable treasure trove of sensitive, personal information to sign up unsuspecting customers for fee-generating financial products and services," Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown wrote in the letter, which was co-signed by Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
Ex-Deutsche Bank trader gets guilty plea tossed out, $1 million fine returned - A federal judge in New York vacated the guilty plea of a former Deutsche Bank trader who admitted to conspiring with others to manipulate the Libor interest rate benchmark, after an appeals court overturned the convictions of two of his ex-colleagues earlier this year.Timothy Parietti "must be viewed as innocent" in light of the January reversal, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled Friday in Manhattan. He also vacated a judgment of conviction against Parietti and ordered the government to "promptly return" the $1 million fine he paid as part of his sentence."We are grateful to the judge for overturning Mr. Parietti's conviction, based on his finding that Mr. Parietti is innocent and allowing his conviction to stand would be a profound injustice," said his lawyer, Larry Krantz. "Justice has now been done."Parietti was a key witness in the 2018 trial of Matthew Connolly and Gavin Black, who were accused of conspiring to rig the London interbank offered rate for years. But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed their convictions, finding prosecutors failed to prove they had influenced the bank into making false or misleading submissions. The decision was a setback for the U.S. government's crackdown on alleged market manipulation.By then, Parietti had already completed his sentence of one day of time served and a period of supervised release. Parietti filed a petition to clear his 2016 guilty plea to conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud.Engelmayer said Parietti's plea proceeding included claims by prosecutors that the government had enough evidence to back the charges — a claim that turned out to be wrong."That representation was material to the court's decision to accept Parietti's guilty plea, as it likely was to Parietti's decision to plead guilty," the judge wrote. "With the circuit — based on its close review of the trial proof — now having exposed the government's underlying proof as insufficient to prove that offense, Parietti must be viewed as innocent." The Justice Department, which didn't oppose Parietti's motion, declined to comment.
JPM Trading Desk: "Frustration Everywhere; Traders Feel Like They Can't Get Anything Right" -We already know that the vicious market meltup of the past two months has been the "most hated rally" among institutions. We also know that said rally has largely been driven by CTAs, buybacks, and retail investors, which is why institutions - focusing instead on dismal economic fundamentals and Fed jawboning instead of technicals and positioning - have been steamrolled, squeezed and are starting to chase markets higher. And, it's also why in his market wrap, JPMorgan TMT trader writes that "frustration sums up the past few sessions perfectly." Below we excerpt from the market comments by a handful of JPM traders (full note available to pro subs) which underscore just why this rally remains so extremely hated
Banks ask CFPB to crack down on data aggregators - Eight bank trade groups have petitioned the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to define data aggregators as larger participants subject to regulatory supervision. In a 10-page letter sent Tuesday to CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, the bank trade groups asked the bureau to issue a larger participant rule before implementing a separate rulemaking on consumer access to financial data. The trade groups also called for the CFPB to define the services of data aggregators as a financial product or service.The trade groups argue that the explosive growth in data aggregation services has created more risks for consumers — particularly to data privacy and security — which could result in uneven enforcement. "Banks and credit unions are regularly supervised and examined by the CFPB, whereas non-depository institutions such as data aggregators and data users are not examined by the CFPB," the trade groups, led by the American Bankers Association, said in the letter.The letter comes as the CFPB is in the thick of writing a rule around consumers' access to their own financial data. The rule, known as Section 1033 for its place in the Dodd-Frank Act, seeks to clarify standards for how fintechs access bank account data. It also would ensure that banks provide consumers access to their own bank account transaction data including costs, charges and usage data. The CFPB expects to release a small business outline for the data access rule in November. The CFPB is expected to issue a larger participant rule either in tandem with the 1033 rulemaking or on its own to define the market they would supervise.
Equifax may face class action after credit score glitch - Equifax, the second-biggest global credit bureau, was hit with a proposed class-action lawsuit after a report that it provided inaccurate credit scores on millions of U.S. consumers looking for loans.The suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Atlanta, alleges violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It seeks financial damages and a court order requiring Equifax to notify all customers who were impacted by the score-reporting glitch, which The Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 2 "We believe that many of the people impacted — some of whom may still be unaware of what happened — suffered severe financial consequences," John Morgan and John Yanchunis, the attorneys who filed the suit, said in a statement.Erroneous scores were sent from mid-March through early April, and disclosures of the errors began in May, the Wall Street Journal reported. Equifax blamed a computer error that has since been rectified.Equifax, in a statement Thursday, said the three-week "technology coding issue" was fixed on April 6. The company said its analysis showed that during that period there was "no shift in the majority of scores" for consumers seeking credit. "For those consumers that did experience a score shift, initial analysis indicates that only a small number of them may have received a different credit decision," according to the statement. "While the score may have shifted, a score shift does not necessarily mean that a consumer's credit decision was negatively impacted." The lead plaintiff in the suit is a Florida woman who alleges she was forced to take a less-favorable auto loan in April as a result of an inaccurate credit score. The suit claims she's now paying about $150 a month extra.
Visa could be liable in suit over child sexual abuse material on Pornhub, other sites - Visa will remain a defendant in a lawsuit alleging that the credit card giant, Pornhub and other MindGeek-run sites conspired in circulating child sexual abuse material, a federal judge in California ruled Friday. The decision opens the door for the payment processing company and its leaders to be found liable for wrongdoing if they are found guilty in the case. In an application seeking to dismiss the charges, Visa said the people who posted the victims’ underage images and those who distributed and earned money from the material caused the alleged harm — not Visa. Furthermore, the company argued, it has nothing to do with the daily operations of MindGeek’s sites, of which Pornhub is the most notable. U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote that “Visa lent to MindGeek a much-needed tool — its payment network — with the alleged knowledge that there was a wealth of monetized child porn on MindGeek’s websites.” In a statement to The Washington Post, Visa said it condemns sex trafficking, exploitation and child sexual abuse materials as “repugnant” to its values and purpose as a company. “This pretrial ruling is disappointing and mischaracterizes Visa’s role and its policies and practices,” the company said in a statement. “Visa will not tolerate the use of our network for illegal activity. We continue to believe that Visa is an improper defendant in this case.” MindGeek told The Post in a statement that it is confident the court will dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims for lack of merit once it considers all the facts. “MindGeek has zero tolerance for the posting of illegal content on its platforms, and has instituted the most comprehensive safeguards in user-generated platform history,” the company said. “Any insinuation that MindGeek does not take the elimination of illegal material seriously is categorically false.”
Goldman Sachs says it's cooperating with CFPB probe of its credit cards - Goldman Sachs says it's cooperating with an investigation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into the bank's credit card business.Goldman, an investment bank that jumped into consumer finance several years ago, disclosed in a securities filing that the investigation relates to credit card account management practices at its GS Bank USA unit.The investigation covers the "application of refunds, crediting of nonconforming payments, billing error resolution, advertisements, and reporting to credit bureaus," the filing said In a statement Thursday, New York-based Goldman Sachs said that it is "cooperating with the CFPB on this matter." Goldman is the issuer of two consumer credit cards: the Apple Card, launched in 2019, and a General Motors co-branded card announced in January. It also recently bought the point-of-sale loan provider GreenSky, which offers a financing platform for home improvement contractors to health care providers.Last year, before Goldman announced the deal to buy GreenSky, the CFPB imposed a $2.5 million fine on the Atlanta-based fintech and forced the company to refund consumers up to $9 million for allegedly letting merchants on its platform take out loans on behalf of customers who had not agreed to them.The consumer bureau said that GreenSky got more than 6,000 customer complaints on the issue between 2014 and 2019. Goldman Sachs reported $11.9 billion in credit card loans as of June 2022, up from $5.2 billion a year earlier.
CFPB gets earful on limiting credit card late fees - Banks and credit unions are pushing back hard against an effort by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to put a halt to a roughly 9% hike next year in credit card late fees pegged to inflation.The issue has been moot for years because inflation has been so low. But with the Consumer Price Index up 9% in the past year, the CFPB is calling into question whether credit card late fees should be tied to inflation, a provision set by the Federal Reserve in 2010. Under the "safe harbor" provision, institutions can raise late fees due to inflation without any cost-benefit analysis as long as the fees being charged are "reasonable and proportional." To receive the safe harbor, credit card issuers can charge $30 for the first late payment and $41 for subsequent late payments within six billing cycles. Under a complicated formula, credit card late fees are expected to rise next year to an estimated $33 for the first late payment and $45 for subsequent late payments.Consumer advocates and critics of the Fed's safe harbor suggest that the CFPB intervene and put a halt to the inflation adjustments. CFPB Director Rohit Chopra wants to lower credit card late fees generally and has already called out financial institutions for charging consumers roughly $12 billion a year in late fees.The CFPB received 42 comments to an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in June that seeks to determine how credit card issuers set late fees. A core part of the CFPB's review involves determining whether late fees are generating more revenue than is necessary to cover their cost, a requirement set by the Fed. But Chopra also has raised concerns about whether the Fed initially set late fees too high more than a decade ago and whether giving financial firms a safe harbor, with immunity from enforcement actions for setting fees at the safe harbor level, gives issuers an incentive to raise late fees every year.
Ford is Biden-era FDIC's first big ILC test — Ford Motor Co. is again applying for an industrial loan company charter, a major test for the Biden administration regulators who have been skeptical of anything that looks like mixing banking and commerce. The Ford application to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would create Ford Credit Bank as a unit of Ford Motor Credit Co. to offer auto loans. Ford is the first major nonfintech to seek an ILC under the Biden administration. Although auto company ILCs aren't unheard of — Toyota and BMW already have industrial banks — the application for the banking industry raises the specter of a larger company, such as Walmart or Amazon, entering the banking fray. "This shows why the ILC loophole should be closed, because we're concerned that these commercial firms will really start using it," said Chris Cole, executive vice president and senior regulatory counsel for the Independent Community Bankers of America. "We may see Amazon use it, we may see Google using it." Still, it's an important moment for the FDIC and its board. The likelihood of an approvalseems low, policy watchers agree, but how the agency treats this application could signal a forward-looking attitude toward ILCs and their applications, particularly in less politically charged situations that don't involve the retail or tech behemoths.
FDIC promises more scrutiny of banks' commercial real estate loans | American Banker -- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. plans to increase its scrutiny of banks' exposure to commercial real estate loans, citing uncertainty about the future of work and commerce in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency said that its examiners will put particular attention on testing newer loans, as well as loans within subsectors and geographic areas that are experiencing stress, and those that are vulnerable because borrowers are paying higher interest rates. In explaining the sharper focus, the FDIC pointed to rising interest rates, the effects of inflation and supply-chain problems, as well as pandemic-related changes in the use of commercial real estate. The agency stated that late-payment rates on commercial real estate loans are currently at historically low levels, but said the strong performance is partly attributable to stimulus programs and borrowing costs that were low until quite recently. "In addition, banks worked extensively with borrowers experiencing stress during the pandemic, which likely suppressed delinquencies and may have ultimately limited losses by giving borrowers time and flexibility to address issues," FDIC officials wrote in the latest edition of the agency's regular Supervisory Insights bulletin. "Although some of the economic effects of the pandemic appear to be easing, some of its impacts may be lasting, or may have exacerbated existing secular trends, or both."
Republican lawmakers accuse CFPB of 'collusion' with state AGs - Three Republican lawmakers accused the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of “collusion” and “conspiring with state attorneys general” to bring enforcement actions against financial companies.The allegations in a letter signed July 28 by Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, and two other Republican lawmakers was in response to an interpretive rule that the CFPB issued in May.In the rule, the CFPB affirmed that states can enforce the Consumer Financial Protection Act to pursue actions against a broad range of entities.Policymakers said the allegations of collusion are an indication that Republicans are teeing up an onslaught of queries to the CFPB, which is already preparing for a deluge of congressional inquiries.“This letter serves as a preview of the House GOP's oversight agenda if they win control of the House this fall as expected,” said Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research at BTIG, an investment bank.Under the Dodd-Frank Act, when a state attorney general or other state regulator intends to file an enforcement action against a wrongdoer, they are required to provide a copy of the complaint to the CFPB, essentially allowing the bureau to intercede. States have their own broad and powerful laws prohibiting unfair and deceptive acts and practices. Few state attorneys general ever use the federal CFPA to bring an action against a financial firm for wrongdoing, instead relying on their own state laws, lawyers said. Most companies also prefer that the CFPB and state agencies work together because doing so can lower litigation costs and the time spent dealing with multiple investigations. Defense attorneys said that many companies ask states to work with the CFPB — and vice versa.
Senators announce bipartisan caucus to support CDFIs, MDIs — A bipartisan group of U.S. senators announced the creation of a new legislative caucus for the community development financial institution industry, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia announced on Monday. A subset of smaller financial institutions certified by the Treasury Department to do a certain portion of their business in low-income communities, CDFIs have existed since the 1990s but have taken on increasing relevance in recent years and become the target ofbillions of dollars in new federal funding. In a video released Monday morning, Warner said the caucus would focus its efforts on supporting CDFIs as well as minority depository institutions, a federal designation for banks controlled by a majority of Black, Indigenous or other stakeholders of color. “This proud tradition of how we make sure there are institutions that will service communities that may not have the same traditional access to traditional banks is extraordinarily important,” Warner said in the video. “I know this firsthand as a former entrepreneur.”
Cuyahoga County, Ohio Has One of the Highest Foreclosure Rates in the Nation - The worst inflation in 40 years has led to cascading effects, with consumer sentiment declining and gross domestic product decreasing in the first quarter of this year. While the Federal Reserve has been raising rates to tame inflation, this has resulted in higher mortgage rates. Combined, these factors appear to be cooling the U.S. housing market after white-hot demand in the past two years sent prices skyward. So far, the number of foreclosure filings in the first six months of the year is still slightly lower than it was in the same period in 2020. But these filings are up 153% from the first half of last year, according to property data provider Attom Data Solutions. Home foreclosure filings include default notices, bank repossessions, and scheduled auctions and are used as a measure to gauge the health of housing markets at local, state, and national levels. Cuyahoga County, Ohio - located in the Cleveland-Elyria metropolitan area - has one of the highest foreclosure rates of any U.S. county. According to a recent report from Attom, a total of 3,100 housing units were in foreclosure in the first half of 2022, up 175.8% from the first half of last year. The foreclosure rate in Cuyahoga County of one in every 199 homes ranks as the second highest of the more than 1,700 counties and county equivalents reviewed. According to five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 American Community Survey, the typical household in Cuyahoga County has an income of $51,741 a year and the typical home is worth $137,800. For context, the typical American household's annual income is $64,994, and the national median home value is $229,800.
Anti-redlining law could soon account for climate change - Environmentalists and community development groups want U.S. bank regulators to account for the impacts of climate change on underserved communities when overhauling an outdated anti-redlining law.The Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in May proposed sweeping changes to the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA. The law was originally passed more than four decades ago with the goal of prodding banks to invest in communities that have historically been excluded from the traditional financial system (Climatewire, May 5).The long-awaited changes aim to modernize the law to account for major shifts in the financial system since the CRA was last updated in 1995. But the proposal also includes language intended to push lenders to do something new: make investments that help low- and moderate-income communities prepare for mounting climate impacts.Dozens of comment letters have already been made public, though hundreds more are expected to be posted in the coming days. They’re from groups weighing in on a wide range of issues, including some who emphasize the importance of retaining — and in some cases strengthening — the law’s new, climate-related language.“This rulemaking has taken important steps in the right direction, and should be strengthened to ensure that those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change can access necessary, fair, and affordable capital and services to meet their financial needs,” Adele Shraiman, a climate finance campaigner at the Sierra Club, wrote in a comment letter.So how does the CRA work today — and how might it change in the coming months?The law was enacted by Congress in 1977 to combat redlining, the racist practice of denying low-income families and people of color access to critical financial services. It does so by requiring regulators to assess the extent to which banks are meeting the financial needs of residents in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods near the banks’ physical offices and branches.That process involves giving lenders CRA credit — and eventually ratings — for investing in projects such as affordable housing complexes, qualified federal health care centers and community development efforts. Those ratings are later taken into account by regulators when lenders apply for mergers and acquisitions, or to open a new bank branch.“It’s really intended to redress a whole history of disinvestment,” said Jesse Van Tol, the president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which advocates for lenders to invest more in low-income communities.“The reinvestment part of CRA comes in because banks would take deposits from the community … [which] are a source of really low-cost funding for banks. But then they weren’t reinvesting those deposits by making loans in that community to people who live there,” he added.Now regulators are working to modernize the CRA to be sure it’s as effective as possible. One of the major changes is to ensure that banks are reinvesting in low- and medium-income communities where they provide online financial services, not only where their headquarters and branches are located. The purpose of that change is to adapt to the recent rise in internet banking and a decline in bank branches.
LA Landlords Call For End To Eviction Moratorium -There are more protests taking place in Los Angeles this month, but for once they don’t have anything to do with racism, high gas prices, or any other common complaints coming from the public these days. The people doing the protesting are landlords who are facing bankruptcy and the loss of their properties because tenants are still not paying their rent. They’re getting away with this because the city of Los Angeles extended its eviction moratorium for another full year until August of 2023, despite the state’s moratorium having expired in June. And the landlords are placing the blame on the City Council and Mayor Garcetti rather than the delinquent renters. (CBS News)At a news conference at City Hall, landlords say the moratorium could push some of them into bankruptcy and foreclosure because it doesn’t allow them to collect rent and some of their tenants are taking advantage of the situation.“Our home has been stolen from us so that tenants, one of whom owns a DeLorean, can go to Burning Man and rent yachts for birthday parties and sail up in hot air balloons,” property owner Liz Reckart said. “Our home has been stolen from us, not by our tenants, but by the overly broad policies created under Mayor Eric Garcetti and upheld by the majority of our City Council.”I’m sure that not all of the delinquent tenants fall into the same category as Liz Reckart’s renter who drives a DeLorean to Burning Man so they can go on hot air balloon rides. But the majority of them really should have started paying their rent again long before now.I’ve been writing about the coming eviction crisis since 2020 because everyone who studies these situations knew this was on the horizon. Now it’s here. The economic restrictions associated with the pandemic are almost entirely over in Los Angeles, just as they are in the rest of the nation. Businesses have reopened, the schools are open, and people are out and about largely as they were before the virus arrived in America. Los Angeles even backed down on imposing a renewed mask mandate recently.The federal aid for housing during the pandemic is largely gone. And that aid was supposed to benefit landlords as well as tenants so they wouldn’t lose their property. In other words, all of those tenants should, by now, have been able to start making regular rent payments and begin paying back what they owe in back rent. But it’s an unfortunate reality that there will always be a certain percentage of people who will take advantage of a situation if they can. With the city extending the moratorium for another year, some people are clearly just viewing this as another year of “free rent” before they wind up having to move out and look for a new apartment.
Trip Back to Reality Starts: Mortgages, HELOCs, Delinquencies, and Foreclosures in Q2 by Wolf Richter - Mortgage balances jumped by 9% in Q2 from a year ago, as prices spiked year-over-year, while people bought far fewer homes – sales of existing homes dropped by 10% from Q2 last year, and sales of new single-family houses plunged by 19% over the same period.Mortgage balances have surged relentlessly since the end of the Housing Bust in 2012. Over those 10 years, mortgage balances surged by $4.6 trillion, and over the past three years, mortgage balances surged by $2.0 trillion, or by 21%, to $11.4 trillion, according to data from the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report. Home Equity Lines of Credit fell out of favor after 2009 and balances declined steadily, unwinding the massive surge of the years before the Financial Crisis. As the Fed’s interest-rate repression and QE pushed down mortgage rates, and as home prices rose, folks began to cash-out-refinance their mortgages to generate cash, rather than drawing on HELOCs. But now the decline has ended. HELOC balances ticked up in Q2 to $319 billion, from the low in the prior quarter. This has occurred as mortgage rates have spiked, and as cash-out refis have plunged. There is now a new dynamic in place: Much higher mortgage rates: It would be stupid to refinance a 3% mortgage with a 5% mortgage in order to draw $100,000 in cash out of the home. It’s better to leave the 3% mortgage alone, and get a $100,000 HELOC that charges 5% on the outstanding balance, if any. So I expect HELOC balances to rise further going forward because the cash-out refi game has changed. Mortgages are by far the biggest part of consumer debt, bigger than ever. Nothing comes even close. Consumer debt balances in Q2:
- Mortgages: $11.4 trillion
- Student loans: $1.6 trillion
- Auto loans: $1.5 trillion
- Credit cards: $890 billion
- “Other” (personal loans, etc.): $470 billion
- HELOCs: $320 billion.
Mortgages is where the big systemic risks used to be due to the sheer size of the market and the high leverage.But now, commercial Banks in the US only hold about $2.4 trillion of residential mortgages, including HELOCs, on their balance sheets, and those are spread among 4,300 commercial banks. Thousands of Credit Unions and other lenders also hold some mortgages on their balance sheets.But most mortgages are now securitized into mortgage-backed securities.
MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest Weekly Survey -From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey— Mortgage applications increased 1.2 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 29, 2022.... The Refinance Index increased 2 percent from the previous week and was 82 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 1 percent compared with the previous week and was 16 percent lower than the same week one year ago.“Mortgage rates declined last week following another announcement of tighter monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, with the likelihood of more rate hikes to come. Treasury yields dropped as a result, as investors continue to expect a weaker macroeconomic environment in the coming months. The 30-year fixed rate saw the largest weekly decline since 2020, falling 31 basis points to 5.43 percent,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “The drop in rates led to increases in both refinance and purchase applications, but compared to a year ago, activity is still depressed. Lower mortgage rates, combined with signs of more inventory coming to the market, could lead to a rebound in purchase activity.”...The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased to 5.43 percent from 5.74 percent, with points increasing to 0.65 from 0.61 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans. The first graph shows the refinance index since 1990.
30-Year Mortgage Rates Decrease to 5.13% - After reaching 6.28% on June 14th, 30-year mortgage rates decreased to 5.13% on Friday according toMortgagenewsdaily.com. The 10-year Treasury yield has fallen to 2.66%, likely due to the weaker economy. Here is a graph from Mortgagenewsdaily.com that shows the 30-year mortgage rate since 2017. Although mortgage rates have fallen sharply over the last 6 weeks, rates are still much higher than earlier this year.Last year, in July 2021, 30-year mortgage rates average 2.87% according to the Freddie Mac PMMS. So, rates are up 79% year-over-year!
Young people are pissed off: Housing crush sours millennial voters - President Joe Biden’s job-approval ratings have sunk across the board, but no group has abandoned him more strikingly than the young adults who helped propel him to the White House. While these voters are frustrated by Washington’s slow action on climate change and student debt, there’s another, often overlooked reason for their growing pessimism: The surging cost of housing has hit them harder than anyone else. The combination of record-high home prices and escalating mortgage costs — rates have nearly doubled in the last seven months — threatens to price a generation of would-be buyers out of the market, cratering home sales. Fueling the problem are rapidly rising rents that are further limiting young adults’ ability to save for down payments on their first home. With the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates again last week, Congress struggling to come up with remedies, and the Biden administration failing to solve a severe housing shortage, the effects of today’s housing market could shape millennials’ and other young people’s finances for years. “Young people are pissed off,” said Antonio Arellano of the liberal youth-vote organizer NextGen America, which targets voters between 18 and 35. “Skyrocketing rents and house prices are especially hard on young people, who are already buried under student debt.” And the cost of housing is a “key voting motivator for the young voters we’re talking to.” Median house prices hit another record high in June. Pending home sales fell by 8.6 percent from May and were down 20 percent compared to June 2021, the National Association of Realtors said last week. And the average monthly mortgage payment is 76 percent higher than it was a year ago. Washington is taking notice: Congress held three hearings addressing housing affordability in one week alone last month, and the Biden administration last week offered state and local governments more flexibility to use federal Covid relief money to boost the supply of affordable housing. But there’s scant cause for optimism among millennials feeling the crunch now.
Black Knight Mortgage Monitor: "Record-Setting Slowdown in Home Price Growth" - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Black Knight Mortgage Monitor: "Record-Setting Slowdown in Home Price Growth" - A brief excerpt: The first graph shows Black Knight’s estimate of monthly house price increases and the year-over-year change in prices.
• The annual home price growth rate fell by nearly two full percentage points to 17.3% in June, from 19.3% in the prior month – a 66% stronger deceleration than in the prior month
• June's slowdown surpassed by 50% the 134 BPS plunge precipitated by Volcker-era rate hikes in the early 1980s and was the most significant drop since at least the early 1970s
• Even after hitting the brakes historically in June, it would take six more months of equivalent slowing to bring the annual growth rate down to 5%, more in line with the long-term average
Home Price Growth Suffers Largest Monthly Decline Since 1970s -- We recently warned there were emerging signs the housing market had peaked. More evidence has been published today that suggests June was likely the turning point following the most significant annual home price growth decline since before Paul Volcker became Fed Chair. Black Knight, Inc.'s Data & Analytics division published its Mortgage Monitor Report showing June was "the greatest deceleration in home price growth on record." Black Knight Data & Analytics President Ben Graboske said June was a record-breaking slowdown of nearly two percentage points from 19.3% to 17.3% annual home price growth and coincided with the largest single-month increase in homes listed for sale in 12 years."The pullback in home price growth in June marked the strongest single month of slowing on record dating back to at least the early 1970s," said GraboskeFor some context, two years before the housing crash of 2008, in 2006, the biggest single-month deceleration was 1.19 percentage points. The rapid slowdown in June comes as the Biden administration aims to crush the housing market (with the help of the Fed's rate hikes) to lower inflation. They've already managed to trigger a technical recession. The slowdown was nationwide and across all top 50 markets, with some areas slowing father than others. A quarter of US markets saw growth slow by three percentage points in June, with four decelerating by four or more points in that month alone. Slowing could be accelerated as it takes about five months for interest rate shocks to be reflected in home price indexes. A sudden drop in home price growth in June is no surprise, as we warned back in March that housing affordability, measured by Goldman Sachs, has deteriorated to its worst level on record. We also pointed out last month a housing crash was imminent as "Mortgage Rates Explode Price Cuts Soar And Buyer Demand Collapses." Black Knight's Graboske continued: "We're also seeing significant shifts in the demand-supply equation, though that too has quite a way to go before normalization." The report finds the average San Jose home value has plunged 5.1% (-$75K) in the last two months, marking the largest decline from highs among any metro area in the country. Seattle had the second largest drop of 3.8% over the same period of $30k. San Francisco (-2.8%, -$35K), San Diego (-2%, -$19.5K) and Denver (-1.4%, -$8.7K) round out the top five.For people who panic-bought homes at record highs over the last two years, a further pullback in price growth is expected through the year's second half. A slowing housing market could leave many underwater when prices start gapping lower.
CoreLogic: House Prices up 18.3% YoY in June - The CoreLogic HPI is a three-month weighted average and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA). From CoreLogic: Annual US Home Price Gains Slow for the Second Consecutive Month, CoreLogic Reports CoreLogic® ... today released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI™) and HPI Forecast™ for June 2022. Nationwide, home prices grew by 18.3% from June 2021, marking the 125th consecutive month of year-over-year increases. Though annual appreciation was still strong, it slowed from the previous month for the second consecutive month, reflecting reduced buyer demand in part due to higher mortgage rates and worries about a slowing economy. CoreLogic projects that year-over-year appreciation will drop to 4.3% by June 2023, bringing home price growth close to the long run average from 2010 to 2020.“Signs of a broader slowdown in the housing market are evident, as home price growth decelerated for the second consecutive month,” said Selma Hepp, interim lead of the Office of the Chief Economist at CoreLogic. “This is in line with our previous expectations and given the notable cooling of buyer demand due to higher mortgage rates and the resulting increased cost of homeownership. Nevertheless, buyers remain interested, which is keeping the market competitive — particularly for attractive homes that are properly priced.”...U.S. home prices (including distressed sales) increased 18.3% year over year in June 2022, compared to June 2021. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 0.6% compared to May 2022.Annual U.S. home price gains are forecast to slow to 4.3% by June 2023.Housing Inventory August 1st Update: Up 32.3% Year-over-year - Inventory is still increasing rapidly, but the inventory build has slowed somewhat over the last few weeks. Still, inventory is increasing much faster than normal for this time of year (both in percentage terms and in total inventory added). Here are the same week inventory changes for the last four years: Inventory bottomed seasonally at the beginning of March 2022 and is now up 124% since then. More than double! Altos reports inventory is up 32.3% year-over-year and is now 23.2% above the peak last year. This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research. As of July 29th, inventory was at 539 thousand (7-day average), compared to 526 thousand the prior week. Inventory was up 2.5% from the previous week. Inventory is still historically low. Compared to the same week in 2021, inventory is up 32.3% from 407 thousand, however compared to the same week in 2020 inventory is down 14.0% from 627 thousand. Compared to 3 years ago, inventory is down 44.6% from 972 thousand. Here are the inventory milestones I’m watching for with the Altos data:
1. The seasonal bottom (happened on March 4th for Altos) ✅
2. Inventory up year-over-year (happened on May 13th for Altos) ✅
3. Inventory up compared to two years ago (currently down 14.0% according to Altos)
4. Inventory up compared to 2019 (currently down 44.6%).
Here is a graph of the inventory change vs 2021, 2020 (milestone 3 above) and 2019 (milestone 4).The blue line is the year-over-year data, the red line is compared to two years ago, and dashed purple is compared to 2019.Two years ago (in 2020) inventory was declining all year, so the two-year comparison will get easier all year. Based on the recent increases in inventory, my current estimate is inventory will be up compared to 2020 in late August or early September of this year, and back to 2019 levels in early 2023.Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.
Home Ownership Rate: 65.8% in Q2 2022 - The Census Bureau has now released its latest quarterly report with data through Q2 2022. The seasonally adjusted rate for Q2 is 65.8 percent, up from Q1 2022. The nonseasonally adjusted Q2 number is also at 65.8 percent, up from the Q2 2022 figure. Over the last decade, the general trend has been consistent: The rate of homeownership continued to struggle. The recent recession as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic caused a massive, but brief, jump in homeownership due to grossly reduced spending. Here's an excerpt from the press release:National vacancy rates in the second quarter 2022 were 5.6 percent for rental housing and 0.8 percent for homeowner housing. The rental vacancy rate was 0.6 percentage points lower than the rate in the second quarter 2021 (6.2 percent) and not statistically different from the rate in the first quarter 2022 (5.8 percent).The homeowner vacancy rate of 0.8 percent was not statistically different from the rate in the second quarter 2021 (0.9 percent) and virtually the same as the rate in the first quarter 2022 (0.8 percent).The homeownership rate of 65.8 percent was not statistically different from the rate in the second quarter 2021 (65.4 percent) and not statistically different from the rate in the first quarter 2022 (65.4 percent).The Census Bureau has been tracking the nonseasonally adjusted data since 1965. Their seasonally adjusted version only goes back to 1980. Here is a snapshot of the nonseasonally adjusted series with a 4-quarter moving average to highlight the trend.
New Home Cancellations increased Sharply in Q2 -- Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: New Home Cancellations increased Sharply in Q2 A brief excerpt: First, a few quotes from some Q2 SEC filings: "We believe the recent increases in interest rates during 2022 have caused buyer apprehension, affordability concerns, and an increase in cancellations.", Taylor Morrison Q2 SEC Filing"The magnitude and speed of these recent rate increases has caused many buyers to pause and reconsider a home purchase, resulting in lower gross demand and higher cancellations during the second quarter.”, MDC Holdings Q2 SEC Filing"New orders weakened during the second quarter of 2022 in many of our markets and we experienced a higher than normal cancellation rate during the second quarter of 2022", LGI Homes Q2 SEC Filing. Here is a table of selected public builders and the currently reported cancellation rate (I’m still gathering data). There is some seasonality to cancellation rates.Disclaimer: the cancellation rates are from SEC filings only, and while deemed to be reliable is not guaranteed.Cancellation rates clearly increased in Q2. There is much more in the article.Construction Spending Decreased 1.1% in June -- From the Census Bureau reported that overall construction spending increased: Construction spending during June 2022 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,762.3 billion, 1.1 percent below the revised May estimate of $1,781.9 billion. The June figure is 8.3 percent above the June 2021 estimate of $1,628.0 billion.Both private and public spending decreased: Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,416.4 billion, 1.3 percent below the revised May estimate of $1,434.4 billion. ... In June, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $345.9 billion, 0.5 percent below the revised May estimate of $347.5 billion. This graph shows private residential and nonresidential construction spending, and public spending, since 1993. Note: nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted.Residential (red) spending is 36% above the bubble peak (in nominal terms - not adjusted for inflation).Non-residential (blue) spending is 19% above the bubble era peak in January 2008 (nominal dollars).Public construction spending is 6% above the peak in March 2009.The second graph shows the year-over-year change in construction spending. On a year-over-year basis, private residential construction spending is up 15.5%. Non-residential spending is up 1.7% year-over-year. Public spending is up 0.4% year-over-year. This was below consensus expectations of a 0.2% increase in spending; however, construction spending for the previous three months combined was revised up slightly.
Nearly Half of All Restaurants & Car Services Couldn't Pay July Rent - Nearly half of the small business owners in the transportation and restaurant sectors say that they were unable to pay their July rent in full and on time. That's according to Alignable's July Rent Report, based on responses from 3,553 randomly selected small business owners surveyed from 6/25/22 to 7/29/22.Specifically, 48% of trucking companies, taxi & limo services, and independent Uber & Lyft drivers couldn't cover July rent, in addition to 45% of restaurant owners, 44% of nonprofits, and 44% of retailers. Many of those surveyed pointed to skyrocketing inflation, including escalating rents, gas prices, supplies, and transportation/shipping costs as reasons that they couldn't handle their full rent in July.Based on this survey, 46% reported that they're paying more for rent now than they did six months ago, and another 4% say their landlords plan to increase their rent soon. Digging deeper into the different sectors, the damaging effects of high gas prices is very apparent looking at this industry-specific rent delinquency chart.
NY Fed Q2 Report: Total Household Debt Surpasses $16 trillion - From the NY Fed: Total Household Debt Surpasses $16 trillion in Q2 2022; Mortgage, Auto Loan, and Credit Card Balances Increase - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Center for Microeconomic Data today issued its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. The Report shows an increase in total household debt in the second quarter of 2022, increasing by $312 billion (2%) to $16.15 trillion. Balances now stand $2 trillion higher than at the end of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. The report is based on data from the New York Fed's nationally representative Consumer Credit Panel.Mortgage balances rose by $207 billion in the second quarter of 2022 and stood at $11.39 trillion at the end of June. Credit card balances also increased by $46 billion. Although seasonal patterns typically include an increase in the second quarter, the 13% cumulative increase in credit card balances since Q2 2021 represents the largest in more than 20 years. Auto loan balances increased by a solid $33 billion in the second quarter, while student loan balances were roughly unchanged from the first quarter and stand at $1.59 trillion. Other balances–which includes retail cards and other consumer loans –increased by a robust $25 billion. In total, non-housing balances grew by $103 billion, the largest increase seen since 2016.Mortgage originations slightly declined in the second quarter and stood at $758 billion. The volume of newly originated auto loans increased to $199 billion, continuing the high volumes seen in dollar terms since Q3 2020. Aggregate limits on credit card accounts increased by $100 billion and now stand at $4.22 trillion–the largest increase in more than ten years. Here are three graphs from the report:The first graph shows aggregate consumer debt increased in Q2. Household debt previously peaked in 2008 and bottomed in Q3 2013. Unlike following the great recession, there wasn't a huge decline in debt during the pandemic.From the NY Fed:Aggregate household debt balances increased by $312 billion in the second quarter of 2022, a 2.0% rise from 2022Q1. Balances now stand at $16.15 trillion and have increased by $2 trillion since the end of 2019, just before the pandemic recession.The second graph shows the percent of debt in delinquency.The overall delinquency rate was unchanged in Q2. From the NY Fed:Aggregate delinquency rates were unchanged again in the second quarter of 2022 and remain very low, after declining sharply through the beginning of the pandemic, although aggregate delinquency rates have seen some change in the composition. The share of balances that are severely derogatory has declined to 1.1%, although the decline has been offset by increases in balances that are 30 days late. As of June, 2.7% of outstanding debt was in some stage of delinquency, a 2.0 percentage point decrease from the first quarter of 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States.There is much more in the report.
Credit card debt surges as inflation drives up costs - Credit card debt surged in the United States from April through June as Americans borrowed billions of dollars to continue spending in the face of growing inflation, according to a Tuesday report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Credit card balances increased $46 billion in the second quarter, a 5.5 percent increase from the first quarter, and there was also an uptick in new credit card accounts. The 13 percent increase from the second quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022 was the biggest such jump in more than 20 years. “Americans are borrowing more, but a big part of the increased borrowing is attributable to higher prices,” researchers for the New York Fed said in a news release. The numbers provide new context for a consumer spending report released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis last week, which showed that spending in June climbed 1.1 percent. Similar to the New York Fed’s findings, gas prices, which surged past $5 a gallon in many parts of the country in the second quarter, and inflation, which jumped 9.1 percent year over year in June, were the likely drivers of the increased debt. A rise in new credit card accounts in the second quarter — 233 million — marked a high not seen since 2008, according to Tuesday’s report. But researchers for the New York Fed noted that delinquency rates for credit card debt is still relatively low. Despite a slight increase, it is still below pre-pandemic numbers. The total outstanding credit card debt rose to $890 billion in the second quarter, a $100 billion increase from the same time last year. The report released Tuesday found that household debt increased in the second quarter by $312 billion, or 2 percent, compared with the first quarter. Total balances are now $2 trillion higher than before the pandemic. Mortgage balances saw the highest increase, which is in line with the central bank’s raising interest rates to cool down the blazing hot housing market. Auto loans also went up, with balances in the second quarter increasing by $33 billion, which is on track with increases since 2011, according to the report. “The second quarter of 2022 showed robust increases in mortgage, auto loan, and credit card balances, driven in part by rising prices,” Joelle Scally, administrator of the Center for Microeconomic Data at the New York Fed, said in a news release. “While household balance sheets overall appear to be in a strong position, we are seeing rising delinquencies among subprime and low-income borrowers with rates approaching pre-pandemic levels.” The increased credit card debt reflects consumers’ struggles to keep up with inflation. Stubbornly high prices on groceries, gasoline and other basic needs have changed how Americans spend their money — forgoing the clothing and technology aisles to afford household necessities.
People Trying to Dodge Legal Usury: Credit Card Balances, Delinquencies, Third-Party Collections, and Bankruptcies in Q2 by Wolf Richter - Credit card balances jumped by $46 billion to $887 billion in the second quarter, which was still down by 4.3% from the peak in Q4 2019 and was just a hair above where they had been in 2008, despite 14 years of population growth and inflation. Raging inflation is responsible for much of the increase in Q2, according to the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report.Credit card balances also include balances that are paid off at due date the next month, every month, so that no interest accrues. Many Americans use credit cards purely as a payment method (and to collect the 1.5% cash-back or whatever), and not as a borrowing method.A report from Fitch estimated that the total amount paid with credit cards for goods and services – in the US reached $4.6 trillion in 2021, which would be an average of $1.15 trillion in purchases via credit cards per quarter.Yet the total credit card balances outstanding in Q2 only grew by $46 billion, which shows to what massive extent credit cards are used as payment method, and to what small extent they’re used as borrowing method, which makes sense, given the usurious interest rates.The credit card balances of $887 billion in Q2 include transactions incurred roughly in June but paid off in July that are not accruing interest. And this was boosted by the surge in traveling, much of which is paid for with credit cards.Other consumer loans, such as personal loans, payday loans, and Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) loans, all combined, rose to $470 billion in Q2, below where they’d been 20 years ago, despite 20 years of inflation and population growth. Trying to dodge rip-off usurious interest rates: Dwindling importance of credit card debt.People are borrowing lots of money to finance home purchases and auto purchases where loan balances have shot higher compared to 2008; and they’re taking out lots of student loans, whose balances have spiked since 2008. But in order to dodge getting ripped off by usurious interest rates, people are practically restrained when it comes to carrying interest-bearing debt on credit cards – shown by the huge amounts that are getting spent via credit cards, nearly all of which get paid in full every month and never accrue interest: Last year, $4.6 trillion was spent on credit cards, and yet, credit card balances only grew by $40 billion over the same period.
Americans loaded up on $40 billion more in debt in June, Fed says - Americans piled on $40.1 billion worth of debt in June, the Federal Reserve said Friday afternoon. The figure was considerably higher than economists' forecasts, after May's revised total of $23.8 billion. Americans' borrowing grew by 10.5% in June, compared to 6.3% in May, according to the Fed's G.19 consumer credit report. Revolving debt — roughly a proxy for outstanding credit card balances — rose by 16% after an 7.8% increase in May. Non-revolving debt, which includes loans like car loans and student loans, grew by 8.8% after a 5.8% increase in May. These figures exclude mortgage balances, which represent most of the debt carried by households. On a quarter-to-quarter basis, Americans borrowed an additional $98.9 billion, the Fed said. Friday's report comes on the heels of a separate release from the New York Fed that reported Americans' non-housing-related debt ballooned by $103 billion in the second quarter, the largest increase since 2016.
White women cut spending the most as Fed hikes rates, study shows - Monetary policy has a more significant impact on spending of U.S. households headed by white women than on those led by white men or Black men and women, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco said.White women with a mortgage decreased their spending twice as much as White households overall in the three years after an unexpected rate hike, Aina Puig, a research scholar with the San Francisco Fed, said in an economic letter published Monday. Changes in spending for the other cohorts were minimal, which could be explained by differences in wealth, occupation and economic well-being.“The group of households that have mortgages and are headed by white women is the only group that considerably cuts back on durable spending,” Puig wrote. “Black households reduce their spending on everyday goods and services more than white households, but not their spending on durable goods.”The Fed has increased interest rates by 2.25 percentage points this year as it tries to slow the fastest inflation in four decades that’s fueled by strong consumer spending and pandemic supply-chain problems. Policymakers are watching to see if their actions lead to a reduction in consumer demand and if that feeds through to lower prices.In recent years, the Fed has also indicated that it is more closely watching how its policy impacts Americans differently, especially along racial and gender lines. Spending differences among groups likely reflect individual preferences for what to buy and when to do so, Puig wrote.“These preferences may in part be due to income and wealth differences across groups, with some being more constrained than others in their spending,” Puig wrote.A majority of female-led households have no spouse, compared with 38% of households headed by men. Black households may not see a significant change in spending in an environment of interest rate increases because of “systemic racial inequalities in access to financial information, mortgaging refinancing options, and appropriate housing valuations,” Puig wrote.
Gas Prices Have Fallen for 50 Straight Days, Approach $4 a Gallon - U.S. gas prices have fallen for seven straight weeks and are approaching an average price of $4 a gallon, easing the pain of record-high fuel costs amid shrinking global demand for oil. The average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline sank to $4.16 Wednesday, the 50th straight day that prices have declined, according to OPIS, an energy-data and analytics provider. That is a 17% decline from the previous high of $5.02 a gallon set back on June 14, according to OPIS. Global demand for oil has fallen in recent weeks as economic growth has slowed around the world, including in China, analysts said. Demand data and consumer surveys also suggest Americans are driving less. That global drop-off in oil demand has led to an improvement in oil supplies, resulting in lower oil and wholesale fuel prices, analysts said. Americans, as a result, are paying less at the pump than they were at the beginning of the summer. “You’ve seen tremendous drops at wholesale prices really in every nook and cranny of the country,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for OPIS. Whether gas prices keep moving lower depends on several factors. Potential hurricanes around the Gulf of Mexico could force refineries offline, and unanticipated disruptions from the Russia-Ukraine conflict could both drive gas prices up again, analysts said. Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said he thinks the U.S. hit peak gas prices in June. The average price of gas could fall under $4 a gallon over the next week or two if there are no major disruptions to supplies, Mr. De Haan said.
Vehicles Sales Increased to 13.35 million SAAR in July -Wards Auto released their estimate of light vehicle sales for July. Wards Auto estimates sales of 13.35 million SAAR in July 2022 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), up 2.7% from the June sales rate, and down 9.0% from July 2021. This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and Wards Auto's estimate for July (red). The impact of COVID-19 was significant, and April 2020 was the worst month. After April 2020, sales increased, and were close to sales in 2019 (the year before the pandemic). However, sales decreased late last year due to supply issues. It appears the "supply chain bottom" was in September 2021. The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. Sales in July were below the consensus forecast of 13.5 million SAAR.
Nope, Auto-Loan Delinquencies and Repos Are Not “Exploding”: They Rose from Record Lows and Are Still Historically Low by Wolf Richter -A few weeks ago, an article on a major financial news site proclaimed in the headline that “Car Repos Are Exploding.” The article was circulated everywhere, and yet it was devoid of actual data on repos, it had no chart of repos, and was really just clickbait. Most people who spread this thing around the internet never read the article; they just read the clickbait headline, and that was good enough. … In 2020 and 2021, consumers used their stimulus money and extra unemployment benefits and their PPP loans and the cash left over from not having to make rent or mortgage payments, or whatever, to get caught up on their auto loans. And the rate of auto loans that were delinquent 30 days or more dropped from one historic low to the next and finally bottomed out in Q4 2021 at 5.0%. Since then, this delinquency rate has started to rise from the historic low. In Q2 2022, the delinquency rate rose to 5.6% of total auto loan balances, according to data today from the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report. It remains below the pre-pandemic low of 6.4%.The delinquency rate is now normalizing, heading back toward the old normal, which hovered at around 7% during the Good Times. Note how the delinquency rate began rising back in late 2005, in parallel with the Housing Bust, more than two years before the recession, because people under mortgage stress also fell behind on their auto loans. The delinquency rate continued rising as the mortgage crisis triggered the Financial Crisis when Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other financial firms collapsed (some got bailed out, others didn’t). Delinquency rates peaked in 2009 at nearly 11%, and then backed off. The delinquency rates during the Great Recession show what can happen when 10 million people end up unemployed at the peak..Balances of auto loans and leases rose 6.1% in Q2 year-over-year to $1.50 trillion in Q1, on much higher vehicle prices and much lower sales volume – meaning fewer loans, but with higher balances.The used vehicles CPI was up 6.1% year-over-year in June, and the new vehicles CPI was up 11.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.The average transaction price of new vehicles, which accounts for the shifting mix of vehicles, in addition to price increases, spiked by 14% year over year in June, to nearly $46,000, according to J.D. Power data. And these more expensive vehicles needed to get financed, and so the loans got bigger.But new vehicle sales, in terms on the number of vehicles sold, in Q2 were down by 21% year-over-year. And used-vehicle retail sales were down by about 10% year-over-year. So auto loan balances increased by 6.1% in Q2 to $1.5 trillion, on this mix of surging prices and falling sales, leading to fewer but bigger loans:
Used Vehicle Wholesale Prices Decreased 0.1% in July - From Manheim Consulting today: Wholesale Used-Vehicle Prices Decrease Minimally in July From Seasonal Adjustment Wholesale used-vehicle prices (on a mix, mileage, and seasonally adjusted basis) decreased 0.1% in July from June. The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index declined to 219.6, up 12.5% from a year ago. The non-adjusted price change in July decreased 3.2% compared to June, leaving the unadjusted average price up 10.2% year over year.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 slightly in July and are up 12.5% year-over-year (YoY).The YoY change is mostly getting smaller. This index was up 45% YoY in January.
Heavy Truck Sales Solid in July - The BEA released their estimate of vehicle sales for July this morning. This graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the July 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 declined sharply at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 308 thousand SAAR in May 2020. Heavy truck sales were at 477 thousand SAAR in July, up from 470 thousand in June, and up from 440 thousand SAAR in July 2021. Usually, heavy truck sales decline sharply prior to a recession. Sales were solid in July.
Trade Deficit decreased to $79.6 Billion in June - 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 $79.6 billion in June, down $5.3 billion from $84.9 billion in May, revised.June exports were $260.8 billion, $4.3 billion more than May exports. June imports were $340.4 billion, $1.0 billion less than May imports. Exports increased and imports decreased in June. Exports are up 23% year-over-year; imports are up 20% year-over-year. Both imports and exports decreased sharply due to COVID-19, and have now bounced back.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 $36.9 billion in June, from $27.7 billion a year ago.The trade deficit was lower than the consensus forecast, and the deficit for May was revised down.
ISM® Manufacturing index Decreased to 52.8% in July - The ISM manufacturing index indicated expansion. The PMI® was at 52.8% in July, down from 53.0% in June. The employment index was at 49.9%, up from 47.3% last month, and the new orders index was at 48.0%, down from 49.2%. From ISM: Manufacturing PMI® at 52.8% July 2022 Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® “The July Manufacturing PMI® registered 52.8 percent, down 0.2 percentage point from the reading of 53 percent in June. This figure indicates expansion in the overall economy for the 26th month in a row after a contraction in April and May 2020. This is the lowest Manufacturing PMI® figure since June 2020, when it registered 52.4 percent. The New Orders Index registered 48 percent, 1.2 percentage points lower than the 49.2 percent recorded in June. The Production Index reading of 53.5 percent is a 1.4-percentage point decrease compared to June’s figure of 54.9 percent. The Prices Index registered 60 percent, down 18.5 percentage points compared to the June figure of 78.5 percent; this is the index’s lowest reading since August 2020 (59.5 percent). The Backlog of Orders Index registered 51.3 percent, 1.9 percentage points below the June reading of 53.2 percent. The Employment Index contracted for a third straight month at 49.9 percent, 2.6 percentage points higher than the 47.3 percent recorded in June. The Supplier Deliveries Index reading of 55.2 percent is 2.1 percentage points lower than the June figure of 57.3 percent. The Inventories Index registered 57.3 percent, 1.3 percentage points higher than the June reading of 56 percent. The New Export Orders Index reading of 52.6 percent is up 1.9 percentage points compared to June’s figure of 50.7 percent. The Imports Index grew again in July, up 3.7 percentage points to 54.4 percent from 50.7 percent in June.” This suggests manufacturing expanded at a slower pace in July than in June. This was above the consensus forecast, however the employment index was weak again in July.
July manufacturing and June construction spending: leading components of both are negative - As usual, the new month’s first data is for manufacturing and construction. Here’s a look at each. The ISM manufacturing index, and especially its new orders subindex, is an important short leading indicator for the production sector. In July, for the second month in a row, the leading new orders index showed slight contraction, declining -1.2 from 49.2 to 48.0. The overall index - and all the other components, such as supplier deliveries, continued to show expansion, but also declined from 53.0 to 52.8: This index has a very long and reliable history. Going back almost 75 years, the new orders index has always fallen below 50 within 6 months before a recession, and in three cases did not actually cross the line until the first month of the recession itself - although the recession did not begin until after the total index fell below 50, and in fact usually below 48. In other words, this metric strongly suggests that it is likely that the economy will enter recession no later than Q1 of next year, and possibly much sooner (but probably not now). Meanwhile, construction spending declined - 1.1% in nominal terms in June, while May was revised up slightly to +0.1%. The more leading residential sector declined -1.6%, although May was revised sharply higher, from -0.1% to +0.8%: YoY nominally total construction is up +8.3% (down from +11.7% in February of this year) and residential construction is up +15.4% (down from +34% one year ago). Adjusting for price changes in construction materials, which declined -0.6% for the month, “real” construction spending declined -0.5% m/m, and residential spending fell -1.0% m/m. Thus in absolute terms, since December 2020, “real” construction spending has declined by -20.4%, while “real” residential construction spending has declined -9.5%: The decline in residential construction spending, while substantial, is less than its 2018-19 decline, and was nowhere near the -40.1% decline it suffered before the end of 2007. For the past few months I have been making the point that “it takes awhile for the downturn in mortgage applications, sales, and permits to filter through into actual construction, especially with record numbers of housing units permitted but not yet started.” In the past two months, it appears that has happened. In sum, both reports - for manufacturing and construction - are negatives going forward.
July Markit Manufacturing: Tough Biz Conditions - The July US Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 52.2, down 0.5 from the final June figure.Here is an excerpt from IHS Markit in their latest press release:Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit said:“With the exception of pandemic lockdown periods, July saw US manufacturers report the toughest business conditions since 2009. A growth spurt in the spring has quickly gone into reverse, with new orders for factory goods down for a second straight month in July, leading to the first drop in production for two years and sharply reduced employment growth.“The rising cost of living is the most commonly cited cause of lower sales, as well as the worsening economic outlook. “Companies are also taking an increasingly cautious approach to purchasing and inventories amid the gloomier outlook, and likewise appear to be cutting back on investment, with new orders falling especially sharply for business equipment and machinery in July.“Supply chain problems remain a major concern but have eased, taking some pressure off prices for a variety of inputs. This has fed through to the smallest rise in the price of goods leaving the factory gate seen for nearly one and a half years, the rate of inflation cooling sharply to add to signs that inflation has peaked.” [Press Release] Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012.
Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret. – If you’ve got a pair of Apple AirPods, they’re going to die — likely sooner rather than later. With mine, the the battery lasted a little over two years. And when it could no longer hold a charge, I had to toss it out and buy new AirPods, because the dead battery is glued inside. Is that just how technology works? No, that's just how tech companies make more money from you.We the users want electronics that are easy to use, beautiful — and also last a long time. So in my hunt for ways to make tech work better for us, I tried to figure out when 14 of my devices are going to die. Most of them, I discovered, could peter out within three to four years. And half of them are designed to just be thrown away. You can see all the details in my gadget graveyard.. Having to upgrade and replace gear regularly is annoying and it’s expensive. Even worse, it’s a hidden contributor to our environmental crisis. Here’s a dirty little secret of the tech industry: “Almost every device these days has a battery that’s going to wear out, and it’s a built-in death clock,” says Kyle Wiens, the CEO of repair community iFixit. Today, there are batteries in everything from your toothbrush to your vacuum cleaner. They are consumable products, like printer ink or tires. Advertisement But buying gear with batteries sealed inside is kind of like buying a car where you can’t change the tires. We just don’t realize we’re doing it, or how it’s contributing to our climate and sustainability crises.
ISM® Services Index Increased to 56.7% in July, Employment Contracted - The ISM® Services index was at 56.7%, up from 55.3% last month. The employment index increased to 49.1%, from 47.4%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 in contraction. From the Institute for Supply Management: Services PMI® at 56.7% July 2022 Services ISM® Report On Business® Economic activity in the services sector grew in July for the 26th month in a row — with the Services PMI® registering 56.7 percent “In July, the Services PMI® registered 56.7 percent, 1.4 percentage points higher than June’s reading of 55.3 percent. The Business Activity Index registered 59.9 percent, an increase of 3.8 percentage points compared to the reading of 56.1 percent in June. The New Orders Index figure of 59.9 percent is 4.3 percentage points higher than the June reading of 55.6 percent....The Employment Index (49.1 percent) contracted for the second consecutive month ...
Services PMI Signals "Strong Likelihood" Of 3rd Straight Quarterly US GDP Contraction -After both ISM and S&P Global Manufacturing Surveys showed continued weakness in July, analysts expected both Services Surveys to show further deterioration also - they were right and wrong.
- S&P Global US Services PMI fell from 52.7 to 47.3 in July (slightly above the flash print of 47.0). The contractionary signal is the lowest since June 2020.
- ISM Services rose from 55.3 to 56.7 in July (well above the 53.5 expected)
While S&P Global sees new orders, activity, and employment all falling, ISM somehow sees them all rebounding in July... Among comments from ISM respondents
- “Interest rates have significantly impacted the homebuilding market. Cancellation rates have increased, as homebuyers can no longer afford the monthly payment. Traffic to our communities is down. Inflation has sidelined many would-be buyers.” [Construction]
- “Can feel the economy weakening. Clients are making appropriate moves in anticipation of a recession.” [Management of Companies & Support Services]
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said: "US economic conditions worsened markedly in July, with business activity falling across both the manufacturing and service sectors. Excluding pandemic lockdown months, the overall fall in output was the largest recorded since the global financial crisis and signals a strong likelihood that the economy will contract for a third consecutive quarter. "Tightening financial conditions mean the financial services sector is leading the downturn, with a further steep rise in interest rates from the FOMC since the survey data were collected likely to intensify the downturn. Higher interest rates, alongside the ongoing surge in inflation, have meanwhile spilled over to the consumer sector, meaning the surge in household spending on goods and activities such as travel, tourism, hospitality and recreation seen in the spring has now moved into reverse as household spending is diverted to essentials."Although employment continued to rise in July, the rate of job creation has also slowed sharply since the spring and looks set to weaken further in the coming months as firms cut operating capacity in line with weakening demand."The flip side of deterioration in demand is a welcome alleviation of price pressures, which hint at a peaking of inflation. The S&P Global US Composite PMI Output Index posted 47.7 in July, down from 52.3 in June to signal a renewed contraction in private sector business activity.
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims increase to 260,000 -- The DOL reported: In the week ending July 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 260,000, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 2,000 from 256,000 to 254,000. The 4-week moving average was 254,750, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 500 from 249,250 to 248,750.The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971. The previous week was revised down.Weekly claims were lower than the consensus forecast.
BLS: Job Openings Decreased to 10.7 million in June - From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary The number of job openings decreased to 10.7 million on the last business day of June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires and total separations were little changed at 6.4 million and 5.9 million, respectively. Within separations, quits (4.2 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.3 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. Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are usually pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs.The spike in layoffs and discharges in March 2020 is labeled, but off the chart to better show the usual data.Jobs openings decreased in June to 10.698 million from 11.303 million in May. The number of job openings (black) were up 9% year-over-year. Quits were up 5% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (See light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").
Job openings declined in June but remain much higher than pre-pandemic -- EPI Blog -Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her initial insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for June. Read the full Twitter thread here.
- Slight correction. Job openings are down each month since March’s series high. That’s three months in a row of declines. Please pardon the error in counting months when it’s now August and the data are for June. — Elise Gould (@eliselgould) August 2, 2022
- Hiring continues to outpace quits in every major sector as workers seek and find new jobs. Churn remains highest in low-wage accommodation and food services. Wage growth in that sector suggests workers are finding better jobs when they quit. pic.twitter.com/JbNQv4Dub0 — Elise Gould (@eliselgould) August 2, 2022
- The hires rate in accommodation and food services ticked up for two months in a row even as the quits rate remains the highest across all sectors. Every month, workers continue to quit their jobs and find new and likely better opportunities within accommodation and food services.pic.twitter.com/ShdZXoPK3T — Elise Gould (@eliselgould) August 2, 2022
July Employment Report: 528 thousand Jobs, 3.5% Unemployment Rate --From the BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 528,000 in July, and the unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job growth was widespread, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, and health care. Both total nonfarm employment and the unemployment rate have returned to their February 2020 pre-pandemic levels....The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised up by 2,000, from +384,000 to +386,000, and the change for June was revised up by 26,000, from +372,000 to +398,000. With these revisions, employment in May and June combined is 28,000 higher 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, 29 months after the onset of the current employment recession, all of the jobs have returned.The second graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.In July, the year-over-year change was 6.15 million jobs. This was up significantly year-over-year.Total payrolls increased by 528 thousand in July. Private payrolls increased by 471 thousand, and public payrolls increased 57 thousand. Payrolls for May and June were revised up 28 thousand, combined.The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate. The Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 62.1% in July, from 62.2% in June. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.The Employment-Population ratio increased to 60.0% from 59.9% (blue line). The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.The unemployment rate was decreased in July to 3.5% from 3.6% in June.This was well above consensus expectations; and May and June payrolls were revised up by 28,000 combined.
Employers added 528,000 jobs in July, shattering expectations -The hot labor market strengthened more than expected last month, as employers added 528,000 jobs, a stunning figure that reflects an economy well recovered from the pandemic, quelling fears that a recession could be imminent. Share with The Post: What’s one way you’ve felt the impact of inflation? The unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reaching its lowest point since February 2020, tying for the lowest rate since 1969. However, that figure includes some workers who left the labor force, an ongoing pandemic trend. The job market has more than recovered its pandemic losses, building confidence that a red-hot labor market can persevere, even as other parts of the economy sour. The momentum has afforded workers historic wage gains and more leverage at their jobs. The July jobs report caps off a staggering 19 months worth of gains, notching a big political victory for President Biden and Democrats running for office this fall. Growing dissatisfaction about the economy has weighed on Biden’s popularity, especially from within the Democratic Party. However, job growth remains a bright spot, with the economy picking up, on average, more than half a million jobs each month of Biden’s presidency. “Today, we received another outstanding jobs report,” Biden said Friday at a news briefing. “That’s the fastest job growth in history today. We also matched the lowest unemployment rate in America in the last 50 years, 3.5 percent. What we’re also seeing is something that just a few years ago many experts said was literally impossible.” “Thanks in part to Republican governors removing the Biden work barrier that pays the jobless more to stay home than to work, the July jobs report finally met expectations,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) said. “The labor force participation rate still hasn’t improved in 2021, which is a red flag for tepid growth ahead.” Huge job pickups were seen across a broad spectrum of categories, as leisure and hospitality led the way with 96,000 jobs added. Demand for consumer services has continued to be strong all summer, despite higher prices on groceries, gasoline and other basic needs. Also, professional and business services added 89,000 jobs, with gains in architectural and engineering services, technical consulting, and scientific research and development. Health care picked up 70,000 jobs, primarily in health-care services and hospitals and nursing facilities. Jobs also grew in government, construction, manufacturing and mining. “This report is a fantastic sign for the labor market,” said Julia Pollak, labor economist at ZipRecruiter. “There’s plenty of indication that inflation is coming down. Gas prices are coming down. Inventory levels are rising. It looks like we can manage to get inflation under control without halting job market recovery. There’s reason to think the labor market can weather the storm.” Even the June jobs report was revised upward to 398,000, up from 372,000, showing the continued momentum for growth this summer. Economists and White House officials had predicted a slowdown in job growth last month due to economic indicators that raised alarms. Inflation hit 40-year highs and the economy shrank over the past six months on the year, typically a benchmark for recessions. The financial markets have also lost trillions of dollars in value this year, and one measure of consumer sentiment hit a record low in June. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has exacerbated the pandemic-era supply chain crisis and inflation around the world.
July jobs report: in which an absolute positive blowout make me happily wrong; all pandemic job losses now recovered - As I wrote earlier this week, the short leading indicators for both jobs (real retail sales) and the unemployment rate (initial jobless claims) have each signaled that we should expect weaker monthly employment reports, with both fewer new jobs and a higher unemployment rate. I have been noting this ever since February, when consumption growth started to flag, It already had shown up by last month, as the 3 month average in new jobs decelerated from over 500,000 to 383,000. The complete opposite happened in July, as job gains surged and the unemployment rate declined further. Together with the upward revisions to the last two months, as of now there are 22,000 MORE jobs than there were just before the pandemic. Further, the skew of those jobs is away from lower paying sectors towards higher paying ones. Here’s my in depth synopsis:
- 528,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 471,000. Government jobs increase by 57,000.
- The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report indicated a gain of 179,000 jobs. The above household number factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below.
- U3 unemployment rate declined 0.1% to 3.5%, equal to the January 2020 low.
- U6 underemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7%, tied for its all-time low.
- Those not in the labor force at all, but who want a job now, rose 254,000 to 5.910 million, compared with 4.996 million in February 2020.
- Those on temporary layoff declined -36,000 to 791,000.
- Permanent job losers declined -107,000 to 1,166,000.
- May was revised upward by 2,000, and June was also revised upward by 26,000, for a net increase of 28,000 jobs compared with previous reports.
- the average manufacturing workweek, one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators, rose 0.1 hour to 41.1 hours.
- Manufacturing jobs increased 30,000, and is at a level higher than it was before the pandemic.
- Construction jobs increased 32,000. All of the jobs lost during the pandemic have also been made up in this sector.
- Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, rose by 2,900.
- Temporary jobs rose by 9,800. Since the beginning of the pandemic, over 250,000 such jobs have been gained.
- the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less declined by -182,000 to 2,080,000, which is also below its pre-pandemic level.Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose $0.11 to $27.75, which is a 6.2% YoY gain, a further decline of -0.2% from last month and 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 above its level just before the pandemic.
- the index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers rose by 0.8%, which is below the average inflation gain of 0.9% in the past 3 months.
- Leisure and hospitality jobs, which were the most hard-hit during the pandemic, rose 96000, but are still -7.1% below their pre-pandemic peak.
- Within the leisure and hospitality sector, food and drink establishments added 74,100 jobs, but are still about 635,000, or -5.1% below their pre-pandemic peak.
- Professional and business employment increased by 89,000, which is about 1,000,000 above its pre-pandemic peak.
- Full time jobs declined -71,000 in the household report.
- Part time jobs increased 384,000 in the household report.
- The number of job holders who were part time for economic reasons increased 308,000 to 3,924,000, above last month’s 20 year low.
- The Labor Force Participation Rate declined another -0.1% to 62.1%, vs. 63.4% in February 2020.
SUMMARY: This report was an unexpected blowout, plain and simple. All of the pandemic job losses have been made up. We are near or at all-time lows in both the unemployment and underemployment rates. *All* of the leading indicators in the report were positive, meaning we should not expect the jobs sector to roll over anytime in the immediate future. Temporary layoffs declined. The only area still lagging is in the lower-paying leisure and hospitality sector, while there are almost 1,000,000 *more* higher paying jobs in the professional and business sector. There were a few warts. Average hourly earnings once again did not keep up with inflation, a significant negative. The decline in unemployment was helped by a *lower* labor force participation rate. The number of full time jobs actually declined.The strength of the jobs market has been the best reason why the US is not currently in a recession. This report added to that argument. On the other hand, I want to caution that some of the great news in this report may be due to comparisons with the distortions of the last two summers, particularly with regard to temporary and education jobs. In other words, we might give this back come September. Leading indicators are still leading, and unless consumers use their new gas savings to spend on other stuff, I still expect job gains to flag in coming months. But for this month, I was very happily wrong.
Recession Mongers Shocked & Horrified by this Surge in Employment by Wolf Richter - It wasn’t the hottest growth in jobs ever, but it was big and exceeded the pre-pandemic average job growth. Employers added 528,000 workers to their payrolls in July, and 2.79 million over the past three months. Wages jumped, but less than raging inflation, and the number of unemployed people actively looking for work fell to the lowest since the year 2000, at the verge of the dotcom bust.It was a shock-and-awe disappointment for the recession mongers out there that want a recession more than anything because, according to their thinking, it would “force” the Fed to pivot and start cutting rates – despite what the Fed actually says – and end this horrifying QT in a market that is addicted to QE and will suffocate under QT. They want the Fed to reverse the tightening though it has barely started (way too late), so that stocks can continue to get inflated to the moon. Someday we’re going to get a recession – eventually there always is one. Knuckling under this raging inflation will likely require a recession, yet a shallow recession might not be enough to get the job done as this inflation is getting more and more entrenched. But it’s just very tough to have an official recession with this type of labor market, with employment growing and wages growing sharply, and with unemployment falling. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) calls out recessions in the US, and the NBER’s definition has been the same for decades, and it hasn’t changed, and its definition includes labor market metrics, some of which we got today. This strength in payrolls is supported by other data, such as the still historically high number of job openings that employers reported for June, along with massive churn and job hopping among very confident workersthat are going for better-paying jobs, and amid aggressive hiring by employers to fill their jobs.OK, cash-incinerating startups are now worried about running out of cash to incinerate, as obtaining new fuel to incinerate has become more difficult, and they’re trying to cut their cash-burn rates by reducing their payroll. Among them are Robinhood and other former high-flyers, some of which have become heroes in my Imploded Stocks column, that have lost oodles of money during their existence. But that’s a small – and very crazy – corner of the labor market, and the layoff numbers are minuscule compared to the overall labor market.Overall, layoffs and discharges in June and in the prior months were at historic lows. And there are still large-scale staff shortages in the healthcare system, school systems, airlines, and many other industries.So the total number of workers on nonfarm payrolls rose by 528,000 in July to 152.54 million workers, a new record, finally and for the first time beating the pre-pandemic high, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey of establishments today. And this number of workers on payrolls continues to catch up with the pre-pandemic trend (green line):
Comments on July Employment Report - Today we celebrate the recovery of all the jobs lost in 2020, and the unemployment rate matching the lowest level since 1969. The headline jobs number in the July employment report was well above expectations, and employment for the previous two months was revised up by 28,000, combined. The participation rate decreased slightly, and the employment-population ratio increased slightly. The unemployment rate declined to 3.5%. Leisure and hospitality gained 96 thousand jobs in July. At the beginning of the pandemic, in March and April of 2020, leisure and hospitality lost 8.20 million jobs, and are now down 1.21 million jobs since February 2020. So, leisure and hospitality has now added back about 85% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020. Construction employment increased 32 thousand and is now 82 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing added 30 thousand jobs and is now 41 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Earlier: July Employment Report: 528 thousand Jobs, 3.5% Unemployment Rate. In July, the year-over-year employment change was 6.15 million jobs. 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 increased in July to 82.4% from 82.3% in June, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio increased to 80.0% from 79.8% 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 increased by 303,000 to 3.9 million in July. This rise reflected an increase in the number of persons whose hours were cut due to slack work or business conditions. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons 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 increased in July to 3.924 million from 3.621 million in June. This is below pre-recession levels. These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that was unchanged at 6.7% from 6.7% 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). Unemployed over 26 Weeks This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more. According to the BLS, there are 1.067 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job, down from 1.336 million the previous month. This is back to pre-pandemic lows. Summary: The headline monthly jobs number was well above expectations and employment for the previous two months was revised up by 28,000, combined. The headline unemployment rate declined to 3.5%, matching the lowest level in over 50 years. Overall, this was another very strong employment report.
Amazon Cuts 100,000 Employees From Workforce In A Single Quarter --Amazon, one of the largest tech employers in the world, has revealed that it is now hiring at the slowest pace since 2019 and has cut over 100,000 employees globally in the June quarter, likely due to the dramatic economic slowdown since 2021. It is the largest workforce cut in a single quarter in the history of the company. The layoffs are part of an increasing trend of protecting the bottom line within the tech industry. The cuts likely played a large role in Amazon's recent revenues beat and their rosy profit projections for the third quarter, though it still lost a net $2 billion in the second quarter. The more employees lose their jobs, the more healthy the company appears to be when shareholders examine quarterly earnings; it is inevitable that layoffs will continue. There have been over 30,000 job cuts by tech companies in the US in the past few months alone, and unemployment claims have climbed to 8-month highs.The covid pandemic lockdowns and subsequent stimulus checks created an enormous artificial boost for tech companies like Amazon in 2020 and 2021, but the $6 trillion stimulus has since circulated out of the pockets of most Americans and globally the lockdowns did incredible harm to existing economic stability. Demand for peripheral goods is in steep decline as inflation in necessities continues to rise. In 2022, the stagflation crisis is leading to imminent demand destruction. This news comes as multiple companies are announcing layoffs and hiring freezes. Google parent Alphabet Inc. is instituting a hiring freeze. Apple is slowing its hiring this year. Coinbase is cutting 18% of it's staff. Microsoft has announced a hiring slowdown. Netflix has cut at least 500 employees recently, not including contractor cuts. Peloton is firing over 2800 workers so far this year. Online brokerage Robinhood terminated 9% of its workforce in April. Twitter cut 30% of its talent acquisition team this past month but declined to give a specific number of layoffs. The list goes on and on. The steep reversal from only a year ago highlights the swift nature of the economic downturn and also shows how dependent the tech industry is on consumers having large amounts of expendable income. When the financial environment gets tight, Big Tech corporations are among the first to feel the crunch because most of them offer very little in terms of necessities.
Kansans Overwhelmingly Reject New Abortion Restrictions -In a decisively lopsided win for pro-abortion activists, Kansas voters on Tuesday rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have expanded the legislature's power to restrict abortions. With 98% of votes tallied, "no" votes were ahead 59% to 41%. It was the first major test of voter sentiment on abortion since the June U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade and effectively left it to individual state legislatures to decide which, if any, abortion restrictions are to be allowed.The referendum may also be an indicator of voter motivation in the upcoming midterms. Turnout soared to a level not seen since the 2008 primary -- with then-Senator Obama on the ballot -- and may set a record when the counting is done. Observers projected a 36% voter turnout, but it may have hit 50%. Historically, about twice as many Republicans have voted in the state's August primaries compared to Democrats. To take one example that puts the abortion result in context, consider Ellis County. In 2020, Trump won in a resounding 71%-27% landslide. However, on Tuesday, the "yes" vote only prevailed 58% to 42%. The ballot measure was aimed at negating a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court ruling. In a 6-1 decision, the court found that abortions are protected under the state constitution as an unenumerated "natural right of personal autonomy."The operative part of Tuesday's ballot proposition, which was a proposed amendment to the state's constitution, stated:"The constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion. The people, through their elected state representatives and state senators, may pass laws regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, laws that account for circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or circumstances of necessity to save the life of the mother." Despite the referendum outcome, abortions will still be subject to some restrictions in Kansas. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, they're generally prohibited at 22 weeks and post-viability -- a term that describes the ability of a fetus to survive outside a woman's uterus.
Faith-based groups sue to overturn Florida's 15-week abortion ban - — A collection of faith groups is suing Florida over its 15-week abortion ban, the third legal challenge to the state’s controversial new abortion law. The lawsuit, filed Monday in Miami-Dade County Court, argues that the new law, passed by lawmakers during the 2022 legislative session and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, violates constitutional freedom of speech, the free exercise of religion and the constitutional separation of Church and State.“For decades, the Catholic bishops and Evangelical right wing have claimed a singular religious high ground on the issue of abortion rights, and tried to label anyone opposed to their views as ‘secularists,’” said Marci Hamilton, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, who is representing the plaintiffs. “Yet there are millions of Americans whose deeply held religious beliefs, speech and conduct are being substantially burdened by restrictive abortion bans.” The lawsuit was filed on behalf of multiple religious groups, including Reform Judaism, Buddhism, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Church. “The relationship between clergy and their congregants has, until now, been protected, revered, and respected as sacrosanct and inviolable,” reads the lawsuit. “Now, Defendants have inserted themselves into this alliance by imposing criminal penalties on those who counsel, aid and/or assist with an abortion after fifteen weeks, with no religious accommodation provided and no exceptions for the psychological health of the pregnant woman or girl, incest, rape, or trafficking, non-fatal fetal abnormalities, or psychological disease or impairment.” This lawsuit follows one filed in Leon County Circuit Court June by a South Florida Jewish congregation that also argues the new law, which provides no exceptions for rape and incest, violates rights to privacy and religion. A separate lawsuit filed by The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, on behalf of Planned Parenthood, argues the new abortion law violates privacy language in Florida’s constitution that bans governments from intruding in people’s personal lives. That same language has been used in the past to strike down previous abortion laws.
The closing of the San Francisco Art Institute: “The artists can go hang themselves”The announcement in mid-July that the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) would cease operations, no longer offering courses or degrees, is a significant and telling event. Whatever the concrete circumstances and whichever individuals or bodies may bear some degree of responsibility, the shuttering of the once renowned school is a further sign—in the broadest sense—that, in the eyes of the American ruling elite, as we noted in April 2021 in regard to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, “the artists can go hang themselves.” The situation is extraordinary. Not only was the SFAI one of the oldest art academies in the US, and the oldest in its Western half, it was located in one of the most dynamic cultural centers in the country historically, the Bay Area. In fact, the institute was a focal point of various artistic trends and movements in the 20th century. Now it has disappeared, without substantial outcry or protest, certainly not from the city’s affluent upper echelons. In their July 15 announcement, Art Institute officials explained that after “many years of austerity measures, challenging fundraising campaigns, and various on and off merger and acquisition negotiations … SFAI is no longer financially viable and has ceased its degree programs as of July 15, 2022. SFAI will remain a nonprofit organization to protect its name, archives, and legacy.” The school’s press release, written with a degree of bitterness, noted that as of July 16 “no students or employees will fill SFAI’s historic landmark campus, a beautiful and unique spot in San Francisco with its glorious Diego Rivera fresco … Instead, a few contractors will manage security, regulatory, legal, and financial matters, and ensure that students and alumni can access their academic records.” According to the SFAI’s own historical account, “During its first 60 years, influential artists associated with the school included Eadweard Muybridge, photographer and pioneer of motion graphics; Maynard Dixon, painter of San Francisco’s labor movement and of the landscape of the West; Henry Kiyama, whose Four Immigrants Manga was the first graphic novel published in the U.S.; Sargent Claude Johnson, one of the first African-American artists from California to achieve a national reputation; Louise Dahl-Wolfe, an innovative photographer whose work for Harper’s Bazaar in the 1930s defined a new American style of ‘environmental’ fashion photography; John Gutzon Borglum, the creator of the large-scale public sculpture known as Mt. Rushmore; and numerous others.” Following World War II, “the school became a nucleus for Abstract Expressionism.” The first fine art photography department in the US was established at the SFAI in 1946. “By the early 1950s, San Francisco’s North Beach was the West Coast center of the Beat Movement, and music, poetry, and discourse were an intrinsic part of artists’ lives.” SFAI faculty members have included photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Minor White, painters Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, Clyfford Still, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko and filmmakers Stan Brakhage and George Kuchar. The closure places Mexican artist Rivera’s famed work, The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, painted at the school in May 1931, in a precarious position. The July 15 announcement explains that the SFAI owns the fresco in its Chestnut Street campus, while the “University of California owns the building. SFAI will lose possession of the fresco if it defaults on or loses its lease on the building. SFAI is actively working with local and international donor communities to protect the fresco.”
As children's ADHD diagnoses rise, parents discover they have it, too - When her son Jake was diagnosed with ADHD at age 11, it didn’t occur to Cary Colleran that she may have the condition as well. She’s disorganized. That’s all. It still didn’t occur to her when Colleran remembered how stuck and incapable she felt when she was young. She was simply relieved her son was succeeding in ways she hadn’t. It only occurred to her eight years after Jake was diagnosed. Colleran, then 45, was on the phone with her son’s doctor. Jake wasn’t doing well in college; he stopped taking his medication, forgot to attend mandatory events and sat in the wrong class for six weeks. Colleran began to joke that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The doctor didn’t miss a beat: “He was like, ‘Well, you know, sometimes when the parent has ADHD, the kid does, too,’ ” Colleran said. “That’s when the aha moment hit.” With an increase in children being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in recent years, parents who grew up in a time when receiving such a diagnosis was rare are starting to understand that perhaps they, too, have it. That years of struggling to focus on schoolwork, being told they weren’t living up to their potential, getting bored at jobs or losing track of things might be more than a personality trait. They were feeling inadequate because, despite their best efforts, they didn’t get the results they wanted. “When you start to talk about this and symptoms of ADHD with parents, you can see it in their faces sometimes: ‘You’re talking about me. I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t know what to call it,’ ” said William Stixrud, founder of the Stixrud Group, which specializes in the evaluation of learning, attention, social and emotional difficulties. “They think about ADHD like we did 50 years ago: that it’s being hyperactive, impulsive, all the time. And some people think it’s over-diagnosed.”
Day care worker tested positive for monkeypox, potentially exposing children, officials say - A person who works at a day care in Illinois has tested positive for monkeypox and potentially exposed children, who are at higher risk for severe outcomes from the virus, state officials announced Friday. Officials are screening children and others who were potentially exposed for symptoms, and the Food and Drug Administration is allowing the children to receive the Jynneos vaccine, which is authorized only for adults. The vaccine can prevent infection or reduce the severity of symptoms after exposure.Authorities said no one else has tested positive. Illinois health officials had determined that between 40 and 50 people, many of whom are children, had been potentially exposed to the day-care worker directly or to items that had been handled by the person, officials said.“We are casting a wide net,” Julie Pryde, administrator of theChampaign-Urbana Public Health District, wrote in a text message Friday night. Pryde said that several dozen children had been offered vaccines, pending their guardians’ approval. Officials from the new White House team of monkeypox coordinators, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention learned of the day-care worker’s infection early Friday afternoon and worked to expedite vaccines to the potentially exposed individuals. One official estimated that the necessary paperwork to allow children to receive the vaccines was completed within an hour, noting that the faster a vaccine is given after exposure the more likely it is to prevent infection.
D.C. Schools covid vaccine mandate rare among national school systems - D.C. students who are 12 and older must be vaccinated against the coronavirus to attend school this upcoming academic year. The youth vaccine mandate in D.C. is among the strictest in the nation, according to health experts, and is being enacted in a city with wide disparities in vaccination rates between its White and Black children. Overall, about 85 percent of students between the ages of 12 and 15 have been vaccinated against the virus, but the rate drops to 60 percent among Black children in this age range. If the city does not close this gap but does strictly enforce the vaccine mandate this fall, students of color — who experienced disproportionately large academic setbacks during the pandemic — could be at home in significant numbers next academic year. “Our goal is that no child should miss a single day of school,” Asad Bandealy, the chief of the D.C. Department of Health’s Health Care Access Bureau, said at a news conference this week at Mary’s Center, a community health clinic where children can be vaccinated. “And that means we need to get started now.” D.C. is one of few districts to make coronavirus vaccination a requirement for attending school. The mandate reflects, in part, the city’s unique education governance structure. The requirement came from the 13-member D.C. Council, not from a school board. And because D.C. is a federal district rather than a state, there is no state health agency with which the city can be in conflict. Elsewhere in the country, the New Orleans public school system in February added the coronavirus vaccine to its list of required immunizations for children 5 years and older. The rest of the state was scheduled to do the same for the upcoming school year, but changed course in May because the vaccines did not yet have full approval from the Food and Drug Administration for children under 16. Full approval for the vaccine for ages 12 to 15 was granted in early July.
Florida man seeks Bible ban throughout the state's schools : NPR - A Florida activist known for his tongue-in-cheek petitions to local government agencies has asked school districts in Florida to ban the Bible.In petitions sent to public school superintendents across the state, Chaz Stevens asked the districts to "immediately remove the Bible from the classroom, library, and any instructional material," Stevens wrote in the documents, which were shared with NPR. "Additionally, I also seek the banishment of any book that references the Bible."His petitions cited a bill signed into law last month by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which lets parents object to educational materials. That bill came about after some parents complained about sexually explicit books being taught in Florida schools.Many of those books, such as Gender Queer: A Memoir, deal with LGBTQ themes and coming out stories. DeSantis celebrated the removal of Gender Queer at a news conference after the signing of the law. It's "a cartoon-style book with graphic images of children performing sexual acts," he said last month. "That is wrong."Liberals have been critical of the legislation. After passage, the state's Democratic leader, Lauren Book, lamented Florida's joining "places like Russia and China, modern-day examples of what happens when free thought and free speech are tightly restricted in all levels of society, including in school."So, with Florida the latest flashpoint in the culture wars, Stevens decided it was time to take up arms. His target: The Bible. "My objection to the Bible being in your public schools is based on the following seven points, offered for your learned consideration," Stevens wrote.Stevens proceeded to question whether the Bible is age-appropriate, pointing to its "casual" references to murder, adultery, sexual immorality, and fornication. "Do we really want to teach our youth about drunken orgies?"He also took issue with the many Biblical references to rape, bestiality, cannibalism and infanticide. "In the end, if Jimmy and Susie are curious about any of the above, they can do what everyone else does – get a room at the Motel Six and grab the Gideons," he wrote.The 57-year-old Deerfield Beach man says his ire was stoked after Florida lawmakers decided this month to ban 54 math books that were claimed to have incorporated topics such as critical race theory. "I love the algebras," says Stevens, who studied applied mathematics in college. "And those Tally [Tallahassee] loons just banned a bunch of arithmetic books?"
Arizona Republicans want a school culture war victory. A moderate Democrat stands in their way. - Arizona Republicans want to seize the state’s school superintendent office this fall — and they’ve put race, sexuality and parents’ academic anxiety at the center of their campaigns. Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, a Democratic critic of Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, will face the victor of an Aug. 2 GOP primary race that’s piled onto rhetoric wielded by conservative state politicians, and Govs. Ron DeSantis and Glenn Youngkin. The heated contest to oversee public schooling for more than 1 million children marks a test of how a swing-state Democrat might hold onto their office as the Republican Party increasingly builds an offensive on reshaping education. But Tuesday’s down-ballot election will also pit conservatives’ education message against a swath of undecided voters as political attention gets directed at Arizona’s crowded gubernatorial and Senate primaries. The Republican primary features a onetime state superintendent-turned-attorney general, a real estate business owner who now ranks at the top of the GOP primary’s latest poll, and a Maricopa County state representative who married into the Udall family political dynasty. They have courted endorsements from far-right figures including former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Rep. Paul Gosar. And each of the aspiring school chiefs have portrayed classrooms as being overrun with hypersexualized lessons and critical race theory that harm children still regrouping after months of mask mandates and school closures.
Lawsuit dismissed in Montgomery magnet school admissions discrimination case - A lawsuit alleging Maryland’s largest school district discriminated against its Asian American students after it changed its magnet program admissions process has been dismissed by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis concluded in the dismissal last week that the complaint failed to show that Montgomery County Public Schools’ revision to its admissions process at the start of the pandemic “disparately impacts Asian American students or had been implemented with discriminatory intent.” Two years ago, the Association for Education Fairness, a parent group, filed complaints against the school system arguing that it unlawfully used race as a factor in admissions in its efforts to increase racial diversity in magnet programs with revisions made before the 2018 school year. The school system revised its policies again during the pandemic, before the 2021-2022 school year, to shift to an admissions model that could be done virtually to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Advertisement The parent group updated its legal complaints against the system and argued the new model continued to disadvantage Asian American students. They pointed to data that showed 35 percent of Asian American students countywide achieved the “highest level” on the Maryland’s state assessment, yet only 24 percent of those students were placed in the magnet programs, according to the legal filings. U.S. officials probe alleged discrimination against Asian American students in Md. As part of the dismissal the judge noted that Asian American students maintained a “strong representation in the magnet programs relative to their composition in the applicant pool.” The judge also noted there was little evidence the latest admissions process was designed to favor one racial group over the other. “We are disappointed in the outcome and we will be discussing next steps with our client in the coming days,” said Christopher Kieser, one of the attorneys for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing the group of Asian American parents who filed complaints
School districts facing 'crisis' teaching shortage - Rural school districts in Texas are switching to four-day weeks this fall due to lack of staff. Florida is asking veterans with no teaching background to enter classrooms. Arizona is allowing college students to step in and instruct children. The teacher shortage in America has hit crisis levels — and school officials everywhere are scrambling to ensure that, as students return to classrooms, someone will be there to educate them. “I have never seen it this bad,” Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association, said of the teacher shortage. “Right now it’s number one on the list of issues that are concerning school districts ... necessity is the mother of invention, and hard-pressed districts are going to have to come up with some solutions.” Students this year need summer school. Some districts can’t staff it. It is hard to know exactly how many U.S. classrooms are short of teachers for the 2022-2023 school year; no national database precisely tracks the issue. But state- and district-level reports have emerged across the country detailing staffing gaps that stretch from the hundreds to the thousands — and remain wide open as summer winds rapidly to a close. The Nevada State Education Association estimated that roughly 3,000 teaching jobs remained unfilled across the state’s 17 school districts as of early August. In a January report, the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents found that 88 percent of school districts statewide were having “problems with teacher shortages” — while 2,040 teacher openings were either empty or filled with a “less than qualified” hire. And in the Houston area, the largest five school districts are all reporting that between 200 and 1,000 teaching positions remain open. Carlton Jenkins, superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin, said teachers are so scarce that superintendents across the country have developed a whisper network to alert each other when educators move between states. “We’re at a point right now, where if I have people who want to move to California, I call up and give a reference very quick,” he said. “And if someone is coming from another place — say, Minnesota — I have superintendent colleagues in Minnesota, they call and say, ‘Hey, I have teachers coming your way.’ ” Why are America’s schools so short-staffed? Experts point to a confluence of factors including pandemic-induced teacher exhaustion, low pay and some educators’ sense that politicians and parents — and sometimes their own school board members — have little respect for their profession amid an escalating educational culture war that has seen many districts and states pass policies and laws restricting what teachers can say about U.S. history, race, racism, gender and sexual orientation, as well as LGBTQ issues. “The political situation in the United States, combined with legitimate aftereffects of covid, has created this shortage,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “This shortage is contrived.” The stopgap solutions for lack of staff run the gamut, from offering teachers better pay to increasing the pool of people who qualify as educators to bumping up class sizes. But many of these temporary fixes are likely to harm students by diminishing their ability to learn, predicted Dawn Etcheverry, president of the Nevada State Education Association.
Teachers in Ohio’s largest school district give 10-day strike notice - – A little more than two weeks from the first day of school for students, teachers in Ohio’s largest school district voted late Thursday night to authorize a 10-day strike notice. With contract negotiations stalled, the Columbus Education Association voted to give its strike notice. This allows it to file that notice with the State Employment Relations Board at any time. Students are scheduled to start school Aug. 24. “The vote tonight is a vote of confidence in our bargaining team and our fight for the safe, properly maintained, fully resourced schools Columbus students deserve,” said Regina Fuentes, a spokeswoman for CEA. “CEA has consistently maintained that we are fighting not just for CEA members, but for our students and community. That is why CEA will continue that fight until a fair agreement is reached for the schools Columbus students deserve.” State law requires a public employee union to provide 10 days advanced notice of an intention to picket, strike or any other refusal to work. A strike could come as soon as 10 days after filing with the SERB. The union is asking for smaller class sizes, full-time art, music and physical education teachers at the elementary-school level, functioning heating and air-conditioning in classrooms, planning time at the elementary level and a cap on the number of class periods in a day. “Of course, we don’t want to strike, but our students, teachers and community deserve a contract that supports and bolsters better learning conditions. Our vote tonight should send a strong message to the board to return to the bargaining table immediately,” Fuentes said. The Columbus City Board of Education, in a statement, called a strike disruptive and harmful to students, more so after issues students were faced with over the past two years during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “The board’s offer is fair, comprehensive, and respectful, and we had hoped our teachers would carefully consider it,” the board’s statement read. “A strike is disruptive and hurts our students most, especially after everything they have experienced over the last few years. And that is why our team is well prepared for an alternate opening should a strike actually take place. Our students' academic progress and social emotional well-being will remain our top priorities.”
Rise of the ‘jackhammer parent’ - Last year, a website called VeryWellFamily.com published an article on “lawn-mower parents” — successors to the “helicopter parent” who were long known for “hovering” over their children and being overly involved in their lives. Lawn-mower parents were even more overly involved, according to the article, making “helicopter parents look mild in comparison,” not just hovering. “They mow down obstacles and create clear paths,” it says. “And, heaven help anyone that gets in their kids’ way.”Today, teachers say, some parents have taken even that to extremes, with harmful results. In this post, veteran educator Kelly Treleaven writes about her experience with the advent of what she calls “jackhammer parents” at a time of egregious political polarization in public education — and why they could drive educators out of the profession.Treleaven taught middle-school English for 11 years in Houston and is now associate editor at the WeAreTeachers website, where this first appeared. Treleaven, author of the book “Love, Teach: Real Stories and Honest Advice to Keep Teachers From Crying Under Their Desks,” gave me permission to publish the piece.
Older People now Outnumber Younger People With Student Loan Debt* - That coming from Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice Org. I have been writing about him, his supporters and followers, his Org. Student Loan Justice, and the government’s response to student loans for a decade now. This is news, facts, etc. about 45 million people in 2022 and not some anecdote. The post title comes from Alan Collinge’s* article in an email to me after I sent him this article, surprisingly originating in the New Yorker.“The Aging Student Debtors of America” | The New Yorker, Eleni Schirmer, long and well written with a plethora of facts. I am also not going to just C&P this article. I am not new to this topic. To the left is a chart breaking down the total numbers of people who have outstanding student loans in $millions. The chart is also broken down by age group. You can also find the numbers of borrowers. in each group and the average amount of debt per student loan. It is relatively current using numbers from 4th qtr 2021.I am going to concentrate on one article. The chart above has the numbers. What we need is to understand the driving force withing people who wish to do better in life.
US baby formula shortage drags on with no end in sight - Six months after Abbott Labs recalled product and the FDA shut down its infant formula factory in Sturgis, Michigan due to unsanitary conditions, the shortage of baby food in the US continues. As with the coronavirus pandemic, the public is being told that they will have to learn to live with the shortage. According to a report by the market research firm IRI, 20 percent of all types of baby formula products were not to be found on store shelves nationwide during the week of July 18-24. The IRI data show that 30 percent of powdered formula products were out of stock during the same period. Parents of newborns, infants and children with special dietary needs are still facing stark choices as they go from store to store looking for the specific product that they need. In many cases, purchasing substitute products can be unsafe or even fatal. In some states, such as Colorado and Kansas for example, stocks on store shelves dropped below 60 percent in July. The lack of any criticism of the government or manufacturers from the corporate news media, as well as the complete silence of the Biden administration on the crisis, demonstrates that the well-being of infants and children across the US is not on the priority list for the American ruling elite. According to the news site Axios, the baby formula shortage “is here to stay.” A web site published by the White House called, “Addressing the Infant Formula Crisis” has not been updated since late June. Aside from announcing that it has flown in a completely inadequate quantity of baby formula from overseas, the Biden White House has had nothing to say about the fact that the wealthiest capitalist country in the world cannot feed its children. FDA commissioner Robert Califf told NPR on July 30 that baby formula production will have to remain at high levels for another six to eight weeks to keep up with current demand. This is the same thing he said two months ago. A major factor in the continuing shortage is the fact that the Abbott Labs’ Sturgis facility, after reopening in early June, was shut down again due to flooding from heavy rainstorms in the area. The indifference to the crisis facing millions of people was articulated plainly by Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who said on May 15, “The government does not make baby formula, nor should it. Companies make formula.” “Let’s be very clear,” Buttigieg said, “this is a capitalist country.”
Low neutralization of Omicron BA.5 after four doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine - In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv* preprint server, researchers assessed the neutralization of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant after messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccination. Since its emergence, the Omicron variant has evolved into various sublineages with different properties concerning viral transmission and infectability, including BA.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.3, BA.4, and BA.5. It is essential to assess the neutralization susceptibility of the currently circulating Omicron sublineages to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination and previous infections. In the present study, researchers investigated the neutralization of different SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sublineages by COVID-19 mRNA vaccination and previous BA.1 infection. The team employed a set of chimeric SARS-CoV-2 structures to explore the serum neutralization observed against various Omicron sublineages. Each chimeric structure comprised a whole spike (S) gene derived from BA.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.3, BA.4, and BA.5 present in the backbone of USA-WA1/2020. This resulted in SARS-CoV-2 BA.1-, BA.2-, BA.2.12.1-, BA.3-, BA.4- or BA.5 spike proteins. The team also engineered a mNeonGreen (mNG) gene into the open-reading-frame-7 (ORF7) present in the viral genome to allow fluorescent focus reduction neutralization test (FFRNT). The FFRNT was used to estimate the neutralization observed in the three distinct panels of human sera against the Omicron sublineage S SARS-CoV-2s. To estimate the neutralization elicited by four doses of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, the team obtained 25 pairs of human sera from persons before and after the fourth mRNA vaccine was administered. Per sample pair, the team collected one sample three to eight months after the third vaccination, while another sample was collected from the individuals one to three months after the fourth dose. The study results showed that before the receipt of the fourth COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dose, the sera displayed significant neutralization with geometric mean titers (GMTs) of 144 for SARS-CoV-2 USA-WA1/2020, 32 for BA.1-, 24 for BA.2-, 25 for BA.2.12.1-, 20 for BA.3-, and 17 for BA.4- and BA.5-spike mNG viruses. Furthermore, after the administration of the fourth dose, the GMTs rose to 1554, 357, 236, 236, 165, and 95 for USA-WA1/2020, BA.1-, BA.2-, BA.2.12.1-, BA.3-, and BA.4/5-spike mNG viruses, respectively, indicating that the fourth dose boosted the neutralization by 10.8-, 11.2-, 9.8-, 9.4-, 8.3-, and 5.6-fold, respectively. Even though the team observed a significant increase in neutralization after the four doses, the GMTs were 4.4-, 6.6-, 6.6-, 9.4-, and 16.4-fold lower as compared to those for the USA-WA1/2020 for BA.1-, BA.2-, BA.2.12.1-, BA.3-, and BA.4/5-spike viruses, respectively. This indicated that BA.5 efficiently evaded vaccine-induced neutralization. Moreover, the team noted that the fourth mRNA vaccine dose did not induce significant neutralization against BA.5. The third and fourth doses elicited low neutralization against BA.5 and could be responsible for the ongoing surge in BA.5 infection across the globe.
Coronavirus 'rebound' cases after Paxlovid: What to know - President Biden is one of the latest patients to experience a “rebound” coronavirus infection following a course of Paxlovid, an antiviral used to treat people at risk of severe illness from covid-19. Rebound cases, in which someone experiences symptoms or tests positive after completing the course of the medication and testing negative, have been described as rare, but some medical experts are saying they may be more common than previously thought. Biden began his Paxlovid treatment shortly after testing positive. He emerged from isolation on Wednesday after he started testing negative, but the White House announced Saturday that he had again tested positive and was not experiencing symptoms. Here’s what to know about rebound cases of the coronavirus following Paxlovid treatment.
What is the viral rebound in untreated COVID-19 infections? - With the widespread use of Paxlovid, several individuals have reported worsening symptoms and/or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) rebound after completing the treatment course, termed post-Paxlovid rebound. Extensive research is required to understand this phenomenon. In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers assessed the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rebound in untreated COVID-19 infections. The study results showed that according to the primary symptom and viral rebound analysis, 12% of the participants had a viral rebound of 0.5 log10 or more RNA copies per ml on day four after the study. The minimum SARS-CoV-2 RNA rebound estimated was 0.3 log10 or more RNA copies per ml. The team noted that 73% of the participants showed a viral rebound of 0.3 log10 or more within the initial five days after baseline, with 91% of the participants having virulence lasting for one day. Furthermore, participants with viral RNA rebounds were older than those with no RNA rebound. The team also estimated the frequencies related to high levels of nasal RNA rebound having a 5.0 log10 minimum rebound threshold, and 5.3% of the participants satisfied this definition of virus rebound. The primary analysis also showed that 12% and 6.9% of the participants displayed viral rebound rates estimated per the minimum threshold of 0.3 log10 or more and 0.5 log10 RNA copies per ml, respectively. The primary analysis also highlighted that 27% of the participants showed symptom rebound after initial symptom improvement. Participants with symptomatic rebound were more likely to have higher baseline levels of AN viral RNA and higher symptom scores at enrollment and baseline time points. Furthermore, only 10% of the participants satisfied the criteria of symptom rebound after the resolution of symptoms. The team also found high levels of viral rebound with 0.5 log10 or more RNA copies per ml accompanied by symptom rebound after an initial improvement in 2.2% of the participants when estimated with either the primary and supplementary baseline criteria, respectively. None of the participants had symptom rebound along with viral rebound with 0.5 log10 or more RNA copies per ml after initial resolution of symptoms. Overall, the study findings showed that rebound of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and COVID-19 symptoms was relatively common among participants treated for COVID-19 with any antiviral agents. The present study highlights the natural course of symptoms and viral rebound. These are essential in understanding biphasic disease courses after antiviral treatments.
What is the severity of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variant infections in relation to BA.2 infections? In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers compared clinical outcomes of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron BA.2 and Omicron BA.4/BA.5 variants based on the Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) health records between April 29 and July 2, 2022. Results: A total of 65,694 outpatient COVID-19 cases (out of 81,880 total cases) were analyzed, of which, 26% (n=16,753) were BA.4/BA.5 infections and 75 % (n=-48,941) were Omicron BA.2 infections, respectively. From cases randomly selected by KPSC for genomic sequencing in 2022, 99.6% (n=243) and 99% (n=406) of Omicron BA.4 and Omicron BA.5 cases showed SGTF and contrastingly, SGTF was not observed in 98% (n=2,000) of Omicron BA.2 cases.Among Omicron BA.4/BA.5 case individuals, 17%, 2.5%, 24%, 49%, and 7.5% of individuals received zero, one, two, three and four COVID-19 vaccine doses, respectively, prior to their diagnoses. The corresponding vaccination rates among Omicron BA.2 case individuals were 18%, 2.5%, 25%, 49%, and 5.9%, respectively. The aORs of receiving three and four doses of COVID-19 vaccines were 1.1-fold and 1.3-fold higher for Omicron BA.4/BA.5 infections compared to Omicron BA.2 infections.Prior COVID-19 history ≥90 days prior to SARS-CoV-2-positive test results was documented for 4.5% and 2.9% of Omicron BA.4/BA.5 cases and Omicron BA.2 cases, respectively. The aORs of prior COVID-19 documentations were 1.6-fold higher for Omicron BA.4/BA.5 cases than Omicron BA.2 cases. For 4,349 cases of BA.4/BA.5 infections, crude 30-day incidence rates for symptomatic ED presentations, all ED presentations, symptomatic inpatient admissions, all inpatient admissions, and ICU admissions were 25, 26, 2.3, 3.0, and 0.2, respectively, with no mechanical ventilation needs and deaths.For 32,592 Omicron BA.2 infection cases, the corresponding rates for symptomatic ED presentations, all ED presentations, symptomatic inpatient admissions, all inpatient admissions, mechanical ventilation needs, ICU admissions, and deaths were 24, 26, 2.6, 3.0, 0.1, 0.3, and 0.2, respectively. The aHRs for Omicron BA.4/BA.5 infection cases compared to Omicron BA.2 infection cases were 1.1, 1.1, 1.0, 1.1, and 0.9 for symptomatic ED presentations, all ED presentations, symptomatic hospitalizations, all inpatient admissions, and ICU admissions, respectively.No Omicron BA.4/BA.5 infection cases needed mechanical ventilation or died and thus, aHRs could not be calculated for the two outcomes. Omicron BA.4/BA.5 cases diagnosed in outpatient settings had 55% greater odds of prior COVID-19 history prior compared to contemporaneous outpatient-diagnosed Omicron BA.2 cases, and modestly greater odds of receiving ≥3 doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Overall, the study findings showed that despite elevated risks of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 breakthrough infections among previously infected or vaccinated individuals, the lowered severity of Omicron BA.2 infections was persistent with Omicron BA.4/BA.5 infections.
Fauci warns people are 'going to get in trouble' with covid if not up to date on vaccines - More than two years into the coronavirus pandemic, Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said he understands people are exhausted, but is urging those who are not up to date on the vaccines to get the shots — this time, as the latest omicron subvariant, BA.5, has become the dominant strain in the United States.Fauci told Los Angeles radio station KNX News earlier this week that although people who are unvaccinated and those with underlying conditions are at the greatest risk of complications from covid-19, others are not exempt.“If they don’t get vaccinated or they don’t get boosted, they’re going to get into trouble,” he said.BA.5, which has been called “the worst version of the virus,” accounts formore than 85 percent of cases of covid-19, with more than 41 percent of U.S. counties experiencing a high covid-19 community level, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some health experts have expressed concern that not enough people are vaccinated, particularly as the nation has fallen away from restrictions and mandates, such as masking, to help control the spread of the disease.In fact, the majority of the U.S. population is not up to date on the vaccines — defined by the CDC as having completed the primary series and all booster doses recommended for that individual. CDC data showsthat 67 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated but only 48 percent has received the first booster shot. Only 32 percent of people 50 and older — who are eligible for a second booster — have received that extra dose.Fauci said it’s important to get as many people vaccinated and boosted as possible so the virus does not have “ample opportunity to freely circulate.” When the virus is given that opportunity, he said, it can continue to mutate.
Study shows probability of getting COVID for mask wearers vs. non-mask wearers -- In public spaces, facemasks have played a crucial role in preventing Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). While facemasks were recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) in June 2020, there is still a lack of scientific evidence regarding the epidemiologicalefficacy of facemasks against COVID-19 transmission. In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers in the United States assessed the efficiency of facemasks in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) prevention. The study results showed that a total of 1,539 subjects were analyzed from 13 studies, including four community-based and nine healthcare-based studies. Among these, 243 subjects had SARS-CoV-2 infections, including 97 who did and 146 who did not wear facemasks. The team noted that the probability of contracting a COVID-19 disease was 7% for mask wearers and 52% for non-mask wearers. The relative risk of getting infected by SARS-CoV-2 was 0.13 for mask wearers. In the healthcare setting, 9% of the mask wearers and 33% of the non-mask wearers tested COVID-19 positive. Furthermore, the relative risk of contracting COVID-19 was 0.20 for individuals wearing facemasks within the healthcare setting. Additionally, in community settings, the team noted that 6% of mask wearers and 83% of non-maks wearers tested SARS-CoV-2 positive. The relative risk of contracting COVID-19 in the community setting was 0.08 for mask wearers.The results showed an association between using a facemask and testing positive for COVID-19 since over 92% of the subjects who wore a mask did not test COVID-19 positive. The correlation between COVID-19-positivity and wearing a facemask varied considerably between the healthcare and community settings. Overall, 50% of subjects who did not wear a mask did not contract COVID-19. Notably, 83% and 33% of the subjects who did not wear a facemask in the community and healthcare settings contracted COVID-19, respectively. Compared to healthcare settings, the correlation between contracting COVID-19 and wearing a facemask was greater in the community setting. Overall, the study findings indicated that mask wearers were less likely to contract COVID-19 in healthcare and community settings. It will be necessary to conduct further research as more information becomes available. The researchers believe that future studies are necessary to ascertain the impact of regulations related to facemask usage and other interventions on COVID-19 transmission.
Tracking U.S. covid-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations by state - No numbers can fully convey the state of the covid-19 pandemic in the United States, but several metrics taken together provide a clearer view of what is happening now and what may be coming soon. The data in these charts is gathered by The Washington Post from local and state government sites and from Johns Hopkins University (cases and deaths), the Department of Health and Human Services (hospitalization and testing) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (vaccinations). Not all tracking sites use the same sources or report dates, so case and death numbers can differ. The count of known new cases is the closest thing we have to a real-time gauge of the coronavirus’s reach. It also can serve as a warning: If cases suddenly rise, hospitalizations and deaths almost certainly will follow. However, areas with little testing probably will appear to have fewer cases regardless of how rampant the virus may be. The seven-day rolling average is the best way to view trends in new cases, because more than half of states don’t report new data every day. That is why certain days of the week show up as consistently higher or lower than others. The chart above shows one-day spikes and drops that have occurred as states refined their data. For instance, a state may remove many duplicate cases all at once or reclassify a group of cases based on new criteria. Those anomalies are not factored into the seven-day averages. The "change in daily cases in last 7 days" column uses the seven-day average on the most recent full day of data to calculate the percent change compared to the average a week before. Percentages are shown only for places with 10 or more cases/deaths in the past week. Health officials believe the virus has killed more people than state totals indicate, especially early in the pandemic before testing and effective treatments were widely available. A rise in deaths usually follows a rise in new cases by about a month. For example, after the delta variant caused a surge of new cases beginning in July 2021, the death toll began to climb in August. As with the new cases chart, occasional single-day anomalies reflect one-time adjustments by states. They are noted but not included in the seven-day averages. Note: The "change in daily deaths in last 7 days" column uses the seven-day average on the most recent full day of data to calculate the percent change compared to the average a week before. Percentages are shown only for places with 10 or more cases/deaths in the past week. S The number of people in hospitals is key to understanding an outbreak’s effect on a community. If hospitals or their intensive care units are full, people seeking treatment — whether for covid or for something else — may have care delayed or even denied. A rise in hospitalizations tends to follow a rise in new cases by a couple of weeks.
What is BA.4.6? CDC's new COVID 'variant of concern' is beating past Omicron strains - New lineages of the Omicron COVID variant, like BA.4 and BA.5, are helping spark a wave of reinfections, as people who previously caught COVID-19 contract COVID again.Now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is tracking a new “variant of concern”: BA.4.6. This week, the CDC included the BA.4 spinoff in its weekly tracking of COVID cases, with the agency’s chief data officer tweeting that the new subvariant had actually been “circulating for several weeks” in the U.S. The CDC designates strains as "variants of concern" if they display greater transmissibility, reduced effectiveness of treatment, increased severity, or decreased neutralization by antibodies.According to the CDC, BA.4.6 made up 4.1% of COVID cases for the week ending July 30. The new variant is more prevalent in the region comprising Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, where it makes up 10.7% of local cases. The mid-Atlantic region and the South are also seeing rates of BA.4.6 above the national average.The new strain has also been detected in 43 other countries, according to outbreak.info, a community repository of COVID information.BA.5, which one epidemiologist called “the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen” because of its increased transmissibility and ability to evade existing immunity is still dominant in the U.S., making up 85.5% of all COVID cases as of July 30. BA.4 and BA.5 are responsible for driving a global surge in COVID cases, including in places that had held off the virus until the current wave, like the Chinese city of Macau. As of now, there isn’t much data as to whether BA.4.6 is better than BA.4 or BA.5 at evading immunity. Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, tweeted on Tuesday that BA.4.6’s mutation “does not appear to be concerning [compared to] BA.4/5,” with only a handful of new mutations compared to the earlier subvariants. Even if BA.4.6 isn’t significantly worse than existing strains, the speed at which new variants of concern are emerging is alarming public health officials who are planning for new vaccine boosters this fall.On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that it would seek to approveboosters that directly target the BA.5 variant this autumn, rather than make more Americans eligible for a second booster based on the original 2020 strain of COVID. Currently, only Americans over age 50 are eligible for a second booster.But new variants might make still-in-development boosters less effective by the time they’re finally ready. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, said the new boosters are trying to hit a “moving target” when it came to determining which variants to tackle.
COVID Cases In This Summer's BA.5 Surge Most Concentrated In San Francisco's Southern Neighborhoods - According to data from the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), Bayview/Hunters Point continued to be a hot spot of COVID infection — and re-infection — in this summer's surge, and the highest concentrations of cases were in the southern part of the city overall.By the official count, San Francisco saw around 22,000 new cases of COVID between May 31 and July 30 this year, driven by the highly infectious BA.5 variant. Some UCSF researchers have recently suggested that 80% of new COVID cases are going uncounted, due to general apathy and the prevalence of at-home testing, so that could mean that the true case count in SF is closer to 100,000 in the last two months.Wastewater testing in mid-July suggested that this surge was, in fact, bigger than last winter's Omicron surge.But with only the official PCR-test numbers to go by, we can still see a pattern of greater rates of infection in the city's less affluent neighborhoods. And in contrast with the initial Omicron surge in December and January, the Marina is no longer the hot spot it was — perhaps as a result of so much natural immunity from that surge, or just less PCR testing going on among those residents.According to DPH's latest map of COVID cases, Bayview/Hunters Point saw 417 new cases per 10,000 residents in the last two months, Portola saw 370 new cases per 10,000 residents, and the Excelsior saw 352 cases per 10,000 residents. See the full interactive map here.One exception in this surge was Mission Bay, which is populated with a lot of new condos and high-end rental units, and which came in third for the highest concentration of cases in June and July, with 369 cases per 10,000 residents.At the other end of the spectrum, the Marina and Russian Hill had fewer than 150 new cases per 10,000 residents in those two months.In total, 7% of cases since May 31 have been in Bayview/Hunters Point, and 25.6% of cases occurred in just a handful of southern neighborhoods.The surge appears to have peaked in San Francisco in late May and early June, with the seven-day average of new cases — at least by the official count — coming down fairly steadily since then. This is despite a lot of summer travel happening, and big events like SF Pride. The peak average of new cases was 537 on May 20, and that has dropped to 311 as of July 27.
Massachusetts reports 9,646 new COVID cases: BA.5 variant is 'concerning because it can cause reinfection' - State health officials on Thursday reported 9,646 confirmed COVID cases from the last week, as the highly contagious BA.5 variant spreads across the region. The daily average of 1,378 COVID cases is a bit down from the daily rate of 1,422 infections during the previous week. The positive test average had been climbing in recent weeks as the omicron BA.5 subvariant takes over. The seven-day positive test rate is now 7.97%, a tick down from 8.09% a week ago. The very infectious BA.5 variant is now responsible for 86.3% of new cases in New England, according to this week’s update from the CDC. That’s up from 81.4% of new cases last week. “The recent uptick in infections and positivity rate driven by the BA.5 Omicron subvariant is concerning because it can cause reinfection in those who have been previously infected with COVID-19 and those who have not had a recent booster,” said Theodore Calianos, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, who urged people to get booster doses and to wear masks while gathering indoors among crowds. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is now reporting its COVID data on a weekly basis, reflecting the evolving COVID response in the state. Previously, the COVID-19 Interactive Data Dashboard had been published five days a week. The state reported 41 new COVID deaths over the past week, bringing the state’s total to 21,224 recorded deaths since the start of the pandemic. The daily average of deaths is now seven, which is lower than the daily death rate during the initial omicron surge. There are now 57 patients in intensive care units, and 15 patients who are currently intubated.
Illinois Coronavirus Updates: COVID Surging in Parts of State, BA.5 Symptoms – While several Illinois counties remain under a high community level for COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which locations are seeing the highest rates? According to Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, southern Illinois "is surging" currently.The BA.5 subvariant of omicron is by far the most dominant strain of COVID-19 currently in circulation in the United States, and those numbers have continued to soar upward throughout the summer. More than 80% of cases are currently being caused by the subvariant, according to CDC estimates, and officials say that the virus is seemingly better able to evade immunity given by the COVID vaccine. Here’s what we know about the illness. If you were exposed to COVID or test positive as the new BA.5 variant continues its spread across the U.S. and the globe, what do you need to do and has that guidance changed?Questions particularly surfaced after President Joe Biden tested negative following his infection and began to leave isolation before testing positive a second time just days later. Chicago's top doctor issued a reminder Tuesday, noting, however, that she doesn't anticipate COVID quarantine and isolation guidelines changing "anytime soon." Read more here. An omicron subvariant has continued to strengthen its grip as the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States, but another version of the virus is slowly starting to pick up steam. According to the latest estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday, the BA.5 subvariant, which has been the dominant strain of COVID in the United States since early July, now makes up an estimated 85.5% of cases across the nation. Read more here.
Coronavirus BA.5 is a ‘whole different animal’ - The number of new coronavirus cases in La Paz County declined to 41 in the week between July 20 and July 27. That compares with 62 new cases the week before and 53 new cases the week before that. That brings the county’s total to 5,586, with 147 virus-related deaths. This comes at a time when health officials are concerned about the latest variant of the COVID coronavirus, named BA.5. This variant is highly contagious, and has spread quickly. Reuters reported this variant is fueling a surge of new cases around the world. It appears to be resistant to vaccines for earlier variants, and people who have had the virus in the past can get infected again. It does not appear to cause the severe symptoms that the Delta variant did. “Forget Delta, Alpha and the original Omicron variant,” the U.C. Davis Health website said. “The latest Omicron subvariant BA.5 is a whole different animal. Its most defining factor? It is the most easily transmissible COVID variant to date, able to evade previous immunity from COVID infection and vaccination.” Reuters and Fox News reported BA.5 now makes up 82 percent of all coronavirus variants circulating in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control reported there are an average of 125,355 new cases reported every day as of July 29. They said BA.5 accounts for 78 percent of new cases in the United States, and the number of new cases is increasing. They said the average number of new hospitalizations each day is 6,298, with 36,996 hospitalized as of July 29. The symptoms of BA.5 are consistent with earlier variants. They include fever, runny nose, coughing, sore throat, headaches, muscle pain and fatigue. U.C. Davis Health said the best protection against BA.5 is to make sure your vaccinations and boosters are up to date. They say this will protect individuals and lessen the symptoms of the virus. They also recommended wearing masks and continuing to practice social distancing. The Colorado River Indian Tribes reinstated many of their mask requirements for indoor public places on Tribal land, stating the transmission level for the county is “high.” There were 26 new cases between July 13 and July 19 among Tribal members tested at Indian Health Services. With 1,938 cases among Tribal members, more than 40 percent of members have had or have the virus. The Tribes have seen a total of 26 virus-related deaths.Statewide, the Arizona Department of Health Services reported there were 2,196,429 cases as of July 27. That’s 17,249 new cases since July 20, or about 900 fewer new cases than the week before. There have been 30,768 virus-related deaths. The Worldometers website, which tracks cases worldwide, said there were 65,092 active cases in the state and 2,100,569 Arizonans have recovered. The recovery rate for the cases that have reached a conclusion and have been closed is 98.5 percent.
Australian COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths reach record levels - COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths continue to surge across Australia, reaching record highs over the past week. 157 deaths were reported on Friday, the highest number on any single day of the pandemic. In the week ending Sunday, 674 Australians died from the virus, an average of 96 per day, more than double the rate at the end of June. It took 547 days for Australia to reach the grim milestone of 1,000 total COVID-19 fatalities. The last 1,000 deaths were recorded in just 12 days. In the early stages of the pandemic, Australian governments were forced by the demands of workers to implement public health measures including border closures, partial lockdowns, free PCR testing and mask mandates. As a result, by December 31, 2021, the country had recorded only 2,239 COVID-19 deaths. The more than 9,700 deaths that have occurred in the past seven months are the direct result of the dismantling of virtually all such mitigations by every Australian government, state, territory and federal, Labor and Liberal-National alike. Despite multiple claims throughout the year by government health officials and in the media that cases and deaths have “peaked,” the weekly death toll has remained above 100 since January. The reality is, the homicidal “let it rip” agenda has created the conditions for an unending series of COVID-19 “waves,” each potentially more infectious and deadly than the last. Prior to the December reopening, the highest number of new infections recorded in a seven-day period was just over 16,000. By contrast, every week this year more than 130,000 new cases have been recorded, despite the tearing down of mass testing facilities and the removal of requirements for regular surveillance testing of workers and school students. Over the past two weeks, an average of more than 45,000 new infections have been reported each day. The latest surge in Australia and worldwide is being driven by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants, which are extremely immune-evasive and almost as infectious as measles. Despite this, the ruling class, with recently elected Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the helm, has made clear it will do nothing to address the soaring rates of infection and death. In line with the demands of big business, and in open defiance of the advice of disease experts and health authorities, governments are refusing to reinstate mask mandates or other basic public health measures and are continuing to remove the few remaining protections. There have now been more than 9.4 million infections recorded across Australia, 96 percent of which have occurred since January 1. Under conditions where testing and contact tracing has been dismantled, even these figures are likely vast undercounts. Based on a recent serological survey of blood donor samples, researchers at the Kirby Institute estimate that at least 46 percent of Australian adults had been infected with COVID-19 by early June, almost three times the level of infection found in February.
Coronavirus in Germany: Infection and death rates explode during summer months ---Although the number of coronavirus infections in Germany is exploding during the summer months, hospitals are filling up and an even bigger wave is looming for the fall, the Bundestag (federal parliament) has gone into summer recess until September without adopting any protective measures against the spread of the virus. Currently there are about 1.8 million people in Germany infected with the disease and the 7-day incidence rate is 679 (infections per 100,000 people). In the state of Saarland and 59 counties, the incidence is over 1,000, meaning that 1 percent of the population there is freshly infected every week. In the district of Wittmund, the incidence is 2,290, and in the district of Wunsiedel it is as high as 2320, where the incidence tripled within a week’s time. And even this is a suppressed incidence rate due to the summer vacation season. With the end of the summer holidays, there is a real threat of further increases due to the return of travelers and the start of school. Furthermore, those who have already suffered infection this year are at risk of reinfection. Hajo Zeeb of the Leibnitz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology in Bremen warned in the news magazine Der Spiegel: “We are dealing with variants with a high immune escape potential. So you can’t feel particularly safe regarding infections in the winter if you were infected during the summer, since there are clearly reinfections.” The official figures themselves represent an inadequate reflection of the actual incidence of infection. First, mandatory testing in many areas as well as testing capacity have been restricted and free testing has been abolished. Second, many of those infected no longer have a PCR test conducted, yet only these tests count in the statistics. In recent weeks, the rate of positive test results exploded from a very high 28.4 percent in the 21st calendar week to 53.7 percent in the 27th week. A high rate of positive tests indicates a high number of unidentified infections. Vulnerable groups have been increasingly affected by the massive rise in contagion. Outbreaks have been growing for weeks in both medical treatment facilities and nursing homes. In the former there were 157 outbreaks last week, up from 108 the previous week; 12 people died. In nursing homes and homes for the elderly, there were 300 outbreaks (235 the previous week), with 58 deaths. Hospitals are again filling up. The adjusted hospitalization incidence is now 12.5, which corresponds to over 10,000 hospitalizations per week. Just a month ago, this figure was only half as high. Likewise, the number of patients surviving on intensive care is on the rise. Currently, there are 1,330, compared to 1,238 a week ago. The number of COVID-19 patients treated in hospitals is currently twice as high as in the previous summers. The number of COVID-19 deaths is also rising. According to Johns Hopkins University data, the 7-day average doubled from 53 on June 17 to 104 on July 25. This means that more than 700 people are dying per week. An additional burden is the high rate of sick leave among hospital workers and the high number of absences due to infection and quarantine.
COVID predicted to surge to new heights in the UK this autumn -- Amid the wreckage of the UK’s third wave of COVID-19 this year, scientists speaking with the i newspaper have forecast new, even larger waves this autumn and early 2023. University College London virus modeller Professor Karl Friston predicts the current fall in infections and hospitalisations will reverse in early October after schools have reopened and the weather has cooled. Cases of COVID-19 will then surge to an unprecedented high, peaking in late November with 8 percent of the UK population infected—the highest rate to date is 5.5 percent. Friston forecasts another wave in March 2023, with the UK infection rate reaching 6.5 percent. His predictions are based on data from the Office for National Statistics and the ZOE COVID Study. Other scientists have made similar warnings. Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, explained, “The autumn/winter period will be challenging with the mix of respiratory infections—new COVID variants, flu and other viruses.” Swansea University’s Simon Williams agreed, “It is very possible that we will experience a significant wave in the autumn which is likely going to be more challenging than that we just experienced.” Daily symptomatic infections fell 31 percent between July 10 and July 23, according to the ZOE study. ONS figures published Friday confirm the decline, showing one in 20 people infected in the week ending July 20, down from one in 17 the week before. The number of COVID patients in hospital has also fallen, down 11 percent in the week to July 24; the ICU admission rate has dropped from 0.7 to 0.5 per 100,000 people. The end of the school term is a significant factor, noted Young, “children being an important factor in the spread of the virus.” But the main reason for the fall is that so many people have been recently infected that the UK population has reached “saturation point” in the words of Williams. Young refers to “the protective immunity induced by so many people having been infected.” Friston notes that the “fluctuating course” of the pandemic in the UK is the product of changing “balance between the prevalence of infection and the pool of people susceptible to infection. This reservoir of susceptible people slowly increases with waning immunity and viral mutation—and is then reduced, with each successive wave of infections.” This enormous wave of infection has occurred during a summer wave which was never supposed to take place. Professor Tim Spector who leads the ZOE study, commented last month, “Everyone is predicting an autumn wave but I don’t think anyone predicted this summer wave… None of the modelling allowed for this, it didn’t take into account the effect of BA.5 variant which is dominant now.”
2 more children in US test positive for monkeypox - At least four children in the U.S. have now tested positive for monkeypox, officials have confirmed.Amidst a growing emergence of cases across the country, state officials in Indiana confirmed late last week that two children had tested positive for monkeypox. At this time, no additional information has been made available due to patient privacy concerns, the Indiana Department of Health wrote in a statement.“Like many other states, Indiana has seen an increase in monkeypox cases over the past month,” State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box said in a statement.Federal officials had previously confirmed, last month, that two other children in the U.S had tested positive for monkeypox.One case was confirmed in a toddler, who is a resident of California, and the other was reported in an infant, a non-U.S. resident, who was tested while traveling through Washington, D.C. The two cases are unrelated, located in different jurisdictions, and were likely the result of household transmission.Although no information is available about the current status of the virus-positive children in Indiana, both of the other children, who have been diagnosed with monkeypox, were said to have been in good health.However, there are concerns among health officials about how monkeypox could impact young children.Over the weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in a health alert that there is some preliminary evidence to suggest children younger than 8 years-old could develop more severe illness, if infected with monkeypox.At this time, the majority of monkey cases confirmed domestically and globally in the current outbreak have been detected in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men. However, health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus does not discriminate, and anyone exposed to monkeypox can contract the virus.People are most commonly infected by close person-to-person contact, including intimate contact, though it is possible for the disease to also spread through respiratory secretions or by "touching objects, fabrics (clothing, bedding, or towels), and surfaces that have been used by someone with monkeypox," according to the CDC.
California, Illinois declare states of emergency over monkeypox - The governors of California and Illinois on Monday declared states of emergency in an effort to bolster their responses to the monkeypox outbreak.California, the most populous state in the United States, had recorded 827 monkeypox cases as of Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — second to New York, which had recorded 1,390 cases as of Monday and last week declared a public health emergency. Illinois had recorded 520 cases. The nationwide tally is more than 5,800.The declaration by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) allows emergency medical services workers to administer the monkeypox vaccine, as pharmacists had also recently been permitted to do, Newsom said in astatement. “It is critical to maximize the number of personnel who can administer vaccines within this outreach effort,” he wrote in theemergency declaration. “Expanding the pool of eligible vaccinators will substantially aid current efforts and support anticipated further vaccination efforts upon receipt of additional doses from the federal government.”Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said in a statement that the effort to prevent the spread of the virus “requires the full mobilization of all available public health resources.” He said he was declaring a state of emergency “to expand the resources and coordination efforts of state agencies in responding to, treating, and preventing the spread” of monkeypox.With a “limited supply” of vaccines from the federal government, California is distributing vaccines to local health authorities “based on a formula that considers [the area’s] current monkeypox cases and number of high-risk individuals,” according to the declaration. California has received more than 61,000 doses of the vaccine, according to Newsom’s office.“We’ll continue to work with the federal government to secure more vaccines, raise awareness about reducing risk, and stand with the LGBTQ community fighting stigmatization,” Newsom said. Outbreaks have so far been overwhelmingly concentrated in men who have sex with men, though anyone can contract the virus. Advocates have urged officials to avoid repeating the mistakes of the AIDS crisis, when the virus’s devastating effects on the gay community were minimized.
Monkeypox Originated in Animals. Could It Spill Back Into Them? - TWO MONTHS INTO the international monkeypox epidemic, which so far has caused almost 6,000 infections in the United States and more than 18,000 cases worldwide, it may be old news to say that this disease has visited the US before. In 2003, the virus arrived via exotic pets imported from Ghana, sickening 72 people, including kids as young as 3 years old. It sent 19 people to the hospital before the outbreak burned itself out. Looking back, the obvious lesson seems to be how much monkeypox has changed its behavior since then. In 2003, every case could be traced back to a person’s exposure to an infected animal. In 2022, transmission appears overwhelmingly person to person, traceable to sexual or skin-to-skin contact among men who have sex with other men. But there’s a key detail in the 2003 outbreak that worries researchers examining this new one. Two decades ago, the virus spread because it passed from captured African wildlife to American animals being sold for pets. Those pets, wild prairie dogs, transmitted the virus to humans. No one had considered such cross-species vulnerability because human infections with monkeypox had not previously been detected outside of West and Central Africa. At the time, it was well understood that African wildlife species passed the disease to people who hunted them or lived in their territories. What was surprising was that the virus could be transmitted to the wildlife of other continents. It remains a cautionary tale—and it may be a warning that the virus could establish itself in new animal populations, now that it has spread to almost 80 countries. This is by no means certain. But it’s enough of a worry that virologists are talking about the possibility of new host species in new territory—spread that might constitute a “spillback” from humans into animals, creating fresh exposure risks beyond what’s currently known. Scientists are exploring this carefully; no one wants to be inflammatory. “I don’t think there have been any cases at this point that were clearly from zoonotic spillover,” says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and associate professor at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Research Organization-International Vaccine Centre at the University of Saskatchewan. “And I do think that that would be distinct, because we would see cases popping up with no connection to an MSM sexual network, and that has not happened yet.” Because several rodent species have been found to harbor monkeypox in the countries where it was first identified, it’s a reasonable bet that multiple species could be vulnerable to it elsewhere. But there isn’t enough accumulated science to tease out the implications. Could European or American wildlife pick up the disease briefly and then overcome it? Or would it become a persistent infection among them? If it became endemic in wildlife populations, whether that’s prairie dogs in the countryside or rats in cities, could it be transmitted to other species that mix with them? And how close would any of those animals have to come to people to pose an infectious risk—or to be put at risk by human contact?
Monkeypox is reminding gay men of the early HIV/AIDS days, even if they weren't there - Eric Sawyer feels a familiar fear. In the gay hamlet of Fire Island Pines, where he owns a bungalow, men have been swapping gossip about ghastly symptoms, scanning each other for any blemish, scrounging for medical interventions in short supply. For Sawyer, 68, this type of anxiety is not an artifact but a scar on his heart.“While monkeypox is not deadly, just like with HIV there are myriad horror stories,” says Sawyer, a longtime activist who in 1987 was on the ground floor of ACT UP, the collective committed to ending the AIDS epidemic. “It opens up a lot of the raw wounds, brings back interrupted grieving from having so many friends die.”Since May 17, nearly 5,200 cases of monkeypox have been identified in the United States, and none have been fatal; an overwhelming majority of those infected worldwide have been men who have sex with men, a demographic whose broad and dense sexual networks are a conduit for a virus that spreads through close, often intimate, physical contact.The scourge may not be as serious as HIV, or the coronavirus still causing covid-19, but monkeypox has come along at a time when gay people in America are already feeling stressed and vulnerable. Sawyer thinks about the recent surge of homophobia, including anti-gay legislation at the state level and a spike in threats and attacks on LGBTQ people. A social symptom of monkeypox is fear that the country is headed for a time warp; in the 1980s, AIDS was first mislabeled in the media as “gay-related immune deficiency,” and the gay community suffered not just from illness but renewed ostracization. “I’m afraid that a major outbreak in the gay community of something like monkeypox is going to exacerbate the direct, planned attacks on our community,” Sawyer says.
WHO: US has biggest jump in monkeypox cases - Yesterday, in an updated report on global monkeypox trends, the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that cases rose 18.7% last week, with Europe and the Americas reporting the bulk of cases over the past month.In the last week of July, the United States saw the largest spike in cases, the WHO said.All told, 83 countries have reported 23,351 laboratory-confirmed cases. Together 10 countries account for 89% of the world's cases, including the United States (5,175 cases), Spain (4,298), Germany (2,677), the United Kingdom (2,546), France (1,955), Brazil (1,369), the Netherlands (879), Canada (803), Portugal (633), and Italy (479). Only 15 counties have reported no new cases in the past 21 days, with 20 countries reporting an increase in cases in the same period. In the past week, five countries reported their first case: the Philippines, Montenegro, Uruguay, Liberia, and Sudan. Since the report was published, both Lithuania and Cyprus also reported their first cases. Of all case-patients with available data, 98.8% are men, and the median age is 37. Men 18 to 44 years old represent 76.7% of cases in the global outbreak.Among cases with known data on sexual orientation, 97.5% identified as men who have sex with men (MSM), and 1% identified as bisexual. Thirty-seven percent of cases with known HIV status were HIV-positive.Sexual contact is the likely transmission event for 91.5% of patients, and 339 cases were reported in healthcare workers. Most health workers, however, were infected in the community and not through workplace exposure."The most common symptom is any rash and is reported in 83% of cases with at least one reported symptom," the WHO said.
White House scrambles to play catch-up on monkeypox response— The Biden administration is undergoing a course correction in its response to the monkeypox outbreak after weeks of logistical and bureaucratic delays in providing testing, treatments and vaccines. Officials acknowledge they are now playing catch-up as case numbers grow faster than initially expected, people close to the administration said, noting the number of infections has jumped from dozens to thousands in a short amount of time. As part of its new approach, the administration is working to drastically increase the number of people vaccinated against monkeypox and improve access to an experimental treatment for those infected, in addition to naming a monkeypox coordinator to manage the response from the White House across agencies and with state and local governments. Still, the administration faces a maze of obstacles, according to a dozen doctors on the front lines and former public health officials who spoke with NBC News. “I feel like we still have the opportunity to continue to control this, but it’s really a matter of getting the resources,” said Julie Morita, who advised President Joe Biden on Covid during the transition and was the former head of the Chicago Department of Public Health. “Public health needs to be resourced adequately, the vaccine supply needs to be increased, and communication efforts really need to be ramped up. But all those things can happen and can lead to control of this outbreak. It’s not too late," she said. This week, New York and California were among numerous states that declared public health emergencies, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported infections in all but two states. According to an NBC News analysis of CDC data, the seven-day average of reported new cases increased from 45 on July 11 to 214 just two weeks later.
Monkeypox outbreak in US now world's biggest after COVID-like mistakes - The story of monkeypox feels to experts frustratingly like a replay of the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Testing took too long to get launched. Data hasn't revealed the full extent of the outbreak. The spread wasn't stopped quickly enough.Monkeypox was supposed to be different, because it is much harder to transmit, treatments and vaccines were already available, much was known about a virus first described in 1958, and so many lessons were supposedly learned from COVID-19.Yet the United States now has the world's biggest outbreak of monkeypox: More than 6,600 Americans have been diagnosed since mid-May. Rarely seen outside Africa before the spring, the virus, a less deadly cousin of smallpox, has now triggered a 26,000-person global emergency, reaching 83 countries, 76 of which had not historically seen the disease.And that's just the known cases. No one knows the full extent of America's outbreak.States don't have to tell the federal government when they have a patient. Testing difficulties have left many people undiagnosed, and communication has been so scattered that many people and physicians don't consider the virus a possible cause of symptoms such as fever, swollen glands, body aches and a telltale rash."It's deja vu all over again," said Lawrence Gostin, a university professor and global health law expert at Georgetown University in Washington. "We're really flying in the dark."In recent days and weeks the Biden administration has stepped up its approach to combating monkeypox, he and others said, but it missed key opportunities to stop the spread of a virus that rarely kills but can cause severe pain and scarring. And the window is closing fast to prevent it from becoming a permanent fixture in the United States alongside COVID-19.
As Monkeypox Spreads, U.S. Declares a Health Emergency - President Biden’s health secretary on Thursday declared the growing monkeypox outbreak a national health emergency, a rare designation signaling that the virus now represents a significant risk to Americans and setting in motion measures aimed at containing the threat.The declaration comes more than a week after the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency over the outbreak, and it gives federal agencies power to direct money toward developing and evaluating vaccines and drugs, to access emergency funding and to hire additional workers to help manage the outbreak, which began in May.“We’re prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously,” the health secretary, Xavier Becerra, said at a news briefing.The president and Mr. Becerra have been under intense pressure from activists and public health experts to move more aggressively to combat the outbreak. Earlier this week, Mr. Bidennamed a veteran emergency response official and a respected infectious disease specialist to coordinate the response from the White House — a sign that the administration is stepping up its efforts.Supplies of the monkeypox vaccine, called Jynneos, have been severely constrained, and the administration has been criticized for moving too slowly to expand the number of doses. Declaring the emergency would not ease that shortage, but the administration may take steps to allow quicker access to tecovirimat, the drug recommended for treating the disease.As of Wednesday, the United States had recorded nearly 7,000 monkeypox cases, with the highest rates per capita in Washington, New York and Georgia. More than 99 percent of the cases are among men who have sex with men.The virus is transmitted mostly during close physical contact; the infection is rarely fatal — no deaths have been reported in the United States — but can be very painful. The country now has among the highest rates of monkeypox infection in the world, and the number is expected to rise as surveillance and testing improve.
DeSantis claims concern over monkeypox is overblown - — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday attempted to downplay anxiety over monkeypox, saying that politicians and the media have overblown the severity of the disease and equated it to fears surrounding Covid-19. Florida had 525 monkeypox infections as of Tuesday, according to a state database, which is an increase from the roughly 350 infections from late last week. Florida had the fifth highest number of cases in the nation as of Monday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I am so sick of politicians, and we saw this with Covid, trying to sow fear into the population,” DeSantis said during a press conference near Orlando. “We’re not doing fear.” The World Health Organization has declared monkeypox a global health emergency, with more than 25,000 cases reported in 83 countries. Seventy-six countries seeing monkeypox cases don’t typically have infections, according to the CDC. Monkeypox can be spread through skin-to-skin contact and the current infections are overwhelmingly among men who have sex with men. New York City, which has declared a local state of emergency, has emerged as the epicenter of the disease, with over 1,600 cases of monkeypox. California, which has more than 800 cases, and Illinois, with about 500 cases, have also declared states of emergency over the monkeypox outbreak. DeSantis also blasted New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, for declaring a state of emergency over the outbreak, saying he was convinced it was a move to restrict people from freedom. “They’re going to abuse those emergency powers to restrict your freedom,” Desantis said. “I guarantee you that’s what will happen.” DeSantis’ surgeon general, Joseph A. Ladapo, said on Wednesday during the same press conference that Florida has an adequate number of monkeypox vaccines, though he questioned the safety of two vaccines recommended for monkeypox by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He claimed very little data exists on their effectiveness. The CDC has recommended two vaccines to treat monkeypox — Jynneos, also known as Imvamune or Imvanex, from Denmark, and another known as ACAM2000, which was developed after the World Health Organization declared smallpox as eliminated in 1980.
Monkeypox continues its global assault as governments do nothing to bring the pandemic to an end --It has been more than 10 days since the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared the multi-country global outbreak of the monkeypox epidemic a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on July 23, 2022.The overruling of the emergency committee’s majority opinion against such a declaration was unprecedented. However, the response to the monkeypox pandemic on the part of countries hardest hit has been characterized by continued inaction and paralysis, mirroring the crisis in the international health agency.In the three months since the global outbreak commenced, almost 23,008 cases have been confirmed. The global seven-day moving average of monkeypox infections is approaching 1,000 per day, according to the detailed tracker by Antonio Caramia, an Italian data scientist who has provided this writer permission to use his work. Currently, the US is the largest epicenter in the monkeypox pandemic with close to 5,200 confirmed cases. Canada has seen 818 monkeypox cases. Brazil (1,377) and Peru (307) are leading in Latin America. In Europe, Spain (4,300), Germany (2,677), the UK (2,359) and France (1,955) make up the lion’s share of cases. On a per capita basis, Spain’s rate of monkeypox cases is six times higher than in the US and the highest in the world. Some 87 countries and territories have documented monkeypox within their borders.At the WHO press brief July 27, 2022, Director-General Ghebreyesus said during his opening remarks, words reminiscent of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, “This is an outbreak that can be stopped if countries and communities and individuals inform themselves, take the risk seriously, and take the steps needed to stop the transmission and protect vulnerable groups.”
Banana Boat sunscreen recalled over carcinogen -The maker of Banana Boat recalled three batches of spray-on sunscreen after an internal review found trace levels of benzene in the products.The Food and Drug Administration announced that an unexpected level of the carcinogen was detected in the propellant that sprays the sunscreen out of the can, even though it is not an ingredient in the sunscreen itself.The recall covers Banana Boat spray-on cans of SPF 30 Hair & Scalp Defense sunscreen with product code 0-79656-04041-8 and one of the following three lot codes: 20016AF, 20084BF or 21139AF. A lab found a carcinogen in dozens of sunscreens. Here’s what those findings really mean.Benzene is classified as a human carcinogen that can be ingested through inhalation, the skin or orally. Long-term and repeated exposure to the chemical at high-enough levels can cause leukemia or other cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the short term, those exposed may experience dizziness, an irregular heartbeat or other symptoms.
EPA faces new lawsuit over 'forever chemicals' - Efforts by industry groups to challenge EPA advisories for “forever chemicals” are ramping up even as experts sound the alarm over a wide range of health risks posed by the toxic substances.The powerful American Chemistry Council announced over the weekend that it had filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit over EPA’s interim lifetime health advisories for two PFAS. Those advisories, for the notorious cancer-linked chemicals PFOA and PFOS, list dramatically low levels in drinking water as being safe for human consumption. Announced last month, the advisories are nonbinding and it is unusual for such moves to generate legal pushback. EPA has stated that the advisories will likely change based on expert feedback and are only interim thresholds meant to safeguard the public in the meantime. But ACC asserted that the levels will have “sweeping implications for policies at the state and federal levels,” presenting a major threat for industry members. “ACC supports the development of drinking water standards for PFAS based on the best available science,” the trade organization said. “However, EPA’s [advisories] for PFOA and PFOS reflect a failure of the Agency to follow its accepted practice for ensuring the scientific integrity of its process.”The lawsuit argues that EPA was out of line earlier this summer when it unveiled updated interim advisories for PFOA and PFOS as part of a quartet of announcements regarding per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in drinking water. Those levels are 4 parts per quadrillion for PFOA and 20 ppq for PFOS, down from 70 parts per trillion, an advisory that had been in place since 2016. Both chemicals are now considered to pose a health threat if they appear above “near zero” levels, according to an EPA official at the time (Greenwire, June 15). In that same announcement, EPA also introduced new health advisories for the compounds PFBS and HFPO-DA, the second of which is often referred to by its trademarked name GenX, a product of Chemours Co. Officials said drinking water is safe to consume with less than 2,000 ppt of PFBS and 10 ppt of GenX. Health advisories solely speak to the risks chemicals pose and do not factor in other issues, like economic realities and technological feasibility. When EPA unveiled the new advisories, officials emphasized that the thresholds were not legally binding and that any future regulations would likely see higher and less restrictive cutoff points in order to account for the complications around such low numbers for already invisible substances. The advisories are likely to have the biggest impact on state-level thresholds, as well as in expanding cleanup obligations for the Department of Defense, which has relied on EPA thresholds as it faces billions of dollars in contamination costs.Tim Carroll, a spokesperson for EPA, declined to comment on ACC’s reaction and cited pending litigation as the reason. In October, an EPA toxicity assessment determined that GenX was deeply dangerous for humans following years of uproar in North Carolina, where that compound has contaminated drinking water in the Cape Fear River area (Greenwire, Oct. 25, 2021). A month later, regulators previewed that they planned to drop health advisory thresholds for PFOA and PFOS dramatically given the science that had emerged around those chemicals (E&E News PM, Nov. 16, 2021). But industry members have slammed the moves, arguing that such low levels cannot even be detected by current EPA methods and accusing the agency of moving too quickly before its own Science Advisory Board has finished its review of the conclusions.
Levels of 'forever chemicals' reaching Antarctica have been increasing - New evidence from Antarctica shows that toxic 'fluorinated forever chemicals' have increased markedly in the remote environment in recent decades and scientists believe CFC-replacements could be among likely sources.Known as forever chemicals because they do not break down naturally in the environment, chemicals such as perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs) have a wide array of uses such as in making non-stick coatings for pans, water-repellents for clothing, and in fire-fighting foams. One of these chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid(PFOA), bioaccumulates in foodwebs and is toxic to humans with links to impairment of the immune system and infertility. In this new study, published by the journal Environmental Science & Technology, and led by scientists from Lancaster University, firn (compacted snow) cores were taken from the extremely remote, high and icy Dronning Maud Land plateau of eastern Antarctica.The cores, which provide a historic record between 1957 and 2017, provide evidence that levels of these chemical pollutants have shown a marked increase in the remote snowpack of Antarctica over the last few decades. The most abundant chemical discovered by far was the shorter chain compound, perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA). Concentrations of this chemical in the snow cores increased significantly from around the year 2000 until the core was taken in 2017. Professor Crispin Halsall, who led the study, believes this increase can be partly explained by a switch by global chemicals manufacturers around 20 years ago from producing long-chain chemicals like PFOA to shorter-chain compounds, such as PFBA due to health concerns associated with human exposure to PFOA. Dr. Jack Garnett who conducted the chemical analysis on the snow samples, added that "the large increase in PFBA observed from the core, particularly over the last decade, suggests there is an additional global source of this chemical other than polymer production. We do know that some of the chemicals replacing the older ozone-depleting substances like CFCs and HCFCs, such as the hydrofluoroethers, are produced globally in high quantities as refrigerants but can breakdown in the atmosphere to form PFBA."
‘Corn sweat’ is about to make the air in the Midwest oppressively muggy --During summer, the Midwest can experience some of the most oppressive humidity in the country. Fields in Iowa can be muggier than beaches in Miami. The culprit? Billions of stalks of corn.Akin to a person breathing, plants exhale water into the atmosphere through a process called evapotranspiration. Some call it "corn sweat."In the Midwest and northern Plains, corn and soybean crops draw moisture from the ground through their roots into their leaves, stems and fruits. The water evaporates into the surrounding air through their leaves, joining forces with neighboring water molecules to humidify the air.This extra humidity is going to make the heat wave centered over the middle of the Lower 48 states even more oppressive.Densely planted across millions of acres, corn can bring a-maizing levels of humidity during the middle of summer. One acre of corn can release 4,000 gallons of water per day, enough to fill a residential swimming pool in less than a week.This extra humidity is going to make the heat wave centered over the middle of the Lower 48 states even more oppressive. The additional moisture from corn causes higher heat indexes — a measure of how hot it feels taking humidity into account. It can turn an oppressive day into a dangerous one. The effects are strongest in the heart of the planted fields, but a person doesn’t have to be standing in a field to feel the heat. The moisture follows the winds, mixing around to blanket the region. What in the world is ‘corn sweat’? Temperatures on Tuesday are expected to climb from 95 to 105 in the Plains and Midwest, but high humidity levels will make it feel like 100 to 110 degrees from Texas to southern Minnesota. While hotter conditions favor higher rates of evapotranspiration, the process peaks when corn reaches its “tasseling” phase, or when it hits maximum height — with a crown of thin spikes — and begins to sprout. Tasseling generally occurs around mid-July to August, about 80 to 90 days after planting. Humidity levels can increase in the span of a week or two once the plant hits the tasseling phase. The moisture from corn evapotranspiration may not only make it intolerably muggy during the day, it can also slow cooling at night, leaving little respite from the heat. Lows on Wednesday from Texas to Illinois are predicted to dip only to 75 to 80, about 5 to 15 degrees above normal.
BLM agrees to reconsider grazing at sensitive Ariz. site - The Bureau of Land Management will reevaluate the impacts of livestock grazing on plants and animals inside Arizona’s San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area as part of a legal settlement with environmental groups.The settlement finalized yesterday resolves an April 2020 lawsuit in which a coalition of groups claimed a BLM resource management plan for the conservation area improperly allowed “expanded livestock grazing” and “expansive vegetation treatments” that will “undermine the conservation values for which Congress protected the San Pedro Riparian NCA” (Greenwire, April 8, 2020).The settlement requires BLM to update management conditions in the RMP if during the evaluation process it finds that livestock grazing “does not meet” the criteria for managing the San Pedro Riparian NCA “in a manner that conserves, protects, and enhances the [NCA] and the aquatic, wildlife, archeological, paleontological, scientific, cultural, educational, and recreational resources.”It also requires BLM during the allotment review process to consider a “no grazing” alternative banning livestock in the San Pedro Riparian NCA entirely.BLM also agrees to work on voluntary measures with grazing allotment leaseholders to limit grazing in certain riparian areas on two of the four allotments to only the winter months, and to “inspect, maintain and repair, as BLM deems appropriate, allotment pasture fences” that, if not maintained, can allow cattle to roam off into sensitive areas.BLM and the Fish and Wildlife Service, respectively, agree in the settlement to prepare a biological assessment and biological opinion analyzing the impacts of the RMP proposal for additional grazing on the Huachuca water umbel, southwestern willow flycatcher, desert pupfish, Gila topminnow, northern Mexican gartersnake, yellow-billed cuckoo and Arizona eryngo.BLM and FWS also agreed in the settlement to pay $150,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs of litigation to the coalition that filed the lawsuit — the Western Watersheds Project, Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club.
Feds set rules for fossil hounds collecting on Interior lands - It took some 13 years of bureaucratic sifting, but the Interior Department today finally completed the rule governing the collection of fossils from National Park Service and other federal lands.In a belated follow-up to a law passed in 2009, four Interior agencies jointly announced the fossil-collecting rule that will apply to sites managed by NPS, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation.“The laws and regulations under which the bureaus have managed, protected, and curated fossils have not always been clearly understood or uniformly implemented,” Interior acknowledged today.The rule that will be published tomorrow in the Federal Register specifies when fossil-collecting permits are required and how they are obtained, when fossils must be handed over to official repositories, what collection activities are prohibited and what penalties apply. “This collaboration among the four bureaus and partnerships between museums and avocational paleontology groups will allow the Interior Department to fulfill its mission to preserve paleontological resources and share these discoveries with the public,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
US high tide flooding breaks records in multiple locations -High-tide flooding (HTF) broke or tied records in three locations in U.S. coastal areas in the past year, according to data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). HTF has become increasingly frequent across the country but will likely decline this year, according to NOAA. The administration attributed the decrease to the La Niña weather phenomenon.HTF increases are likely to be concentrated along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, where NOAA is predicting a 150 percent increase from the year 2000. Since May of this year, three different NOAA-monitored locations have tied or broken previous records for number of HTF days. Reedy Point, Del., saw a new high of six events, while Kwajalein Island in the Pacific broke its 2021 record with four days of HTF. Meanwhile, South Carolina’s Springmaid Pier saw 11 HTF events, tying its 2021 high. HTF occurs when ocean water floods into low-lying areas during high-tide periods, usually following tides of between 1.75 and 2 feet above the daily average. In years past, these events have been limited to storms, but they have recently become common during prevailing-wind changes or even full moons. The aftereffects of the La Niña event will likely blunt HTF along the West Coast and in the U.S.’s island holdings, but levels are likely to be higher along the East Coast and the western and eastern Gulf coasts, according to NOAA. HTF is likely to become far more extreme on a national scale in the decades ahead, according to NOAA. By 2050, NOAA predicts HTF at a national scale for about 45 to 70 days per year on average, an estimate based on projected sea level rise data. “Coastal flood warnings for significant risks to life and property, will become much more commonplace as we approach mid-century,” NOAA officials said.
How climate change will increase storm surge flooding in NYC, Miami and D.C. : As climate change warms the planet, drives up sea levels and energizes hurricanes, the arsenal of dangerous impacts delivered by the fierce storms is expected to get supercharged.Among the most worrisome: powerful flooding from storm surge.Rising seas and stronger winds mean the punishing waves pushed ashore by tropical storms and hurricanes will make their way farther and farther inland. That inland march would expose a larger swath of the U.S. coast to the kind of flooding unleashed during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and put more people at risk of drowning, the leading cause of death in hurricanes.An NPR analysis based on modeling from the National Hurricane Center for three critical regions — New York City, Washington, D.C., and Miami-Dade County — found future sea rise alone could expose about 720,000 more people to flooding in the decades to come.The analysis used three landmark hurricanes — Sandy, Isabel, and Irma — as benchmarks to understand how the impacts of storm surge could grow.In all three regions, flooding from storm surge that once lingered along the coast travels miles farther inland and grows deeper. By 2080, when sea rise could reach more than three feet, flooding would engulf even more critical infrastructure, including hospitals and schools that often provide shelter. "Every bit of sea level that we add to this just makes this kind of scenario worse," Unlike flood waters from rainfall or overflowing canals or rivers, storm surge also carries the power of wind, he said. When a hurricane makes landfall, winds powerful enough to rip a roof off a house push a wall of water onto shore."Each time a wave hits, it's just a big spike," Haus said. "That kind of repetitive shock loading is the kind of thing that causes a lot of structural failure."
Flood risk is rising across the St. Louis region. Who will solve the problem? - The region's sewers, creeks and storm drains were no match for last week's record-shattering rainfall—a downpour remarkable not just for its unprecedented total, but also for its intensity. Pouring water sprawled over creek banks, across roads, and into homes and vehicles, stranding hundreds and killing two.Levees overtopped in St. Peters and the Metro East. Sewers backed up across the region. But unlike the frequent floods along the area's major rivers in recent years, waterfrom within was a primary danger this time, as many low-lying neighborhoods filled with rain far faster than it could drain off. Experts and officials said the ordeal offers a stark warning that the area's storm systems and water managers must confront: The warming climate is making major downpours more common. And the expansion of homes, parking lots and subdivisions fuels more runoff than ever before. Yet it's unclear who, exactly, is responsible for the region's stormwater. "There is no one clear authority that you can blame or hold responsible," . "It's very complicated."Last Tuesday, St. Louis was slammed by an astounding 9.07 inches of rain—crushing the area's previous record for daily rainfall by more than two inches. And the bulk of that rain fell in only about a three-hour span. That's about a quarter of the region's average annual precipitation compressed into a few early-morning hours. It was simply too much water, too fast. Even two inches of rain in an hour can trigger problematic flash flooding, according to experts on the stormwater commission in hard-hit University City. (The region saw that again Thursday afternoon, when a second round of violent rain dumped 2 to 4 inches of water, sparking additional flash floods.) The Metropolitan St. Louis sewer district estimated Tuesday's rain as an event that occurs less than once every 500 years. But such comparisons are becoming almost meaningless, as the climate of the present becomes increasingly different than the climate of the past.Indeed, rainfall intensity in St. Louis has grown markedly over the past several decades, as has the number of days during which the city is hit by more than one inch of rain, according to an analysis from Climate Central.Experts say the flood-prone upper River Des Peres, which wanders through communities like University City before getting tunneled underground, offers a prime example of the bad fit between prevailing water management trends and a more volatile climate.When the watershed was hit with Tuesday's torrential rain, levels on the upper river soared well above the threshold that has spelled flood problems in the past. The river spilled out of its banks. It pushed water up thestorm drains, into the streets. And when the main current hit the 20-foot openings to the "tubes" that direct the river underground, northwest of Forest Park, all of that volume simply didn't fit, University City stormwater commission members estimated. That left streets filled, cars covered, basements full, and residents reporting worse flooding than ever before—even in areas that aren't next to the river.
Heavy Rain Floods Illinois --Heat has been building in the Plains and is spreading its way eastward through the Midwest. On the edge of that heat, thunderstorms developed late Monday across Illinois. Storms trained, or continually moved over the same areas, Monday night through midafternoon on Tuesday.This training mechanism can happen in several ways. In this case, the thunderstorms forming on the edge of the heat on Monday developed a pool of cooler air at the surface that enhanced the warm front from northwest to southeast Illinois. Winds not far above the surface were mostly parallel along that boundary, meaning that instead of storms pushing eastward, away from the surface boundary, they continually moved along it, enhancing it throughout Tuesday morning. Eventually, on Tuesday afternoon, the upper-level winds shifted direction and the storms were cut off and dissipated.What occurred then was a stripe of heavy rainfall across the state with widespread amounts over an inch and a half. In the accompanying image that is based on satellite and radar estimates, that is in the red shading. A little harder to see were also many areas that received over 5 inches of rain in purple. In the pink shading, a small area in southeast Illinois from Effingham to Richland counties received an estimated 10 to 12 inches. While amounts that high may have been received, there are no reports to back up those extreme totals. However, the National Weather Service in Lincoln, Illinois, did receive widespread reports of over 2 inches and several over 4 inches.While these rains did occur over about a 24-hour period and some places should have been able to handle the rainfall without too much damage or flooding, lower spots, areas with denser soils or no tiling, and the areas of extreme rain over 5 inches likely are having troubles.Of course, the rains are coming at a critical time for corn and soybeans while they are filling, but too much rain and flooding are not ideal. These areas have more chances for moderate to heavy rain Wednesday and Thursday, which could exacerbate the flooding issues.
Governor says full death toll from eastern Kentucky flooding will not be known for weeks - At least 28 people have been confirmed dead as of Sunday due to the historic flooding that hit eastern Kentucky late last week. Far more victims are expected to be found as search-and-rescue teams wade through debris-laden flood waters, mudslides and wrecked homes and buildings in the mostly isolated rural and coal mining towns. Home swept away by floodwaters from Bowling Creek in Breathitt County (Source: Facebook Johnny Feltner) National Guard units from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia have made more than 660 air rescues, and there have been over 600 water rescues, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear told CNN. But there could be “many more deaths,” he said, and it could be weeks before the full death toll is known. “There are still so many people unaccounted for. And in this area, it’s going to be a hard task to get a firm number of folks unaccounted for,” Beshear told CNN. Many areas are unreachable, with 50 bridges washed away in Perry County alone. The lack of power and cell phone service has also hindered the teams who are working frantically to save more people with hot temperatures and more showers and thunderstorms expected over the next several days. This could lead to “additional river flooding,” the National Weather Service in Jackson, Kentucky warned. Over 10,000 customers were still without power in the state as of Sunday, according to Kentucky Power. Residents and at least one hospital in the area also have no clean water to drink or to flush away waste. The devastation and fatalities are centered in Knott, Breathitt, Clay, Letcher, Leslie and Perry counties. Among the dead are at least four children. The bodies of Maddison Noble, 8, Riley Noble Jr., 6; Chance Noble, 2, and Nevaeh Noble, 4, were found Friday after the children were swept away from their parents in floodwaters in Knott County. There are currently just 15 emergency shelters that are active. Many displaced residents are sleeping in their cars and trucks. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is only providing the state with 18 tractor-trailer truckloads of water, according to the governor. “This is the most devastating thing that ever happened to this area,” Gary Michael Hunt, a disabled coal miner from Martin County, told the World Socialist Web Site. “Lots of people live in mobile homes, and they were absolutely destroyed. It looks like someone dammed up a river and whole hollows are under water. Families have multiple losses and many of the dead might never be found.”
Flood catastrophe in eastern Kentucky worsens -- The death count from the devastating floods that hit eastern Kentucky last week has risen to 37, the state’s governor confirmed Monday night, with hundreds of victims still unaccounted for. Governor Andy Beshear said refrigerator trucks are serving as mobile morgues to hold bodies before they are flown to the medical examiner’s office in the state capital of Frankfort. “We are going to be finding bodies for weeks, many of them swept hundreds of yards, maybe a quarter of a mile plus from where they were last,” Beshear told CNN earlier this week. Efforts to find those still alive or to recover bodies are being hindered by hot temperatures and the threats of another round of severe storms, which could bring more rain, high winds and flash floods. Scores of bridges have already been washed away, entire towns remain under water and tens of thousands of residents of the mountainous region still have no power, clean water or cell phone access. The governor said clean water was a priority and also confirmed that 12,000 state residents still did not have electricity as of Monday. At the same time, resources provided by state and federal authorities are wholly inadequate. Only a handful of shelters have been set up and many are sleeping in their vehicles or in the rough. Just 14 emergency shelters are open assisting 483 people. Displaced residents are also sheltering in state parks, schools, churches and community centers. Many residents are relying on charities for food and the assistance of neighbors and volunteers. Few if any residents have flood insurance to fix houses which were inundated with water and mud or swept off their foundations, carried downstream and smashed to pieces.
Kentucky governor says water systems heavily damaged after flooding, as scorching heat replaces rain - Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said water and electricity systems across the state remain heavily damaged Wednesday from intense flooding, an issue raising concerns as scorching heat replaces rainfall. National, state and local authorities are working to bring food, water and electricity to those in the affected areas, he said. "These are proud, hardworking folks that have just lost it all, and I think the least we can do as human beings, as people of values, is to give and do what we can to get them back on their feet," Beshear said. At Wednesday's press conference, Beshear also said 1,300 people have been rescued from flooded areas and 3 have been confirmed as missing, although that number is likely higher than what has been reported. The death toll hasn't risen since Monday, with 37 people reported to have died due to the floods, according to the governor. Beshear said that a total of 219 people have been temporarily housed in Kentucky's state parks and another 221 in shelters, to account for 440 displaced individuals. However, there are many more displaced persons that are staying with friends and family that are not included in that total, he said. Cooling centers have been established across eight counties as the region braces for severe heat on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Beshear. The governor encouraged residents, especially elderly, high risk and displaced individuals without electricity, to use the cooling centers in order to stay safe in the heat. Restoring the damaged infrastructure will require "significant time and significant dollars," Beshear said
Flooding knocks out scores of Eastern Kentucky bridges The flood that killed at least 37 people also wreaked havoc on electric service, waterlines, roads and bridges. Crews have been able to restore electricity to well over half of the people who lost power, but fixing all the bridges damaged or destroyed by the flooding will be expensive and more time-consuming. The focus so far after the flooding has been on searching for missing people and providing food and emergency shelter for people whose homes were destroyed, so local officials haven’t finished tallying all the infrastructure damage and estimated what it will cost to fix. However, officials in the counties hit hardest by the flooding said scores of bridges had been damaged or destroyed. Perry County Judge-Executive Scott Alexander said about 50 bridges were washed away or damaged. Knott County Judge-Executive Jeff Dobson put the number there at 60 to 70 county bridges and many more private bridges. Breathitt County Judge-Executive Jeff Noble said dozens of bridges and culverts that people use to get across creeks to their homes were destroyed or damaged. “We won’t be done in a year” fixing all of them, Noble said. Many of the bridges serve only one or two homes, but damage to larger ones and to roads will also complicate getting students to school. The topography in Eastern Kentucky helps explain the damage. Many places the steep-sided hills form a V, with a creek at the bottom and a narrow strip of level land on either side for the road and houses.
Fearing looters, Kentucky flood victims refuse to leave wrecked homes — First came the floods, then came the vultures. Kentucky residents badly in need of food and fresh water after the eastern half of the state was inundated last week by epic floods were refusing Wednesday to leave their wrecked homes for fear of losing what little they have left to looters. “It’s also sad because people have been coming from out of the area to be like vultures and loot,” said Zack Hall, a flood survivor who is also the tourism director for Knott County. “People who do have a path out now feel like they have to suffer and sit in their house with no power to make sure no one gets into it,” Hall said. “My uncle, who is diabetic, is watching our entire family’s property to make sure nobody gets into them.” And the looters are brazen, Hall said. “People drive up to people’s yards, put things in their cars and drive away,” Hall said. “We are one of the lowest income areas in the country. People don’t have much, and what got washed away they lost and what they have left is taken.” Many survivors are sitting tight instead of seeking help at the shelters local officials set up in the wake of the devastating storms last week that left at least 37 dead and hundreds more still unaccounted for, spread out over five counties. Seventeen of those fatalities were reported in Knott County, and four of the dead are children from the same family, officials have said. “A lot of people are going primitive,” Hall said. “They’re just sitting on their porch, hoping somebody’s coming to save them." At least two counties have imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Breathitt County, members of the Kentucky National Guard are now patrolling the battered region, the county sheriff said Tuesday on Facebook.
'We are climate zero.' Why Appalachia faces perilous floods. - Severe rainstorms continued to pelt eastern Kentucky early this week, just days after catastrophic floods slammed the region’s mountain communities. More than three dozen people are confirmed dead, with hundreds more missing.The floods are some of the most extreme in the state’s recorded history. Experts have classified the deluge as a one-in-1,000-year event — or one that only has a 0.1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. Such events are becoming more common across the country as the climate warms. That’s simple physics: A warmer atmosphere is able to hold more water and dump more rain. But central Appalachia — including Kentucky, but also West Virginia and parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania — is particularly vulnerable to this climate change impact. That’s the result of a unique confluence of factors. Climate change is making rainstorms in Appalachia more severe. The region’s mountainous topography puts communities at higher risk of getting swamped. And in some places, experts say, coal mining has left the landscape scarred and more prone to flash floods. At the same time, many central Appalachian communities have suffered major economic losses in the wake of the coal industry’s decline, affecting their ability to adapt to a more extreme climate future. “The built environment is a really big part of the problem and the challenge,” said Nicolas Zégre, director of West Virginia University’s Mountain Hydrology Laboratory, “especially given how the infrastructure is already poorly maintained and inadequate to deal with these kinds of events.”Today, central Appalachia rests in a unique climate zone. In some of its southern regions, including Kentucky, temperatures haven’t warmed as fast in recent decades as they have in other parts of the country. But they’re projected to catch up as the planet continues to warm, according to state-level reports from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.Precipitation, however, is already increasing across much of central Appalachia. It’s projected to keep on doing so, especially during the winter and spring. Extreme rainfall events will likely happen more often and grow more intense over time, increasing the region’s flood risks.These risks are already substantial in many places. In West Virginia, flooding is the state’s “costliest and most severe natural hazard,” according to a NOAA report.As the region warms up, “you’re just getting a ton more water vapor in the atmosphere that reaches the saturation point — it has to come down somewhere,” said Chris Barton, a professor of forest hydrology and watershed management at the University of Kentucky and president of the reforestation nonprofit Green Forests Work.“When it comes down in a place like this,” he said, “the consequences are catastrophic.”That’s because the influence of climate change is compounded by the region’s steep topography.“There’s very little naturally flat land within Appalachia,” Zégre said. “Most of our flat land is associated with floodplains. And our buildings that are built along large river systems have the riverine flood potential," where rivers overflow onto adjacent land.Many small communities are built alongside small creeks and tributaries in narrow valleys known as “hollers,” he added. These areas are especially vulnerable to floods when extreme rainfall occurs.The intricacies of the landscape are a big part of what made Kentucky’s most recent floods so devastating, according to Barton. The region that flooded last week is “a very steep and bisected landscape,” he said. The area is crisscrossed by small headwater stream systems, which swell when heavy rain falls and feeds into larger water systems downstream.“It moves that water through very quick,” Barton said. “It makes it flashy and makes it highly prone to flooding.”
How Coal Mining and Years of Neglect Left Kentucky Towns at the Mercy of Flooding - For much of the last century, the country was powered by the labor of coal miners underneath the hills and mountains of southeastern Kentucky. But the landscape that was built to serve this work was fragile, leaving the people here extraordinarily vulnerable, especially after the coal industry shuttered so many of the mines and moved on. What remained were modest, unprotected homes and decaying infrastructure, and a land that itself, in many places, had been shorn of its natural defenses.Last week, when a deluge of rain poured into the hollows, turning creeks into roaring rivers, overwhelming old flood records, killing at least 37 people and destroying countless homes, that vulnerability was made brutally manifest.“When you have a century of billions of dollars and resources leaving, very little of it staying to create the infrastructure necessary for people to live lives, and it’s neglected as long as it has been,” said Wes Addington, a lawyer with the Appalachian Citizens Law Center in nearby Whitesburg, whose law office is now a flooded wreck, “when that’s combined with a really insane flood, it’s a catastrophe.”Southeastern Kentucky, which includes some of the poorest counties in the country, is different from many other rural areas, which have populated county seats surrounded by mostly empty countryside. Here, tiny communities are scattered all over the mountains, little clusters of shotgun houses and mobile homes lining creeks and hollows for miles. Many of these were once coal company camps, said Mr. Addington, who grew up in one. They were built for miners a hundred years ago, and often named — like the Fleming in Fleming-Neon — for coal company executives.Work in the mines was always grueling, but in the heyday of coal, it made for a glittering strand of little mountain boom towns. Fleming-Neon was once one, full of restaurants and stores, a movie theater and an Oldsmobile dealership. This sliver of land wedged between the thick woods and Wright Fork creek has been the home of Gary Moore’s family for as long as there has been a United States. The burial plot for an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War, he said, is a mile away. Mr. Moore himself lives in a mobile home across from his father’s house; the house where his grandmother lived is next door. All of that was wrecked in last week’s flooding.
At least 22 dead, many missing after rivers burst banks in Uganda’s Mbale District - At least 22 people have died and many remain missing after severe floods hit Uganda’s Mbale District over the weekend.The Nabuyonga and Namatala rivers overflowed in Uganda’s Mbale District over the weekend, claiming at least 22 lives, forcing hundreds to evacuate and causing extensive property damage, especially in areas of Namakwekwe and areas of Mbale City where several vehicles and an unknown number of occupants were swept away.1Police and the military have been called in to help in search and rescue operations, where stranded residents could only watch helplessly as their belongings were washed away by the floodwaters.2Mbale City resident commissioner Ahamada Waashaki told AFP on Sunday, July 31, 2022, that nine bodies had been recovered so far, including one of a soldier.“Many more people are missing and feared dead,” he said. “There is a lot of destruction, roads cut off, buildings submerged as a result of heavy rain that started last night until this morning.”Uganda National Roads Authority reported floods and mudslides had cut several roads including the Mbale—Nkokonjeru Road and the Mbale—Soroti Road.Joint police, army and Red Cross teams continued to search for the many people who have been reported missing since the floodwaters engulfed homes, bridges, shops and roads.3“In the past we experienced flooding but not the level of lives lost and destruction of property seen this time,”
These Communities Are Trapped in Harm’s Way as Climate Disasters Mount – — When flooding from Hurricane Floyd in 1999 destroyed Betty Ricks’ home, she rebuilt. Several years later, she posed proudly for a Christmas photograph beside her daughter and granddaughter in her new living room. Then another flood—brought by Tropical Storm Ernesto in 2006—claimed her house a second time, leaving soggy furniture and appliances jumbled sideways. After that storm, she rebuilt her home from scratch once more. Yet more flooding followed. Now, she and some of her neighbors on Great Spring Road, who live less than 30 miles inland from where the Chesapeake Bay opens into the Atlantic Ocean, see no way out of this dangerous loop but to move. With an increasing number of communities at high risk from worse and more frequent disasters fueled by the changing climate, experts warn that many Americans will find themselves in a similar situation.But the only way to leave without putting new buyers in the same position—or abandoning their homes altogether—is to seek relocation funds from the federal government.Twice now, Ricks and her neighbors have asked for that help.Both times, their application was denied.Columbia Journalism Investigations in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity and Type Investigations spent a year digging into the growing need for climate relocation across the United States. Little organized government assistance exists for preventing the loss of homes and lives before a disaster, the investigation revealed—and there is no comprehensive focus on helping people escape untenable situations like Ricks’.For decades the federal government has known that climate change will force people in the US to relocate. And the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, recommended in 2020 that the government form a “climate migration pilot program” to help people who want to relocate due to climate change—a recommendation it reiterated in March.But in the absence of such a program, communities across the country must try to cobble together funding from across federal agencies through programs that weren’t designed for the climate crisis. That leaves people in harm’s way to fend for themselves. Many can’t.
Canada sets new record for largest recorded hailstone - A giant hailstone was found near Markerville, Alberta on Monday, August 1, 2022, setting a new record for the largest recorded hailstone in Canada. The record-breaker, measuring 123 mm (4.84 inches) in diameter and weighing 292.71 g (10.32 ounces), was found near the hamlet of Markerville by a team from the Northern Hail Project (NHP) led by Francis Lavigne-Theriault. The previous record holder was 114 mm (4.48 inches) in diameter and weighed 290 g (10.22 ounces). It was found in Cedoux, Saskatchewan on July 31, 1973. The team followed a storm to Markerville (about 35 km / 21.7 miles) southwest of Red Deer, Alberta) and found several baseball-sized hailstones. The team traveled farther south and approximately 20 minutes after the storm had passed (18:14 MDT) and recovered several larger hailstones under a tree canopy, many of which were grapefruit to softball-size including the record breaker.
Three dead after lightning strike near White House on Thursday - Three people, including a Wisconsin couple celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary, have died after a lightning strike Thursday evening in Lafayette Square, just north of the White House, D.C. police said Friday. Four people — two men and two women — were critically hurt in the strike just before 7 p.m. in the center of the park, in a grove of trees about 100 feet southeast of the statue of Andrew Jackson, fire department spokesman Vito Maggiolo said at a news briefing Thursday night. The U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police rendered aid to the victims, assistance that fire officials credited with all the victims’ initial survival. Among those who died were Donna Mueller, 75, a retired teacher, and her husband, James Mueller, 76, who owned a drywall business for decades before retiring, according to one of their daughters-in-law, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her privacy. She said they had no connection to the other people who were under the tree when the lightning hit. The couple lived in Janesville, Wis., about 70 miles west of Milwaukee, and had five grown children, ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. “Both would do anything for their family and friends,” their relatives said in a statement. The other person killed was a 29-year-old man, police said in announcing his death Friday afternoon. His identity was withheld pending notification of relatives.
More than 540 000 people ordered to evacuate as heavy rainfall hits Japan - (video) - As of Thursday morning (LT), August 4, 2022, over 540 000 residents living in the Tohoku and Hokuriku regions of Japan were ordered to evacuate as heavy rains continue falling over the Sea of Japan shoreline, triggering floods and landslides. Evacuation orders are in effect in Aomori, Iwate, Yamagata, Fukushima, Niigata, Ishikawa and Fukui prefectures on August 4. Several people are missing. According to the country’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the Mogami River in Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture, overflowed its banks in the early hours of Thursday, flooding homes, roads and railways. At least two bridges have already collapsed, one in Yamagata and another in Kitakata, Fukushima Prefecture During a news conference on Thursday morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said that around 1 900 households, most of them in Niigata Prefecture and neighboring areas, have lost power, while 380 households were experiencing water supply cutoffs.1 Two people were missing as of Thursday morning, but the number reportedly increased as the day progressed.According to data provided by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), hourly rainfall of 100 – 120 mm (3.93 – 4.72 inches) were observed in many areas in Yamagata. In 24 hours to Wednesday night, August 3, Oguni registered 277 mm (10.90 inches) while Iide registered 273 mm (10.74 inches). Early Thursday morning, 149 millimeters (5.86 inches) of rain were registered in just one hour in the Niigata town of Sekikawa. The town recorded 414.5 mm (16.31 inches) of rain in 24 hours to August 4, breaking the previous daily record of 212 mm (8.34 inches) set in July 2014. Another daily record was broken in the city of Murakami, Niigata on August 3 with 395.5 mm (15.57 inches). Its previous daily rainfall record was 290 mm (11.41 inches) set in 2005.
More than 500 people killed, thousands of homes destroyed as record-breaking rains hit Pakistan - (video) Since the monsoon rains started in mid-June, heavy rains and ensuing flooding have killed at least 502 people and destroyed thousands of houses throughout Pakistan.
- National rainfall for the month of July 2022 was largely (+181%) above average and stands as the record wettest July since 1961.
- July 2022 monthly rainfall alone exceeded the total normal monsoon seasonal rainfall by 26%.
- July 2022 rainfall was excessively above average over Balochistan (+450%) & Sindh (+308%), both
ranking as the wettest ever during the past 62 years. - The torrential rain caused massive flash floods in Balochistan, Sindh and southwest Punjab, inflicting huge loss of human lives and properties.
- The national mean monthly temperature of July 2022 for Pakistan as a whole was 29.93 °C (85.87 °F), being 1.34 °C (2.4 °F) cooler than the average of 31.27 °C (88.26 °F).
The death toll in Balochistan—the worst affected province, has already reached 150, with 15 fatalities confirmed in the previous 24 hours, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).1Several regions of Balochistan continued to be pummeled by the severe rain, which destroyed homes, roads, and bridges, wiped off crops, and swept away cattle. Recent fatalities were recorded in the Balochistan regions of Zhob, Qilla Saifullah, Kohlu, Naushki, and Lasbela, which experienced flash floods.The military, navy, and air force of the nation mobilized their soldiers and assets to aid with civilian rescue efforts, rescuing thousands of trapped individuals and providing food and relief supplies to families. During the flood relief operation on August 1, a Pakistani army helicopter crashed in the Lasbela district of Balochistan, killing all six aboard.According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), moderate monsoon currents are now approaching eastern Sindh.The country experienced record rains in July, with national rainfall 181% above normal, making it the wettest July since 1961.3 July 2022 rainfall was excessively above average over Balochistan (+450%) & Sindh (+308%), both ranking as the wettest ever during the past 62 years. Monthly rainfall was largely above average over Punjab (+116%) which stood second as the wettest month, above average over GB (+32%) & KP (+30%), and nearly average over AJK (-7%). The wettest day of the month in the country was July 25, when Badin (Sindh) recorded 219 mm (8.62 inches) rainfall, whereas the wettest place with the highest monthly total of 606.0 mm (23.8 inches) was PAF Masroor, Karachi. Other locations that received significant monthly precipitation were Islamabad Airport with 573.3 mm (22.57 inches), Padidan with 535.4 mm (21.08 inches), Gujranwala with 494 mm (19.44 inches), Islamabad (old airport) with 481.9 mm (18.97 inches), Takht-i-Bahi with 456.2 mm (17.96 inches), Islamabad Zero Point with 449 mm (17.67 inches), Gujrat with 424 mm (16.69 inches), Sialkot Cantt with 423.1 mm (16.65 inches), Lasbela with 404.7 mm (15.93 inches), Mangla with 391.2 mm (15.4 inches), Jhelum with 383.7 mm (15.10 inches), Chakwal with 383.6 mm (15.10 inches), Kotli with 360 mm (14.17 inches), Murree with 356 mm (14.01 inches), and Sialkot airport and Balakot with 352.4 mm (13.87 inches). The Chilas and Nokkundi were the only two stations that remained dry with no rain at all during the month.
German Barge Traffic Slumps As Rhine Water Levels Near Record Lows - Water levels on the Rhine River have fallen so low that barges hauling energy products have encountered parts of Europe's most crucial waterway impassible. The river at Kaub, Germany, is around 23.6 inches (60 centimeters) on Wednesday and is expected to drop to 18.5 inches (47 centimeters) by Saturday, according to the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration. That would take it within 2.5 inches (7 centimeters) from being entirely impassable by barge. "Fewer and fewer barges can pass through Kaub," Riverlake, a vessel broker, said, referring to vessels with oil product cargos. An impassible river at Kaub could exacerbate Germany's worst energy-supply crunch in decades as Russia reduces natural gas flows via Nord Stream 1 to just 20% capacity.It would paralyze the movement of energy products to chemicals and cripple Europe's largest manufacturing hub, which is already sliding into recession. "Low water levels already restrict coal shipments because fewer ships are available, and the ones that are ready to use carry less cargo," energy supplier EnBW AG said in a statement. "Shipment costs for coal are therefore increasing, which in turn inflates the costs of operating coal plants."In response to recent sliding water levels, Riverlake recently said barges hauling goods between Upper Rhine and Rotterdam had reduced weight to about a third of capacity to improve the draft of vessels. Shrinking shipping capacity had sent barge costs soaring near record highs, last seen in 2018 when the waterway was shuttered due to low levels.
The Dying American Southwest - From an op-ed in the Palm Springs (CA) Desert Sun:I suggested diverting 250,000 gallons/second, which is only about 5% of the flow on the lower Mississippi south of the Old River Control Structure (ORCS) in Central Louisiana 300 miles above New Orleans. This water does nothing except flow out into the Gulf of Mexico. It generates no electricity and doesn’t help commercial shipping or recreational boating. It only causes flooding problems in New Orleans. No state above the OCRS would suffer any loss of water.If 250,000 gals/sec is impractical, have the Corps consider a flow of 125,000 gals/sec (only 2.5% of the downriver flow), which would take two to three years to fill Lakes Powell and Mead. This is a rather rapid and reasonable time frame to solve the water problems of the Southwest. The writer is a resident whose opinion was boosted to the op-ed section of his local paper. Of course, writers on this subject who live near the Mississippi are resistant (though some agree that the project might reduce Mississippi flooding), and the general response from them is “Hell no.” Face it — the great American Southwest is in trouble, real trouble. From that same Desert Sun, a summer news report: Coachella Valley is experiencing one of its hottest summers on record — again. Surprised? Here are the stats. On June 15 and July 10, 2021, the daily maximum temperature records were broken at120 degrees. Aug. 3 and 4 of that year also saw records fall, with the thermometer hitting 119 and 122, respectively. And on June 17, 2021, Palm Springs hit 123 degrees, tying the record for the hottest day ever.By the time fall hit, and temperatures dropped back into the double-digits, eight daily maximum temperature records had fallen. This summer, as many other parts of the country experience record-breaking heat, temperatures in the Coachella Valley have yet to hit daily records. Notably, the mercury hasn’t hit 120 degrees. …[T]he average temperatures in June and July have 2022 on track to be one of the hottest summers recorded in the Coachella Valley. … [W]e’re just 1.5 degrees off the record pace of last year [for average summer temperature]. The Coachella Valley — and indeed, all of the American Southwest — is becoming unlivable:Climate change is expected to push average high temperatures in the Coachella Valley up by 8 to 14 degrees by the end of this century, according to a state assessment of climate change in the Inland Deserts region.And the op-ed writer wants to solve the problem by creating a 1,400-mile pipeline over the Rockies so he can continue to live there … instead of, let’s say, moving.It’s a silly idea, of course, and it won’t happen, just as all the other silly ideas — drain water from the Columbia and send it to the south, drain water from the Great Lakes and send it to west,desalinate the salty blue Pacific — none of these are going to happen.Which leaves two unappealing choices: The op-ed writer and all his friends can move, destroying whatever towns and cities they’re fleeing; or they can stay put and fight with everyone else in the dying Southwest desert for the last scraps of water left to them. And then they can move.
California's megadrought is worse than you think - When Maria Regalado Garcia tried to wash the dishes in her California home one recent morning, only a trickle of water emerged from the kitchen faucet. Other taps in her Tooleville house in rural Tulare County ran similarly dry. So Garcia fled to her granddaughter‘s home in Exeter, a few minutes away, to have a place cool enough to sleep.Garcia and her neighbors, who intermittently lose tap water at home, are among those most affected by a historic drought that’s blanketed the West, scorched California and caused a growing list of water troubles for residents and farmers.Nearly three-quarters of California is in either extreme or exceptional drought, considered worse than severe, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. It’s so bad that scientists say the ongoing drought in the western United States marks the region’s driest 22-year stretch in more than 1,200 years.The conditions have affected a broad swath of regions and industries. California wells are going dry. Farmers are either paying a premium for water or letting their fields sit empty. And there is growing concern that water exports from the Colorado River could come to a halt.“We are dealing with a changed climate in California that demands we reimagine not just how we use water, but how we capture, store and distribute it throughout the state,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week as he addressed local water leaders.Scientists pin a large share of the blame for the megadrought on climate change. UCLA climate scientist Park Williams, whose recent work flagged the ongoing Western drought as a historical anomaly, said about 40 percent of its severity is due to climate change. The study looked at California, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming and southwest Montana.“The turn-of-the-twenty-first-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory in terms of severity or duration without” human-caused climate change, the study said. But others are saying elected officials such as Newsom aren’t doing enough to respond to the historic conditions. Some argue the state needs to impose mandatory cutbacks, limits on commercial water use and more storage options.
California hamlet reduced to ashes as wildfire rages on -- A huge wildfire raging in northern California continues to burn out of control as residents of a scenic river town razed by the fire return to scenes of destruction. In the hamlet of Klamath River, home to about 200 people, most homes and businesses have turned to ash. Several thousand people in the region remain under evacuation orders, and at least four have been killed. Some Klamath River residents are now picking through the burned-out shells of their modest houses. Roger Derry, 80, and his son have lived together in Klamath River for more than 40 years, and are among the few families whose homes were spared by the inferno. “It’s very sad. It’s very disheartening,” Derry said. “Some of our oldest homes, 100-year-old homes, are gone. It’s a small community. Good people, good folks, for the most part, live here and in time will rebuild. But it’s going to take some time now.” The McKinney fire is the largest and deadliest blaze the state has seen this year. It has burned more than 90 sq miles (233 sq km) near the California-Oregon border, and is the largest of several wildfires burning in the Klamath national forest. The fire didn’t grow on Tuesday, and fire officials said crews were able to use bulldozers to carve firebreaks along a ridge to protect homes and buildings in the county seat of Yreka. Elsewhere, wildfires in Montana, Idaho and Nebraska have destroyed some homes and continue to threaten communities. Just four years ago, a huge blaze in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California virtually razed the Butte county town of Paradise, killing 85 people. When it began, the McKinney fire was only a couple hundred acres and firefighters thought they would quickly have it under control. But then, a thunderstorm cell came in with ferocious wind gusts that within hours had pushed it into an unstoppable conflagration.
Fire and rain: As McKinney blaze rages, floods hit Northern California -In the Klamath National Forest in Northern California, where the McKinney Fire has killed four people, residents have been confronted by a raging inferno and flooding rain. On Tuesday night, slow-moving severe thunderstorms unleashed downpours near the McKinney Fire, which has consumed more than 57,000 acres and is California’s largest fire of 2022. The heavy rains helped slow the growth of the blaze but triggered flooding and mudslides in parts of the burned area. The National Weather Service office in Medford, Ore., reported mud and debris on some area roads and flash flooding on the eastern side of the fire. It also issued a severe thunderstorm warning and a flash flood warning for Siskiyou County. The Siskiyou County sheriff reported a possible mudflow on Whitney Creek near Mount Shasta and urged residents to be ready to evacuate. As barren ground absorbs less water and rainwater can easily pick up soil and sediments, charred areas are especially prone to debris flows and mudslides. On Wednesday, fire behavior analyst Dennis Burns reported that some areas affected by the fire received as much as three inches of rain in just over an hour, leading to debris flows that compromised roads in the fire zone. “But other parts of the fire got no rain whatsoever,” Burns said. Meanwhile, thunderstorm activity has brought a rash of lightning to the broader region, possibly sparking new fires. The McKinney Fire exploded Friday into Saturday near the town of Yreka, destroying structures and claiming at least four lives. Although officials do not think lightning sparked the fire, its growth was driven by erratic thunderstorm winds and fueled by high temperatures combined with dense, drought-stressed vegetation in the Klamath National Forest.Given moist conditions early this week, some progress is expected in the coming days on the McKinney Fire (57,500 acres) and the nearby Yeti Fire (2,980 acres), both of which so far have no containment.
4 people killed and more than 100 structures destroyed in McKinney Fire - California’s largest in deadliest fire of the season - 4 people have been killed and more than 100 structures destroyed as the McKinney Fire in Siskiyou County’s Klamath National Forest, northern California, rapidly spread into the state’s largest fire of the season. The fire started on July 29 and by August 4 it spread to 23 742 ha (58 668 acres) of land. More than 2 200 personnel is battling the blaze which is only 10% contained as of today.1 The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said more than 100 homes, sheds and other buildings have been destroyed, including the homes of several deputies who are continuing to work despite personally being under evacuation orders. Many of the lost structures are along the Klamath River, which runs parallel to Highway 96, according to a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office. The Klamath River Community Hall in Klamath River was also among the structures destroyed, officials said.2 Two people were found dead in their car in a driveway in the town of Klamath River, Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue told ABC News. Firefighters said they suspected that the two were caught in the fast-moving fire as they tried to flee, according to the sheriff. Two more bodies were found at separate residences on the perimeter of the blaze along Highway 96, according to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office.3 On four separate occasions, the fire sent columns of smoke into the stratosphere – a phenomenon known as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. In Siskiyou County, the water in these clouds returned to Earth as rain, accompanied by thunder, wind and lightning, in “a classic example of a wildfire producing its own weather,” said David Peterson, a meteorologist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.4
Wildfires disproportionately affect the poor - With fires raging from California to Alaska, the 2022 wildfire season is off to a violent start. It's an ominous sign of what promises to be another record-breaking fire season in the U.S.Roughly 2 million acres burned last month. And major fires are currently scorching Idaho, Utah and California, threatening tens of thousands of Americans' homes and livelihoods.Many of those at risk are lower-income Americans who face canceled homeowners insurance policies and rising premiums, according to new research from the University of Georgia.Published in Forests, the study found that counties with moderate-to-high wildfire risk are more likely to have higher poverty rates. Many of these counties reside in states that are dominated by a handful of insurance companies. Homeowners' options in these areas may be limited if they need to replace a policy that has been terminated."The overlap of wildfire risk, poverty and concentrated insurance markets should get people thinking about policies and interventions to help the most vulnerable homeowners," said Matthew Auer, lead author of the study and dean of the School of Public and International Affairs. Auer and graduate student Benjamin Hexamer identified the 14 states in the lower 48 with the highest wildfire risk in the U.S. by comparing average annual acres burned between 2016 and 2020. Those states include Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.Among those states, 98 counties had high wildfire hazard potential, the study found. The only states without a high-risk county were Oklahoma and Wyoming. About 60% of the high-risk counties in the remaining 12 states were designated as higher poverty, based on U.S. Census Bureau data.The researchers also found discrepancies between the U.S. Forest Service's data on which counties are at high risk of wildfires and the number of counties deemed at risk by First Street Foundation, a nonprofit that provides a national, peer reviewed wildfire risk model for properties in the lower 48. "The First Street Foundation data should give everybody pause because in it there are entire states that have comparatively high wildfire risk," Auer said. "States we tend not to think about as majorly susceptible to destructive wildfire are in harm's way, including, for example, Nebraska and Oklahoma."
Wildfire in Washington burns several homes, small town evacuated --A small town in the state of Washington was evacuated due to a fast-moving fire that burned a half-dozen homes, as crews in California made progress against the state’s deadliest and largest wildfire of the year. In Washington, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook early on Thursday afternoon that residents of Lind needed to flee due to the encroaching flames. “At this time all residents of the town of Lind need to evacuate immediately,” the sheriff’s office said in the post. Later Thursday, Sheriff Dale Wagner said six homes had burned as well as eight other structures. With the help of state and local resources, Wagner said the fire was starting to calm down and by evening all evacuation orders had been lifted. Sheriff’s deputies search a scorched residence following the McKinney Fire in Klamath National Forest, California, their team did not find any fire victims at the property [Noah Berger/AP] “They will be fighting it through the night to make sure it doesn’t flare up any more or get worse,” he said, adding that firefighters were dealing with high heat and windy conditions. He said one firefighter suffered smoke inhalation and was flown to Spokane for treatment. The evacuation comes as California and much of the rest of the western region of the United States is in a drought and wildfire danger is high, with the historically worst of the fire season still to come. Fires are burning throughout the region and forecasters have also warned that spiking temperatures and plunging humidity levels could create conditions for further wildfire growth. Scientists have said climate change has made the West warmer and drier during the last 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. California has seen its largest, most destructive and deadliest wildfires in the last five years. Lind is a community of about 500 people approximately 121km (75 miles) southwest of Spokane. Homes, infrastructure and crops were threatened. The cause of the fire was under investigation.
Wildfire in Willamette National Forest at over 1,000 acres, some campers and hikers evacuated --A wildfire in the Willamette National Forest has scorched over 1,000 acres as of Friday afternoon. Four air tankers dropped over eight loads of retardant on the Cedar Creek Fire Thursday, according to a statement from park staff on social media. The Cedar Creek Fire was officially mapped Thursday by aircraft at 900 acres and by Friday morning it had grown to 1,054 acres. Patrols had started evacuating some campers and hikers on Thursday. A plane equipped with an infrared camera and other special technology measured heat on the ground Thursday night. Areas of the Cedar Creek Fire on the map below with stripes indicate intense heat while areas with dots indicate scattered heat. Crews were also planning to wrap the historic Waldo Lookout with a heat reflecting material to try and keep it safe if the fire moves north. Waldo Lake remained open as did campsites on the east side of the Lake, but visitors were warned that a closure of the east side could happen in a couple of days depending on fire behavior.
Smoke from Western wildfires can influence Arctic sea ice, researchers find - Sea ice and wildfires may be more interconnected than previously thought, according to new research out today in Science Advances. By digging into differences between climate models, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that soot and other burned biomass from wildfires here in Colorado and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere can eventually make their way to the Arctic. Once there, it can affect how much—or how little—sea ice persists at any given time.This, in turn, can cause ripple effects on climatic patterns for the rest of the globe, reinforcing a feedback loop between the two systems in a way that hasn't been previously seen."This research found that particles emitted from wildfires where people live can really impact what happens in the Arctic thousands of miles away," said Patricia DeRepentigny, the lead author on the paper and a postdoctoral fellow at NCAR."Sometimes the Arctic can be seen as this region that we shouldn't care about because it's so far away from where we live … but the fact that there's this back-and-forth of what happens here with the wildfires can affect the sea ice, and a diminishing sea ice can then lead to more wildfires here, connects us with the Arctic a little bit more."When they dug deeper into why these biomass burning emissions mattered so much, they found that the main difference is due to the non-linear cloud effects that can emerge when aerosols, small particles or liquid droplets, released by fires interact with Arctic clouds. When there are a lot of aerosols released during a heavy fire year, it can lead to more and thicker clouds, whereas those clouds are thinner on lighter fire years—allowing for more solar radiation to get through and melt more ice.Previous research had already shown that when the sea ice melts, large wildfires become more widespread over the western U.S. By showing that smoke from wildfires can help protect the ice, this new research suggests that this variability may be creating more of a feedback loopthan previously thought.
New research reveals that wildfires can influence El Niño -- In addition to causing direct damage to ecosystems and communities, wildfires also lead to enormous quantities of pollutants being emitted into the atmosphere. Globally, wildfire emissions upset the carbon cycle and the Earth's radiation equilibrium; a phenomenon known acclimate forcing. They also influence temperature, clouds and rainfall, prompting air quality degradation and the subsequent death of around 300,000 people every year.Despite the fact that catastrophic wildfires are rapidly intensifying and that their effects on people and the environment can be drastic, it is one of the most poorly understood processes in the Earth system. Given that wildfires emit greenhouse gases and aerosols (tiny smoke particles) that affect radiation in the atmosphere, it is expected with high confidence that they also result in disturbances to global and regional climate. El Niño is a climate phenomenon with significant societal impact, altering weather patterns around the Pacific region, as well as in multiple regions across the globe. One consequence is a deeper and prolonged dry season in Equatorial Asia. During recent large El Niño events, such as in 1997 and 2015, this has combined with expanding agricultural land clearance to produce vast fires in peat-dominated areas. These are some of the largest fires on Earth, attracting both scientific and media attention due to the blanket of smoke they produce across the region lasting several weeks, impacting the health of millions of people.Previous literature has focused on the magnitude of these El Niño-driven smoke emissions and their serious health impacts. However, there has been surprisingly little research on the climate feedback of this transient but very large aerosol radiative forcing. The hypothesis of the new study is that these smoke emissions can drastically influence atmospheric conditions in the western Pacific and therefore modify the development of the El Niño phenomenon itself.The study represents the first time that the impact of intense smoke emissions over Equatorial Asia have been investigated in full-complexity climate simulations. These allowed the researchers to compare the development of El Niño events with and without the presence of large wildfire emissions from Equatorial Asia, using the intense 1997 fire season as a test case.The findings suggest that the intense smoke emissions result in a strong lower atmospheric heating over Equatorial Asia, which enhances local convection (ascending motion of air), cloud concentration and rainfall over the Maritime Continent. This in turn shifts cloud cover westward in the Pacific, and significantly strengthens the "Walker circulation," which is the typical pattern of air flow in the tropical lower atmosphere. This opposes the typical El Niño circulation in the Pacific (which is a weakening of the Walker circulation) and results in a negative feedback on the El Niño event itself. The researchers find that the El Niño event is weakened by around 22% on average due to the wildfire emissions that the El Niño event itself produces.As well as being an indication of the climate impact that these exceptional El Niño-driven fire seasons in Indonesia can have, these findings also have clear implications for El Niño predictability. Including the impact of enhanced wildfire emissions during large El Niño events can significantly influence the progression and intensity of the El Niño itself.
The Earth Just Started Spinning Faster Than Ever Before And Scientists Don't Know Why -- The Earth recently completed a rotation faster than ever before at 1.59 millisecond under 24 hours, and the consequences for how we keep time have experts around the world alarmed. It could be the first time in world history that global clocks will have to be sped up. “This would be required to keep civil time—which is based on the super-steady beat of atomic clocks—in step with solar time, which is based on the movement of the Sun across the sky,” Time and Date reported.Scientists don’t know what is causing our planet to spin faster than ever before, but some experts fear it could be “devastating,” while others speculate the shorter days could be related to climate change, of course.Since the Earth’s rotation has always largely been slowing down throughout time, atomic clocks have thus far only added positive leap seconds to keep up. 27 leap seconds have been needed to keep atomic time accurate since the 1970s.However, it just emerged that on June 29, the Earth recorded its shortest day since scientists began using atomic clocks to measure its rotation, in what was only the latest of speed records set for our planet since 2020. It even came close again more recently on July 26, having completed a rotation in 1.5 milliseconds under 24 hours. Meanwhile, Meta warned in a blog post last month that adding a negative leap second could have consequences for smartphones, computers and communications systems. Citing Meta’s blog, the Independent reported that the leap second would “mainly benefits scientists and astronomers” but that it is a “risky practice that does more harm than good.”Meta also warned that by adding a negative leap second, clocks will change from 23:59:58 to 00:00:00, and that this could have an unintended “devastating effect” on software relying on timers and schedulers.This is due in part to the fact that time moving forward is seen as a constant in most technological systems.If the internal clocks of these IT systems ever have to be adjusted backwards to account for an abnormally fast rotation of the Earth, widespread disruptions and massive outages are to be expected.
New eruption starts near Fagradalsfjall, Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland - (video) A new eruption has started near Fagradalsfjall volcano in the Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcanic system, Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland at around 13:18 UTC on August 3, 2022. The eruption seems to be taking place in the same area as last year, about 1.5 km (0.9 miles) north of Stóra-Hrút. Based on the first pictures taken by Halldór Björnsson of the Icelandic Meteorological Office from a surveillance flight with the Norwegian Coast Guard, the crack is located at the northern edge of the new lava that emerged in the last eruption. The crack appears to be about 300 m (984 feet) long based on the first measurements. The eruption started after 4 days of intense seismic activity and ground deformation of about 16 cm (6.3 inches). The last eruption at this volcano started on March 19, 2021, after more than 50 000 earthquakes registered since February 24, and lasted until September 18, 2021 (VEI 0).
Tonga volcano blasted unprecedented amount of water into atmosphere - The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption lasted less than a day, but it unleashed the most water vapor into the atmosphere by a volcano on record. Researchers say the blast may temporarily warm surface temperatures in years to come and also deplete stratospheric ozone.On Jan. 15, the underwater volcano erupted and sent a shock wave that reverberated around the world. The powerful blast ejected aerosols, gas, steam and ash 36 miles high, probably the highest volcanic plume in satellite records. The blast damaged more than 100 homes and took at least three lives on the island of Tonga. A new study also shows the volcano released an unprecedented amount of water vapor, a strong greenhouse gas that traps heat on Earth.NASA satellite data show the volcano launched more than 146 teragrams of water — enough to fill 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools — to Earth’s second layer of the atmosphere, known as the stratosphere, where the ozone layer is located and just above whereairplanes fly. The study stated the amount released is equivalent to 10 percent of the water already in the stratosphere.“This is the first time that this type of injection happened in the entire satellite era,” which includes water vapor data back to 1995, said Luis Millán, lead study author and atmospheric scientist at NASA. “We have never seen anything like this before so that was quite impressive.”Volcanic eruptions eject many different types of gases and particles. Most eruptions, including Hunga Tonga, release particles that cool Earth’s surface by reflecting sunlight back into space, but they typically dissipate after two to three years. Very few, however, blast water vapor so high. This water vapor can linger longer in the atmosphere — five to 10 years — and trap heat on Earth’s surface. Millán speculates that the water vapor could start having a warming effect on the planet’s surface temperature once the accompanying cooling particles dissipate in about three years. He is unsure how much the temperature would increase, as it depends on how the water vapor plume evolves. The team suspects that the increased warming will last for a few years, until circulation patterns in the stratosphere flush the water vapor to the troposphere, the layer where Earth’s weather occurs.
Climate change makes some volcanic plumes less effective at reducing global temperatures - New analysis of ash clouds created from large volcanic eruptions shows the temporary cooling effects are changed as the environment becomes hotter. On 15 June 1991, the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines erupted with a cataclysmic explosion so violent that the volcano collapsed in on itself. Its gas and ash cloud reached about 40 km into the air, and in the weeks that followed, the cloud entered the stratosphere and spread around the globe. During the next year, the average global temperature dropped by about 0.5 degrees Celsius. Volcanic eruptions play an important role in cooling the planet. The sulfur gases from the volcanic plumes combine with other gases in the atmosphere, and these aerosols scatter solar radiation, reflecting it into space. But scientists are concerned that climate change could make eruptions less effective at reducing global temperatures. This feedback loop, in which climate change could hinder or amplify the ability of volcanic eruptions to combat rising temperatures, is currently not included in future climate scenarios. The VOLCPRO project set out to investigate two different types of eruptions to see if global heating would compromise their cooling effect. The first type of eruption, similar to Mount Pinatubo, is known as a high-intensity eruption. This type emits plumes of ash and particles that reach 25 km or higher into the atmosphere, and contains billions of tons of sulfur gases. Relatively rare, an eruption of this powerful type arises every few decades—Mount Pinatubo was one of the largest eruptions the world had seen in a century.The second type is smaller, but more frequent. "We were wondering how climate change will affect these two different types of eruptions, the small ones versus the big ones," said Aubry. The VOLCPRO team modeled historical eruptions showing their influence on climate, and then simulated what would happen if those same eruptions took place in the future, when the climate has changed and global temperatures are hotter.For the large eruptions, they found that the cooling would be amplified by global warming, "which is kind of good news," said Aubry. "More global warming, more volcanic cooling."In a warmer atmosphere, the plumes of high intensity eruptions will rise even higher, allowing the tiny volcanic particles to travel further. This haze of aerosols will cover a wider area, reflecting more solar radiation and amplifying these volcanoes' temporary cooling effect. The opposite was true of the smaller, more frequent volcanic eruptions. In those cases, the hotter temperatures thwarted the cooling effects from the eruptions.
Do oceans absorb more CO2 than expected? -- Seas and the ocean are one of our largest carbon sinks. Every year, they absorb about 30% of the CO2 produced by humans and thereby remove it from the atmosphere. This is mainly thanks to phytoplankton. With the help of light and nutrients, these microscopic plants take up the carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Until now, researchers assume that phytoplankton hardly move by themselves, but are driven along by currents. A study led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon now presents arguments that question this assumption. For this publication, which also involves GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel and the Earth SURFACE System Research Center, the team of authors analyzed numerous empirical research results. The conclusion: the measured data cannot be explained by the passive movement of phytoplankton. On this basis, the scientists developed a new model that includes the vertical migration of phytoplankton and can thus calculate the active "pumping up" of nutrients." The study's results were published today in the journal Nature Climate Change. Previous models treat phytoplankton as passive particles, while a lot of evidence suggests that it actively migrates to take up carbon in upper layers via photosynthesis and to store nutrients in lower layers," says Kai Wirtz, lead author of the study and ecosystem modeler at the Hereon Institute of Coastal Systems, Analysis and Modeling. The upper water layers of the seas and oceans almost always lack nutrients. Besides light, nutrients are vital for phytoplankton. Yet despite demonstrably lower nutrientconcentrations, high rates of net primary production are measured there. The net primary production is the biomass produced by phytoplankton, which forms the basis of the marine food web. Other studies have been able to detect nitrogen from deeper water layers in phytoplankton near the water surface. Phytoplankton traits, which have evolved over millions of years, also suggest more active migrations: At least two thirds of all species have been shown to be able to move actively. What is this capability good for, if the microorganisms are only passively drifting with currents? The new study now presents this theory: phytoplankton actively move vertically between the upper and deeper water layers. This is how they get both—light in the upper layers and nutrients from greater water depth. The team around Kai Wirtz explains that although phytoplankton often swims or sinks only a few meters per day, it is able to bridge a depth of about 10 to 80 meters with the "energy reserve" from photosynthesis in the light-rich surface water. In greater water depth it can absorb enough nutrients until it actively moves towards the water surface again. This movement cycle would correspond to an active carbon pump that works much more efficiently than previously assumed. "Based on our model calculations, we assume that current estimates of oceanic carbon uptake must be substantially corrected upwards," says Wirtz.
Marine heatwaves have devastating impacts on marine life in the tropical western and central Pacific Ocean region - Research published in Global and Planetary Changeexamines the trends and projected frequency, intensity and duration of marine heatwaves (MHWs). A MHW is a 'discrete, prolonged anomalously warm water event' lasting five or more days, with temperatures warmer than the 90th percentile relative to climatological values. The research focuses on Fiji, Samoa and Palau in the tropical western and central Pacific Ocean region (TWCPO).The authors analyze sea surface temperature data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 1/4° daily Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature. They examine projections based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, phase 6 (CMIP6).The study finds that, in 1982-2001, MHW frequency increased by one MHW event per decade, and duration by more than four days per decade. These trends have tangible impacts. In 2016, a MHW caused the deaths of hundreds of marine fin fish and invertebrates including sea snakes, octopus and crabs, and led to coral bleaching. During a MHW in Fiji in 2019, dead and weak live fish were discovered in shallow waters.The authors consider low and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Today, the region experiences 10–50 moderate MHW days per year and less than one day per year extreme MHW. By 2050, under low emissions, the researchers project more than 100 moderate MHW days per year, more than 200 days per year nearer the equator, and less than five days per year of extreme MHW. For high emissions, they project 200 moderate MHW days per year, more than 300 days per year nearer the equator, and more than 50 days per year of extreme MHW.This has serious implications for the health, livelihoods and food security of Pacific Islanders. MHW can promote the growth of harmful algae blooms, affect the fish that comprise a critical component of local diets and negatively impact ecotourism through the degradation of coral reefs.
Greens urge DOE to impose standards on mining company loans - Environmental groups want the Biden administration to require mining companies meet conservation and human rights benchmarks before they get Energy Department loans.DOE has under President Joe Biden’s leadership preserved a decision from the Trump administration that liberated certain Loan Programs Office funding for mining-related projects that are tied to electric vehicles and battery manufacturing. The decision is part of the Biden administration’s ambition to build a resilient domestic supply chain for low-carbon energy and transportation goods.Environmentalists yesterday sent a letter to the department asking for loans to be limited only to mining-related projects that the company has reviewed for human rights and environmental risks.The letter was signed by three large nonprofits — Earthjustice, Earthworks and the Center for Biological Diversity — and smaller advocacy organizations in areas historically associated with mining.Mining is top of mind for some conservation advocates as climate action pulls mineral demand skyward, while the metals needed to make products like electric vehicles, solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells are in short supply, according to industry projections.This extraction also presents hard choices for regulators seeking to boost climate action.Last week, officials at the department announced the first LPO loan to a mining company, a $102 million deal with a subsidiary of Australian firm Syrah Resources intended to help finance the expansion of a graphite processing plant in Louisiana (Greenwire, July 27).The loan is for the processing plant, not mine operations. But the plant will get its graphite from Syrah’s mine in the troubled Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique, where the government has been battling Islamist insurgents. Academics and human rights experts have observed a history in Cabo Delgado where resource extraction displaces local residents, a phenomenon that could potentially contribute to discontent and extremism in the region. It’s unclear whether the loan included any terms addressing the graphite mine operations and conditions in surrounding communities (Greenwire, May 11). Now, the department is fielding loan applications from other mining companies with their own potentially risky projects, such as one from Ioneer Ltd., an Australian firm developing a lithium mine in Nevada that would be located close to the only habitat of a rare flower species, Tiehm’s buckwheat, that may soon be protected under the Endangered Species Act (Greenwire, Dec. 20, 2021).
Hydro makes last-ditch plea in Democrats' climate bill - The hydropower industry is furiously lobbying lawmakers to include a tax incentive left out of a new climate package, arguing it is needed to help the existing hydro fleet avoid premature shutdowns.The last-second push from hydropower comes as a handful of industries are desperately trying to add their priorities to the $369 billion climate and energy section of the budget reconciliation bill.Time is running out, though. The bill’s climate provisions are expected to undergo review as soon as today by the Senate parliamentarian, who decides what stays and what goes.In a letter earlier this week, nearly 60 hydropower companies urged Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to include an investment tax credit that helps facilities make maintenance upgrades.“The Inflation Reduction Act could have the unintended consequence of accelerating the early retirements of hydropower by creating an uneven investment landscape,” National Hydropower Association CEO Malcolm Wolff said in a statement to E&E News.The credit, originally backed by Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), had made the reconciliation package in its draft from December, but the latest iteration dropped the incentive.The industry warned in October last year that without the credit, 40 percent of the existing hydro fleet could opt for retirement due to the costs of maintenance and relicensing upgrades (E&E Daily, Oct. 26)“Our nation cannot address climate and ensure a reliable grid without preserving existing hydropower,” Wolff added. “If we fail to level the playing field for existing hydropower, it will not be there when we need it.”
Is the Manchin deal a tipping point for CO2-heavy energy? - The sweeping climate and energy package negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin would funnel billions of dollars to decarbonize heavy industries like steel and cement, a development that is being called both a potential watershed moment for emissions and a barrier to addressing climate change.The “Inflation Reduction Act” includes a $5.8 billion program of grants, rebates and loans for manufacturers that install equipment capable of slashing greenhouse gas emissions from some of the largest industrial emitters in the energy sector. Along with steel and cement makers, eligible industries would include producers of glass, pulp, ceramics and chemicals, among others.Under the plan, the initiative — the Advanced Industrial Facilities Deployment Program — would be housed in the Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which was created by last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law.The fate of the bill’s passage is uncertain. As of yesterday afternoon, Sen. Krysten Sinema of Arizona, a key Democratic swing vote, had not indicated whether she would support the package due to concerns about provisions that would raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy (Climatewire, Aug. 2).But if the deal between Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Schumer (D-N.Y.) deal were to be enacted, advocates of the Advanced Industrial Facilities program say it would be a transformative step in cutting emissions from heavy industry, a sector that has often gotten scant attention from climate policymakers. Almost a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from the industrial sector, according to EPA, and many companies currently have few cost-effective alternatives to using fossil fuels for production.“The industrial sector is a big chunk of the [emissions] story,” said Ed Rightor, industrial program director at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). “This program is the first step out of the door towards developing” lower-carbon methods for industries’ production, he added.
The climate bill won’t stop global warming. But it will clean the air. - The higher temperatures observed today across the world, implicated in everything from extreme heat to drought and worsening wildfires, are the result of many decades of rising greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat and warm the globe. And there are many more emissions to come, as people around the globe keep on living, driving cars, conducting business.All of which explains why the economic and climate deal announced lastweek by Senate Democrats, which would represent America’s biggest actions ever to curb climate change, can scarcely be expected to have an immediate, measurable impact on the warming planet.Yet, in ways Americans may not yet appreciate, the legislation could have much more direct, soon-felt effects — on what people pay to drive and power their homes, as well as the quality of the air they breathe.The deal, announced by Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), would spend $369 billionon tax credits and other spending to transition the country away from fossil fuels.By doing so, the Inflation Reduction Act would further lower the costs of renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar, as well as many other less glitzy but important energy-saving appliances and devices around the home. If it spurs other countries to act in concert with the United States, it would be at the cutting edge of a global coordinated effort to cut down on emissions and limit warming. The legislation “is important symbolically and internationally,” said Rob Jackson, an expert on global greenhouse gas emissions at Stanford University. “Its biggest benefits are to provide longer-term certainty for renewables development and to promote sales of lower-cost electric vehicles. It’s critical the U.S. do something."
The nitrogen fertilizer monkey trap --More than a century ago two German chemists, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, perfected a technique for taking nitrogen from air and combining it with hydrogen to make ammonia, now widely used to make nitrogen fertilizers. What came to be known as the Haber-Bosch process unleashed a revolution in crop yields which were no longer limited by natural inputs of nitrogen.So important is this process to crop yields that it is estimated that without it half the people alive today would starve. If the worldwide application of nitrogen fertilizers had no adverse consequences, there would be no problem continuing business-as-usual. But the consequences have become worrisome: Increasing algal blooms fed by nitrogen runoff in waters around the world are killing aquatic life and endangering humans who wade or swim into such waters. This is the cause of so-called "red tides"and also of the famous "dead zones" at the end of some of the world's largest rivers. Nitrogen fertilizers stimulate microbes in the soil thereby increasing their conversion of nitrogen to nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Those fertilizers are responsible for a dramatic rise in nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. This gas is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Nitrous oxide is the third most important greenhouse gas behind carbon dioxide and methane. But, there is no movement comparable to the climate change movement to champion solutions. One reason is that few people know and understand the significance of the imbalances being fostered by our widespread use of nitrogen fertilizers. A second reason is that the consequences of weening ourselves off such fertilizers would be nothing short of catastrophic. There is simply no readily deployable substitute for nitrogen to grow crops in quantities sufficient to feed the current world population. We have therefore unwittingly created a monkey trap for global human society. A monkey trap consists of a coconut with hole just large enough for a monkey to get his hand in. The coconut is fastened securely to a stake. Food is put into the coconut. When a monkey tries to withdraw his hand now full of food from the coconut, he finds that the opening is too small. So, the monkey is stuck. His instinct tells him to hang on to the food and keep trying. But doing so endangers him every second he stays put.The widespread availability of nitrogen fertilizers is like the monkey trap. We need those fertilizers desperately to feed the growing human (and animal) population. Evidence tells us that with every day we continue, the dangers from their use grow. But we cannot stop ourselves.This is just part of a more general conundrum for the human community which knows that abandoning the highly productive industrial way of life we have built would entail immense suffering for some and maybe most people alive on the planet today. However, waiting for the collapse that is inevitable along our current unsustainable trajectory will entail even greater suffering.
Risks of a climate change catastrophe needs greater study: scientists - Political leaders and climate activists often say that human-caused climate change presents an existential threat to humanity, or could lead to a global catastrophe, but this is rarely defined. A group of top climate scientists has come forward to argue that more rigorous research is urgently needed into such worst-case scenarios, which they call a "climate endgame." In a new perspective piece in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 researchers from around the world put forward a research agenda into the consequences of global warming that reaches the higher end of plausible scenarios, amounting to 3°C (5.4°F) or greater, by the end of the century. According to the paper, worst-case scenarios have been understudied by organizations such as the U.N. IPCC due to the focus on the Paris Agreement's temperature goals, as well as the inherent cautiousness of climate scientists whose culture eschews alarmism. The piece, which is not a study but rather a detailed research proposal, states: "There are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe."The authors, who include Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a physicist who advised German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate science, and prominent researcher Johan Rockström, see such research as having the potential to motivate society to act with greater urgency to limit warming to the Paris targets. The paper notes that if all countries deliver on their non-binding long-term emissions reduction pledges it could limit warming to 2.1°C (3.78°F) above preindustrial levels by 2100. The authors warn that even this optimistic scenario would make the planet warmer than any point seen for more than 2.6 million years.The paper notes how the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the risks of infrequent, high-impact global events that have knock-on effects throughout the global economy.The uncertainties involved with catastrophic risks may have policy specific implications, the researchers state, including by boosting the social cost of carbon, which is the price assigned to the consequences of each additional ton of carbon dioxide emissions added to the atmosphere. This calculation is used when evaluating a host of government regulations and is heavily contested. The paper provides a tour of plausible ways in which climate change could tip society into more precarious, if not catastrophic, outcomes, from destabilizing the most fragile countries to causing physical and political "risk cascades" that can ripple around the world.The authors propose a rigorous academic research agenda for conducting an “integrated catastrophe assessment” due to climate change, and recommend a special report from the IPCC on this prospect.They define such warming as a temperature increase of 3°C or above preindustrial levels, which is well within the current scope of possibility. The authors include the "rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation," which has vexed public health officials in responding to COVID-19, as a risk factor that makes the world more vulnerable to the impacts of an extreme climate change scenario. "We are not saying that we are all doomed," lead author Luke Kemp, of the University of Cambridge, told Axios via email. "This isn’t about disaster voyeurism; it is about understanding plausible catastrophic risks so we can prevent them," he said.
‘Soon the world will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert - The publication of Bill McGuire’s latest book, Hothouse Earth, could not be more timely. Appearing in the shops this week, it will be perused by sweltering customers who have just endured record high temperatures across the UK and now face the prospect of weeks of drought to add to their discomfort.And this is just the beginning, insists McGuire, who is emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London. As he makes clear in his uncompromising depiction of the coming climatic catastrophe, we have – for far too long – ignored explicit warnings that rising carbon emissions are dangerously heating the Earth. Now we are going to pay the price for our complacency in the form of storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves that will easily surpass current extremes. The crucial point, he argues, is that there is now no chance of us avoiding a perilous, all-pervasive climate breakdown. We have passed the point of no return and can expect a future in which lethal heatwaves and temperatures in excess of 50C (120F) are common in the tropics; where summers at temperate latitudes will invariably be baking hot, and where our oceans are destined to become warm and acidic. “A child born in 2020 will face a far more hostile world that its grandparents did,” McGuire insists. In this respect, the volcanologist, who was also a member of the UK government’s Natural Hazard Working Group, takes an extreme position. Most other climate experts still maintain we have time left, although not very much, to bring about meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. A rapid drive to net zero and the halting of global warming is still within our grasp, they say.Such claims are dismissed by McGuire. “I know a lot of people working in climate science who say one thing in public but a very different thing in private. In confidence, they are all much more scared about the future we face, but they won’t admit that in public. I call this climate appeasement and I believe it only makes things worse. The world needs to know how bad things are going to get before we can hope to start to tackle the crisis.”McGuire finished writing Hothouse Earth at the end of 2021. He includes many of the record high temperatures that had just afflicted the planet, including extremes that had struck the UK. A few months after he completed his manuscript, and as publication loomed, he found that many of those records had already been broken. “That is the trouble with writing a book about climate breakdown,” says McGuire. “By the time it is published it is already out of date. That is how fast things are moving.”Among the records broken during the book’s editing was the announcement that a temperature of 40.3C was reached in east England on 19 July, the highest ever recorded in the UK. (The country’s previous hottest temperature, 38.7C, was in Cambridge in 2019.)
Murky World of Carbon Offsets Faces Greater Scrutiny - Proposals to boost transparency in the carbon offset market could shine a light on brokers who buy credits cheaply from Indigenous communities before selling them to companies at inflated prices. The measures form part of a wide-ranging package drafted by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, a governance body aiming to boost the quality of carbon offsets. The proposals were published this week, beginning a 60-day public consultation. Major emitters such as banks, airlines and oil companies are flocking to carbon markets to help meet net-zero targets by financing projects that tackle carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions elsewhere. Each carbon credit represents a tonne of CO2 that has either been reduced at source or removed from the atmosphere – often through schemes to protect tropical forests or other ecosystems. Critics of carbon offsetting have long argued that much of the money spent by companies on carbon credits ends up in the hands of “carbon brokers”, rather than Indigenous and other local communities stewarding the project sites.The proposed new standards on financial disclosure would aim to level the playing field by revealing how much of the income generated by carbon credits flows to project developers, brokers and local people. “When a buyer in the carbon market purchases a credit, the actual project developer may be getting five dollars a tonne. But the ultimate price in the voluntary carbon market might be $20. Where is the mark-up going?” Pedro Barata, co-chair of a 12-member expert panel that drew up the proposals, told DeSmog. The proposed new disclosure standards were not intended to pry into individual transactions to work out which intermediaries might be “making a killing”, Barata said. But some market participants wanted access to more information about the amount of revenue reaching project developers and communities.Surging demand pushed the value of the carbon markets where companies buy offsets above $1 billion for the first time last year — more than double their value in 2020, according to Ecosystem Marketplace, a nonprofit provider of environmental finance data.Known as the Core Carbon Principles, the Integrity Council’s draft proposals are designed to tackle the many pitfalls that plague the fast-growing offsetting industry, from land-grabs in developing countries to the risk that forest projects can literally go up in smoke.It is hoped that companies who want to show they are serious about tackling climate change will only buy credits generated by projects that adhere to the principles – envisaged as a “gold standard” quality assurance stamp. The 124-page draft document contains a wide range of options that may be revised and whittled down following the public consultation. The final version of the Core Carbon Principles is due to be approved by the Integrity Council’s board, chaired by Annette Nazareth, a former commissioner with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, by the end of the year.
"Give Up Your Yacht Before Lecturing": Bolsonaro Sinks DiCaprio In Titanic Twitter Thread - Brazilian President Jair Bonsonaro gave Leonardo DiCaprio a lecture in hypocrisy, telling the virtue-signaling actor that he should 'give up his yacht before lecturing the world' about the environment.Of note, in January DiCaprio was pictured vacationing with friends on the $150 miullion "Vava II," the largest yacht manufactured in Britain, which is estimated to produce 238kg of carbon dioxide per mile - as much as the average British car emits in two months.Bolsonaro was responding to DiCaprio, who tweeted that the Amazon r ainforest has "faced an onslaught of illegal deforestation at the hands of extractive industry over the last 3 years.""You again, Leo?" Tweeted Bolsonaro. "I could tell you, again, to give up your yacht before lecturing the world, but I know progressives: you want to change the entire world but never yourselves, so I will let you off the hook.""Between us, it's weird to see a dude who pretends to love the Planet paying more attention to Brazil than to the fires harming Europe and his own country," he continued.But don't worry, Leo, unlike the places you are pretending not to see by brilliantly playing the role of a blind man, Brazil is and will carry on being the nation that most preserves. You can carry on playing with your Hollywood star toys as we do our job.
How Taylor Swift, Drake and celebrities with private jets affect the climate - Music megastars Taylor Swift and Jay-Z are no strangers to being at the top of rankings. But recently the two Grammy-winning artists found themselves featured prominently on a new list: “Celebs with the Worst Private Jet Co2 Emissions.” The analysis of flight data, which was published online Friday by a U.K.-based sustainability marketing agency, came on the heels of other big-name celebrities such as Kylie Jenner and Drake weathering intense public criticism after it was revealed that their emissions-spewing private jets logged trips as short as 17 minutes and 14 minutes, respectively. Using data from a popular Twitter account that tracks flights of jets owned by famous people, the marketing agency found that so far this year, planes owned by celebrities emitted an average of more than 3,376 metric tons of CO2 — roughly 480 times more than an average person’s annual emissions. Swift’s jet was identified as the “biggest celebrity CO2e polluter this year so far,” racking up 170 flights since January with emissions totaling more than 8,293 metric tons, according to the analysis, which was not peer-reviewed. A plane owned by boxer Floyd Mayweather came in second, emitting about 7,076 metric tons of CO2, with one logged trip only lasting 10 minutes. Jay-Z’s jet was third with 136 flights totaling about 6,981 metric tons of emissions. In a statement to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for Swift said: “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals. To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect.” Representatives for Mayweather and Jay-Z did not respond to requests for comment. While the analysis notes that its list is “not conclusive” and there is “no way to determine if these celebrities were on all the recorded flights,” the authors emphasized that the purpose of the report is to “highlight the damaging impact of private jet usage” — a reality that is critically important for frequent fliers and the public to recognize, according to several experts who were not involved in studying the flight data. Many other people also often rely on private jets, including politicians, government officials, athletes, business executives and wealthy individuals.
How Republicans Are ‘Weaponizing’ Public Office Against Climate Action - Nearly two dozen Republican state treasurers around the country are working to thwart climate action on state and federal levels, fighting regulations that would make clear the economic risks posed by a warming world, lobbying against climate-minded nominees to key federal posts and using the tax dollars they control to punish companies that want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Over the past year, treasurers in nearly half the United States have been coordinating tactics and talking points, meeting in private and cheering each other in public as part of a well-funded campaign to protect the fossil fuel companies that bolster their local economies. Last week, Riley Moore, the treasurer of West Virginia, announced that several major banks — including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo — would be barred from government contractswith his state because they are reducing their investments in coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. Mr. Moore and the treasurers of Louisiana and Arkansas have pulled more than $700 million out of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager, over objections that the firm is too focused on environmental issues. At the same time, the treasurers of Utah and Idaho are pressuring the private sector to drop climate actionand other causes they label as “woke.”And treasurers from Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma joined a larger campaign to thwart the nominations of federal regulators who wanted to require that banks, funds and companies disclose the financial risks posed by a warming planet.At the nexus of these efforts is the State Financial Officers Foundation, a little-known nonprofit organization based in Shawnee, Kan., that once focused on cybersecurity, borrowing costs and managing debt loads, among other routine issues.Then President Biden took office, promising to speed the country’s transition away from oil, gas and coal, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet.The foundation began pushing Republican state treasurers, who are mostly elected officials and who are responsible for managing their state’s finances, to use their power to promote oil and gas interests and to stymie Mr. Biden’s climate agenda, records show.The New York Times reviewed thousands of pages of internal emails and documents obtained through public records requests by Documented, a watchdog group, that shed light on the treasurers’ efforts since January 2021.At conferences, on weekly calls, and with a steady stream of emails, the foundation hosted representatives from the oil industry and funneled research and talking points from conservative groups to the state treasurers, who have channeled the private groups’ goals into public policy.The Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute and the American Petroleum Institute are among the conservative groups with ties to the fossil fuel industry that have been working with the State Financial Officers Foundation and the treasurers to shape their national strategy. Many Democratic state treasurers support efforts to combat climate change and want banks and investment firms to be clear about risks posed to returns for retirees and others. Democratic lawmakers in California and New Jersey are working on legislation that would require their state pension systems to divest from fossil fuels. But Democrats have not mounted anything like the national campaign being orchestrated by the State Financial Officers Foundation.
California scorns fossil fuel but can’t keep the lights on without it - — California wants to quit fossil fuels. Just not yet. Faced with a fragile electrical grid and the prospect of summertime blackouts, the state agreed to put aside hundreds of millions of dollars to buy power from fossil fuel plants that are scheduled to shut down as soon as next year. That has prompted a backlash from environmental groups and lawmakers who say Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approach could end up extending the life of gas plants that have been on-track to close for more than a decade and could threaten the state’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2045. “The emphasis that the governor has been making is ‘We’re going to be Climate Leaders; we’re going to do 100 percent clean energy; we’re going to lead the nation and the world,’” said V. John White, executive director of the Sacramento-based Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a non-profit group of environmental advocates and clean energy companies. “Yet, at least a part of this plan means going the opposite direction.” That plan was a last-minute addition to the state’s energy budget, which lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled Legislature reluctantly passed. Backers say it’s necessary to avoid the rolling blackouts like the state experienced during a heat wave in 2020. Critics see a muddled strategy on energy, and not what they expected from a nationally ambitious governor who has made climate action a centerpiece of his agenda. The legislation, which some Democrats labeled as “lousy” and “crappy,” reflects the reality of climate change. Heat waves are already straining power capacity, and the transition to cleaner energy isn’t coming fast enough to meet immediate needs in the nation’s most populous state. Officials have warned that outages would be possible this summer, with as many as 3.75 million California homes losing power in a worst-case scenario of a West-wide heat wave and insufficient electrical supplies, particularly in the evenings. It’s also an acknowledgment of the political reality that blackouts are hazardous to elected officials, even in a state dominated by one party.
Massachusetts is getting hotter. Our electricity system is not prepared. - The Boston Globe - In July, as a heat wave bore down on the Boston area, warnings landed in the inboxes of National Grid and Eversource electricity customers: Demand was expected to be high, each company warned, and making a small change to conserve energy at home could help avoid outages.But still, outages happened, from Acton to West Roxbury, Newton to Chelsea, silencing the reassuring whir of air conditioners. Another bout of intense heat is due this week that will test the power grid yet again, raising the question of how the energy system will respond as extreme temperatures become more frequent and intense due to climate change.The networks of wires and substations that bring electricity to homes and businesses are already stressed as housing density increases, experts say, and many parts of them will likely need upgrading or expanding in a future when demand could double or even triple as the state relies ever more on clean electricity to replace fossil fuel power.“These outages can occur during the worst possible time, in sizzling temperature conditions, because the substations are not necessarily expanded upon over time to keep pace with pockets of electric demand in various communities,” said Richard Levitan, president of Levitan and Associates, an energy management consulting firm. “A failure for a day or for hours when it’s 100 degrees is potentially devastating.”On social media during the July heat wave, some of the unlucky and unhappy customers mused the outages were akin to problems in Texas, where the energy grid’s failure to keep up with demand had catastrophic consequences. But the energy grid here, operated by ISO-New England, has not had failures such as in Texas, and had plenty of surplus capacity each day of the heat wave, even as demand rose with increased use of air conditioners. What happened, instead, were failures in the distribution system — the substations, transformers, and wires that bring electricity from power lines into neighborhoods and homes. These localized networks are affected by the demands of a specific street or area— eased in some places, perhaps, by the presence of solar panels on homes or intensified by the demands of big users such as apartment buildings with air conditioners and fast-chargers for electric vehicles.
Why utilities are lining up behind the climate bill - A growing number of power companies are lining up in support of the largest climate bill in American history, arguing its array of tax credits will speed the deployment of clean electricity and lower the cost of the energy transition.The support provides a political boost to the “Inflation Reduction Act” as Democrats seek to shepherd the bill through a narrowly divided Congress. It also highlights how Democratic lawmakers have shifted their approach to win support for the legislation. While the proposal would dole out billions of dollars in subsidies for technologies ranging from wind and solar to carbon capture and sequestration, Democrats have dropped the penalties they previously considered for utilities that do not clean up their businesses.The shift has helped win over previously skeptical companies like Arizona Public Service, which came out against the Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP) last year over the penalties included in the proposal (Climatewire, Sept. 30, 2021).“I think we view generally the IRA process as being helpful from a customer affordability perspective because it would really help reduce the cost for us to continue to move ahead with the deployment of the clean technology and take advantage of some of the different tax credits,” said Arizona Public Service CEO Jeffrey Guldner.Guldner’s comment comes as Democrats work to woo Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat whose vote will likely determine whether the bill moves forward in an evenly divided Senate. Sinema has also been subject to a pressure campaign from Republicans and some business interests to vote against the bill. A pamphlet distributed by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce argues the legislation would stymie renewable development in the state by imposing higher taxes on companies. The chamber did not respond to a request for comment.Guldner took the opposite view in a call with financial analysts. The CEO of one of Arizona’s largest power companies called a provision in the bill making solar eligible for the production tax credit “very helpful” and said the legislation would open the door for utilities to own and contract for renewable projects.Guldner’s sentiment has been echoed by utility executives in recent days. American Electric Power Co. (AEP) called the “Inflation Reduction Act” “a promising step to further reducing carbon emissions while ensuring our customers’ energy needs are met.” That marked a shift for the Ohio-based utility, which quietly lobbied against the CEPP last year (Climatewire, Sept. 15, 2021).AEP, which operates subsidiaries in Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia, extolled the bill’s proposed credits for technologies like advanced nuclear, hydrogen and energy storage, and new federal grants to help build transmission. “The tax savings included in the bill are passed along to customers, helping to lower the costs of the clean energy transition,” the company said in a statement.
Utilities that support Inflation Reduction Act are members of trade groups attacking it - Electric utilities whose executives have said that Senate Democrats’ spending package to address climate change would be good for both their customers and their shareholders are also members of trade associations working to kill the legislation.The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a legislative deal announced by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin on July 27, would spend $369 million on clean energy measures, including wind, solar, battery storage and electric vehicles.The IRA is coming under a furious 11th-hour attack by corporations who oppose a key provision: a 15% minimum corporate book-tax that would close loopholes that currently allow some large companies to pay little to no taxes. Revenue from the minimum tax will pay for the bill’s investments to drive down the cost of clean energy, health insurance, and drug prices.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) are leading the attacks, which are designed to peel away the support of Arizona Sen. Kristen Sinema, the remaining lynchpin to the Democrats’ effort to pass a party-line bill. The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry has joined the national groups in backing an avalanche of ads attacking the bill in that state. Axios reported that NAM and the Arizona Chamber “have launched a six-figure digital and TV ad buy — compressed into one week — to saturate the Phoenix and Tucson media markets.” Several utility companies who have expressed support for the bill, even specifically telling shareholders that the 15% minimum tax will not pose a threat to their profits, are members of the industry associations attacking the bill.
Coal industry ‘shocked and disheartened’ by Manchin climate deal -- The West Virginia Coal Association and several other state-based coal industry groups on Wednesday blasted the tax and climate deal that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) agreed to last week, warning it will “severely threaten American coal” and an estimated 381,000 jobs. “This legislation is so egregious, it leaves those of us that call Sen. Manchin a friend, shocked and disheartened,” the groups wrote in a blistering statement that accused the West Virginia senator of zigzagging in the energy debate. “Sen. Manchin has seemingly fought against numerous climate measures advanced over the past year by the national democratic establishment,” the groups said. “The current Schumer-Manchin draft agreement on climate and energy frankly leaves us questioning the motivation and sincerity of Manchin’s previous stance and his repeated chant: we must ‘innovate not eliminate.’” The groups warn the deal Manchin crafted with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) after months of negotiation “will quickly diminish our coal producing operations and all but obviate any need to innovate coal assets.” The groups argue the bill — which Democrats have dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act and plan to pass this weekend — will do “nothing for coal or coal generation” and won’t reduce inflation or lower household energy costs. “By turbocharging the lofty incentives that already extend to renewable energy, our nation’s baseload (reliable) coal electric generation assets will continue to be devalued and thrust into rapid decline,” the groups warned. The statement was signed by Chris Hamilton, the president of the West Virginia Coal Association, as well as the leaders of the Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming mining associations. Manchin on Tuesday said he didn’t agree with predictions the bill will lead to coal plants closing in his state. “I don’t think that’s the case at all,” he told reporters. “We have to have a vibrant fossil industry. We have a lot of coal plants that have been pretty old.” “Coal is going to be needed for the base load that we’re going to have to have,” he said, arguing that coal will continue to generate enough electricity to meet minimum domestic demand.
Drought and heat drive European electricity prices to all-time highs - (video) Drought and heat have pushed European benchmark electricity prices to all-time highs on August 2, 2022. As a result, countries are relying even more on Russian gas to meet increased power demand instead of storing it for the coming winter season, as recently agreed in Brussels.On the European Energy Exchange AG, German power for next year advanced as much as 5.4% to a record 405 euros ($414.56) per megawatt-hour before trimming gains. Equivalent contracts for French power reached a new high, rising as much as 2.8% to 522 euros ($530.76).1Month-ahead prices in Germany and France advanced as well, gaining as much as 4.2 and 1.5%, respectively.“Germany 1-year forward baseload electricity surges >€400 per MWh for the first time ever. We are truly into crunching territory for the country’s energy-intensive manufacturing industry,” energy and commodities columnist at Bloomberg, Javier Blas, said.“The current price is ~1,000% higher than the €41.1 per MWh 2010-2020 average.”While grain shipments from Ukraine are straining the rail network, low water levels are hampering inland shipping through rivers, forcing ships to carry only half their capacity.2German energy utility EnBW said coal shipments have already been affected by low water levels on the Rhine River – the most important shipping lane in Europe and one of the most important in the world. All rivers across central Europe are at unusually low levels, but Rhine – crucial for shipping of goods within the continent – is set to fall perilously close to the point at which it would effectively close, putting the trade of huge quantities of goods at risk as the continent seeks to stave off an economic crisis.3According to Germany’s coal importers association, coal transport bottlenecks are expected to increase, especially from September when monthly import volumes are expected to rise significantly.Falling water levels are exacerbating the European energy crisis, Blas noted on July 13:“As households and businesses turn on their air conditioners, electricity demand has jumped and wholesale power prices have surged. But far more concerning — and far less discussed — is the drought spreading from Germany to Portugal that has the potential to worsen the current energy crisis for a lot longer than the current hot spell. “The drought is a gift from nature for Vladimir Putin, making Europe even more reliant on Russian natural gas at a time when the Kremlin is reducing supply sharply. Last winter, the weather favored Europe, as unseasonably high temperatures during the Christmas holidays cut demand for energy; now, the lack of rain is working against the continent.”4
Germany is firing up old coal plants, sparking fears climate goals will go up in smoke - — The last coal pits around Bexbach closed a decade ago, leaving the power plant puffing plumes of pollutants as a relic of a dying regional industry.But now plant equipment is being repaired, contractors have come out of retirement, and manager Michael Lux is faced with a novel prospect: expanding the head count.“It’s a good feeling to be hiring,” he said, as he sat down to discuss plans to transition Bexbach, in the southwestern German state of Saarland, from “reserve” status back to full capacity. By winter, Lux expects to be burning a minimum of 100,000 metric tons of coal a month, in what some in the industry have dubbed a “spring” for Germany’s coal-fired power plants.It’s part of a pan-European dash to ditch Russian natural gas and escape President Vladimir Putin’s energy chokehold. While the war in Ukraine has simultaneously turbocharged the European Union’s race to renewables, fossil fuels still provide the quickest fix.France, Italy, Austria and the Netherlands have all announced plans to reactivate old coal power plants. But nowhere are the plans as extensive as in Germany, which is allowing 21 coal plants to restart or work past planned closing dates for the next two winters.That means a scramble for an industry that has been in its death throes in Germany. The country will have to import more coal from producers such as Australia and South Africa, even as those countries face pressure to cut back on coal-burning at home. And some experts warn the coal revival may make it harder for Germany to meet its climate goals. With temperatures hitting 91 degrees Fahrenheit, the day was so unusually hot for the region that the local beer garden had closed early for a “heat day.” It was a reminder of why countries have pledged to cut their carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels such as coal — and what’s at stake if they don’t.
Coal Is Still King of the Energy System: Elements by Javier Blas - This Sunday marks the 110th anniversary of the beginning of one of the most important energy transitions. On July 31, 1912, Winston Churchill, then Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, established a Royal Commission on Fuels and Engines to explore shifting the Royal Navy from coal to fuel oil. Churchill convinced the navy to abandon coal-fired steam boilers. And over the next century, the world energy map transformed itself, first through the rise of oil and later to solar and wind power. The ecological movement became a major political force, pushing the fight against climate change. And coal? It’s still there, king as always. The International Energy Agency this week said global coal demand in 2022 will match the all-time high set in 2013 of about 8 billion metric tons. And next year, coal consumption will set a fresh record high. It bears repeating: global demand for coal, the most-polluting fossil fuel, is still rising. The gap between the reality of the coal market and the well-intentioned words uttered at climate conferences has never been wider. And it isn’t just absolute demand. Even as a share of the world’s primary energy, coal consumption remains robust. Last year, coal accounted for 27% of the world’s primary energy, a couple of percentage points higher than two decades ago, and about the same level as 50 years ago. With demand rising – in part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and supply stagnant, the world is paying a steep financial cost for coal alongside the environmental toll. In Europe, coal prices this week surged to a record above $400 per ton. As important as the surge in spot prices is the fact that the whole forward curve has moved much higher in recent weeks. If in March, just after Russia’s attack, the market saw a short-term rally, now it’s betting on sustained high prices through the rest of 2022, into 2023 and even 2024. It’s an increasingly expensive addiction the world just can’t seem to kick.
'Dirty ol' coal' is making a comeback and consumption is expected to return to 2013′s record levels - Coal prices are soaring and global coal consumption is expected to return to record levels reached almost 10 years ago as the global energy supply crunch continues. While investors in coal stocks are having a field day thanks to high coal prices, curbs on carbon emissions are taking a backseat as markets and governments scramble to stock up on traditional energy supply amid bottlenecks caused by the Ukraine war, analysts say. Worse, slowing investments in new coal-powered energy facilities have tightened the supply of coal even further, Shaw and Partners senior analyst Peter O'Connor told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Friday. "Who would have thought dirty ol' coal would have been the best-performing equities in the last financial year. So far this financial year it's also the best-performing sector," O'Connor said. "And looking at the year ahead through the northern winter with gas prices in Europe and gas supply availability, countries are turning back to coal. "And supply [of coal] is tight. Why? Because nobody's building capacity and markets will remain tight given the weather and Covid. So that market will stay higher for longer, probably well into 2023 calendar year." The price of thermal coal used for power generation has risen about 170% since late last year, rising sharply after the Ukraine war started. In contrast, the other majorly traded coal, the steelmaking ingredient coking coal, is trading lower. Driven by different dynamics, muted economic growth in China is cooling steel production and, by extension, demand for coking coal. The International Energy Agency released a fresh report on Wednesday warning that global coal consumption is set to rise by 0.7% in 2022 to match the record set in 2013, assuming the Chinese economy recovers as expected in the second half of the year. "The global total would match the annual record set in 2013, and coal demand is likely to increase further next year to a new all-time high," the IEA's Coal Market Update said. "That sharp rise contributed significantly to the largest ever annual increase in global energy-related CO2 emissions in absolute terms, putting them at their highest level in history," the IEA said. Worldwide coal consumption had already rebounded by about 6% in 2021 when the global economy recovered from the initial shock of the Covid pandemic, the IEA said. At the heart of the continuing surge in demand for coal is the shortage of gas as the European Union moves to reduce the use of Russian gas — stopping short of a gas ban — while Russia responds by cutting supplies to the continent. Coal consumption in the EU is therefore expected to rise by 7% in 2022 on top of last year's 14% jump, the IEA says. "This is being driven by demand from the electricity sector where coal is increasingly being used to replace gas, which is in short supply and has experienced huge price spikes following Russia's invasion of Ukraine," it said. "Several EU countries are extending the life of coal plants scheduled for closure, reopening closed plants or raising caps on their operating hours to reduce gas consumption." At the same time, boycotts of Russian coal add further upward pressures on coal prices, the agency said. "Europe's worst fears materialised this week after Russia cut flows via the Nord Stream pipeline to 20% of capacity. Gas inventories may not reach levels high enough to get through the winter," ANZ Research commodity analysts Daniel Hynes and Soni Kumari said in a note on Friday. "As Europe's spare import capacity is limited, it is likely to compete aggressively for LNG shipments." The global gas market, including Asia-Pacific, is feeling the pain. On Wednesday, Japan's Nippon Steel Corporation signed an agreement with mining and trading giant Glencore for thermal coal supply at $375 a tonne, the highest price a Japanese firm has paid for the commodity, according to Bloomberg. All in all, surging energy costs continue to contribute to global inflation, forcing central banks to continue their monetary tightening.
Fact check: A 1912 article about burning coal and climate change is authentic - A viral image of a 1912 newspaper clip circulating on social media claims scientists have known for more than a century that coal consumption can have a negative effect on climate.The image of the newspaper article, shared to Facebook on Aug. 12 by the page Historic Photographs, is titled, “Coal Consumption Affecting Climate,” and it says the coal burned in furnaces around the world is causing an effect that "may be considerable in a few centuries." It’s dated Aug. 14, 1912. The same photo was shared to Twitter on Aug. 12 in a tweet with more than 16,000 likes, with the caption, "Climate change prediction from 1912." In the replies, some were skeptical about the authenticity of the article.But the article in question is authentic, originally published more than 100 years ago. And it has proven true, as today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says, "the burning of coal, natural gas and oil for electricity and heat is the largest single source of global greenhouse emissions."
Prairie Island Indian Community nuclear concern powers net zero carbon emissions plan - Growing up on the Prairie Island Indian Community reservation, Calais Lone Elk had a plan — a set of steps burned in her mind and logged with her school to help her find her family in the event of an explosion at the nearby nuclear power plant. Nuclear Generating Plant is seen Xcel Energy’s Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant is seen from Wakonade Drive in Prairie Island Indian Community in Welch, Minn., on Thursday.Tom Baker for MPR News “If you went to school and something happened out here, where do you meet your parents? Where do you reconnect with your family? Because you can't come back here,” she said. “Those are things that I don't think are normal.” Lone Elk is 37 now, and still constantly reviewing her escape plan for an emergency at the nearby power plant. It sits just 700 yards away from her community of 100 homes, its powerlines lining backyards and main thoroughfares. For Lone Elk and others living in Prairie Island, concerns about the nuclear power plant’s safety are a source of low-grade daily stress. Despite official assurances, many people believe it’s bad for their health to be living so close. “We all have a plan, whether we voice it or not. We all have an idea of what we have to do or what we need to do. And we all know that we have to go up-wind of that nuclear plant,” Lone Elk said.But it’s also a physical reminder of the environmental injustices endured by Native people for generations, said tribal council vice president Shelley Buck.“Since this plant was created, our energy history here has been focused on the power plant and the nuclear waste that is stored right next door to us,” she said.Prairie Island members are descendants of the Mdewakanton Band of Eastern Dakota. They made their home in southern Minnesota, but lost that land in 1851 in the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. It wasn’t until 1934 that the land on the banks of the Mississippi just north of Red Wing became a federally recognized reservation. The Prairie Island power plant was issued its first operating license in 1974, and it was renewed in 2011. Initially, tribal members say the plant was described to them as a steam power plant. It’s one of two nuclear power plants, the second in Monticello, that Xcel says are critical to its plans of producing carbon-free electricity by 2050, and is considered safeby the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.Today, the Prairie Island Community is seeking to disentangle itself from a power plant it never wanted. It’s created a $46 million plan to produce net zero carbon emissions within the next decade. Buck said it’s an ambitious step toward being a sovereign nation that’s energy sovereign, too.
France To "Reduce Or Halt Nuclear Output" As Heatwave Restricts Ability To Cool Plants -Forecast models indicate that high temperatures will persist across France in early August. Europe's second-largest economy has endured record-breaking heat this summer that has curbed nuclear power production. We detailed last month, "France Cuts Nuclear Power Generation Amid Record-Breaking Heatwave," and now, more reductions are planned amid an energy crisis. Bloomberg reported French utility Electricite de France SA (EDF) said nuclear power stations on the Rhone and Garonne rivers will reduce power generation because a persistent heatwave is increasing water temperatures too hot to circulate through condensers and discharge back into waterways. Under French rules, EDF must reduce or halt nuclear output when river temperatures reach certain thresholds to ensure the water used to cool the plants won't harm the environment when put back into waterways.Restrictions have been in place at various times during the summer already. The latest warnings include curbs at the St. Alban plant from Saturday, according to a filing. The facility will operate at a minimum of 700 megawatts, compared with a total capacity of about 2,600 megawatts. Reductions are also likely at the Tricastin plant, where two units will maintain at least 400 megawatts. –Bloomberg France is the continent's largest producer of atomic energy, usually a net exporter of power across EU member states but is now importing electricity since the output this summer will be the lowest in more than three decades. The cause of declining nuclear power output is plants shut for maintenance and or inspection checks.
AEP Ohio does not want independent audit; prefers state commission probe – Ohio’s largest utility company does not want the Public Utility Commission of Ohio to conduct an independent, outside investigation into summer power outages, despite calls from consumer groups. AEP Ohio, which serves about 1.5 million residential and commercial customers in central, southeast and northwest Ohio, said in a response filed to a recent motion that an independent investigation would be an expensive, time-consuming litigious process while the PUCO is conducting its investigation. “(T)he Commission should not (in response to a transparent attempt by subjective advocates to upstage the Commission’s independent efforts as the regulator) be micromanaged and bullied into opening an unnecessarily expensive, time-consuming, and litigious process when the Commission has already proactively engaged in a stakeholder process and Staff-led investigation involving the June 2022 Power Outages,” an AEP filing with the PUCO read. Gov. Mike DeWine, along with several lawmakers and consumer groups, demanded answers after violent storms in June led to power outages across the state. AEP immediately followed the outages with a series of planned blackouts during a record-setting heat wave that left hundreds of thousands warm and in the dark. PUCO announced it would conduct a review of all Ohio electric utilities related to the power outages, but the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, Pro Seniors, Inc. and the Ohio Poverty Law Center filed a motion that asked for an independent auditor to conduct the investigation to determine if AEP was negligent and is liable to consumers for damages during the outages. It also asked for local public hearings and online comments. “The PUCO announced that it is making what it characterized as a ‘review’ of AEP’s outages,” the motion reads. “‘Review’ is an interesting choice of words by the PUCO. The word is not a regulatory term of art with a more formalized defined meaning such as the word ‘investigation.’ For example, to date the PUCO’s review does not have a case number which would enable stakeholder interventions and a process. We are concerned that the review may largely be conducted by AEP and other utilities reviewing themselves. Such self-regulation is not a substitute for government regulation of monopolies utilities in the public interest.”
Oil and gas production expected to increase in Guernsey County - The Daily Jeffersonian - Industry experts expect to see an increase in oil and gas production in the Utica Shale region including Guernsey County this year due to a rising demand resulting from global issues and domestic usage. Guernsey County currently has 300 Utica shale well permits and the most active producers in the county are Ascent Resources with 130 permits, Southwestern Energy with 69 and Utica Resources with 31. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources reports 24 wells — 23 productive and 1 exploratory — were drilled in Guernsey County in 2019, the latest year for which statistics are available. The average well depth was 19,918 feet with an estimated footage drilled of 478,029. The most recent horizontal shale production statistics for Guernsey County from 2019 totaled 13,556,178 barrels of oil and 91,078,704 Mcf of gas. "The industry in Guernsey County is strong, and it's active," "Some of the opportunities and challenges happening right now are allowing us to put (drilling) units together...get leases together and go out and drill to lift that commodity out of the ground. You will see increased activity here in Guernsey County this year, and beyond this year." There are 12 drilling rigs currently in operation in the Utica region across southeast Ohio. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, more than 275,000 gas wells had been drilled statewide as of 2019 with 2.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas production. The most recent statistics available also show 55,921 oil wells have produced 27 million barrels of crude oil. "Ohio has done smart things to be a welcoming state when it comes to energy, and there's good reason for that. All you need to do is look to Europe right now." "Shutting off Russia's oil supply, you are going to have to make that up somewhere and that's where you are seeing some renewed interest in the western part of the Utica shale formation because it's more rich in oil deposits," said George Brown of OOGEEP. "The great thing about Guernsey County is the entire natural gas ecosystem that goes along with it (oil)." Ohio is home to four oil refineries, which can produce nearly 600,000 barrels of crude oil daily, according to the Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Program. That's enough oil to produce 11.4 millions gallons of gasoline per day. The rate at which oil and gas production will increase in Guernsey County this year will depend on several variables, according to local officials. "It will probably depended producer to producer based on what their plans are...their access to capital and what their drilling units look like, but I would say we will see increased activity this year," said Chadsey. "Our people can't turn on a dime. You do have to get a permit, get your hands on a rig, a crew and all that stuff, so it will probably be a slow ramp up but I think we will continue to see more activity and excitement about that activity here in Guernsey County." The county continues to be on the western edge of the Utica shale play in what is referred to as the oil window. Brown said there are two-overlaying issues that will slow production in Guernsey and other counties nearby when it come to oil and gas. "One is the certainty in the planning that needs to go into the preparation process for exploration," he said. "It takes time. It can take up to a year, if not more, to get a rig in place and get it in the process of exploration." "And two, building out the critical energy infrastructure to get that product to meet its market. There are currently five pipeline proposals that have either been canceled or opposed that would haven taken the gas and oil coming from Ohio and other parts of the basin to end users either on the east coast of the United State or down south to meet the needs.
Ohio lawmakers want to create tax breaks for energy development - – Saying communities in Ohio have been denied economic development and job growth opportunities because of energy issues, two Ohio lawmakers announced legislation Friday that would provide taxpayer incentives to grow energy infrastructure in the state.Reps. Jon Cross, R-Kenton, and Jay Edwards, R-Nelsonville, called areas of the state “energy deserts,” and want House Bill 685 to promote the use of the state’s natural gas energy resource.“We’ve been hearing from communities that are locked out of future job growth because of the high cost of energy infrastructure in the state,” Cross said. “These ‘energy deserts’ see limited job growth because there just isn’t the infrastructure in place to deliver energy at a reasonable price. House Bill 685 is a step in the right direction to address the problem and bring jobs and affordable energy to every corner of the state.” The bill, which has yet to be assigned to a committee, would call for the creation of local “ENERGIZEOhio Zones” that would be designated as areas in need of investment. The designation would allow natural gas infrastructure projects to receive tax abatements and speed up depreciation to lower the over cost of development, the sponsors said. Also, the bill would allow the state to offer low-cost financing for projects and create a revolving loan fund that would allow local officials to facilitate pipeline easements. The bill also calls for financial incentives to gas companies developing natural gas pipelines in the zones. “I’ve heard from communities that are really suffering because they don’t have the energy they need, even though there is robust supply in the state and strong local demand,” Edwards said. “Energy infrastructure construction costs have just gone through the roof due to inflation. We can’t wait for Washington to solve our problems. The General Assembly needs to pass this legislation to help deal with these increases in costs.” There are more than 26,000 natural gas producing wells across Ohio and 24 natural gas storage sites. There is also nearly 10,000 miles of gas pipelines in the state, according to the Natural Gas Solution. “Too much of Ohio’s energy is being shipped out of state,” Cross said. “We need to keep it here in Ohio to ensure our businesses and citizens have access to affordable, abundant local energy.”
Gulfport 2Q Update – Turns Profitable $216M, No Talk of Selling | Marcellus Drilling News - Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy in May 2021 with a new board and new top management. By September of last year, the rumors began circulating that the company was shopping itself for sale (see Big News: OH Utica Driller Gulfport Energy Looking to Sell Itself). The two largest drillers in the Ohio Utica (Ascent Resources and Encino Energy) have been reported to be in talks to buy Gulfport. Yet, in Gulfport’s 2Q22 update issued earlier this week, there wasn’t even a whisper about a potential sale or merger.
Study: Drilling wastewater on Pa. roads dangerous to human health, environment - A long-anticipated health study commissioned by Pennsylvania environmental officials examined the practice of spreading wastewater from conventional gas – and oil drilling on thousands of miles of rural dirt roads in the state. Researchers concluded that the practice doesn’t control dust effectively and poses dangers to the environment and human health. The state Department of Environmental Protection has not yet acted based on those findings but said that the study’s impact will be “immediate, large and intense.” After a legal challenge to the practice in 2018 arising from environmental and health concerns, DEP temporarily banned most spreading of wastewater from conventional oil and gas drilling on the approximately 25,000 miles of dirt and gravel roads in the state. Spreading has never been allowed with wastewater from wells employing hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. But for more than a half-century, spreading salty wastewater from conventional oil and gas wells was a cheap way for the industry to get rid of a byproduct, while reducing municipal costs for dust control in summer and road de-icing in winter. Twenty-one of the state’s 67 counties allowed wastewater to be spread on rural roads before the temporary ban. Nationally, 12 states have permitted the practice. According to DEP records, approximately 240 million gallons of drilling wastewater were spread on Pennsylvania roads from 1991–2017. Industry officials have long maintained the spreading did not have any adverse consequences. For the independent study commissioned by DEP, Penn State researchers conducted a series of laboratory experiments to test dust generation and suppression. They also measured the chemical makeup of wastewater and explored its runoff effects. The wastewater samples came from conventional drilling operations obtained in confidence from western Pennsylvania oil service companies.The results showed that wastewater was essentially no more effective than rainwater in controlling dust because its high sodium content does not allow road dust to bond to the material. In fact, the study noted, “sodium can destabilize gravel roads and increase long-term road maintenance costs.” The investigation also revealed health and environmental concerns. Elevated levels of contaminants could pollute nearby water sources, the study concluded. In addition to increasing the salinity of fresh water, the water in some simulations contained heavy metals — such as barium, strontium, lithium, iron and manganese — at levels exceeding human health standards. Some tests also found radioactive radium, a carcinogen, though often in low concentrations.
Pipeline Co. Convicted of Criminal Charges The companies behind the construction of a controversial natural gas pipeline that crosses through the Mon-Yough area have been convicted of criminal charges related to the project. On Friday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced that Sunoco Pipeline LP and ETC Northeast Pipeline LLC have pleaded no contest to charges related to contamination of lakes, rivers, streams and groundwater during the construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline.The Mariner East 2 pipeline, which goes through 17 southern Pennsylvania counties, crosses Forward Twp. and passes near communities such as Sutersville, West Newton and Finleyville. It parallels an older gasoline pipeline built in the 1930s.Homeowners who live in the pipeline’s path and want to have their water tested have until Aug. 19 to file a request.Shapiro and state regulators have alleged that the companies — both subsidiaries of a larger Texas-based company known as Energy Transfer LP — failed to report environmental damage and criminal use of unapproved additives in drilling fluid.Prosecutors allege that more than 150 families have had their drinking water contaminated by construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline, which carries liquified natural gas from Ohio and West Virginia to processing facilities elsewhere in Pennsylvania.“We have a constitutional right in Pennsylvania to clean air and pure water,” Shapiro said in a prepared statement. “It’s a right that was enshrined in our state constitution at a time when the people of Pennsylvania learned a tough lesson first-hand — the health of our children, and our economic future, depended on protecting our environment from reckless profit and unchecked corporate interests.“Today we’re upholding our oath to our constitution and holding Energy Transfer accountable for their crimes against our natural resources,” he said.Sunoco Pipeline LP pleaded no contest to 14 counts of clean streams violations for incidents related to the construction of the Mariner East 2 Pipeline, Shapiro said.The plea agreement also covers allegations leveled against ETC Northeast in connection with the construction of the Revolution Pipeline, a 42.5-mile pipeline that starts in Butler County and connects to a gas processing plant in Washington County, passing through Beaver and Allegheny counties.As part of the agreement, Shapiro’s office said, Energy Transfer will pay for independent evaluations of potential water quality impacts for homeowners from the construction of the Mariner East 2 Pipeline and offer approved mechanisms for restoring or replacing the impacted private water supplies.An independent, professional geologist will review water testing and advise homeowners on water quality and impact, Shapiro’s office said.Energy Transfer also will pay $10 million towards projects that improve the health and safety of water sources along the routes of the pipelines.In October 2021, 48 charges were filed against the two companies after a statewide grand jury investigation.According to testimony before the grand jury, Sunoco Pipeline repeatedly allowed thousands of gallons of drilling fluid to escape underground, which sometimes surfaced in fields, backyards, streams, lakes and wetlands. The company then failed to report the losses of fluid to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection numerous times, despite legal requirements to do so, the state alleged.
Pipeline developer pleads no contest in pollution cases - The developer of a major pipeline system that connects the Marcellus Shale gas field in western Pennsylvania to an export terminal near Philadelphia pleaded no contest Friday to criminal charges that it systematically polluted waterways and residential water wells across hundreds of miles. Dallas-based Energy Transfer Operating agreed to independent testing of homeowners' water and promised to remediate contamination in a settlement of two separate criminal cases brought by the Pennsylvania attorney general. Under a plea deal, the company will also pay $10 million to restore watersheds and streams along the route of its Mariner East pipeline network. "We are holding Energy Transfer accountable for their crimes against our natural resources," Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a news conference after the hearing in Harrisburg. An Energy Transfer spokeswoman called the $10 million fund “not a fine or penalty of any kind but the product of a voluntary collaboration” with the state. “While we understand Mr. Shapiro is running for office, it remains disappointing that he would mischaracterize the facts of this voluntary agreement to his political advantage rather than acknowledge the good faith efforts of Energy Transfer to resolve this dispute,” the spokeswoman, Laura Atchley, said in an email. The company’s Mariner East 1, Mariner East 2 and Mariner East 2X pipelines carry propane, ethane and butane from the Marcellus and Utica shale gas fields to a refinery processing center and export terminal in Marcus Hook, a suburb of Philadelphia. Construction wrapped in February. Mariner East has been one of the most penalized projects in state history. The owner has racked up tens of millions of dollars in civil penalties, and state regulators repeatedly halted construction over contamination. The attorney general stepped in last October, charging Energy Transfer with releasing industrial waste at 22 sites in 11 counties and failing to report spills to regulators. The company fouled the drinking water of at least 150 families, prosecutors have said.
Energy Transfer reaches plea deal with the state in criminal case over Mariner East and Revolution pipelines -The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office announced that it reached a plea deal with Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer, concluding a criminal case brought against the firm for its Mariner East and Revolution pipelines. Energy Transfer pleaded “no contest” to 23 criminal charges on Friday, without admitting guilt or wrongdoing while accepting a conviction in the case.The plea deal includes a water grievance process where qualified landowners who believe their water may have been impacted by Energy Transfer’s Mariner East pipeline construction will receive a free evaluation from an independent geologist. If it is determined that the company was indeed the cause of the water issue, Energy Transfer will have to restore or replace the landowners’ water supply.It also includes $57,500 in fines to be paid to the Department of Environmental Protection, and $10 million that will be distributed through grants towards water improvement projects. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, speaking at a press conference on Friday, said the plea deal secures what Pennsylvania citizens impacted by Energy Transfer’s pipeline construction wanted most — a voice and a remedy.The settlement caps a multi-year investigation and follows more than $32 million in penalties that Energy Transfer has already been assessed by state environmental and pipeline regulators.The attorney general first filed 48 criminal charges against Energy Transfer in October — 47 misdemeanors and 1 felony charge — alleging that the company leaked thousands of gallons of drilling fluid during underground drilling operations when building the Mariner East pipelines. Those spills showed up in people’s backyards, caused sinkholes, and polluted waterways, a grand jury convened to hear the evidence concluded. It also found that Energy Transfer kept some of this damage from environmental regulators despite requirements to report it.The twin Mariner East pipelines now carry natural gas liquids from Ohio and Western Pennsylvania to a processing plant near Philadelphia.In February, Mr. Shapiro added nine more charges to the case. These stemmed from an investigation into the company’s 2018 Revolution Pipeline explosion in Beaver County. There, an early-morning landslide cause the newly-activated natural gas pipeline to slip, rupture and ignite. The grand jury that looked into the blast found that Energy Transfer failed to secure the ground along its right of way, which led to landslides.But most of the charges in the state’s case against Energy Transfer, filed in the Daughin County Court of Common Pleas, and most of the emphasis of the investigation was about water pollution, Mr. Shapiro said during the press conference.“That is the heart of this case,” he said.As part of the deal Energy Transfer pleaded “no contest” to 23 charges with the remaining 34 dropped, including the felony charge.In a statement that implied Mr. Shapiro was grandstanding to benefit his gubernatorial campaign, Energy Transfer nevertheless said it was pleased to put this matter to bed.To those who wonder why his office accepted a plea deal instead of taking the case to trial, the attorney general said: “even if we won, Energy Transfer would have walked away paying pocket change. The residents would have been screwed.”He said the $10 million payment stipulated in this plea deal is more than six times the maximum criminal penalty that could have been assessed under state law.
CNX Increases Spending to Stay Ahead of Inflation - CNX Resources Corp. will increase this year’s capital expenditures (capex) as it battles through inflationary pressures and works to keep its operations stable heading into next year. The Appalachian pure-play is now guiding for a 2022 capex range of $550-590 million, up $70 million at the midpoint from its previous forecast. “We are planning to run a second rig for almost the entirety of the second half of the year to ensure there are no delays to our 2023 schedule, and we are pre-buying and locking in key tangible goods and services,” said CFO Alan Shepard during a recent call to discuss the company’s second quarter results. [Want today’s Henry Hub, Houston Ship Channel and Chicago Citygate prices? Check out NGI’s daily natural gas price snapshot now.] Plans to keep a second rig running and accelerate three well turn-in-lines are forecast to cost $25 million, while $15 million has been allocated for innovation and emissions reductions, and another $30 million has been earmarked for rising costs related to inflation. While other independent producers across the country have shared ambitions to gain more exposure to international markets through LNG exports, CNX management continues to stress a more local approach. “CNX is going to continue to advocate for natural gas and the Appalachian region,” said CEO Nicholas Deluliis. He noted during the Pittsburgh-based company’s first quarter earnings call in April that the basin has a limited ability to ramp up production to help meet overseas natural gas demand due to pipeline constraints. The company has been pursuing local projects for what management said have been marginal costs. CNX recently expanded a partnership with the Pittsburgh International Airport, where it operates shale gas wells. The company plans to develop more wells at the airport to produce liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas for use in ground transportation and aviation.
Biden, Manchin back deal to advance Mountain Valley pipeline - The Biden administration has agreed to advance the controversial Mountain Valley pipeline project as part of a broader permitting reform plan in Congress, a spokesperson for Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said yesterday.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Joe Biden agreed to pursue permitting reform legislation this year so Manchin would support a budget reconciliation package on climate, taxes and health care.Legislation in the works would require federal agencies to take “all necessary actions” to permit the natural gas project slated to run through Virginia and West Virginia, according to a summary shared with E&E News. It also would grant jurisdiction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit over litigation associated with the pipeline.In addition to advancing the pipeline, which is being developed as a joint venture by Equitrans Midstream Corp. and other energy companies, the permitting deal would direct the president to “designate and periodically update” 25 energy infrastructure projects considered to be of high priority. It would also establish a two-year timeline for federal environmental reviews associated with “major projects” and a one-year timeline for “lower-impact projects” (E&E Daily, Aug. 2).Unlike the reconciliation bill, the new agreement with the Mountain Valley pipeline measures would need backing from Republicans and at least 60 members of the Senate to pass (E&E Daily, July 29).Initially approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2017, the 303-mile Mountain Valley pipeline has faced years of legal challenges and prolonged opposition from environmental and conservation groups, who say the project is nonviable. Manchin has repeatedly backed the $6.6 billion project, describing it as necessary for maintaining a reliable and affordable energy system (Energywire, July 21).In a research note yesterday, ClearView Energy Partners LLC described the plan to move legal challenges to the D.C. Circuit as an “unusual directive,” noting that project opponents have succeeded in vacating some of the project’s permits at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In May, project developers unsuccessfully asked for new judges to hear a challenge to a state water permit (Energywire, June 23). “We view this Congressional directive (if enacted) as materially changing the prospects for MVP and its planned timeline,” Clearview wrote about the accord. The plan could affect several federal agencies if it enacted. Mountain Valley still has permits pending from the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service. Two state water permits from Virginia and West Virginia are also still being litigated.
Manchin Trades Climate Support for Massive WV Pipeline — From his Summers County, West Virginia, farmhouse, Mark Jarrell can see the Greenbrier River and, beyond it, the ridge that marks the Virginia border. He and many others along the path of the partially finished Mountain Valley Pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia fear that it may contaminate rural streams and cause erosion or even landslides. By filing lawsuits over the potential impacts on water, endangered species and public forests, they have exposed flaws in the project’s permit applications and pushed its completion well beyond the original target of 2018. The delays have helped balloon the pipeline’s cost from the original estimate of $3.5 billion to $6.6 billion. But now, in the name of combating climate change, the administration of President Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership in Congress are poised to vanquish Jarrell and other pipeline opponents. For months, the nation has wondered what price Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin would extract to allow a major climate change bill. Part of that price turns out to be clearing the way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. “It’s a hard pill to swallow,” said Jarrell, a former golf course manager who has devoted much of his retirement to writing protest letters, filing complaints with regulatory agencies and attending public hearings about the pipeline. “We’re once again a sacrifice zone.” The White House and congressional leaders have agreed to step in and ensure final approval of all permits that the Mountain Valley Pipeline needs, according to a summary released by Manchin’s office Monday evening. The agreement, which would require separate legislation, would also strip jurisdiction over any further legal challenges to those permits from a federal appeals court that has repeatedly ruled that the project violated the law. The provisions, according to the summary, will “require the relevant agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline” and would shift jurisdiction “over any further litigation” to a different court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In essence, the Democratic leadership accepted a 303-mile, two-state pipeline fostering continued use of fossil fuels in exchange for cleaner energy and reduced greenhouse emissions nationwide. Manchin has been pushing publicly for the pipeline to be completed, arguing it would move much needed energy supplies to market, promote the growth of West Virginia’s natural gas industry and create well-paid construction jobs.
Manchin agreement smooths way for Mountain Valley Pipeline - Pittsburgh Business Times -- Equitrans Midstream Corp. CEO Thomas Karam on Tuesday hailed proposed legislation that he said would smooth the way for the approval of its long-delayed pipeline for Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas.The long-delayed and over-budget $6.6 billion pipeline, caught up in legal hurdles and resubmitted permits, was one of the top of priorities for U.S. Sen.Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia when he negotiated a wider package on the Biden administration's domestic priorities on prescription drugs and climate change last week. It emerged Monday that part of the deal was an agreement to lighten the permitting process of a number of energy infrastructure projects, including MVP. MVP, a project of Canonsburg-based Equitrans (NYSE: ETRN), is a 303-mile pipeline that will take southwestern Pennsylvania natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia. But it's been mired in legal battles and permits that it has had to resubmit, some more than once. Karam called MVP "collateral damage" in the fight between energy companies and environmental advocates.Karam, citing Manchin's work and the agreement on proposed legislation on federal permitting, said the proposed legislation would allow the pipeline to complete its revised timeline of being operational in the second half of 2024.The proposed permitting legislation "includes direct treatment for MVP," Karam said. He had referred to it as the Federal Permitting Reform and Jobs Act, but Equitrans later in the day issued a correction to say that the bill by that name was not the same and had been introduced last year. The proposed energy permitting provisions discussed on the call, and part of which was released Monday, directly mentioned MVP.Manchin's office told reporters that the pipeline was one of several that would benefit from the changes in permitting processes, which would provide the certainty that oil and gas companies have craved and have not received in recent years with court action and fierce opposition. MVP, which was initially to be completed in 2018, has been a poster child for those delays. Karam had two messages Tuesday in the company's second-quarter earnings call: That the legislation was going to help MVP and other energy infrastructure projects, and that even without it, Equitrans was confident that it could clear the legal hurdles that have been brought up in recent months. Equitrans through the decision of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, have lost a previously approved biological impact statement as well as approval to cross a federally owned forest.
Republican Senators, Manchin Revive Trump-Era Energy Reform - The Senate voted to reinstate rules helping expedite the construction of energy infrastructure that persisted under former President Donald Trump, eliminating a final rule that was previously imposed by the Biden administration. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin of West Virginia joined a united Republican caucus to pass a Resolution of Disapproval in a 50-47 vote by using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to nullify the Biden administration’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations, according to Senate logs. The move will accelerate federal permitting for the development of crucial future energy, mining, and infrastructure projects.The vote will return the NEPA process to the 2020 Trump-era provisions that curtailed regulations, making sure that fossil fuel projects were only studied for their individual environmental impact and not for the eventual effects of the energy that would be produced by the infrastructure, according to documents. The Biden administration, which often prioritizes climate and environmental issues, found Trump’s reforms objectionable and finalized a new rule that neutralized them in April 2022. Despite the 2020 rule’s ability to expedite oil and gas pipelines, the removal of NEPA regulation applies to all infrastructure on federal lands and can also help green energy infrastructure or rare earth mineral mines, essentially for the production of EVs to be built faster, according to CEI. Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska originally proposed the vote that will also prevent the reissuing of a similar rule in the future unless Congress authorizes it. Republicans unanimously voted to overturn Biden’s permitting regulations, while Manchin was the only Democrat to support the move. The vote comes after President Joe Biden and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York promised Manchin that they would help pass permitting reform on Monday. The president can still use his powers to veto the effort.
U.S. Natural Gas Production Hit An All-Time High In 2021 - This article is the fourth in a series on the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022. The Review provides a comprehensive picture of supply and demand for major energy sources on a country-level basis. Previous articles covered overall energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and petroleum supply and demand. Today, I want to cover the production and consumption of natural gas. In 2021, global natural gas consumption reached a new all-time high, surpassing the previous record set in 2019 by 3.3%. Natural gas is the cleanest-burning of the fossil fuels. It is also the fastest-growing fossil fuel, with a global 2.2% average annual growth rate over the past decade.In comparison, oil grew at a rate of 0.7% globally over the past decade, and coal grew globally at 0.1%. Looking ahead, natural gas is projected to be the only fossil fuel that will see substantial demand growth over the next two decades.Over the past decade, the U.S. shale gas boom propelled the U.S. into the global lead among natural producers. In 2021, the U.S. set a new all-time high for natural gas production. For the year, the U.S. held a commanding 23.1% share of global natural gas production, ahead of Russia (17.4%) and even the entire Middle East (17.7%).The Top 10 producers of natural gas accounted for 72.6% of the world’s natural gas supply in 2021. U.S. production grew 2.3% last year to surpass 90 billion cubic feet (BCF) per day for the first time. U.S. production in 2021 was 91% higher than in 2005, when the shale gas boom was just getting started.The U.S. is also the world’s top consumer of natural gas. In fact, most of the leading producers are also the world’s leading consumers.The surge of natural gas production in the U.S. has also launched the U.S. into first place globally in natural gas liquids (NGL) production. The U.S. has a 44.8% global share of NGL production, with most of the NGLs destined for refineries or petrochemical production.However, because the U.S. consumes most of the natural gas it produces, it lags behind two other countries in the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is different than NGL. In 2021 Australia was in first place globally with a 20.9% share of LNG exports, followed by Qatar (20.7%), the U.S. (18.4%), Russia (7.7%), and Malaysia (6.5%).But the U.S. is the world’s fastest-growing LNG exporter, with a 49.1% average annual growth rate over the past decade (and a 100% increase in LNG exports from 2019 to 2021). The U.S. is on a pace to become the world’s largest LNG exporter this year.
Fracking offers New York enormous potential — if only politicians would get out of the way - Way back in 2019, before anyone had heard of COVID, the national economy was enjoying record levels of success while New York’s was struggling. President Donald Trump was well-positioned for reelection, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo was trying to explain his state’s stagnation.The previous year, 190,000 New Yorkers had fled to other states. Once-booming upstate cities like Buffalo, Rochester and Binghamton led the state’s population loss. Cuomo blamed it on the weather, saying people departed for “climate-based” reasons. And Cuomo blamed Trump (no surprise there) for the discontinuation of state and local tax (SALT) deductions that he claimed created a $2 billion shortfall. Then-political-newcomer Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had scuttled Cuomo’s hard-fought Amazon deal, canceling 25,000 jobs and billions in tax revenue. New York state was in a rut.And New York’s greatest economic opportunity still lies buried under its feet today.Geological formations below ground hold tens of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. The US Geological Survey estimates the Marcellus Shale formation contains 84 trillion cubic feet and the Utica Shale another 38 trillion. Large portions of these formations are in New York, where they sit untapped — because of Cuomo’s fracking ban, which he persuaded the Legislature to pass.Cuomo couldn’t have known that the price of natural gas would more than quadruple after 2020, nor that Russia would cut liquefied-natural-gas exports to Europe, prompting rationing and fear for the winter. But he did know that natural gas — and the fracking necessary to retrieve it — would mean jobs, economic prosperity and opportunity for New Yorkers upstate. He ignored all that in the name of green science. My organization, Power The Future, compared Pennsylvania’s economy with New York’s. Natural gas generated $1.7 billion in new tax revenue for the Keystone State from 2012 to 2019. Wages for oil and gas employees had increased 36% between 2007 and 2012. In fact, from the great recession of 2008 to 2012, when Pennsylvania was losing jobs overall, natural gas and fracking jobs increased 259%.The natural-gas industry is so crucial to Pennsylvania that the Bernie Sanders-backed Senate candidate John Fetterman has magically reversed his opposition to fracking. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Josh Shapiro, who has been on the record as anti-fossil fuel and anti-fracking — and even sued the industry as attorney general — hides all this on his campaign website, saying he wants Pennsylvania to “remain an energy hub.” So even Pennsylvania’s liberal Democrats are pro-natural-gas. Or at least claim to be. Then there is New York, today with an even worse economic climate and greater population decline (not to mention skyrocketing crime). Cuomo is long gone. But New York’s anti-fossil fuel, anti-fracking, anti-commonsense policies remain.
DC Moves To Ban Natural Gas In Most New Buildings -By 2026, all new buildings and substantial renovations in D.C. will have to be net-zero construction, meaning they produce as much energy as they consume, under legislation passed unanimously by the D.C. Council. The legislation, which also bans most natural gas use in new buildings, has now been signed by Mayor Muriel Bowser. Separate climate legislation, also signed by Bowser, commits to making the entire city carbon neutral by 2045. “Buildings account for close to 75% of the District’s emissions,” said Councilmember Mary Cheh, who introduced the bills, during discussion of the legislation. “So making our buildings more efficient and ensuring that they use clean energy, is probably one of the most important steps we can take to achieve carbon neutrality.” Building emissions come from the electricity and natural gas used for heating, air conditioning, hot water, cooking, and everything else that requires power. Earlier this year, a study found that ample natural gas leaks around the District are a contributor to climate change. Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said the District had “raised the bar on climate action, not only in the nation’s capital, but for the whole country.”
Natural Gas Futures See Late Bounce as August Forecast Turns Hotter; Rain Dampens Cash -Armed with a cooling weather forecast and a new production high over the weekend, natural gas traders initially sent September futures lower as the calendar flipped to August. However, midday weather models showing more heat for the East Coast quickly reversed the course for September Nymex gas futures. The prompt month settled 5.4 cents higher at $8.283/MMBtu. October futures moved up 5.2 cents to $8.260. Spot gas prices extended their losses from late last week amid showers tracking across the Midwest and eastern United States, which kept a lid on temperatures. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. fell 19.0 cents to $8.140. Futures action was fast and furious Monday, with September prices down sharply out of the gate as weather forecasts cooled a bit for the first half of this month. The prompt month plunged to a $7.753 intraday low before recovering midday. Bespoke Weather Services said near-record heat is still expected this week, with every day in the 15-day outlook forecast to be hotter than normal. But, models have tended to overshoot the level of projected heat throughout the summer, and heading into the middle of August, some cooler trends are likely to emerge. “As we head into the middle part of the month, the focus of strongest anomalous heat looks set to slosh back into the middle of the nation, with some relaxation expected in the eastern part of the U.S.,” Bespoke said. Nevertheless, the midday Global Forecast System model gained back four of the nine cooling degree days (CDD) it lost over the weekend. Overall, it remained “impressively hot and bullish” most of the next 15 days, while remaining more than 15 CDDs hotter than the European model. Meanwhile, production continues to tease new highs. NatGasWeather pointed out that output hit 97 Bcf late last week and held at that level through the weekend. However, with the start of the new month, early data on Monday reflected a 1.5 Bcf day/day decline in production. Revisions are likely, though. With the recent heat and the near-term outlook reflecting more of the same, U.S. storage deficits are set to swell in the coming weeks, according to the firm. It sees overall stocks, currently 345 Bcf below the five-year average, slipping to slightly more than 360 Bcf behind those levels. On the bright side, NatGasWeather noted deficits may have ballooned to near 450 Bcf if not for the outage at the Freeport LNG terminal.
U.S. natgas futures drop 7% on record output, lower demand (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures dropped about 7% to a two-week low on Tuesday on record output and forecasts for less demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. That price drop came despite a 5% jump in European gas prices on concerns about Russian supplies and forecasts for temperatures across much of the Untied States to remain hotter than normal through at least mid August. So far this summer, electric companies have already burned record amounts of gas to meet soaring power use to keep air conditioners humming. Power demand in Texas was expected to break records again this week. Gas-fired plants have provided over 40% of U.S. power in recent weeks, according to federal energy data, even though gas futures soared about 52% in July. That is partially because coal prices keep hitting fresh record highs, making it uneconomical for some generators to use their coal-fired plants. Front-month gas futures fell 57.7 cents, or 7.0%, to settle at $7.706 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), its lowest close since July 19. That was the biggest one-day percentage decline since late June when the contract fell about 17%. So far this year, the front-month was up about 105% as much higher prices in Europe and Asia keep demand for U.S. LNG exports strong, especially since the amount of gas from Russia to Europe has dropped following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Gas was trading around $62 per mmBtu in Europe and $45 in Asia. Data provider Refinitiv said average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states rose to 97.4 bcfd so far in August from a record 96.7 bcfd in July. On a daily basis, however, output was on track to drop 1.4 bcfd to a preliminary 96.7 bcfd on Tuesday after soaring 2.4 bcfd to a daily record high of 98.4 bcfd on Friday. Preliminary data is often changed later in the day. With hotter weather expected, Refinitiv projected that average U.S. gas demand including exports would rise from 99.6 bcfd this week to 100.2 bcfd next week. Those forecasts were lower than Refinitiv's outlook on Monday. The average amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants rose to 11.1 bcfd so far in August from 10.9 bcfd in July. That compares with a monthly record of 12.9 bcfd in March. The seven big U.S. export plants can turn about 13.8 bcfd of gas into LNG.
USA Gas Prices Hit 14 Year Seasonal High -U.S. gas prices hit at a 14-year seasonal high as the country battles persistent high temperatures and resultant soaring cooling demand for gas. That’s what Rystad Energy Analyst Karolina Siemieniuk highlighted in a market note sent to Rigzone late Tuesday, which outlined that Henry Hub gas prices rose to $8.99 per MMBtu on July 26, before falling to $8.283 per MMBtu on August 1. At the time of writing, Henry Hub gas prices were hovering just under $8 per MMBtu. The commodity closed above $9 per MMBtu in June but dipped to under $6 per MMBtu in July. In the note, the Rystad analyst pointed out that, in the west, prolonged droughts and reduced hydro-electric generation had contributed to elevated gas use. “At the same time, the U.S. has become the largest LNG exporter, with 42 million tons of LNG exported in the first six months of 2022, about six million tons more compared with the same period last year,” Siemienik stated in the note. “The U.S. has since mid-June not been exporting at its full capacity due to the ongoing outage at the Freeport LNG facility in Texas, which has affected 15.3 million tons per annum of capacity. Despite this outage … current U.S. gas inventories are below the five-year average and last year’s number,” the analyst added. “U.S. underground storage as of week 29 (July 22) was at 2.416 trillion cubic feet, which is 260 billion cubic feet below last year’s level. In the absence of the Freeport LNG outage, gas inventories could have been even lower and prices in the U.S. even higher,” Siemieniuk continued. The analyst also warned in the note that, “with Europe still scrambling for LNG, prices are likely to stay elevated for the near future”.
U.S. natgas jump 7% with Freeport LNG seen back in October (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures jumped 7% on Wednesday after Freeport LNG said its liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas remains on track to return to service in early October. Freeport said in a release that it entered into a consent agreement with the U.S. Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) that should allow the plant "to resume initial operations in early October." The shutdown of Freeport on June 8 left a lot of gas in the United States for utilities to inject into what are extremely low stockpiles. Freeport is the second-biggest LNG export plant in the United States. It was consuming about 2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas before it shut. Freeport has long estimated the facility will return to at least partial service in October. Some analysts, however, have projected the outage would last longer. In addition to the Freeport news, prices were also up on forecasts for hotter weather and more air conditioning demand next week than previously expected. Front-month gas futures rose 56.0 cents, or 7.3%, to settle at $8.266 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). In what has already been an extremely volatile year, that increase was only the biggest one-day percentage gain since July 20 when the contract rose about 10%. On Tuesday, the front-month fell about 7%. So far this year, the front-month was up about 118% as much higher prices in Europe and Asia keep demand for U.S. LNG exports strong, especially since the amount of gas from Russia to Europe has dropped following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Gas was trading around $59 per mmBtu in Europe and $46 in Asia. The United States became the world's top LNG exporter during the first half of 2022. But no matter how high global gas prices rise, the United States cannot export any more LNG because its plants were already operating at full capacity. Russian gas exports 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 - held at 2.5 bcfd on Tuesday, the same as Monday. That compares with an average of 2.8 bcfd in July and 10.4 bcfd in August 2021. . With hotter weather expected, Refinitiv projected that average U.S. gas demand including exports would rise from 99.5 bcfd this week to 101.3 bcfd next week. The forecast for next week was higher than Refinitiv's outlook on Tuesday. The average amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants rose to 11.0 bcfd so far in August from 10.9 bcfd in July. That compares with a monthly record of 12.9 bcfd in March. The seven big U.S. export plants can turn about 13.8 bcfd of gas into LNG.
Natural Gas Futures Plunge, but Quickly Recover from EIA’s Plump Storage Report -The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a much larger-than-expected 41 Bcf injection into natural gas storage inventories for the week ending July 29. The EIA figure topped even the highest of estimates ahead of the report, and seemingly eased some concerns about supply, given the possibility of Freeport LNG’s return in October. The Nymex September gas futures contract was down about 24 cents day/day at around $8.020/MMBtu in the minutes leading up to the inventory report. They quickly plunged to $7.880 as the EIA print crossed trading desks. By 11 a.m. ET, though, the prompt month was back at $8.112, off 15.4 cents from Wednesday’s close. “After a few tight numbers, I see this one 1.5 Bcf/d loose versus last year,” said managing director Het Shah of The Desk’s online chat Enelyst. “Most of my miss was in the South Central salt. I was expecting salt to draw” but it “came in flat.” South Central salt stocks ended the period unchanged at 195 Bcf, while nonsalts added 4 Bcf to lift stocks to 671 Bcf, according to EIA. Midwest inventories rose by 18 Bcf, while East stocks increased by 17 Bcf. Mountain storage levels were up 3 Bcf, and the Pacific region stayed flat on the week. The 41 Bcf injection compares with the year-earlier injection of 16 Bcf. The five-year average for the week is a build of 35 Bcf, according to EIA. Enelyst participants questioned whether production was higher than the 97 Bcf/d levels recently observed in the market. In particular, there were questions about whether Appalachia producers were ramping up amid the bursts of heat sweeping through the region. In addition, one of the trains at the Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas terminal was out of commission most of last week, which made more gas available for injection. Total working gas in storage as of July 29 was 2,457 Bcf, which is 268 Bcf below year-ago levels and 337 Bcf below the five-year average, EIA said.
U.S. natgas futures ease 1% on record output, milder forecasts (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures eased about 1% on Friday as output neared record highs and forecasts for hot weather were revised slightly lower, which would mean lower demand for air conditioning. Also weighing on prices was the ongoing outage at the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas, which has left more gas in the United States for utilities to inject into stockpiles for next winter. Forecasts called for weather to remain hotter than normal through at least mid August. Gas-fired generators have provided more than 40% of U.S. power in recent weeks, according to federal energy data. Even with gas futures soaring about 52% in July, gas remained an attractive option because coal prices kept hitting record highs. Freeport, the second-biggest LNG export plant in the United States, was consuming about 2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas before it shut on June 8. Freeport expects to return the facility to at least partial service in early October. Front-month gas futures fell 5.8 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $8.064 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). For the week, the contract slid about 2% after easing about 1% last week. So far this year, the front-month was up about 116%, as much higher prices in Europe and Asia fed strong demand for U.S. LNG exports. Gas flows to Europe from Russia dropped following Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Gas was trading around $58 per mmBtu in Europe and $45 in Asia. Data provider Refinitiv said average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states rose to 97.8 bcfd so far in August from a record 96.7 bcfd in July. With hotter weather expected, Refinitiv projected that average U.S. gas demand including exports would rise from 98.9 bcfd this week to 100.8 bcfd next week before sliding to 99.2 bcfd in two weeks as heat starts to ease. Refinitiv's forecasts for this week and next were lower than on Thursday.
EPA raises concerns over proposed Superior gas plant - Federal regulators are raising new concerns about the environmental impacts of a proposed natural gas plant in Superior they say could cause billions of dollars in damages.The Environmental Protection Agency says a preliminary review of the Nemadji Trail Energy Center fails to account for the project’s full climate impact and that the utilities seeking to build the plant should be required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a condition for receiving federal funding.Doing so would show “leadership in line with the federal policy priority to reduce climate risks and could also reduce regulatory risks for ratepayers,” the agency said.La Crosse-based Dairyland Power Cooperative and two Minnesota utilities are seeking a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service to finance the $700 million plant, which they say will help them transition away from coal-fired power. A draft environmental review released earlier this year estimates the 625-megawatt plant would produce the equivalent of more than 2.7 million tons of carbon dioxide each year but would actually reduce net carbon emissions by displacing electricity from coal-fired power plants. The EPA says the review fails to quantify all the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions or quantify the potential costs to society, which the agency estimates could be more than $2 billion, nor does it consider the plant’s disproportionate impact on Native American tribes.The review doesn’t account for methane — a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide — leaked during the production, processing and transportation of gas before it reaches the plant, which the EPA says makes it unclear whether the project would actually result in lower emissions. The agency also says net emissions projections should account for the increasing reliance on wind, solar and other carbon-free energy sources — not just the “business as usual” model.
Texas LNG Blast Starting to Eat into USA LNG Exports to Europe - An outage at Freeport LNG in Texas since a June 8 blast is starting to eat into U.S. LNG exports to Europe, a new market note from energy and environmental geo-analytics company Kayrros has stated. According to a graph included in the note, which contained data stretching back to the start of the year, Europe LNG imports from the U.S. are at their lowest level in 2022 at under one million cubic meters. Although the graph shows that the figure is still well above 2021, 2020, and 2019 levels at the same period, it outlines that highs of just under three million cubic meters were reached three times this year, with the latest occurrence coming around May. “Much of the recent relative easing of European LNG imports reflects reduced flows from the U.S., which had been the main source of incremental imports earlier on,” Kayrros stated in the note, which was sent to Rigzone. “U.S. LNG export capacity took a hit on June 8 when a blast rocked the Freeport LNG liquefaction plant on Quintana Island, Texas, causing a prolonged outage whose impact is now beginning to be felt at the receiving end,” Kayrros added. In the note, Kayrros said LNG is a key alternative to piped Russian natural gas into Europe, but added that supply availability has been somewhat constrained by a series of outages in the last few weeks. The company also highlighted in the note that Europe needs to maintain sufficiently high gas imports levels to build underground storage ahead of the peak winter heating season. On June 8, a statement posted on Freeport LNG’s official Facebook page announced that an incident had occurred at the Freeport LNG facility on Quintana Island at about 11.40 am. An update posted on the company’s Facebook page on the same day revealed that the incident had been stabilized and that the company was in the early stages of its investigation of the event. On June 14, Freeport LNG revealed that the completion of all necessary repairs and a return to full plant operations at the Freeport LNG liquefaction plant on Quintana Island was not expected until late 2022.
Freeport LNG reaches agreement with US on corrective actions following June fire - Freeport LNG has reached an agreement with US regulators on certain corrective actions that must be taken before it can resume service, the operator said Aug. 3. The three-train, 15 million mt/year facility in Texas has remained offline since an explosion and fire June 8. The terminal accounts for about 15% of US LNG supply, which has become increasingly important to serving European demand amid sharp cuts in Russian pipeline gas to the continent. The operator said in a statement that it believes it can complete the necessary corrective measures, along with applicable repair and restoration activities, in order to resume initial operations in early October, maintaining its most recent target. It had previously targeted resumption of full service by the end of the year. Officials with the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. "The obligations under the consent agreement are intended to ensure that Freeport LNG can safely and confidently resume initial LNG production and thereafter ultimately return to full operation of all liquefaction facilities," the operator said. "In the near term, the consent agreement includes certain corrective measures, many of which are currently underway, that Freeport LNG is to take to obtain PHMSA approval for an initial resumption of LNG production from its liquefaction facility." NYMEX Henry Hub August spiked 56 cents higher to settle at $8.266/MMBtu Aug. 3, data from CME Group shows. The contract had weakened in recent trading sessions, after reaching a 30-day peak of $8.993/MMBtu July 26. The explosion and associated fire at Freeport LNG occurred in a pipe rack near the LNG storage tanks at the liquefaction facility. An estimated 120,000 cubic feet of LNG was reported to be released within the facility, according to PHMSA. Following the incident, PHMSA told Freeport LNG it wanted the operator to take corrective actions and seek their approval before resuming normal operations. Corrective actions it sought included the submission of an evaluation of the LNG storage tanks operating modes. The agency had said it wanted the evaluation to be performed by an approved independent third party. Inspection and testing procedures also were sought, as was a root-cause failure analysis. PHMSA also had said a final report would have to include findings, any lessons learned, and whether the findings and any lessons learned are applicable to the entirety of Freeport's operations.
EPA resumes pollution helicopter tracking in Permian Basin - In a sign of intensified regulatory scrutiny of the United States’ largest oil-producing region, EPA has launched a new round of helicopter flyovers in the Permian Basin in search of big sources of methane and smog-forming compounds. The flyovers will continue until Aug. 15, the agency announced yesterday. Any violations uncovered will be met with “significant penalties,” along with steps to prevent future infractions and follow-up monitoring to make sure that any emission fixes are working, according to a news release. The basin, which spans some 75,000 square miles in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico “accounts for 40% of our nation’s oil supply and has produced large quantities of dangerous [volatile organic compounds] and methane over the years, contributing to climate change and poor air quality,” Earthea Nance, head of EPA’s Dallas-based regional office, said in the release. “The flyovers are vital to identifying which facilities are responsible for the bulk of these emissions and therefore where reductions are most urgently needed.” Methane is a powerful heat-trapping gas; volatile organic compounds help spawn ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog. The aircraft pollution tracking effort has precedent. In 2020, for example, EPA conducted flyovers in the basin that found emissions “significantly higher than those reported by industry,” according to a news release at the time by the New Mexico Environment Department. As of publication time today, a spokesperson for the Dallas EPA office had not provided answers to questions posed late yesterday seeking information on the number and scope of the flyovers, when they began and whether the findings could be used in determining whether at least some parts of the basin are failing to meet the latest ground-level ozone standard of 70 parts per billion. Ozone, a lung irritant, is formed by the reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in sunlight. While all of the basin is currently deemed in attainment with the 70 ppb limit, EPA regulators signaled in June that they were considering downgrades, a step that would likely mean new pollution control requirements for oil and gas producers in the region. Already, EPA has missed its self-imposed schedule of releasing a formal notice of any possible reclassifications by June. But the prospect has prompted pushback from both Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and industry trade groups who contend that stricter enforcement could drive up gasoline prices. In a letter earlier this summer, for example, Abbott set a July 29 deadline for the agency to suspend its “proposed redesignation,” warning that Texas would otherwise “take the action needed to protect the production of oil — and the gasoline that comes from it” (E&E News PM, June 27). That deadline passed last Friday; a staffer in Abbott’s press office had no immediate comment today on what action, if any, is now planned. In a prepared statement today, Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, did not address the EPA flyovers but said that producers are using a variety of means — including drones, handheld optical imaging cameras and zero-emission pneumatic controllers — to identify and cut releases, adding that “these efforts are met with great success.”
U.S. oil output slips 0.5% in May to lowest since February – EIA --U.S. crude oil production slid in May by about 0.5% to its lowest since February, according to a monthly report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Friday. Oil production fell to nearly 11.6 million barrels per day in May from 11.65 million bpd the month prior, the report showed. Output, which has been recovering from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, remains far below its record high of 12.3 million bpd in 2019. Production in North Dakota rose 17.1% to about 1 million barrels per day in May, highest since March, the report showed. New Mexico output fell 0.7% to 1.5 million barrels per day in May, lowest since March. Output in Texas fell 1% to 5 million barrels per day in May, lowest since February. Monthly gross natural gas production in the U.S. Lower 48 states rose 1.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) to a record 108.4 bcfd in May, the EIA said in its monthly 914 production report. That topped the prior all-time high of 108.2 in November 2021. In top gas producing states, monthly output rose 0.3% to a record 30.9 bcfd in Texas and 0.5% in Pennsylvania to 20.7 bcfd. Pennsylvania output hit a record 21.9 bcfd in December 2021. Demand for U.S. crude and petroleum products rose in May to about 20 million bpd, the highest since March, according to the EIA. Demand for motor gasoline rose to 9.1 million bpd, the highest since August 2021, the EIA said.
U.S. Drilling Activity Slows As Prices Ease - The number of total active drilling rigs in the United States fell by 3 this week, according to new data from Baker Hughes published on Friday. The total rig count fell to 764 this week—273 rigs higher than the rig count this time in 2021. Oil rigs in the United States fell by 7 this week to 598. Gas rigs rose by 4, to 161. Miscellaneous rigs held steady at 5. The rig count in the Permian Basin fell by 4 to 347 this week. Rigs in the Eagle Ford stayed the same at 72. Oil and gas rigs in the Permian are 104 above where they were this time last year. Primary Vision's Frac Spread Count, an estimate of the number of crews completing unfinished wells—a more frugal use of finances than drilling new wells—rose to 295 for week ending July 29, compared to 239 a year ago. Crude oil production in the United States stayed the same at 12.1 million bpd in the week ending July 29, according to the latest EIA data. At 12:33 p.m. ET, oil prices were trending up on the day despite a positive jobs report, with the overall oil market still tight, although prices were down on the week. WTI was trading at $89.63 on the day—up $1.09 per barrel (+1.03%) on the day, but down $10 per barrel on the week. The Brent benchmark traded at $95.27 per barrel, up $1.15 (+1.22%) on the day, but down nearly $15 per barrel on the week. At 1:04 pm ET, WTI was trading at $89.72 while Brent was trading at $95.59 per barrel—both up on the day.
US Frack Growth Constrained In "Perfect Storm" - Last week, Halliburton Co.'s CEO Jeff Miller warned hydraulic fracturing equipment is in short supply and could hamper fracking growth. Another oil/gas executive echoed the same warning this week and said bottlenecks could persist through 2023. "Availability of frac fleets is one of main bottlenecks impeding oil and natural as production growth for the next 18 months," Robert Drummond, chief executive officer of fracking firm NexTier Oilfield Solutions, told Reuters. Besides supply chain snarls, Drummond warned that capital constraints would make adding equipment to fields challenging. He said this imbalance could take several years to correct, adding that NexTier has no plans to expand fracking capacity this year. This development is another setback for the Biden administration's efforts to increase US oil production to ease the worst inflation in forty years ahead of the midterm elections in November. US crude production is around 11.6 million barrels per day, below the pre-pandemic 12.3 million bpd in 2019, the latest data from the Energy Information Administration show. Matt Hagerty, a senior analyst at BTU Analytics, pointed out that "frac crew bottlenecks" are a "significant headwind for US producers headed into 2023." He said frac sand and labor shortages, elevated inflation, and limited frac fleets are a "perfect storm." Halliburton's Miller said oil companies didn't have enough fracking equipment for newly leased wells. He said diesel-powered and electric equipment are in short supply, "making it almost impossible to add incremental capacity this year." A similar message was conveyed by Exxon Mobil, whose CEO said that global oil markets might remain tight for three to five years primarily because of a lack of investment since the pandemic began.Exxon CEO Darren Woods said it'll take time for oil firms to "catch up" on the investments needed to ensure enough supply.In response to shale's dismal ramp-up in production, the Biden administration has panic sold millions and millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has been drained by 125 million barrels so far in 2022 -- all in hopes of lowering gasoline prices at the pump ahead of the midterm elections in November.
Coast Guard monitoring oil spill cleanup in Louisiana (AP) — The Coast Guard was monitoring an oil spill cleanup on Thursday, four days after it poured into a Louisiana swamp southwest of Baton Rouge. An estimated 4,000 gallons (15,141 liters) of oil spilled Sunday while WCC Energy Group LLC was piping oil from wellheads into a barge tank used for storage, Coast Guard spokesman Riley Perkofski said in emails. A call to WCC Energy Group's office was not immediately returned. The Coast Guard has not received any reports of oiled wildlife, and the spill's cause is being investigated, a news release said. The spill occurred near Bayou Sorrel in Iberville Parish, at a site about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of Baton Rouge, Perkofski said. The company stopped the spill and hired a cleanup company, the news release said. It said OMI Environmental Solutions has put oil-absorbing boom around the spill, with a skimmer and absorbent materials inside it to recover oil. Federal regulations classify a 4,000-gallon spill as medium sized. Bayou Sorrel became notorious in Louisiana after fumes at a hazardous waste dump, also about 20 miles southwest of Baton Rouge, killed a 19-year-old trucker. Kirtley Jackson's death prompted the legislature to pass Louisiana's first hazardous waste law in 1978. The 265-acre (107 hectare) dump was cleaned up as a Superfund site, and was taken off the Superfund list in 1997.
Hafnia tanker spills more than 2,000 gallons of bunker oil in Mississippi River - An LR tanker, Hafnia Rhine, owned by the Oslo-listed product tanker unit of BW Group, Hafnia, spilled more than 2,000 gallons of oil into the Mississippi River in the US. According to the US Coast Guard, the Singapore-flagged vessel, built in 2008, discharged oil into the river last Thursday while bunkering a barge at Ama Anchorage near Kenner, Louisiana. The oil spill was secured by the vessel’s crew, but Coast Guard pollution responders deployed to the scene estimated up to 2,100 gallons of fuel oil entered the water and contaminated at least 50 barges in the vicinity. The National Response Corporation and Environmental Safety and Health Consulting Services were hired to help remove the oil from the water. A containment boom and a sorbent boom were placed around the affected area, including the contaminated vessels. There have been no reports of impact on wildlife and the cause of the spill is still under investigation, the Coast Guard said.
Wisconsin DNR investigating oil spill on contested Enbridge Line 5 -- The state Department of Natural Resources is investigating an oil spill near a Native American reservation in northern Wisconsin. Enbridge Energy reported Wednesday that a contractor had encountered contaminated soil along the Canadian company’s Line 5 pipeline south of Ashland and about a mile from the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation, according to the DNR. Enbridge said they could not find a leak and believe the contamination was from a past spill, according to the DNR, which said agency staff have visited the site and not found evidence of an ongoing leak. Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner said crews found “a trace amount of product” near a valve and shut down the line as a precaution while they investigate the source. Conley cautioned utilities are risking more than $500 million in ratepayer money and he will not allow them to build in protected areas “simply because the transmission companies plowed ahead" with no guarantee of a river crossing. Enbridge has excavated and stored the contaminated soil, according to the DNR, and will be required to document all actions taken to address the suspected spill, the amount of contaminated soil and how it is disposed of.The DNR says the investigation is ongoing and the agency declined to provide additional information, which it said will be posted once available on the agency’s publicly accessible spills database.The 645-mile line runs from Superior to Ontario, Canada, moving about 540,000 barrels of petroleum products per day.As a result of a lawsuit filed by the Bad River band, Enbridge is seeking to bypass the reservation with about 41 miles of new pipe through Ashland, Bayfield and Iron counties.
Feds suspend oil leases on public land in Central California - California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Monday that the state has reached a settlement with the federal government to halt new oil and gas leases on public lands in Central California until the potential risks to public health and the environment are adequately assessed. The moratorium comes after several years of legal challenges from environmental organizations and the state of California, which accused the U.S. Bureau of Land Management under Donald Trump of opening up more than 1 million acres of federal land in Central California to drilling and hydraulic fracturing without thoroughly examining the potential effects on air quality and groundwater. Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, is a common practice used to extract more oil and natural gas by injecting highly pressurized water, sand and a medley of toxic chemicals into underground rock formations. Fracking chemicals have the potential to sully nearby aquifers and release harmful air pollution linked to increased risk of asthma, heart disease and certain cancers. Research also suggests fracking can induce smaller tremors. “Fracking is dangerous for our communities, damaging to our environment, and out of step with California’s climate goals,” Bonta said in a statement Monday. “The Trump administration recklessly opened Central California up to new oil and gas drilling without considering how fracking can hurt communities by causing polluted groundwater, toxic air emissions, minor earthquakes, climate impacts and more. In keeping with the Bureau of Land Management’s mission to preserve the health of our public lands, it must reassess this Trump-era mistake.” Bonta, along with his predecessor, Xavier Becerra, alleged the federal agency didn’t fully evaluate these potential impacts or sufficiently consider how to mitigate them on 1.2 million acres of land in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura Counties. Under the settlement announced Monday, the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency responsible for overseeing oil and gas development on federal and Native American tribal lands, has agreed to not lease these lands until it finalizes a review that properly addresses these environmental concerns. “Protecting public lands is not only a step forward, but also a way to prevent several steps back,” said Cesar Aguirre, a senior organizer with the Central California Environmental Justice Network. “Using public lands to prop up the oil industry is dangerous to our green spaces and communities. We must protect our public lands not only for us to enjoy, but for us to protect Earth.”
California not counting methane leaks from idle wells - California claims to know how much climate-warming gas is going into the air from within its borders. It's the law: California limits climate pollution and each year the limits get stricter.The state has also been a major oil and gas producer for more than a century, and authorities are well aware some 35,000 old, inactive oil and gas wells perforate the landscape.Yet officials with the agency responsible for regulating greenhouse gas emissions say they don't include methane that leaks from these idle wells in their inventory of the state's emissions.Ira Leifer, a University of California Santa Barbara scientist said the lack of data on emissions pouring or seeping out of idle wells calls into question the state’s ability to meet its ambitious goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.Residents and environmentalists from across the state have been voicing concern about the possibility of leaking idle or abandoned wells for years, but the concerns were heightened in May and June when 21 idle wells were discovered to be leaking methane in or near two Bakersfield neighborhoods. They say that the leaking wells are “an urgent public health issue,” because when a well is leaking methane, other gases often escape too.Leifer said these “ridealong” gases were his biggest concern with the wells."Those other gases have significant health impacts,” Leifer said, yet we know even less about their quantities than we do about the methane.In July, residents who live in the communities nearest the leaking wells protested at the California Geologic Management Division’s field offices, calling for better oversight.“It’s clear that they are willing to ignore this public health emergency. Our communities are done waiting. CalGEM needs to do their job,”
Diesel Shortage Deepens Global Dependency On U.S. Fuel - A deepening dependency on U.S. diesel deliveries in many parts of the world could lead to problems in the coming months as domestic demand for the fuel increases while production fails to increase at the same rate.Bloomberg reports that the United States is exporting diesel fuel at record rates, reaching 1.4 million bpd in July, which was the highest in five years, according to data from Vortexa.U.S. diesel shipments go mainly to Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, but now they are going to Europe as well.A lot of the increase is coming from Europe, which is seeking to replace Russian volumes with U.S. ones amid the Ukraine crisis and an oil and fuels embargo that will come into effect towards the end of the year.The Bloomberg report cited Valero Energy’s chief operating officer as saying during a conference call last week that supplying Europe with enough diesel would be a challenge because of the tight supply situation.Another challenge would come from higher domestic demand as farmers begin harvesting in the Midwest. Harvest season begins soon in Brazil, too, a big buyer of U.S. diesel.Diesel inventories in the United States have been in decline for much of this year as demand for fuels continued to recover from the pandemic faster than supply. The latest data from the Energy Information Administration showed yet another inventory decline for the week to July 22, of 800,000 bpd. This compared with a 1.3-million-barrel draw for the previous week.Production of middle distillates, including diesel, in the meantime, has hovered around 5 million barrels daily. On the East Coast, a shortage is already looming, according to Bloomberg. Seasonal distillate stocks, the media reported, have been at record lows since May. Last winter, the East Coast already suffered a shortage of diesel, and if the situation continues unfolding the way it is currently unfolding, it could see a repeat.
Exxon, Chevron Post Record Revenues | Asharq AL-awsat - The two largest US oil companies, Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp, posted record revenue in Q2 2022 on Friday. With crude surging above $100 a barrel shortly after the Russian invasion on Ukraine, and refining margins climbing due to tight plant capacity, ExxonMobil reported $17.9 billion in profits and Chevron $11.6 billion in the just-finished second quarter. The results come on the heels of similarly jaw-dropping figures from European petroleum heavyweights, with Shell reporting $18 billion in profits, Total Energies $5.7 billion and Eni $3.8 billion. Crude prices traded between $95 and $120 a barrel during the quarter, as the war and the wave of sanctions on Moscow lifted the oil market back to levels last seen in 2008. On Friday, both companies reported higher oil and natural gas volumes in the United States, with ExxonMobil boosted by an increased 130,000 barrels of oil-equivalent in the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, and Chevron notching a three percent rise in US volumes. ExxonMobil plans to add 250,000 barrels per day of refining capacity at its Beaumont, Texas plant in the first quarter of 2023, representing “the industry's largest single capacity addition in the US since 2012,” ExxonMobil Chief Executive Darren Woods said in a news release. Both companies reported big increases in revenues, with Exxon Mobil's jumping 71% to $115.7 billion and Chevron 83% to $69 billion. This rise is considered one of the main factors behind the global inflation that hit unprecedented levels for decades in the United States and Europe. Inflation is already changing where Americans go and what they eat. It's also changing the way they consume energy. Inflation in Europe has also been surging, including soaring costs for energy. The two companies, which suffered significant financial losses early in the COVID-19 pandemic as petroleum demand tanked, have not used the mountains of cash from higher prices to significantly lift capital spending, which remains below the level prior to the pandemic. Instead, the companies have been steering funds to shareholders. ExxonMobil paid out $7.6 billion in distributions during the quarter, while Chevron lifted the top end of its annual share repurchase range to $15 billion from $10 billion.
Top House Democrat probes oil company earnings - House Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone demanded information yesterday about record profits from some of the biggest U.S. oil producers as the head of the United Nations slammed what he called the industry’s “grotesque greed,” adding to the political fallout from one of Big Oil’s best-ever financial quarters. Pallone (D-N.J.) sent letters to the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell PLC and BP PLC, saying his committee is investigating “what oil companies could and should be doing to bring down gas prices.” The four companies earned more than $50 billion in the second quarter of 2022, as Russia’s war in Ukraine pushed up oil prices and the average price of gasoline in the United States exceeded $5 a gallon. It was the best quarter on record for Exxon, Chevron and Shell, and the best since 2008 for BP, according to Reuters (Energywire, Aug. 1). “Your company is positioned to help alleviate Americans’ pain at the pump, but I am concerned that you are more focused on rewarding company executives and shareholders,” Pallone’s letters said. Pallone asked how much of their earnings the companies planned to spend on executive compensation, dividends and shareholder buybacks, and also how much of their capital budget will go to conventional oil and gas production versus cleaner forms of energy. The letters were sent the same day U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called on governments to tax the oil companies’ profits and “use the funds to support the most vulnerable people through these difficult times.” “It is immoral for oil and gas companies to be making record profits from the current energy crisis on the backs of the poorest, at a massive cost to the climate,” Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal who has led the United Nations since 2017, said during a press conference at the U.N. headquarters. The oil companies, while acknowledging that consumers are struggling with high costs, defended their record while releasing financial results over the last week. On a call with reporters yesterday, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden was asked about public anger over high energy costs. “In the end, our role is to supply the energy the world needs and that is what we are doing,” he said. In an email to E&E News, Shell added that it continues to “convey to Congress and the Administration that we will do all we can to increase production at this tumultuous time.“
NOCs, Not Big Oil, Are Responsible For Most Emissions While much of the global pressure toward decarbonization has been directed toward privately owned and operated oil supermajors like BP, ExxonMobil, and Shell, a new report from the Economist suggests that much of this pressure and blame is misguided. It’s not that Big Oil doesn’t need to change its focus, strategy, and commitments in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions quickly and significantly enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – it does. The thing is, the emissions of privately owned oil companies pale in comparison to the enormity of state-owned oil enterprises, which are producing most of the oil, emitting most of the greenhouse gases, raking in most of the profits, and receiving much less attention. In fact, the Economist article, titled “State-run oil giants will make or break the energy transition,” says that in comparison to Big Oil, national oil companies (NOCs) are “enormous oil.” Together, NOCs represent three-fifths of the world’s crude oil production, half of global natural gas production, and two-thirds of the world’s remaining proven oil and gas reserves. “Four—Adnoc of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Aramco, pdvsa of Venezuela and QatarEnergy—possess enough hydrocarbons to continue producing at current rates for over four decades.”Taking into consideration the sheer scale of NOCs’ production power, it does make the global attention to these institutions’ climate actions (or rather non-actions) particularly stark and worrying. Especially when you take a look at just how bad most NOCs’ track records are when it comes to going green. To be clear, Big Oil’s track record isn’t stellar either, especially west of the Atlantic, but the greenhouse gas emissions of most supermajors have already stabilized or peaked. By contrast, just two NOCs can say the same: Brazil’s Petrobras and Colombia’s Ecopetrol. So why aren’t we going after the big fish? The answer, of course, is complicated. Decarbonization is political no matter how you slice it, but pressuring governments themselves to divest of the very industry keeping their state economies afloat and their politicians in office is tricky and divisive business. Many countries with state-run oil companies are volatile nations with monopolized economies and no contingency plan if oil was to go the way of the dodo. What’s more, all too often, petrostates make for oil autocrats with itchy trigger fingers. “No matter how you define a petrostate – whether you look at a state’s oil-derived wealth, its dependence on oil revenues, or its exports and relative importance to world markets – there is strong evidence that petrostates are more likely than other countries to start wars,” Foreign Policy reported last month.
St. Clair River oil spill from Canadian refinery contained, officials said --An oil spill on the St. Clair River from a Canadian refinery has been contained, Algonac city officials said Thursday."Canadian officials have mitigated the situation and have given an all-clear for water plants to open intakes and resume normal operations," Algonac fire department officials said in a post on the department's official Facebook page.The spill came from Suncor Energy's refinery in Sarnia, according toSarniaNewsToday.ca.It reports a sheen on the St. Clair River was discovered Wednesday. The emergency notification and response system for the Aamjiwnaang First Nation detected the spill on the river west of Indian Road and north of Lasalle Line, according to the news report.Company officials attributed the sheen to an overflow of the refinery’s internal sewer system caused by heavy rainfall, according to the website.It also said Suncor reports the overflow is no longer active and all water from the site is being safely managed. The company also contacted water users and asked them to take necessary precautions until the sheen passed. In addition, the refinery’s spill response team has deployed booms into the river. Cleanup efforts continue, the website said Wednesday.
Imperial Oil investigating 55,000 litre spill of produced water in N.W.T. - Imperial Oil Ltd. says it is investigating a spill from a produced water line at its facility in Norman Wells, N.W.T. The company says about 55,000 litres of produced water was released last Wednesday. The byproduct is produced during the extraction of oil and gas, is high in saline and can be contaminated with other substances. The company says it is investigating whether the produced water entered the Mackenzie River. It says water quality monitoring does not indicate a risk to public health or wildlife. The cause of the spill has not yet been determined.
Imperial Oil investigating if spill in Norman Wells entered Mackenzie River | CBC News - Imperial Oil is investigating to see if a spill from a produced water line at the Norman Wells, N.W.T., operation has entered into the Mackenzie River. The spill was reported to the N.W.T. Department of Environment and Natural Resources on Wednesday and according to the federal regulator occurred between Bear and Goose Island. Produced water is treated water that is pumped to the surface during oil recovery and then reused. According to Transport Canada, produced water can contain contaminants from oil extraction, but it varies with how much it contains. The company estimates the quantity of the spill is 55 cubic metres (55,000 litres). Lisa Schmidt, a spokesperson for Imperial Oil, said in an email the company is investigating the situation. "The line was quickly shut down. We currently estimate that approximately 55 cubic metres may have been released. We are still investigating whether produced water entered the Mackenzie River," she wrote. Schmidt said Imperial Oil is monitoring the water quality and there are no indications there is a risk to public health or wildlife. "We have notified regulators and have shared this information with local communities." No details have been provided on what caused the spill. Lisa LeBel, a spokesperson for Canada Energy Regulator, said in an email the agency "requested additional information from Imperial on the concentrations of chloride and hydrocarbons in the released fluid, an assessment of any potential impacts of the release as well as the actions that will be taken to repair the leak and prevent reoccurrence." Norman Wells Mayor Frank Pope said the leak was reported to him and that Imperial Oil has staff responding to the situation. Downriver in Fort Good Hope, Edwin Erutse, president of the Yamoga Land Corporation, said he has received a call from a concerned resident on the spill and plans to followup to find out more. Erutse said the spill comes during a busy fishing time in the community. "People have nets and that out on the river, so I want to make sure that these concerns don't go unaddressed," he said.
Swans treated after oil spill in Leamington Spa river - BBC News - A number of swans have been treated after being coated in oil following a spill in a river in Warwickshire. The Environment Agency (EA) responded to reports of the oil spill on the River Leam in Leamington Spa earlier.Officers were able to contain the spill using a boom and it was soaked up using absorbent pads to remove it from the water.The agency said the affected swans had been checked over by the RSPCA and Warwickshire Wildlife Trust.The cause of the spill is under investigation"The oil was inaccessible from the river bank but the team were able to access the area by boat," a spokesperson for the EA said."We are working with Severn Trent Water to investigate the source of the pollution."
UK North Sea Tax Receipts Now $27 Million Daily The UK Government is being urged to do more to support families, businesses, and the energy transition after research by the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce (AGCC) revealed a 662 percent increase in North Sea tax receipts. The AGCC found that offshore operators and licensees have been paying an average of $27 million in tax per day since the start of the year. That windfall is set to rise even further with the introduction of the Energy Profits Levy (EPL), which increases the effective rate of tax paid by offshore energy firms to 65 percent, which is more than three times higher than the standard rate of corporation tax. The government is now being urged to use this ‘double windfall’ to support consumers and businesses, but also to incentivize investment in the low carbon technologies which will help Scotland and the UK reach net-zero targets. The EPL comes with a tax sweetener – the Investment Allowance – which will see North Sea producers get a 91 pence tax saving for every £1 ($1.11 for every $1.22) they invest in further oil and gas extraction. AGCC stated that the allowance should be extended to include investment in the energy transition, in technologies such as offshore wind, hydrogen, CCS, and direct air capture. Between January and June this year, offshore companies paid over $4.88 billion in tax in just 181 days, according to tax receipt data from the Office for National Statistics, a 662 percent increase on the previous 12 months, when receipts for the six months of the year totaled $642 million. The Office of Budget Responsibility recently upgraded its estimates for the fiscal years ending March 2023 to 2027, now predicting North Sea revenues to hit $24.66 billion. This is more than double previous forecasts and excludes the windfall tax, which the Treasury says will raise an additional amount of over $6 billion in its first year and could run until 2025 if energy prices remain high, although there is no definition of what a high price is in the legislation. “Our research shows that with increased receipts and its new profits levy, the Treasury is receiving a double windfall from the North Sea. On the current trajectory, the tax take from the basin this financial year could be four times higher than the original forecasts done by the Office for Budget Responsibility in 2020. Clearly, there are sufficient incremental tax revenues to fund the support to consumers and businesses, but also to go further and to inject real pace into the energy transition.” “Failing to include renewables in the Investment Allowance was a missed opportunity and we want to see it expanded to include investment in technologies such as offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and direct air capture – all of which are currently being developed in the North-east of Scotland. We need to deliver the reindustrialization of Scotland to make sure we capitalize on our green energy potential. These tax receipts provide an opportunity to do just that,”
Supply Chain Issues Push Back First Tyra Gas --TotalEnergies-operated Tyra Redevelopment Project in the Danish North Sea has experienced delays due to global supply chain difficulties. Energy company Noreco has announced that the TotalEnergies-operated Tyra Redevelopment Project in the Danish North Sea experienced delays due to global supply chain difficulties. Noreco said in a statement that the first gas date from the Tyra Redevelopment Project was revised by TotalEnergies and pushed back to winter 2023-2024. According to the company, the revision was driven by global supply chain challenges that have impacted the extent to which fabrication work on the processing module (TEG) has been completed in the yard in Batam. While the sail-away of the TEG will be a positive milestone that marks the end of Tyra II’s onshore fabrication phase, it will depart with additional work required to be completed offshore to achieve first gas. The operator of the project also revised its plan for the ongoing hook-up and commissioning phase. Seven out of eight modules are already installed offshore, and the TEG has been the only remaining module where onshore fabrication is still ongoing. With load-out of the processing module beginning this week, the module will leave McDermott’s yard in Batam in an incomplete state with approximately 580,000 hours of remaining work, where the operator expects approximately 165,000 hours are required to reach first gas. The carry-over work is mainly caused by the overall performance at the yard where overhang from Covid-19 has challenged the quality and progress, and the operator’s efforts in mitigating actions have proved not to be sufficiently effective.
German government drives up heating costs by imposing gas surcharge -- Last week, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) announced the introduction of a heating gas surcharge, dealing another financial blow to working families, low-income households, students and pensioners. In addition to the high gas bills that many municipal utility companies will be sending out in the autumn, the government will be imposing a gas surcharge starting October 1. According to Habeck, the surcharge will amount to 1.5 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour and will be levied on all gas customers. Since about half of German households heat with gas, it will affect millions of people. The annual additional costs incurred by households as a result of the surcharge range from several hundred to well over a thousand euros, depending on its final level and the amount of gas consumed. If the surcharge is 5 cents, an average four-person household with an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours would have to pay up to €1,000 more. Even before the surcharge is imposed, experts predicted that the price of gas would triple. Now, the price will increase even further due to the gas surcharge. The surcharge will be passed on to the energy suppliers, who are thus being compensated for massively increased import prices. This affects both municipal utility companies that supply only a few tens of thousands of customers, as well as large corporations like Uniper, which do not produce gas and oil themselves but buy, distribute, and supply it to end users. They are being compensated for 90 percent of the price increase in procurement costs. In the end, the gas surcharge ends up in the coffers of the large energy companies, which profit from the high world market prices and are already reporting record profits.
Rhine River drops to record lows, restricting shipping and exacerbating the European energy crisis - (video) The water level on the Rhine River as measured by the Emmerich gauge in northern Germany is at a record low for this time of year. If it keeps going down at this rate, the all-time record that was established in 2018 might be beaten very soon – and a lot sooner than it was back then. The river at Kaub in east-central Germany – a key waypoint for the shipment of commodities – is expected to drop to 47 centimeters (18.5 inches) on August 6. That would take it to within 7 cm (2.75 inches) of being impassable.1 An impassable river could halt the flow of everything from fuel to chemicals as European governments try to prevent the continent’s worst energy-supply crisis in decades tipping the region into recession. “Coal shipments are already restricted by low water levels because fewer ships are available, and the ones that are ready to use carry less cargo,” energy supplier EnBW AG said . “Shipment costs for coal are therefore increasing, which in turn inflates the costs of operating coal plants.” Transporting petroleum to Basel, Switzerland, currently costs more than 200 euros ($204) per ton. That’s the most in at least three years, and it’s up from 25 euros a few months ago. Warm winter, lack of rainfall and excessive heat have already played a significant role in the crisis, pushing the European benchmark electricity prices to all-time highs on August 2.2 As a result, countries are relying even more on Russian gas to meet increased power demand instead of storing it for the coming winter season, as recently agreed in Brussels. “With the Rhine transport disrupted and alternatives such as rail and road looking increasingly expensive, it will be difficult for Germany and Switzerland to build gasoil/diesel stocks before temperatures cool,” said Josh Folds, a European oil analyst at consultants Facts Global Energy.
German leader says gas pipeline part is ready for Russia - (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz inspected a turbine at the center of a natural gas dispute and declared Wednesday that “there are no problems” blocking the part's return to Russia besides missing information from Russia’s state-controlled gas company. The Kremlin insisted more assurances were needed. Russian energy giant Gazprom last week halved the amount of natural gas flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% of capacity, the latest reduction it blamed on delays to the turbine's delivery due to Western sanctions. German partner Siemens Energy sent the turbine to Canada for overhaul, which was a routine process before Russia invaded Ukraine and was subjected to Western sanctions. The German government says the turbine was meant to be installed in September and wasn't needed to make the pipeline function now; it says Moscow is using spurious technical explanations as cover for a political move to create uncertainty and to push up gas prices. The turbine is now stored at a Siemens Energy facility in Mulheim an der Ruhr, in western Germany. “This turbine is usable any time,” Scholz said, standing next to the 18-ton piece of machinery. “There is nothing standing in the way of its transport on to Russia — other than that the Russian recipients have to say that they want to have the turbine, and give the necessary information for the customs transport to Russia." “All other permits are there — that goes for the permit from Germany, the permit from the European Union, from the United Kingdom, from Canada,” the chancellor added. "There are no problems.” Gazprom’s repeated reductions of gas deliveries to various countries have raised fears that Russia may cut off supplies altogether to try to gain political leverage over Europe. German officials say Gazprom needs to specify where exactly the turbine needs to be sent. Scholz said he was checking out the turbine publicly to “demystify” it. The chancellor reiterated Germany's insistence that “there are no technical reasons for the reduction of gas deliveries through Nord Stream 1.” He said sanctions don't apply to the gas used to power industry, heat homes and generate electricity.Gazprom has repeatedly said it pressed Siemens Energy for documents and clarification. The company specifically wants documents from Siemens Energy proving that the turbine isn't subject to Western sanctions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “We need to be sure that it’s not under sanctions. We need to be sure that Siemens’ British subsidiary in charge of it won’t switch it off remotely in the future as part of sanctions,” Peskov told reporters during a conference call.
3 charts show Europe's unprecedented natural gas crisis -Europe is facing an unprecedented energy crisis that's pushing the economy closer to a recession and posing serious questions about the region's climate change ambitions. Russia has significantly reduced flows of natural gas to Europe since Western nations imposed tough sanctions on the Kremlin following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Moscow denies it is using gas as a weapon, but Europeans complain that Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy company, is no longer a reliable provider. Reduced gas supplies from Russia are a problem for EU nations given it used to import about 40% of its gas stocks from the country. Data from Nord Stream, the operator in charge of a pipeline (Nord Stream 1) that links Russia to Germany, confirms that there's fewer gas volumes heading West. Last week alone, supplies via Nord Stream 1 were reduced to 20% from 40% with Gazprom citing maintenance issues Germany's economy minister, Robert Habeck, said Gazprom's technical excuse was a "farce." Supplies had been briefly halted before the latest reduction, with maintenance works being completed between July 11 and July 21. According to the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, 12 members states are already suffering from the reduced gas flows and a handful of others have been completely cut off. Top EU officials say Russia is "blackmailing" Europe and "weaponizing" its gas supplies. Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations. "We have to be ready, there might be full disruption in near [the] future, and that means that we need to have a plan in place," European leaders are concerned about a complete shutdown in supplies, particularly because many industries use the commodity as a raw material in their manufacturing process. In this context, there have been efforts to seek alternative suppliers and different sources of energy. However, this transition is a difficult task that's impossible to be done in a short timeframe. The commission has asked EU nations to have a minimum storage target of 80% by November. In June, gas filling levels were just over 56%, according to the same institution. Natural gas prices have risen dramatically in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and even beforehand when Russia started to tighten flows. There's renewed price pressures every time Russia decreases its supplies to Europe given how important the commodity is for several sectors and given the lack of alternatives to Russian fossil fuels. Salomon Fiedler, an economist at Berenberg, noted that natural gas prices in Europe are "exorbitantly more expensive" now compared with the 2015-2019 price average. "In a normal year, the EU may use around 4.3 billion megawatt per hour (MWh) worth of natural gas. Thus, if prices are higher by €100 per MWh for one year and the EU had to pay these prices instead of benefitting from some long-term fixed-price contracts, costs would increase by about €430 billion ($437 billion) – equivalent to 3% of the EU's 2021 GDP," he said. Higher prices then naturally trickle down to the energy bills of companies and individuals across the bloc. "European benchmark natural gas prices at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) shot up by 15% to almost EUR 200 per megawatt-hour as utilities bid for alternative supplies, raising concerns that consumers and industry will struggle to pay their energy bills and that there will be a winter recession," analysts at the Eurasia Group consultancy said in a research note Tuesday. Gr With supplies reduced and prices higher, the gas crisis is shaking Europe's economic prospects. The latest growth reading for the euro zone, out Friday, showed GDP at 0.7% in the second quarter — above market expectations. But more and more economists are pricing in a recession for 2023. The European Commission said earlier this month that the economy would grow 2.7% this year and 1.5% next year. However, the institution also said that a full shutdown in gas supplies from Russia could bring about a recession later in 2022. "Higher gas prices drive up firms' costs and squeeze consumers' budgets, leaving them less money to spend on other goods and services. As a result, we expect the euro zone to fall into recession this autumn at still high inflation," Fiedler said.
As Europe hunts for gas, where do the emissions go? -European leaders are assuring the world that they won’t overshoot their climate targets as they desperately search for new sources of fossil fuels.But could global emissions rise, even if Europe’s don’t?It’s a question increasingly on the mind of climate analysts and advocates as the European Union accelerates its hunt for alternatives to the Russian gas, oil and coal that keeps its economy humming.They worry that the rush to find new fuels is driving interest in new projects outside Europe that could increase global emissions while leaving those countries searching for buyers once the European Union no longer needs their gas.“If the E.U.’s policies feed an expansion of gas production globally that exceeds what it needs to replace the Russian gas for a period of time, then it creates a big problem,” said Bill Hare, founder and CEO of Climate Analytics, which provides scientific and policy analysis on climate change.“It is not only damaging to the climate but also to the countries that will start investing in new extraction,” he added.The European Union’s stated goal is to replace Russian fuel with gas from other countries as it works to reduce demand by boosting renewable energy capacity and improving energy efficiency over the coming years.But some countries in Europe are also investing in new terminals to import liquefied natural gas while also expressing support for new gas projects in countries like Senegal and Nigeria.The European commissioner for energy, Kadri Simson, said last week that the European Union had reached agreements for gas imports with Azerbaijan, the United States, Canada, Norway, Egypt and Israel and is exploring options to increase LNG imports from Nigeria.Nigeria, along with Mozambique and Tanzania, are among several countries in Africa that have LNG export terminals proposed or under construction capable of handling 60 million tons of gas a year, according to the latest data from Global Energy Monitor.In April, Italian energy giant Eni announced it would develop a liquefied natural gas field in the Republic of Congo with a capacity of 3 million tons of gas annually.And in June, German utility EnBw signed a 20-year contract with U.S. LNG producer Venture Global for 1.5 million tons starting in 2026. In Europe, there’s been a flurry of proposals to expand LNG import capacity since the European Commission announced it would cut its dependence on Russian gas. Analysts say that seems to be lowering the barrier for some LNG projects to advance their development timescales.Most of those projects are floating terminals, which have a life span of 5 to 10 years and can be moved elsewhere once Europe gets through its initial energy crunch, but there are indications that some could become permanent, said Greig Aitken, a research analyst with Global Energy Monitor. He pointed to a pre-contract agreement between the Polish company PGNiG Group and Sempra Infrastructure that aims for gas sales lasting 20 years from terminals in Louisiana and Texas starting in 2027. Those types of investments, if they’re finalized, could potentially lock in years of additional gas use and emissions.
Australia to divert gas for LNG exports to domestic use --The Australian government has moved to divert gas from the three LNG projects at Gladstone, Queensland to the domestic market to avoid a forecasted shortfall of 56PJ in 2023. The country's minister for resources Madeleine King is preparing a notice of intent to invoke the Australian domestic gas security mechanism (ADGSM) for 2023, after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found that the east coast could face a shortfall of 56PJ in 2023, compared with a shortfall of 2PJ it has forecast for this year. The three LNG projects in eastern Australia under the ADGSM are the Shell-operated 8.5mn t/yr Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) venture; the 7.8mn t/yr Gladstone LNG (GLNG) venture operated by independent Australian producer Santos, and the 9mn t/yr Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) venture operated by ConocoPhillips and independent Australian producer Origin Energy. The move is designed to force the three LNG exporters to guarantee supply to domestic manufacturers and households rather than delivering it to seaborne markets, where Russia's invasion of Ukraine has increased demand and prices. Canberra's plans will reduce the availability of spot cargoes on the seaborne LNG market, which is already tight due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it will play well to a domestic audience concerned about rising inflation and a hollowing out of local manufacturing capacity. "Based on the forecast shortfall, the government needs to see firm commitments out of the east coast LNG exporters," King said. She also plans to extend the ADGSM, which was to expire on 1 January, to 2030, with a review in 2025. "The government is also talking with key trading partners to reassure them that Australia remains a trusted trading partner and a stable and reliable exporter of resources and energy," King added. The ACCC has argued that LNG exporters are not dealing with domestic users in the spirit of a Heads of Agreement signed last year, which commits them to offer uncontracted gas domestically before exporting it. "We are concerned that domestic gas users don't always have reasonable notice of these offers, and that LNG exporters do not make counter-offers to bids, which could indicate they are not seriously engaging in the domestic market," ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
Australia tells exporters to keep natural gas at home to avoid an energy crunch - which could cause prices to soar even further - Australia has warned of a liquefied natural gas crunch on its eastern coast and will tell exporters to keep their supplies at home to make up any potential shortfalls.The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said in astatement on Monday that exporters must divert gas to the domestic market to prevent a 56 petajoule shortage by 2023."Our latest gas report finds that the outlook for the east coast gas market has significantly worsened," ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said. "To protect energy security on the east coast we are… strongly encouraging LNG exporters to immediately increase their supply into the market."News of a potential slowdown in exports comes as European gas prices soar, contributing to an energy crisis on the continent.Benchmark Dutch TTF natural gas futures rose 4% to just under 200 euros ($205) per megawatt hour on Monday - meaning they have surged 135% since the start of June.Australia is one of the world's largest liquefied natural gas exporters and ships 7.2 million tons of the super-cooled fuel abroad each year, according to Bloomberg. Supply cuts could push key gas benchmarks even higher, analysts said.Natural gas stocks rallied after the ACCC's announcement.
Russia Has Exported $1 Billion In Fossil Fuels Per Day Since The Ukraine War Despite Sanctions And Boycotts - Despite wide-ranging sanctions and import bans, Russia's vast energy sector continues to thrive, with the country managing to export nearly a billion dollars worth of fossil fuels per day in the first 100 days since its invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, higher crude oil and fuel prices have allowed Russian oil and gas revenues to climb even after the sanctions forced export volumes to dip.Ultimately, there is no shortage of willing buyers lining up for cheap Russian Urals, nor is there a dearth of middlemen connecting them with Russian energy companies.Lurking behind the scenes are Switzerland's giant trading houses Vitol, Glencore, and Gunvor as well as Singapore's Trafigura, all of which have continued lifting large volumes of Russian crude and products, including diesel, amid wide-ranging Western Sanctions on Russia.Vitol has pledged to stop buying Russian crude by the end of this year, but that's still a long way from today. Trafigura promised it would stop buying crude from Russia's state-run Rosneft by May 15th but is free to buy cargoes of Russian crude from other suppliers. Glencore has promised it wouldn't enter any "new" trading business with Russia, but appears willing to maintain previous deals.Meanwhile, India and China have been making up for much of the lost markets for Russian fuels.India has never been a big buyer of Russian crude despite having to import 80% of its needs. In a typical year, India imports just 2-5% of its crude from Russia, roughly the same proportion as the United States did before it announced a 100% ban on Russian energy commodities. Indeed, India imported only 12 million barrels of Russian crude in 2021, with the majority of its oil sourced from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Nigeria.But back in May, reports emerged of a "significant uptick" in Russian oil deliveries bound for India.According to a Bloomberg report, India spent a good $5.1 billion on Russian oil, gas, and coal in the first three months after the invasion, more than five times the value of a year ago. However, China remains the biggest buyer of Russian energy commodities, spending $18.9 billion in the three months to the end of May, almost double the amount a year earlier.And, it's all about the money.According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Urals crude from Russia has been offered at record discounts. Ellen Wald, president of Transversal Consulting, has told CNBC that a couple of commodity trading firms--such as Glencore and Vitol--were offering discounts of $30 and $25 per barrel, respectively, for the Urals blend. Urals is the main blend exported by Russia.The experts say simple economics is the biggest reason why White House pressure to curb purchases of crude oil from Russia have fallen on deaf ears in Delhi."Today, the Government of India's motivations are economic, not political. India will always look for a deal in their oil import strategy. It's hard not to take a 20% discount on crude when you import 80-85% of your oil, particularly on the heels of the pandemic and global growth slowdown,"
Russia faces 'economic oblivion' despite claims of short-term resilience, economists say - Russia is facing "economic oblivion" in the long term because of international sanctions and the flight of businesses, several economists have said. The International Monetary Fund last week upgraded Russia's gross domestic product estimate for 2022 by 2.5 percentage points, meaning the economy is now projected to contract by 6% this year. The IMF said the economy seemed to be weathering the barrage of economic sanctions better than expected.The Central Bank of Russia surprised markets in late July by cutting its key interest rate back to 8%, below its prewar level, citing cooling inflation, a strong currency and the risk of recession.The ruble recovered from historic early losses in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine to become a top performer on the global foreign exchange market this year, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to declare that Western sanctions had failed.Meanwhile, Russia has continued to export energy and other commodities while leveraging Europe's dependency on its gas supplies.However, many economists see long-lasting costs to the Russian economy from the exit of foreign firms – which will hit production capacity and capital and result in a "brain drain" – along with the loss of its long-term oil and gas markets and diminished access to critical imports of technology and inputs.
Nigeria Loses N184.5bn to Gas Flaring in Six Months - The possibility of Nigeria boosting its earnings by N183.54 billion at a time it is witnessing a decline in revenue was lost as oil and gas companies operating in the country wasted 126 billion standard cubic feet (SCF) of gas in the first half of 2022. According to a report obtained from the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), the gas was burnt off in the course of the oil production process in six months. The agency lamented that gas has been flared in Nigeria since the 1950s, releasing carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, serving as a continuing source of environmental and health concerns in the Niger Delta, despite efforts to reduce it. The oil spill watchdog noted that the volume of gas flared in the six-month period was equivalent to carbon dioxide (CO2) emission of 6.7 million tonnes in the oil-producing areas, capable of generating 12,600 gigawatts hours of electricity; while the companies were expected to pay penalties of $252.1 million, about N104.87 billion, which are hardly paid. In comparison, NOSDRA reported that the gas flared in the month under review was 4.56 per cent higher than the 120.5 billion SCF of gas flared in the second half of 2021, valued at $421.8 million, about N175.47 billion. The gas flared between July and December 2021 also attracted penalties of N241 million, an equivalent of N100.26 billion; has a power generating potential of 12,100 gigawatts hour; and saw an equivalent of 6.4 million tonnes of CO2. Furthermore, NOSDRA added that the volume of gas flared in the first half, according to the agency, represented a decline of 9.87 per cent, compared with the 139.8 billion SCF of gas flared in the same period in 2021, valued at $489.4 million, about N203.59 billion. The quantity of gas flared in the first six months of 2021, was capable of generating 14,000 gigawatt-hour of electricity; was equivalent to 7.4 million tonnes of CO2; while the companies were liable for penalties of $279.7 million, about N116.36 billion.
MOSOP reports fresh oil spill in Ogoniland, fingers Shell - MOVEMENT For Survival Of Ogoni People (MOSOP) on Wednesday cried out over a fresh oil spill in Ogoniland.. The spill, the Ogoni leadership organ noted, hit Bodo community, Gokana Local Government Area impacting residential areas with community dwellers asked to evacuate to mitigate the associated risks, including probable fire outbreak. MOSOP President, Fegalo Nsuke, in preliminary appraisal of the situation narrated that, “Witness reports say the spills suddenly erupted within the residential area of the community, strongly suggesting equipment failure.” Nsuke pointed fingers at “Shell for this spill and urges the company to take responsibility to put out the spills, alleviate its impact on the community, curtail its spread and commence proper remediation and compensation as expected and in accordance with global best practices. “This massive spill is occurring 11 years after the UNEP released a damning report exposing Shell’s devastation of the Ogoni environment and on a day an unannounced stakeholders meeting with some chiefs in Port Harcourt is holding to cement a plot to reenter Ogoni oilfields despite overwhelming Ogoni objection, a divide and conquer strategy with potentials to spark off internal conflicts. “We have communicated with community leaders to cooperate with investigations and ensure that every detail about this spill is communicated to our secretariat as soon as possible.” A spokesperson for the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), however responded to Vanguard in anonymity that, “Owing to the level of theft, the SPDC JV-owned Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) has not been carrying crude oil since mid-June.” Vanguard further gathered that Shell, owner of the TNP had equally warned other marginal operators piping through that line to desist as a result of theft, prompting new entrant, Heirs Oil and Gas to consider trucking. Another operator’s representative confirmed that a leak had been report on the TNP in Bodo axis, but prompt intervention has been hampered by alleged refusal of the community to allow a Joint Investigation Visit to the affected to spill spot to ascertain the cause and effect on the spill
Shell warns of economic plunge if sabotage persists in oil sector --Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) has warned that if oil theft is not tackled urgently, the country could, in the future, be spending 50 per cent of its yearly budget on clean up. The Head, Corporate Relations, Nigeria, Igo Weli, while linking the current rise in foreign exchange rates, high cost of goods and services to sabotage of oil facilities, said unchecked illegal refining would further crash the economy and retard infrastructural development. Weli stated this in Port Harcourt, yesterday, during an engagement on oil theft, pipeline vandalism and illegal refineries. He said: “Spill is going on, and if you want to clean it up, it is going to cost a lot of money. People should create a link between actions and impacts. If you break pipes and the oil spills, and government needs to clean it, then the resources needed for other infrastructural development, like building of schools and hospitals, would be channelled into cleaning up a spill that is avoidable. “So, if the issue of oil theft continues, the spills will be horrible in the future and if you want to clean them up, you will have to allocate about 50 per cent of the national budget. “Consequently, there will be no economic growth in the nation, infrastructure will be retarded, new ones will not be built, old ones will not be maintained, schools will go on longer strikes and hospitals will collapse.” This came as the company announced that its Trans Niger Pipeline, from Rivers State to Bonny export terminal, has been inoperative since March 2022 as a result of sabotage. He said it makes no economic sense to keep pumping crude, asking: “How can we pump 200 barrels while only five gets to Bonny terminal?”He said Shell would only reopen the facility when it has confidence that it is secure. Weli said Shell is doing so much to protect its facilities from oil thieves and vandals, lamenting that 91 percent of spills from its facilities were caused by third party interference and sabotage. “What we do in Nigeria to protect our facilities, we don’t do in other countries where we operate. We have daily overflight with security agents. We have detailed engagements with them and we were deploying drones to monitor facilities. The loss is higher. That is why it is affecting the economy, the exchange rate and every other aspect of the economy.”
Africa’s key oil exporters unlikely to benefit from OPEC’s higher quotas --Failing to meet their original production targets, all Africa’s key oil exporting countries-except for Algeria, are not expected to benefit from OPEC’s new policy aimed at increasing production quotas, according to Oxford Economics. The London-based economic research forecast that Brent crude oil price will reach an average of $105.4 per barrel this year; however, it ruled out that such hikes would reflect significantly well on government oil revenues in countries such as Libya, Angola and Nigeria. “The relatively high oil price is providing fiscal reprieve for most of Africa’s oil producers after they withstood a severe shock to their largest source of income in 2020, but some will miss out on the potential windfall due to diverse exogenous factors,” the briefing noted.. For long, Libya has been falling short of meetings its production quotas due to a protracted civil conflict that continues to destabilize the oil industry. In June, the country’s oil production halved to just over 600,000 bpd from 1,200,000 bpd, said the report. Against the backdrop of two rival governments, tribal leaders have blocked key oil fields and halted exportation, which forced the national oil company to declare a force majeure in June. The move resulted in a spike in global oil prices, said the briefing. Although Angola’s crude oil production increased to 1,180,000 bpd in June from 1,160,000 in May, the country’s oil output still fell behind its June target by 320,000 bpd, the report noted. “We forecast oil production to rise to an average of 1,180,000 bpd in 2022 from 1,130,000 bpd in 2021. That said, the balance of risks is skewed to the downside due to the possibility of further technical problems at oil production facilities and supply chain disruptions.” Oil production in Nigeria declined by more than ten percent in Q2 2022 to an average of 1,170,000 bpd compared 1,310,000 bpd in the previous quarter. Oil revenues have dropped from $35.4m in May to $0.4m in June 2022, the report said. Since Feb 2021, the gap between Nigeria’ oil output and Opec quota has been widening due to oil supply disruptions and other security issues, showed a graph cited in the briefing. Algeria stands out as the country with the highest potential to benefit from increased production targets. The briefing made no mention of other members states of the African contingent within OPEC including Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Source: Zawya
Kazakhstan Temporarily Reduces Oil Exports Through Russia - Oil supply from Kazakhstan to Russia's Novorossiysk Black Sea port has significantly decreased due to repairs and a production suspension at the country's two major oilfields."Due to repairs at the Tengiz field of Kazakhstan, the head section of the CPC pipeline (Tengiz pump station) is receiving oil from the field in a reduced mode. Also, due to the stoppage of oil production at the Kashagan field, the volume of oil intake into the CPC pipeline was reduced. These factors led to a significant decrease in the total volume of oil pumped through the Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline system," the Kazakh-Russian Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) said in a statement on August 4, which was carried by Tengrinews."A separate announcement will be made [later] on the resumption of regular volumes of [oil] transport," the report added.Meanwhile, Kazakh Energy Minister Bolat Akchulakov said that his country is holding talks with Russia to supply gas to Kazakhstan's northern and eastern regions"If we want to start this work today, then the most optimal option is to supply gas from Russia. This is the most economically optimal option and sustainable in terms of gas supply. We are conducting such negotiations with Gazprom at the level of the QazaqGaz [Kazakh Gas] company," the minister said on August 3."As for the volume, the first stage will be nearly 4 billion cubic meters of gas with the possibility of increasing it to nearly 7 billion cubic meters. Let us round it up to 10 billion cubic meters because many coal-fired stations located there will, most likely, have to be converted to gas," he added.He also said that Kazakhstan was not considering Turkmenistan as a supplier of gas to its northern and eastern regions since there was no gas pipeline there. "Therefore, it will be easier today to construct a pipeline from Russia [to Kazakhstan], and then connect it to our energy system. However, this will take time," the minister added.
Iran says ready to return oil output to pre-sanctions level-Xinhua (Xinhua) -- Iran said on Wednesday that it is ready to return its crude oil production to pre-sanctions levels at the earliest possible time. Iranian Petroleum Minister Javad Owji made the remarks on the sidelines of the 31st OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting, which was held via a videoconference, reported the Iranian oil ministry's website. Owji expressed the hope that major Western governments would understand correctly the world's present sensitive and critical circumstances and adopt a logical approach toward ensuring global energy security. He warned that this year's winter is very important for the entire world, Europe in particular, calling on the Europeans to think of solutions in advance. The minister said Iran has frequently highlighted the necessity of de-politicizing the energy sector, stressing that the return of Iran's oil to the world market can help restore balance and calm to the market. He added that Iran has always held that undermining global energy security and intensification of market fluctuations is a zero-sum game for all players. Owji's remarks came as the delegations from the remaining signatories to a 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as well as the U.S. delegation, are currently in the Austrian capital of Vienna for a fresh round of the talks on reviving the agreement. Former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, which responded by abandoning some of its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA. Eight rounds of talks on restoring the deal have been held in Vienna since April 2021, but have so far failed to reach a breakthrough.
Libya oil production back at pre-blockade levels\ --Libya's oil production has returned to the volume recorded before a months-long blockade that paralysed the economy, official sources said on Sunday. "We are happy to announce that our production rates have reached the pre-force majeure levels" of 1.2 million barrels per day, Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Twitter. Oil and Gas Minister Mohammed Aoun told AFP that he "confirms" production has returned to that level. On 15 July, Libya's new oil chief lifted force majeure at all the country's oil fields and export terminals as groups besieging several installations ended a blockade that had begun in mid-April. Force majeure is a legal measure allowing companies to free themselves from contractual obligations in light of circumstances beyond their control. The NOC, vital to oil-rich Libya's economy, has repeatedly resorted to the mechanism amid blockades of oil installations through years of violence and political upheaval following the NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Conflict in recent years broadly pitted authorities in the capital Tripoli against a camp in the east, where parliament is based. As the country's divided authorities struggled for power, groups close to the eastern camp blockaded six oil fields and export terminals over demands for a more "equitable distribution" of hydrocarbon revenues. Oil production fell to around 400,000 barrels of crude per day during the mid-April to mid-July blockade. Western diplomatic sources said the eastern-based camp agreed to reopen the facilities in exchange for a share of oil revenues for spending in regions under their control. The deal, which has not been confirmed officially, also saw the Tripoli-based government of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah replace veteran NOC head Mustafa Sanalla with Farhat Bengdara. Bengdara is reportedly close to the United Arab Emirates, which supports the eastern-based camp.
OPEC+ Ministers Have Near Clean Sheet for September Policy -OPEC+ ministers meet today and, for the first time in over a year, there is no pre-agreed target increase to rubberstamp, analysts at Standard Chartered have highlighted. “The early 2020 output target cuts were fully reversed with the August loading programs,” the analysts stated in a report sent to Rigzone on Wednesday. “Ministers therefore have a nearly clean sheet in considering output policy from September onwards,” the analysts added. In the report, the analysts noted that there are several “key issues” from an OPEC perspective, adding that ministers will want to keep Russia within the policy process to ensure longer-term cooperation, “but will also not want to give key consuming countries the impression that they are holding back supplies unjustifiably”. “In our view, ministers have over the past month become more concerned about the downside to prices than the upside due to increased recession concerns, poor data from China, and the sharp erosion of price gains made after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” the analysts said in the report. “Brent prices are currently just $3 per barrel higher than the day before the invasion, after having moved $40 per barrel higher at one point,” the analysts added. Standard Chartered analysts outlined in the report that the company’s model shows “significant” supply gaps in 2024 and beyond, which they said “should tilt price pressures sharply to the upside”. The outlook for 2023 appears more downbeat, however, according to the analysts. “We think OPEC needs to keep supply under control and target lower inventories to keep prices above $90 per barrel in 2023,” the analysts noted in the report.
Global oil demand close to pre-pandemic levels, says Russia’s Novak Global oil demand has almost recovered to pre-pandemic levels, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told state TV channel Rossiya-24 after OPEC+ members agreed to slightly increase its production target next month. He added that uncertainties remained in logistic chains and possible further spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and said that Russia and Saudi Arabia, two leading players in the oil output coordination deal, plan to hold an inter-governmental meeting in October.
Oil drops at start of week as China data raises demand concerns - Oil fell as the week’s trading kicked off, after poor Chinese economic data added to concerns that a global slowdown may sap demand. West Texas Intermediate dropped toward $98 a barrel after sinking almost 7% in July in the first back-to-back monthly loss since late 2020. Weekend data indicated a surprise contraction in Chinese factory activity, highlighting the cost of Beijing’s preference for mobility curbs to tackle Covid-19. In Libya, meanwhile, crude output has rebounded after a series of disruptions that more than halved supply, according to the OPEC member’s oil minister. Production has returned to 1.2 million barrels a day, a level last seen in early April, Mohamed Oun said in a telephone interview. Oil has seen volatile trading in recent months as concerns about a slowdown hurt demand for commodities even as underlying signals pointed to still-tight physical conditions. Data last week showed the US economy shrank for a second quarter, while the Federal Rerserve hiked rates by 75 basis points.
Oil Tumbles On China PMI Weakness, Libya Output Hike; To Remain Muted On Low Liquidity - Oil started the new month on the back foot, driftng lower slowly at first and then accelerating the move to the downside, with Brent trading just south of $100, as disappointing Chinese PMI prints added to concerns that a global slowdown may sap demand while an increase in Libyan output eased supply concerns ahead of this week's OPEC+ meeting. WTI slid below $97/bbl after sinking almost 7% in July in the first back-to-back monthly loss since late 2020. Weekend data indicated a surprise contraction in Chinese factory activity, highlighting the cost of mobility curbs to tackle Covid outbreaks. Purchasing managers’ indexes also weakened in South Korea and the euro area’s four largest members.Libya’s crude output has rebounded to its early April levels, the OPEC member’s oil minister said, in an increase that could help cool a jittery global oil market. Output climbed to 1.2 million barrels per day, Oil Minister Mohamed Oun said in a Bloomberg telephone interview. The increase comes after officials reached an agreement earlier this month with protesters and tribal leaders to reopen fields and export terminals largely shut for months.Unfortunately for bulls, as Bloomberg's Nour Al Ali correctly notes, open interest in Brent crude indicates that low liquidity is driving the market at the moment. This means that prices may remain range-bound as traders assess recessionary risks against tight market dynamics.As Ali adds, even before OPEC+ meets later this week, the verdict might already be out: "Low open interest in Brent shows that traders are as invested as they can be in the oil market for the time being. When both prices and open interest fall, that could mean that long positions are being liquidated. This chart that Alex Longley showed me earlier today shows aggregate open interest adjusted for prices near historic highs."
Oil Slides 4% on Expected Demand Loss as World Growth Slows - - Oil futures settled the first trading day of August with sharp losses triggered by weaker-than-expected economic data for China that showed a derailed recovery in its manufacturing sector following a brief rebound from spring lockdowns, while the return of Libyan oil production to the global market pressured the international crude benchmark below $100 barrel (bbl). Libya's National Oil Company (NOC) on Sunday, July 31, said the country's crude production returned to its pre-pandemic level of 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) following the lifting of force majeure on oil exports two weeks prior. NOC's new board of directors lifted all force majeure declarations at Libya's oil terminals and fields on July 15 after a three-month shutdown triggered by violent protests. Libya's oil sector has been severely impacted by ongoing political turmoil, with various groups seeking control of the oilfields and the revenues they generate. Just a month ago, Libyan crude production averaged just about 650,000 bpd amid force majeure on loadings out of the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf terminals, as well as production at the El-Feel oil field. Libya' s fragile ceasefire may indeed prove short-lived as many times before over the past two years as the country descended deeper into political chaos. For now, the return of more than 1 million bpd in Libyan oil production will weigh on the oil market and prices. The return of Libya's oil production comes against a backdrop of a deteriorating macroeconomic outlook in China, European Union, and the United States -- the world's largest demand centers. In China, business activity across the manufacturing sector unexpectedly fell to a three-month low 49 reading in July, which is also indicative of a contraction. Details of the report showed Chinese manufacturers continued to struggle with high raw material prices, ongoing flare-ups of COVID-19, and disrupted supply chains. Slower-than-expected international demand for Chinese manufactured goods also weighed on the forward outlook. In Europe, the manufacturing sector fell deeper into contraction at the start of the third quarter, with July Purchasing Manager's Index data showing the sharpest decline in production since the initial wave of strict COVID-19 lockdowns in May 2020. Germany, France, Italy, and Spain all recorded sub-50 readings in their respective headline manufacturing PMIs. "Eurozone manufacturing is sinking into an increasingly steep downturn, adding to the region's recession risks. New orders are already falling at a pace which, excluding pandemic lockdown months, is the sharpest since the debt crisis in 2012, with worse likely to come," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.At settlement, West Texas Intermediate futures for September delivery declined $4.73 barrel (bbl) to $93.89 bbl. Brent October futures managed to finish a session a tad above $100 bbl, still down nearly $4 on the session. NYMEX September RBOB dropped 11.51 cents to $2.9981 gallon, while NYMEX September ULSD contract slid 10.9 cents to $3.44 gallon.
Oil prices slip as weak manufacturing data stokes recession fears - Oil prices edged lower on Tuesday, extending losses from the previous session, as investors worried about global oil demand following weak manufacturing data in several countries. Brent crude futures fell 29 cents to $99.74 a barrel by 0002 GMT, with WTI crude futures down 22 cents at $93.67 a barrel. The slide came after Brent futures slumped on Monday to a session low of $99.09 a barrel, their lowest since July 15. The U.S. crude benchmark dropped to as low as $92.42 a barrel, its weakest since July 14. Prices have been volatile, as investors weigh tight global supply with fears of a potential global recession. Recessionary concerns were heightened on Monday as surveys from the United States, Europe and Asia showed that factories struggled for momentum in July. Flagging global demand and China's strict COVID-19 restrictions slowed production. The price drops also come as market participants await the outcome of a meeting on Wednesday between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, together known as OPEC+, to decide on September output. A Fox Business news reporter said Saudi Arabia will push OPEC+ to increase oil production at the meeting. Two of eight OPEC+ sources in a Reuters survey said that a modest increase for September would be discussed at the Aug. 3 meeting. The rest said output is likely to be held steady. Meanwhile the United States on Monday imposed sanctions on Chinese and other firms it said helped to sell tens of millions of dollars' in Iranian oil and petrochemical products to East Asia as it seeks to raise pressure on Tehran to curb its nuclear programme.
Oil edges up ahead of OPEC meeting despite recession worries - Oil futures edged up less than 1% on Tuesday ahead of a meeting of OPEC+ producers this week that may not lead to a further boost in crude supply amid concerns a possible global recession could limit energy demand. Brent futures rose 51 cents, or 0.5%, to settle at $100.54 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 53 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $94.42. Also giving oil prices a slight lift were analyst expectations that U.S. crude inventories declined by around 600,000 barrels last week. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, known as OPEC+, meet on Wednesday. Two of eight sources said a modest output hike would be discussed. The rest said a boost was unlikely. OPEC+ trimmed its forecast for an oil market surplus this year by 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 800,000 bpd, three delegates told Reuters.. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February fed worries about global oil supply and sent prices soaring to near record highs. But with central banks raising interest rates to fight inflation, worries about slowing growth have eclipsed tight supply. Surveys showed factories across the United States, Europe and Asia struggled for momentum in July as flagging global demand and China's strict COVID-19 restrictions slowed production. "These readings did nothing to mitigate the fears of recession," Also casting a cloud over the market were worries that U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan will escalate tensions between the United States and China. China put its military on high alert and said it will launch "targeted military operations" in response to the visit. In Venezuela, meanwhile, outages disrupting the country's power and gas supplies to state-run energy firm PDVSA hit July oil exports, contributing to a 27% fall from the previous month.
WTI Dips After Unexpectedly Large Crude Build - Oil prices eked out modest gains on Tuesday ahead of tomorrow's OPEC+ meeting. Oil-watchers are skeptical that OPEC+ will answer President Joe Biden’s call for more oil supplies when it meets on Wednesday, expecting the coalition to preserve its remaining capacity for another time. “OPEC is unable or unwilling to swing as much as consuming nations would like,” said Tamas Varga, an analyst at brokers PVM Oil Associates Ltd. in London.“While President Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia produced no immediate oil deliverables, we believe that the kingdom will reciprocate by continuing to gradually increase output,” said Helima Croft, chief strategist at RBC Capital Markets LLC. “A failure to add any more barrels to the market would undoubtedly be viewed as a major disappointment in Washington.”The rollercoaster today seemed also driven higher by fears of WW3 and then lower as Pelosi never triggered WW3, then oil prices tumbled back as Fed speakers jawboned down any hope for a Fed Pivot anytime soon, once again raising growth fears.“A global economic slowdown might be happening, but crude prices have come down too far given how tight the physical market remains,” Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda said. For now all eyes are back on inventories... API
- Crude +2.165mm (+467k exp)
- Cushing +653k
- Gasoline -204k
- Distillates -351k
Analysts expected a modest build in crude stocks after last week's unexpectedly large draw, but were off with a significant build of 2.165mm barrels last week (gasoline and distillates saw small draws)... WTI was hovering around $94.25 ahead of the API print and slipped lower after the data, back below $94... US crude futures closed below its 200-day moving average for the first time this year on Monday. The level is considered by many to provide technical support and prices have since rebounded. Finally, we note that while gas prices at the pump continue to slide, wholesale gasoline and crude prices are decoupling higher and they lead retail higher...
Crudes Rally Ahead of OPEC+ Meeting, US Inventory Data -- West Texas Intermediate futures rallied early Wednesday despite preliminary data from the American Petroleum Institute showing U.S. commercial crude oil inventories unexpectedly increased in the final week of July, while OPEC+ ministers signal the coalition might raise oil production in September despite signs of decelerating demand growth in Asia and European Union. OPEC+ might have to raise oil production next month to avoid the market overheating, according to Kazakhstan energy minister Bolat Akchulakov, who suggested Wednesday morning the coalition is targeting a price corridor of $60 to $80 for the second half of the year. The market widely expected OPEC+ to keep oil production steady or opt for a modest increase at this week's meeting as most members of the coalition are seen to have exhausted their output potential. Reuters survey on Tuesday showed OPEC producers continued to underproduce their quota in July, with output by the 13-member cartel raising output by 310,000 bpd or just 60% of the production target allotted for the month. Wednesday's OPEC+ meeting follows the end of historic production cuts introduced in April 2020 which are now fully unwound as OPEC+ members return the final 648,000 barrels per day (bpd) of the reduction this month. OPEC+ Joint Technical Committee made no recommendation on Tuesday to raise production targets for September, but it lowered its global surplus forecast by 200,000 bpd this year to 800,000 bpd. Separately, the American Petroleum Institute reported on Tuesday U.S. commercial crude oil inventories increased by 2.165 million barrels (bbl) during the week ended July 29, missing calls for 700,000 bbl downturn. Stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, tank farm -- the New York Mercantile Exchange delivery point for West Texas Intermediate futures -- added 653,000 bbl. Gasoline supply declined 204,000 bbl in the final week of July compared with expectations for a 1.3 million bbl draw. Data also showed distillate inventories decreased 351,000 bbl last week compared with an expected 700,000 bbl build. In financial markets, global stocks are getting whipsawed early Wednesday as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepared to depart Taipei's Songshan airport in Taiwan, concluding a high-stake visit to the island. Within minutes of Pelosi's landing in Taiwan Tuesday night, China said it would immediately begin "a series of joint military operations around the island," including using long-range live ammunition in the Taiwan Strait. Near 7:45 a.m. EDT, West Texas Intermediate advanced to $95.14, up $0.74, while international crude benchmark Brent contract for October delivery gained to $101.34 bbl. NYMEX September RBOB added 6 cents to $3.12 gallon, while NYMEX September ULSD contract rallied 10.26 cents to $3.4807 gallon.
Oil Surges After OPEC+ Shuns Biden With Small Output Hike, Signals "Severely Limited Excess Capacity" -- OPEC+ just released its full statement and explicitly notes its limited ability to increase production (due to capacity constraints) from here: (emphasis ours)
- The 31st OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting was held via videoconference on 3 August 2022.
- The Meeting noted the dynamic and rapidly evolving oil market fundamentals necessitating continuous assessment of market conditions.
- The Meeting noted that the severely limited availability of excess capacity necessitates utilizing it with great caution in response to severe supply disruptions.
- The Meeting noted that chronic under-investment in the oil sector has reduced excess capacities along the value chain (upstream-midstream downstream).
- The Meeting highlighted with particular concern that insufficient investment into the upstream sector will impact the availability of adequate supply in a timely manner to meet growing demand beyond 2023 from non-participating non-OPEC of-producing countries. some OPEC Member Countries and participating non-OPEC oil-producing countries
- It noted that preliminary data for OECD commercial oil stocks level stand a: 2.712 mb in June 2022. which was 163 mb lower than the same time last year, and 236 mb below the 2015- 2019 average, and that emergency oil stocks have reached their lowest levels in more than 30 yea's.
- The Meeting also noted that Declaration of Cooperation conformity averaged 130% since May 2020. supported by voluntary contributions of some Participating Counties.
Emphasizing the value and importance of maintaining consensus as essential to the cohesion o' OPEC 3nd participating nor-OPEC oil-producing countries. in view of the latest oil market fundamentals, the Participating Countries decided to:
- Reaffirm the decision of the 10th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting on 12th April 2020 and further endorses in subsequent meetings including the 19th OPEC and non- OPEC Ministerial Meet ng on the 18 July 2021.
- Adjust upward the production level for OPEC and non-OPEC Participating Countries by 0.1 md/d for the month of September 2022 as pe' the attached table. This adjustment does not 3'fee: the baselines deeded on the above-mentioned Meeting on 18 July 2021.
- Reiterate the critical importance of adhering to full conformity and to the compensation mechanism. Compensation plans should be submitted in accordance with the statement of the 15th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting.
- Hold the 32nd OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting on 5 September 2022.
WTI Reverses OPEC+ Gains After Big Surprise Crude Build - - Oil prices have roller-coastered higher and now lower this morning following OPEC+'s decision to hike output minimally, and also note they have limited capacity for further increases. WTI traded lower overnight after an unexpectedly large crude build was reported by API. “The announced increase from OPEC+ equates to a nonevent,” . “The amount is so modest that it is a rounding error for global oil markets,” she added, noting that the market remains “hypersensitive” to supply and demand dynamics and that “volatility around headlines is not going away.” The oil market has reversed those OPEC+ gains as investors once again focus on fears of a global economic slowdown as signaled by numerous PMI/ISM surveys in the last few days. DOE
- Crude +4.47mm (+467k exp)
- Cushing +926k
- Gasoline +163k
- Distillates -2.40mm
After an unexpectedly large crude draw the previous, analysts expected a modest build this week (and API signaled a much larger build). Stocks at Cushing also rose for the 5th straight week Graphics Source: Bloomberg There was a 4.7mm drain from Strategic Midterm Reserve brings total down to 470 million barrels, lowest since May 1985. Gasoline demand fell by 7.61% in weekly comparison, nearly reversing all of the gains the previous week and causing the four-week rolling average to decline by 2.5%. The drop suggests demand remains suppressed despite the sustained decline in pump prices. US crude production was unchanged on the week... Perhaps rather notably, refinery capacity sank to 91% last week...the lowest in 3 months. WTI was hovering around $93.75 (200MA $94.76) ahead of the official data and extended losses on the big build...
Oil falls 4%, pressured by surprise U.S. crude, gasoline build -- Oil prices slid about 4% on Wednesday, with losses accelerating after U.S. data showed crude and gasoline stockpiles unexpectedly surged last week and as OPEC+ said it would raise its oil output target by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). Brent crude futures settled down $3.76, or 3.7%, at $96.78 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell $3.76, or 4%, to $90.66. Both contracts had seesawed earlier in the session. The premium for front-month Brent futures over barrels loading in six months' time is at a three-month low, indicating waning concern about tight supply. The same premium for WTI futures neared a four-month low. U.S. crude oil inventories rose unexpectedly last week as exports fell and refiners lowered runs, while gasoline stocks also posted a surprise build as demand slowed, the Energy Information Administration said. Crude stocks rose 4.5 million barrels last week, compared with an analyst forecast for a draw of 600,000 barrels. Gasoline stocks gained 200,000 barrels, versus expectations for a 1.6 million-barrel drop. "The crude oil number is well above expectations. Gasoline is a disappointment. You should never see a build in gasoline during summer. It's a very bearish report," Ministers for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, known as OPEC+, agreed to the small increase to the group's output target, equal to about 0.1% of global oil demand. While the United States has asked the group to boost output, spare capacity is limited and Saudi Arabia may be reluctant to beef up output at the expense of Russia, hit by sanctions over the Ukraine conflict. Ahead of the meeting, OPEC+ trimmed its forecast for the oil market surplus this year by 200,000 bpd to 800,000 bpd, three delegates told Reuters. Also weighing on prices, Iranian and U.S. officials said they were travelling to Vienna to resume indirect talks about Iran's nuclear program, reviving the all but vanished hopes of a removal of sanctions hampering Iranian oil exports. On the demand side, Federal Reserve officials voiced their determination again on Wednesday to rein in high inflation, although one said a half-percentage-point hike in the U.S. central bank's key interest rate next month might be enough to march on toward that goal. The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major peers, also rose, pressuring demand by making oil more expensive for holders of other currencies. However, oil prices were helped by Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which connects Kazakh oil fields with the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, saying that supplies were significantly down, without providing figures.
Oil prices stabilise after drop to near 6-month low based on supply fears (Reuters) -Oil prices were broadly steady on Thursday as the market weighed tight supply against fears of a demand slowdown, after a build in U.S. crude and gasoline stocks sent prices to multi-month lows in the previous session. Brent crude futures were down 3 cents to $96.75 a barrel by 1200 GMT, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 40 cents, a 0.44% gain, at $91.06. Both benchmarks fell on Wednesday to their weakest levels since before Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, that Moscow calls "a special operation". The move followed an unexpected surge in U.S. crude inventories last week. Gasoline stocks, the proxy for demand, also showed a surprise build as demand slowed, the Energy Information Administration said. The demand outlook remains clouded by increasing worries about an economic slump in the United States and Europe, debt distress in emerging market economies, and a strict zero COVID-19 policy in China, the world's largest oil importer. An OPEC+ agreement on Wednesday to raise its output target by just 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) in September, equivalent to 0.1% of global demand, was viewed as bearish for the market. Also, OPEC heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the UAE stand ready to deliver a "significant increase" in oil output should the world face a severe supply crisis this winter, sources familiar with the thinking of the top Gulf exporters said. Still, analysts expect the limited spare capacity of OPEC+ - highlighted in a statement on Wednesday - to support prices longer term. Additional price support came from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which connects Kazakh oil fields with the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, and which said on Wednesday that supplies were significantly down.
WTI Slides Below $90 on Growth Outlook, Building Stocks -- Oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude on the Intercontinental Exchange plummeted Thursday, sending West Texas Intermediate futures below $90 per barrel (bbl) for the first time since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as investors refocused on global recession fears, rising inflation, and building crude oil inventories in the United States. Despite falling gasoline prices, American motorists did not come back to the gas pumps last month, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data released on Wednesday showing that four-week average gasoline consumption fell to its lowest since late February -- typically the weakest driving season of the year. At 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd), the weekly demand rate is nearly 12% below the same period last year and some 9% below the five-year average. On July 25, the American Automobile Association published results of a 1,000-person survey, finding that responders have sharply curtailed driving activity in the face of $4-plus gasoline. The same quarterly survey in March also identified $5 gas as a key sensitively level for some change in driving behavior. Supporting this argument, U.S. consumer sentiment fell to the lowest level on record at the start of the summer and remained at depressed levels throughout July as Americans fretted over the economy, inflation, and rising interest rates. Oil futures attempted to break higher earlier in the session, but the rally quickly sizzled despite Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil exporter, sharply raising its flagship crude prices for Asian buyers. Saudi Aramco lifted its official selling prices for September loading to a record $12.15-per-bbl premium versus the Dubai/Oman benchmark, up from a premium of $11.35 per bbl in the prior month. Markets were mostly expecting the differential at $10.80 per bbl over the regional benchmark. The larger-than-expected price hike signals that market fundaments remain robust for now despite expected demand losses in the second half of the year. For Northwest Europe, Aramco cut its flagship crude prices to $6.50 per bbl over international benchmark Brent from an $8-per-bbl premium the prior month, while also lowering selling prices for the Mediterranean. For the U.S. cargoes, differentials over Argus Sour were raised to a premium of $7.50 per bbl from a $7-per-bbl premium in August. The Saudi price move follows a decision by OPEC+ producers to raise crude output by a minuscule 100,000 bpd for September -- less than a quarter of the 432,000-bpd monthly increase the market has been accustomed to over the past year and much less than 648,000 bpd hike announced for July and August. The decision was based on the fact that many OPEC+ members have limited capacity to meaningfully increase production, according to the document released by the group. The only two members of the coalition that have the ability to raise production are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but they would do so only if the supply crisis worsened, according to sources close to negotiations. At settlement, nearby-month delivery WTI traded fell $2.12 to $88.54 per bbl -- the lowest since Feb. 2, while the international crude benchmark Brent contract for October delivery declined $2.66 to $94.12 per bbl. NYMEX September RBOB dropped 11.87 cents to $2.7935 per gallon, while NYMEX September ULSD contract slumped 7.76 cents to $3.3372 per gallon.
Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices both dropped to levels not seen in months on Thursday. Brent closed at $94.12 per barrel and WTI closed at $88.54 per barrel on August 4. Thursday’s close marked the first time Brent and WTI have finished the day’s trading under $95 per barrel and $89 per barrel, respectively, since February this year. At the time of writing, the price of Brent crude was trading at $94.66 per barrel, while the price of WTI was trading at $89.07 per barrel. After starting December at under $70 per barrel, Brent soared to $127.98 per barrel on March 8. During the same timeframe, the price of WTI rose from under $67 per barrel to $123.7 per barrel. Russian forces escalated a conflict with Ukraine near the end of February this year, which saw both Brent and WTI prices rise. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest short term energy outlook (STEO) which was released in July, the EIA sees Brent and WTI spot prices averaging $104.5 per barrel and $98.79 per barrel this year, respectively. Brent spot prices are expected to dip to $93.75 per barrel in and WTI spot prices are expected to drop to $89.75 per barrel in 2023, the STEO highlighted. The 2021 Brent spot average price was $70.89 per barrel and the 2021 WTI spot average price was $68.21 per barrel, the EIA pointed out in its latest STEO. The EIA highlighted that its July STEO was subject to heightened uncertainty “resulting from a variety of factors, including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”. “The possibility of economic activity being less robust than assumed in our forecast could result in lower-than-forecast energy consumption. Factors driving uncertainty about energy supply include how sanctions affect Russia’s oil production, the production decisions of OPEC+, and the rate at which U.S. oil and natural gas production rises,” the EIA noted in its July STEO.
WTI, Brent Gain After US Job Growth Eases Recession Fears - West Texas Intermediate futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange reversed off six-month lows in afternoon trade Friday after government data showed U.S. job growth unexpectedly accelerated in July, lifting the level of employment above its pre-pandemic level and easing fears the world's largest economy is teetering on the brink of recession. Further supporting the oil complex, the number of active oil rigs in the United States unexpectedly fell by seven this week to 598, according to the oilfield service provider Baker Hughes, in what could be the first sign that falling oil prices are causing producers to scale back on drilling activity. This marked the first drop in rig count since late May. The decline was spread across several key oil-producing regions including the prolific Permian Basin in west Texas and New Mexico. The Permian's oil-rig count dropped by four in the latest week to 344.The focus of Friday's trading was a blockbuster employment report in the U.S. that showed a surprise surge in new hires last month, lifting optimism that the economy can indeed dodge the recession bullet. U.S. employers added 528,000 new jobs last month -- the largest since February -- compared with an expected 250,000 increase. Data for June was also revised higher to show 398,000 jobs created instead of the previously reported 372,000. July marked the 19th straight month of payroll expansion. Further details of the report showed employers continued to raise wages at a strong clip in July and generally maintained longer hours for workers. The labor market has now recouped all the jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, with overall employment now 32,000 jobs higher than in February 2020. Incoming data offset some of the pessimism tied to a steady rise in unemployment claims that showed a slow deterioration in the labor market over the past two months. Initial claims for jobless benefits fell to 260,000 last week -- near the highest level since November -- while continuing claims that run a week behind the headline number, totaled 1.42 million, up 48,000 from the prior week and 83,000 from the beginning of July. It remains to be seen whether strong jobs data will translate into higher gasoline demand in coming months. The latest U.S. Energy Information Administration data show four-week average gasoline consumption fell to its lowest level since late February -- typically the weakest driving season of the year. At 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd), the weekly demand rate is nearly 12% below the same period last year and some 9% below the five-year average. On July 25, the American Automobile Association published results of a 1,000-person survey, finding that responders have sharply curtailed driving activity in the face of $4 plus gasoline. The same quarterly survey in March also identified $5 gas as a key sensitivity level for some change in driving behavior. At settlement, nearby-month delivery WTI gained $0.47 to $89.01 barrel (bbl), while international crude benchmark Brent contract for October delivery advanced $0.80 to $94.92 bbl. NYMEX September RBOB added 6.21 cents to $2.8556 gallon, while NYMEX September ULSD contract slumped 12.13 cents to $3.2159 gallon.
Oil Has Worst Week Since Pandemic as U.S. Jobs Signal Stiffer Rate Hikes -- Oil bulls used to beam at the U.S. jobs market with pride. Now, they aren’t so sure anymore if they should. A barrel of U.S. crude was already hovering at six-month lows on Friday before the Labor Department reported that employers in the country added a stunning 528,000 jobs for July — more than double the level forecast by economists. There is a close nexus between oil prices and job numbers in the United States, with the simple logic being that x amount of fuel is needed for x number of people to commute or get around. But it gets more complicated when those same job numbers — and higher wages — lead to higher inflation, consequently, higher interest rates. “Good news is certainly bad news here,” economist Adam Button said, referring to the U.S. nonfarm payrolls data for July. For what it was worth, crude prices still rose from Friday’s lows to turn positive on the day after the release of the job numbers as dip-buying emerged after the cumulative drop of more than 6% in just two previous days of trading. But oil’s performance remained dismal for the week and August-to-date, something bulls in the market would have trouble reconciling with after ginormous gains for six months from November through May. The front-month for U.S. West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, settled below the key $90 per barrel, though in the positive. WTI’s last trade was $89.01, up 47 cents, or 0.5%, on the day. It hit a six-month low of $87.03 earlier, a bottom not seen since Feb. 1, when it went to as low as 86.55. Previously, WTI had never forayed below $90 since the Russian invasion of Ukraine that saw a litany of sanctions imposed on Russian energy exports that sent a barrel of U.S. crude to as high as $130 by March 7. But for this week and month, WTI is about 10% in the red, after back-to-back losses of more than 7% in July and June. London-traded Brent, the global benchmark for crude, settled well below the $100 level, which it had not visited since the Ukraine invasion that earlier sent it to above $140 on March 7. Brent finished the day at $94.92, up 80 cents, or 0.9%. For the week and month, it logged an eye-watering loss of 14%, after conceding almost 7% in July and more than 4% in June. Brent also posted its worst weekly loss since the week to April 17, 2020, when it tumbled 24%. Until the jobs report released on Friday, expectations had been for a 50 basis point hike in September. Now, money market traders are pricing in a 62% chance of a 75-basis point hike for next month — the same as in June and July. Be that as it may, pump prices of U.S. gasoline — one of the main components of the CPI, have fallen from June record highs of above $5 a gallon to under $4 now, taking some measurable heat off the index. The U.S. dollar and Treasury bond yields — ostensibly the biggest beneficiaries of any Fed rate — took flight after the release of the job numbers. The Dollar Index which pits the greenback against six majors led by the euro, hit a one-week high of 106.81. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note for yields hit a two-week high of 2.87%. For oil bulls, further strength in the dollar and yields and weakness in stocks could mean more losses in crude.
Iraq crisis: Sadr supporters occupy parliament - Rival street protests over the shape of Iraq’s government ended peacefully this week, but the country’s political crisis has entered a new and uncertain phase as the feuding elite offered no signs of resolution.Ten months after populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr won the largest number of seats in the legislature, politicians from the country’s Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs continue to fight bitterly over the shape of a new government. Now Sadr has withdrawn from the process as his followers camp out in the grand legislature building.No budget has been passed, and the country’s problems are piling up. Public works projects are on hold. The power grid is faltering. As summer heat smothers the daytime, few can afford enough electricity to keep cool anyway.Almost two decades after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, political parties here have usually operated within what have effectively become rules of the game: a consensus-based system that gives everyone a seat at the table and access to the oil-rich country’s mineral wealth, often through patronage and corruption. But after trying and failing to form a government that excluded his Shiite rival, former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, Sadr has challenged the rule book, and the unrest it is sparking has tilted Iraq toward anxious, unknown territory.Sadr is a storied figure in Iraq, with a history of agitation against U.S. troops and fierce loyalty from tens of thousands of working-class acolytes. Now, the Shiite cleric is urging those followers to take to the streets as he casts himself as the man to bring down a kleptocratic political system forged in the wake of America’s invasion.But analysts say this is likely to be a fresh push to dominate decision-making within the country’s divided Shiite factions, and by extension, throughout the country’s entire political system.“Sadr seems intent on reconfiguring the power-sharing arrangement,” said Fanar Haddad, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen. “He’s shown that they can occupy parliament; he’s shown that they can occupy public space.”Iraq’s latest power struggle was made possible by popular protests against corruption and foreign interference in 2019, which caught politicians from Baghdad to Tehran to Washington by surprise and briefly seemed to threaten the entire political system.The movement was broken by security forces and militias, including forces backed by Sadr, but it forced fresh elections in October. The cleric’s candidates won more seats than any other faction.After months of deadlock over forming a new government, he pulled his parliamentarians from the discussion, and framed the walkout as an indictment of the system.Sadr retained followers across Iraq’s institutions of power, leading analysts to speculate that the move might also be aimed at shoring up a usually zealous base that was growing cynical about participation in the country’s fractious electoral politics.They believe the mercurial cleric is trying to sideline Shiite rivals to emerge as the preeminent power presiding over the government formation process.
Hezbollah Threatens Israel With War Over Disputed Gas Field - Lebanon’s armed Hezbollah group warned Israel on Sunday against drilling at an offshore gas field, renewing a threat that it could escalate the offshore border demarcation dispute to a war. Hezbollah, backed by Iran, aired a video on its Al-Manar television channel, showing drone footage of Israeli barges at the gas field and their coordinates. The video ends with footage of a rocket with the words “within range” in Arabic and Hebrew. The text on the video message opens with “Playing with time is useless,” also in both languages. Israel and Lebanon, which do not have diplomatic relations, are in a years-long dispute over the demarcation of their territorial waters in the Mediterranean.The dispute escalated this summer after UK’s Energean, which has been awarded the right to drill at the offshore Karish field, arrived on the site with a rig, prompting an immediate reaction from Beirut. The Lebanese president and the caretaker prime minister of the country accused Israel of violating Lebanon’s sovereignty.Karish is the focus of the rift. According to Israel, Karish lies in its territorial waters. According to Lebanon, it falls within a triangle of contested waters because the two cannot agree where exactly the border passes.Israel has already warned early on that any damage to the drilling rig in Karish—like attacks on any gas drilling rigs in its waters—will be construed as an attack on the state, implying there would be an immediate reaction.The latest video threat from Hezbollah came as Amos Hochstein, U.S. Special Presidential Coordinator for the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, traveled to Lebanon on Sunday.Hochstein was set to “discuss sustainable solutions to Lebanon’s energy crisis, including the Biden Administration’s commitment to facilitating negotiations between Lebanon and Israel on the maritime boundary,” the U.S. Department of the State said. “Reaching a resolution is both necessary and possible, but can only be done through negotiations and diplomacy,” the State Department added.
Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 8, including senior militant - Israel unleashed a wave of airstrikes in Gaza on Friday, killing at least eight people, including a senior militant, and wounding another 40, according to Palestinian officials. Israel said it was targeting the Islamic Jihad militant group in response to an “imminent threat” following the arrest of a senior militant in the occupied West Bank earlier this week. The strikes risk igniting yet another war in the territory, which is ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas and is home to about 2 million Palestinians. The assassination of a senior militant would likely be met by rocket fire from Gaza, pushing the region closer to all-out war. A blast could be heard in Gaza City, where smoke poured out of the seventh floor of a tall building on Friday afternoon. “The Israeli government will not allow terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip to set the agenda in the area adjacent to the Gaza Strip and threaten the citizens of the State of Israel,” Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement. “Anyone who tries to harm Israel should know: We will find you.” The Palestinian Health Ministry said eight people were killed, including a 5-year-old girl, and at least 40 were wounded. Islamic Jihad said Taiseer al-Jabari, its commander for northern Gaza, was among those killed. He had succeeded another militant killed in an airstrike in 2019. A few hundred people gathered outside the morgue at Gaza City’s main Shifa hospital. Some entered to identify loved ones, only to emerge in tears. One shouted: “May God take revenge against spies,” referring to Palestinian informants who cooperate with Israel.
China Ramps Up Aid To Assad's Syria, Alarming Israeli Defense Officials - After being recently accused by Washington of aiding Russia during its Ukraine offensive, China has announced new aid for Assad's Syria, which has set off alarm bells in Israel.Syria will receive "advanced communications equipment" from the government of China, which was announced and confirmed during a prior July embassy ceremony in Damascus. The official announcement described the aid as aiming "to improve local network infrastructure, especially in those areas hit hard during the Syrian crisis since 2011." This comes after China has long been in talks with the Syrian government over general post-war reconstruction efforts and investment opportunities.Israeli officials worry that after years of reporting on quiet Chinese military advisory and technical support given to Assad and the Syrian Army, Beijing is poised to grow potential military aid. According to Israeli sources cited in Breaking Defense, "this could be only the tip of the iceberg of Chinese assistance for Syria’s effort to rebuild its armed forces."Israel has long sought throughout the over decade-long war in Syria to severely degrade the Syrian Arab Republic's military capabilities - seeing it as a long term threat to Israeli security - given also Damascus is a close ally of Tehran.
Drone strike on al-Zawahiri confronts Taliban with nationalist backlash - The U.S. drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri here early Sunday morning also struck a humiliating blow to the Taliban regime, which had secretly hosted the aging extremist in the heart of the Afghan capital for months but failed to keep him safe. Just as the Taliban was preparing to celebrate its first year in power later this month, the attack has sparked a nationalistic backlash against the beleaguered regime at home and taunting comments on social media calling for revenge against the United States. “If the martyrdom of Zawahiri is confirmed, then shame on you that we could not protect the true hero of Islam,” an Afghan named Ehsanullah tweeted in response to a statement early Tuesday by the chief Taliban spokesman that the al-Qaeda leader had been killed in a U.S. drone strike. \ The assassination of al-Zawahiri, a hero to Islamist militant groups but a long-wanted terrorist in the West, has also crystallized the ongoing struggle between moderate and hard-line factions within the Taliban regime. Several leaders of the hard-line Haqqani network, long denounced by U.S. officials for directing high-profile terrorist attacks, hold powerful positions in the regime. Now, some Afghan and American analysts said, the drone strike may harden Taliban attitudes and push the regime toward an open embrace of the extremist forces it pledged to renounce in its 2020 peace deal with the United States. “The Taliban are in deep political trouble now, and they are going to face pressure to retaliate. The relationship they have with al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups remains very strong,”
First Grain-Laden Ship Safely Departs Ukraine's Odessa Port - Turkey has confirmed that the first shipment of Ukraine grain has left the port of Odessa, after six months of war-time blockages, under the UN-brokered deal to secure safe passage of grain ships signed by Moscow and Kiev last month."The ship Razoni has left the port of Odessa bound for Tripoli in Lebanon. It is expected in Istanbul on August 2. It will then continue its journey after it has been inspected in Istanbul," a Turkish Defense Ministry statement said.The Kremlin also hailed the success based on the terms laid out in Isanbul: "As for the departure of the first ship, this is very positive. A good opportunity to test the effectiveness of the mechanisms that were agreed during talks in Istanbul," Dmitry Peskov told reporters.According to Ukrainian officials the 186-meter long Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni cargo ship is laden with 26,000 tonnes of corn, and is expected to soon be followed by other ships.The deal was signed on July 22 - with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres having hailed it as a "beacon of hope" after previously estimating that some 50 million people are facing "acute hunger" due to one of the biggest single global exporters of wheat. "Ensuring that existing grain and foodstuffs can move to global markets is a humanitarian imperative," Guterres said more recently.Following the two warring sides signing "mirror" agreements with the United Nations, it took less than a week to get the joint coordination center based in Istanbul up and running. The coordination center, staffed by Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, and UN officials is tasked to "oversee departures from the ports o f Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny, in which ships must circumvent mines, and will conduct inspections of incoming ships for weapons," Turkish media has described, noting too that all vessels must traverse Turkish waters.
Europe Hypnotized Into War Economy - Thirty two years ago Germans enthusiastically took down the Berlin wall. Now, captured by cunning Anglo-Saxon global elites, Germans are helping other European “useful idiots” to erect a much higher and thicker wall to cut themselves off from Russia leading them into a war economy. But as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has warned… “the approach has clearly failed — sanctions have backfired — and our car now has 4 four flat tires” … Question: vehicles don´t carry more than 2 spare tires on them, do they? So, one quick and innocent way to explain such unfathomable European miscalculation is to assume the EU leadership is immersed in a deep hypnotic trance and just blindly following US-UK instructions under Stoltenberg-Johnson war-mongering policies. Per “The Telegraph”The supply lines that up to 2022 successfully linked Europe and Russia took decades of very hard work to develop. This now means that almost all of such over-abundant contracts necessarily have no effective substitute because (a) no other vendors have such high quality at low price plus decades of vetting and proven experience + (b) the un-replaceable short freight distance and shipping time from nearby Russia. So, by definition, both (a) + (b) mean that today no equivalent supply lines could ever be found no matter how much Europe tried simply because it would be either too soon or too far …and always too hard and too pricey. So short cuts will be taken and corners rounded-off…. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. The impact of the above cannot be overstated though as the now-broken Euro-Russian supply lines were essential for the Just-In-Time strategy that Europe and world markets still require and cannot wait years to develop and iron out. Logistics 101: proven experience and performance with excellent price plus quick delivery from nearby sources cannot be substituted fast enough, or possibly ever. On purpose, Europe´s worst enemies couldn´t have inflicted worse harm than what a US-UK mesmerized Europe (what else ?) is doing to itself. So EU sanctions are now cutting off dozens of key and highly varied Russian produce without which Europe as we know it will cease to exist. This involves foodstuffs, minerals of every sort, energy re oil & gas & coal & refined products thereof, etc., etc., plus key technologies and products from space rocket engines to nuclear fuels. Even Roscosmos announced that Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) project with the West after 2024 while by that time with an orbital station of its own. At any rate, the new European vendor problems for hundreds of products include each and every aspect of sales & procurement, sourcing & logistics, negotiations, pricing, contract terms, payment, banking procedures, sampling and testing, delivery pathway coordination, additional trucking, roads, vessels and inland waterways for shut down pipeline delivery, on-the-fly solutions for new problems, railroads, loading and unloading yards, ports, process alignment & upgrade, synchronization, scheduling, building and adapting key infrastructure, insurance, guarantees, new administrative matters, buffer storage, vendor vetting, multiple regulatory compliance, etc., etc. So the most efficient and swift Euro-Russian trade routines have today turned into logistical and management nightmares. Europe now and for the near future — in most unfavorable circumstances — needs to run unexpected risks to re-do all such hard work in a hurry and for every banned Russian product, not just coal & oil & nat-gas. And it is not a “plug & play” process either. It takes time. Tons of changes have to be made even after finding a trustworthy vendor. It is costly, cumbersome, and prone to project creep & fatigue. All fully unnecessary and chaotic.
Spain signs military agreement with US amid US-NATO war in Ukraine -Last month, Spain’s PSOE (Socialist Party) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez issued a joint statement with US President Joe Biden pledging to increase the number of US warships and soldiers stationed on Spanish territory. The declaration outlining the military plans was adopted at an hour-long meeting between the two leaders on June 28, during the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of that month. The agreement will increase the number of US destroyers stationed at the southern Spanish naval base of Rota in Cádiz by 50 percent, from four to six destroyers. It also provides for the garrisoning of an additional 600 American Marines at this base, taking the total number up to 1,800. The four destroyers currently stationed at Rota are part of NATO’s “antimissile shield,” as well as taking part in unilateral US missions, and regularly patrol the Black Sea. The meeting between Biden and Sánchez comes amid the US-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Having goaded Russia into an invasion of its Eastern European neighbour, the NATO powers seek to use the conflict to escalate tensions with Moscow and to push for regime change and the dismemberment of Russia’s vast landmass.
North Korea Offers Russia 100,000 ‘Volunteers’ for War on Ukraine, Russian State TV Says - North Korea has offered Russia 100,000 “volunteers” to aid in the war against Ukraine, according to Russian state TV.“There are reports that 100,000 North Korean volunteers are prepared to come and take part in the conflict,” talk show host Igor Korotchenko said on Russian Channel One, the New York Post reported.The reports come as Russia’s military force is depleted after its unsuccessful attempt to take key parts of Ukraine, including the capital of Kyiv.Some estimates put the number of Russian soldiers killed as high as 15,000 to 25,000. Accounting for over five months of the war, that puts Russia’s casualty count to about 100 soldiers a day.Korotchenko also alluded to reports indicating Russia has invited North Korean “builders” to repair Russian-occupied Donbas.Alexander Matsegora, the Russian ambassador to North Korea, said in an interviewin July, “Korean builders who are highly qualified, hardworking and ready to work in the most difficult conditions, will be a very serious” part in building the destroyed infrastructure in Donbas.Korotchenko called North Korean builders “resident and undemanding” and said that most importantly, they are “motivated.”North Korea and Russia have experienced a closer partnership after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with North Korea being one of the only counties in the world to recognize Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) as independent.Matsegora claimed in the interview that North Korea receives nothing for cooperating with Russia, and said it just acted according to its “conscience.” “North Korea is one of the very few countries that can afford to pursue a completely independent foreign policy. No one – neither Russia with China, let alone the United States – can force North Koreans to do something or not to do something,” the ambassador added, promising to aid North Korea fight its sanctions on the global stage.
UN chief warns world is one step from 'nuclear annihilation' The United Nations chief warned Monday that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” citing the war in Ukraine, nuclear threats in Asia and the Middle East and many other factors. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gave the dire warning at the opening of the long-delayed high-level meeting to review the landmark 50-year-old treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually achieving a nuclear-free world. The danger of increasing nuclear threats and a nuclear catastrophe was also raised by the United States, Japan, Germany, the U.N. nuclear chief and many other opening speakers at the meeting to review progress and agree to future steps to implement the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, known as the NPT. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said North Korea is preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test, Iran “has either been unwilling or unable” to accept a deal to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement aimed at reining in its nuclear program, and Russia is “engaged in reckless, dangerous nuclear saber-rattling” in Ukraine. He cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning after its Feb. 24 invasion that any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen,” emphasizing that his country is “one of the most potent nuclear powers.” This is contrary to assurances given to Ukraine of its sovereignty and independence when in gave up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons in 1994, Blinken said, and sends “the worst possible message” to any country thinking it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself and deter aggression. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said divisions in the world since the last review conference in 2015, which ended without a consensus document, have become greater, stressing that Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war has contributed “to worldwide concern that yet another catastrophe by nuclear weapon use is a real possibility.”
Wikipedia Used As 'Shortcut' By Judges, Researchers Find-- In an academic "stress test" on court decisionmaking, researchers found that Wikipedia entries are having a significant impact on judges' behavior and legal decisions, according to a paper published online Monday. In a first-of-a-kind "randomized" experiment, a team of researchers led by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist concluded that a group of judges in Ireland were not only reading Wikipedia articles as "methodological shortcuts" on legal cases, but also citing those matters more frequently in their own decisions. Legal entries posted on the "unauthorized," user-generated encyclopedia also led judges to "talk about [cases] in ways comparable to how the Wikipedia. . .
France lifts covid entry restrictions for travelers - France became the latest country in Europe to get rid of pandemic-era entry restrictions for visitors. As of Monday, tourists going to France no longer need to provide proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test, according to the U.S. Embassy in France. Earlier this summer, the country required travelers to be vaccinated, or show proof of recovery or a recent negative test.“France reserves the right to reimpose entry restrictions if the health situation requires it,” the embassy says on its website.The changes follow the decision in France to end emergency measures put into place because of covid-19. Travelers don’t have to offer health information in advance of arriving in France or test upon arrival.Destinations including Italy, the United Kingdom, Portugal andGermany have all dropped their covid-era entry rules.The United States still requires foreign nationals to show proof of vaccination before flying to the country, crossing a border by land or arriving by ferry. Travelers flying into the U.S. no longer need to show a negative test, as of mid-June.
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