Tribal activists see 'green colonialism' in Nevada mine Biden hails as key to clean energy

AP Yesterday 


OROVADA, Nevada (AP) — Just 45 miles (72 kilometers) from the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation where Daranda Hinkey and her family corral horses and cows, a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s clean energy plan is taking shape: construction of one of the largest lithium mines in the world.

As heavy trucks dig up the earth in this remote, windswept region of Nevada to extract the silvery-white metal used in electric-vehicle batteries, the $2.2 billion project is fueling a backlash. “No Lithium. No mine!″ proclaims a large hand-painted sign in Hinkey's front yard.

The Biden administration says the project will help mitigate climate change by speeding the shift away from fossil fuels. But Hinkey and other opponents say it is not worth the costs to the local environment and people.

Similar disputes are taking place around the world as governments and companies advancing renewable energy find themselves battling communities opposed to projects that threaten wildlife, groundwater and air quality.

Hinkey, 25, is a member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe and a leader of a group known as People of Red Mountain — named after the scarlet peak that overlooks her house. The group says that in addition to environmental impacts, the Thacker Pass mine would desecrate a site where the U.S. Cavalry massacred their ancestors after the Civil War.

“Lithium mines and this whole push for renewable energy — the agenda of the Green New Deal — is what I like to call green colonialism,″ Hinkey said. “It’s going to directly affect my people, my culture, my religion, my tradition.”

Protests near the mining site have flared up for more than two years, and the project has sparked legal challenges, including an appeal that a federal court will hear this month.

Hinkey had hoped Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American Cabinet member — might rally to the side of opponents. But that has not happened.

Haaland, whose department oversees Thacker Pass, said that while she supports the right to peaceful protests, her agency is in favor of the mine because “the need for our clean energy economy to move forward is definitely important.”

The project was approved in the waning days of the Trump administration but is central to Biden’s goal for half of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2030. Lithium batteries are also used to store wind and solar power.

Haaland told The Associated Press that when her agency inherits a project from a previous administration, “It’s our job to make sure we’re doing things according to the science, to the law.”

Hinkey sees her activism as a continuation of her leadership on basketball teams in high school and in college, where she guided her Southern Oregon Raiders to a 20-win season as a senior point guard.

“Corporations are scared of an educated Indian,″ said Hinkey, who hopes to become a teacher. Her athletic experience, education and tribal background make her “someone who can stand up against them,″ she said.

Hinkey said she is especially disappointed because she voted for Biden and expected his administration to slow down the project that was fast-tracked under President Donald Trump. She and other tribal members “feel very lost, very shoved underneath the carpet,″ Hinkey said.

The project does have the support of some leaders of Hinkey’s tribe, who point to the promise of jobs and development on a reservation where unemployment is far above the national average.

“This could help our tribe,″ said Fort McDermitt Tribal Chairman Arlo Crutcher, who recently went to Washington with company executives to meet with the Interior Department. Still, he is skeptical about how many jobs will go to impoverished tribe members.

Lithium Americas, the Canadian company that is developing the project, signed an agreement with the Fort McDermitt tribe — the closest to the mine among more than two dozen federally recognized tribes and bands in Nevada — to ensure local hiring, job training and other benefits. It also agreed to build a community center that includes a preschool and playground for the reservation, where close to half the population lives in poverty.

The October 2022 agreement “is a testament to our company’s commitment to go beyond our regulatory requirements and to form constructive relationships with the communities closest to our projects,″ Lithium Americas President and CEO Jonathan Evans said in a statement. General Motors has pledged $650 million to help develop Thacker Pass, which holds enough lithium to build 1 million electric vehicles annually.

Opponents, including other tribes and environmental groups, argue that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an Interior Department agency, violated at least three federal laws in approving the mine.

BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning defended her agency’s actions, saying the Biden administration allowed construction to begin “because the proposal is solid, and the country needs that lithium.”

The National Historic Preservation Act requires tribal consultation in all steps of a project on or near tribal land. But Hinkey and other mine opponents say the mine was hastily approved when tribal governments were largely shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In its 2021 decision approving the project, the agency said it wrote letters in late 2019 to at least three tribes — including Fort McDermitt — inviting comments. Two online meetings were conducted in August 2020, but no objections were raised by the end of an environmental review in December 2020, the agency said.

Michon Eben, historic preservation officer for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, said the agency’s actions fell far short of genuine consultation.

“This is the biggest (lithium) mine in the country — and there’s 28 federally recognized tribes and bands in the state of Nevada that all have relationships — and you only send a letter to three tribes? There’s something wrong with that,″ Eben said.

“The consultation kind of skipped us,'' said Gary McKinney, a spokesman for People of Red Mountain and a member of the nearby Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Tribe. “Nobody knew about the lithium. They taped a notice on the door and called that" adequate notice,'' he said.

Asked about those claims, Stone-Manning replied: “I regret if people feel that way. I can’t control how people feel.″

In an interview near the mine site, where workers were installing a water pipeline, McKinney said the project will cause irreparable damage. The mine will require large amounts of water, and conservationists say groundwater and soil could become contaminated with heavy metals. The area is also a nesting ground for the dwindling sage grouse.

“The water will be lower. Life will be scared away,” he said. “Our culture, our sacred sites will be gone. We’re facing the annihilation of our identity.″

He and other opponents say the BLM office in Nevada failed to assess the project's likely impact on the massacre site near Sentinel Rock, which juts above sagebrush and high grass used by roaming cattle herds.

“What happens to those who were massacred and buried here?” Eben said in an interview at Sentinel Rock.

The exact location of the massacre, where federal soldiers killed at least 31 Paiute men, women and children, is unknown, although it is generally recognized to be within a few miles of the mine. Tribes call the site Peehee Mu’huh, or “Rotten Moon” in the Paiute language.

A federal judge in February said construction could begin while also ruling that BLM violated federal law regarding disposal of mine waste. Conservationists have appealed, and the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals scheduled oral arguments for June 26.

Eben said she is putting her faith in Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo.

“From one Native woman to another, what I am going to say is, ‘Please come and walk this land with us. Come and listen to our side of the story, our oral histories. A massacre did occur here. ... Our people were killed.'"

And, she added, “you can’t mine your way out of a climate crisis.”

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Associated Press writers Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico contributed to this story.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Matthew Daly, The Associated Press

"JUST GET IN LINE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE"

Path to US citizenship elusive for longtime immigrant owners of popular Colorado Springs German restaurant

Debbie Kelley, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Sun, February 5, 2023 

Feb. 5—Sabine and Michael Berchtold came to Colorado Springs over the Thanksgiving holiday in 1996, she from Germany, he from Switzerland, on work visas that allowed the young married couple to own a business stateside if they met certain conditions.

Two weeks later, they opened Uwe's German Restaurant, which had been under previous ownership.

More than a quarter of a century later, a cloud of sadness rises above the whiffs of jaeger schnitzel, bratwurst and sauerbraten at their popular eatery.

Despite applying every year to obtain a green card and working with several attorneys to become permanent legal citizens, the Berchtolds have yet to succeed.

If they continue to fail, they will have to leave the United States when they sell the restaurant.

They're not sure when that might be. While they say they love what they do, with Michael, 55, manning the kitchen and Sabine, 56, running the front end for decades, they'd like to retire at some point and enjoy the fruits of their hard but rewarding labor.

"We're here now 26 years, and it's home," Sabine Berchtold said. "Knowing we cannot stay, it hurts. It weighs on your mind."

The Berchtolds are among an estimated 800,000 business owners living in the U.S. in the same unsteady boat.

"It seems crazy, but it happens," said Professor Violeta Chapin, co-director of the Colorado Law Clinical Program at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "This particular type of business-related immigration hurts business people who have invested a significant amount of money in our economy and are unable to transfer to green cards."

But the E-2 non-immigrant investor visa that the Berchtolds have — which requires holders to contribute $120,000 toward a business in America and employ at least two American workers — is designed to be temporary, said Zachary New, a lawyer with Joseph & Hall PC in Denver and a founding member of the Immigration Law and Policy Society at the University of Colorado School of Law.

The visa allows for "quasi-permanent residency," New said, and implies that the holder plans to return to the country of origin.

"The U.S. government gives you permission to operate the business and grow it, after you invest," he said. "It's difficult to convert it to permanent residency."

Sabine said that type of visa was the only chance for her and her husband to be able to come to the United States because they did not have relatives here.

At this point on their journey to become legal permanent residents, Sabine and Michael are angry about the massive influx of immigrants seeking asylum or improved economic conditions now crossing the southern border.

It's unfair, Sabine said, that thousands of people are being allowed in daily and immediately receiving some assistance and access to the same system that the Berchtolds have been steadfastly trying to crack for years.

"They can come in illegally and get a green card, and they're set to go," Sabine said.

Undocumented immigrants who enter the U.S. without a visa or other proper paperwork or authorization don't receive as many benefits as some people might think, Chapin said.

"Lots of people get nothing," she said. "They somehow make their way in the country, they have no work authorization, no access to federal benefits, it's very difficult for them to access health insurance. Yet they survive."

While only legal immigrants can qualify for federal subsidized housing and food assistance, Colorado and some other states provide undocumented people access to state-sponsored health insurance and help paying for college tuition. And many community nonprofits and faith-based groups help with basic necessities.

And, said Chapin, "Undocumented residents pay taxes, even though they don't have lawful status."

An estimated 11 million people live in the U.S. illegally, although some entities, including the Center for Immigration Studies of New York, say that number is undercounted by up to 1.5 million.

In many cases, new arrivals must follow the same procedures as people who have been here for years and are requesting legal status or citizenship, attorneys said.

However, New said, asylum seekers at the border who can immediately pass a screening proving "credible fear" as their reason for leaving their home country, can receive a work permit and be expedited for asylum consideration.

"It's not taking away from anybody else's ability to get their own lawful status," he said. "Having orderly and efficient border processing is only helpful, as immigration courts are increasingly backlogged."

Asylum cases can take years to be heard in court, though, New said.

"With the way the numbers are rising, it's going to take four to five years from getting into immigration court until a hearing, unless you're able to push something faster," he said.

Sabine believes that while new arrivals may have to get in line for backlogged immigration services, they are clogging what was already a notoriously sluggish system.

New agrees the laws are antiquated and "do not work in a lot of the ways they were intended to when they were written."

But each part of immigration law has an objective, he said. For example, the origin of asylum law dates to the Holocaust and is designed to protect people escaping persecution.

Work permits for skilled and unskilled laborers and investors such as the Berchtolds serve different needs, as do the allowances made for Ukrainian, Afghan, Cuban and Haitian nationals who are paroled into the U.S. on temporary stays and work authorization.

"There are a multitude of programs, and certainly things need to be fixed and tweaked, but it's unfair to say one group of individuals, especially vulnerable individuals, is being treated in a preferential manner as compared to individuals going through a lawful manner in a different way," he said. "Each process has its own purpose."

Obtaining green cards, also known as the diversity visa program, from among the 50,000 the U.S. issues each year — which includes 1,000 from Germany and 500 from Switzerland — would enable the Berchtolds to remain in the U.S. permanently and forgo the current complicated process that forces them to return to their native countries every four years to renew their visas through the American embassies.

Also, every two years, they must leave U.S. soil for an unspecified amount of time and have their passport stamped upon re-entry.

Only by sheer luck did those years of mandatory travel not come up during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, they say.

The immigration structure has not provided the path to citizenship they seek.

"Our only hope is to win the green card lottery," Sabine said.

Immigrants are more likely to be successful in America if they are granted legal citizenship, according to the Center for Migration Studies of New York, which held a webinar on immigration in January.

The progression to legalization enables immigrants to attain higher income, education level, English language proficiency and health insurance, said Donald Kerwin, co-author of a new report from the Center for Migration Studies of New York, "Ten Years of Democratizing Data: Privileging Facts, Refuting Misconceptions and Examining Missed Opportunities."

"It's important to move from one category to another," he said. "It benefits the entire U.S., not just the people impacted."

Immigration is an ongoing, hotly debated political issue, with both sides of the partisan coin blaming the other for the flood of immigrants entering the U.S., and the chasmic disagreement over how to handle the situation.

The report Kerwin co-authored with Robert Warren provides three recommendations for provisional federal changes to reduce the logjam of applications and provide what they think would be a more equitable method for people like the Berchtolds.

The process for long-term residents in good standing to gain legal status currently requires them to live here for 50 years.

Kerwin and Warren are calling for reducing that qualification to 15 years of U.S. residency. That would cover 42% of the undocumented population, Kerwin said.

"We recommend streamlining the naturalization process, making it a priority," he said during the January webinar. "We support more generous eligibility criteria — waivers of language and civics requirements for people who have been here for 15 years. We need to prioritize education, English language proficiency and earnings to increase naturalization rates."

This year could bring some changes. The legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA policy, which protects undocumented children from deportation and allows them work permits, is in limbo and expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision.

Title 42, a federal provision invoked during the pandemic to restrict the number of foreigners entering the country, also could be removed — the possibility of which last year brought throngs of people from numerous countries trying to gain entry to America.

Monthly migrant "encounters" at the southwest border — which include apprehensions by U.S. Border Patrol that result in temporary custody until adjudication and expulsions back to home countries — are near record high levels, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In 2022, 2.4 million enforcement encounters at the Mexico border were recorded, compared with 1.7 million in 2021 and 458,000 in 2020, the agency reports.

More than 700,000 encounters have been logged to date for 2023.

Under immigration law, it is a misdemeanor offense subject to fine or six-month imprisonment for anyone entering the United States illegally. And it's a felony offense for anyone to reenter or attempt to reenter the U.S. after being removed or deported.

Congress has not revised immigration laws comprehensively since the Immigration Act of 1990, a national reform of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

The Berchtolds note that they pay taxes and Social Security.

"We have to do everything like an American," Michael said.

But they personally cannot receive any Social Security payments from the federal government because they don't have green cards.

The unhappiness on their faces comes from deep within. If they do not receive green cards before they leave the restaurant business, they will have to leave America.

Many of Uwe's German Restaurant regulars know about their plight.

A few years ago, nearly 2,000 customers signed a petition calling for the Berchtolds to obtain permanent residency, which a proposed bill in Congress would have addressed.

The couple submitted the petition to U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado Springs.

"He said he would support it," Sabine said.

But then impeachment proceedings for former President Donald Trump began and COVID-19 hit, and progress on the proposal halted.

"I feel so bad for them," said Ralph Huber, who has been a patron of Uwe's restaurant for years. "People are crossing the border by the millions, and here we have these people who have been here legally for a long time and can't become citizens. It's not right."

UK

Environmentalists blast Government’s road map for a cleaner, greener country

Helen William, PA
Mon, 30 January 2023

Environmentalists have condemned the Government’s environment plan aimed at helping create a greener, cleaner country as a “road map to the cliff edge”.

The comment from Greenpeace comes as the Government sets out its environmental improvement plan for England. Friends of the Earth have described it as “just rehashed commitments”.

The scheme is built on a vision set out five years ago in the 25 Year Environment Plan, including new powers and duties under the Environment Act, Agriculture Act and Fisheries Act, to provide ways to restore nature and improve the environmental quality of the air, waters and land.

This was the central target agreed in the global deal for nature at the UN Nature Summit COP15 in December.

Environment Secretary Therese Coffey (James Manning/PA)

Environment Secretary Therese Coffey is set to unveil the plan, which also stresses that progress can be measured against interim targets, on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “Protecting our natural environment is fundamental to the health, economy and prosperity of our country.

“This plan provides the blueprint for how we will deliver our commitment to leave our environment in a better state than we found it, making sure we drive forward progress with renewed ambition and achieve our target of not just halting, but reversing the decline of nature.”

At least 500,000 hectares of new wildlife habitats, starting with 70 new wildlife projects including 25 new or expanded National Nature Reserves and 19 further Nature Recovery Projects are to be created and restored under the plan.

The Government is also to deliver a clean and plentiful supply of water for people and nature into the future, by tackling leaks, publishing a roadmap to boost household water efficiency, and enabling greater sources of supply.

Councils are to be challenged to improve air quality more quickly and tackle key hotspots and there is also a pledge to transform the management of 70% of the countryside by incentivising farmers to adopt nature-friendly practices.

Boosting green growth and creating new jobs, ranging from foresters and farmers to roles in green finance and research and development, is another pledge.

Ms Coffey said: “Nature is vital for our survival, crucial to our food security, clean air, and clean water as well as health and well-being benefits.

“We have already started the journey and we have seen improvements.

“We are transforming financial support for farmers and landowners to prioritise improving the environment, we are stepping up on tree planting, we have cleaner air, we have put a spotlight on water quality and rivers and are forcing industry to clean up its act. ”

A red squirrel (Liam McBurney/PA)

The plan includes a multi-million pound Species Survival Fund to protect rare species, from hedgehogs to red squirrels, is promised along with a pledge that Government support schemes will help 65 to 80% of landowners and farmers to adopt nature friendly farming practices on at least 10 to 15% of their land by 2030.

They are also to be helped to create or restore 30,000 miles of hedgerows a year by 2037 and 45,000 miles of hedgerows a year by 2050.

Other commitments include actions to tackle water efficiency in new developments and retrofitted properties, including reviewing building regulations and other legislation to address leaky toilets and dual flush buttons and to enable new water efficient technologies.

The restoration of 400 miles of river through the first round of Landscape Recovery projects and establishing 3,000 hectares of new woodlands along England’s rivers is also promised.

The current regulatory framework is to be rationalised to try and create a more efficient system.

There is also to be an effort to cut ammonia emissions through incentivised farming schemes and also to improve the way air quality information is communicated with the public.

Dr Doug Parr, of Greenpeace UK, said: “If this is a road map, it’s a road map to the cliff edge.

“Here’s yet more paperwork containing a threadbare patchwork of policies that fail to tackle many of the real threats to our natural world. This won’t do.

“Ministers want to crack down on dual flush toilets while letting water firms pump tonnes of raw sewage into our rivers and seas.

“Until we see immediate action (from) this Parliament to ban industrial fishing in all our marine protected areas, reduce industrial meat and dairy farming and ramp up protections across a bigger network of national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, we’re in real danger of UK nature going into freefall.”

Paul de Zylva, of Friends of the Earth, said that “on closer inspection it seems that many (of the measures) are just rehashed commitments the government is already late on delivering – and it’s unclear how others, such as ensuring everyone can live within a 15 minute walk of green space, will actually be met”.

He said: “There’s also a big emphasis on improving air quality which is completely at odds with the government’s £27bn road building agenda, raising serious questions over whether councils are being set up to fail.”

UK

Protesters gather outside Ofgem HQ calling for ‘payment strike’ on energy bills

Pa Reporter
Fri, August 26, 2022 

People protest outside the Ofgem HQ in Canary Wharf (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire)

Around 100 protesters gathered outside Ofgem headquarters in London on Friday urging consumers to withhold payment for “astronomical” energy price hikes they could not afford.

Members of the crowd shouted “enough is enough” and held banners reading “Freeze profits, not people” on the street in Canary Wharf in London.

On Friday, Ofgem confirmed an 80.06% rise in the energy price cap, sending the average household’s yearly bill from £1,971 to £3,549 from October.

The demonstration was promoted by Don’t Pay UK, a grassroots movement describing its aim as “building a mass non-payment strike of energy bills starting on October 1”.

A woman holds a banner during a protest outside the Ofgem HQ (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire)

Tracy Baldwin, 52, said deaths caused in part by the price hike were inevitable and would be “nothing short of corporate manslaughter”

Ms Baldwin, a carer from Yorkshire, said: “The price hikes are astronomical. There’s going to be deaths from the vulnerable, the disabled, the elderly.

“Ofgem are not doing anything to tackle the problem. When people start to die it’s going to be nothing short of corporate manslaughter.”

Teacher Jamie Grey called for “hitting them where it hurts, withdrawing our financial support for a barbaric regime of energy companies that have put profit before people”.

The 34-year-old, from Tower Hamlets, said she teaches children who are already living below the poverty line whose families would be unable to stay warm this winter.

The demonstration was promoted by Don’t Pay UK (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire)

She added that Ofgem “don’t care about us at all” and said vulnerable people would die over the coming months as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.

“Ofgem don’t care about us. All we have is each other – historically we know mass non-payment and mass movements do work,” Ms Grey said.

Protester Tony Cisse said: “People are going to be driven into poverty. The people being asked to absorb the price rises are the people at the bottom.”

Ofgem boss Jonathan Brearley said the regulator had to make “difficult trade-offs” setting the new price cap.

He warned costs would come back to customers in the long run if companies were to fail.

Speaking to Channel 4 News, Mr Brearley said: “The price cap was designed to do one thing, and that was to make sure that unfair profits aren’t charged by those companies that buy and sell energy. And, right now, those profits in that market are 0%.

(PA Graphics) (PA Graphics)

“What it can’t do is it can’t say, given the cost of the energy, that we can force companies to get from customers less than it costs to buy the energy that they need, because otherwise they simply can’t buy the energy for those customers.”

He added: “So, we have had to make some difficult trade-offs and we have had to make some difficult choices.”

A former vice president of BP said the latest cap should be suspended and called for taxes to be increased on oil producers if they are not facing “real costs”.

Nick Butler, who worked for the company for 30 years, said he did not think the Ofgem cap should have been announced with no “modification or mitigation”.

He told BBC Scotland’s The Seven he believed some energy companies were “milking the system” and that those who could not prove they faced real supply costs should see a tax hike.

“(Some) people, I think, are milking the system and that’s why I absolutely believe this has got to be made a transparent market, and the good companies will welcome that transparency because it will restore an element of the trust that has been lost,” Mr Butler said.

UK nearly doubles energy price cap in cost-of-living crisis 

AFP 2022-08-26       

Britain announced on Friday a vast 80 percent hike in electricity and gas bills, in a dramatic worsening of the cost-of-living crisis before winter as the UK awaits a new leader.

Regulator Ofgem said its energy price cap, which sets prices for consumers who are not on a fixed deal with their supplier, will in October increase to an average 3,549 pounds (US$4,197) per year from the current 1,971 pounds, blaming soaring wholesale gas costs after the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

"The increase (in the cap) reflects the continued rise in global wholesale gas prices, which began to surge as the world unlocked from the COVID-19 pandemic and have been driven still higher to record levels by Russia slowly switching off gas supplies to Europe," Ofgem said in a statement.

The news sparked an outcry from charities who said families faced one of the "bleakest Christmases" for years, with UK inflation already in double-digits and forecast to strike 13 percent in the coming months due to runaway energy bills.

The near-doubling in the cap will likely tip millions into fuel poverty, forced to choose between heating or eating, according to anti-poverty experts.

Britain is already suffering from its highest inflation rate since 1982 and is predicted to enter recession later this year.

"We know the massive impact this price cap increase will have on households across Britain and the difficult decisions consumers will now have to make," added Ofgem boss Jonathan Brearley on Friday.

"I talk to customers regularly and I know that today's news will be very worrying for many."

'Zombie' government

Britain's rampant cost-of-living has dominated the race to succeed Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, with political opponents accusing him of leading a zombie government as inflation escalates.

Both front-runner Liz Truss and rival leadership contender Rishi Sunak are grappling with how to address the crisis.

Gas comprises a major part of Britain's energy mix, with tens of millions of homes relying on gas-powered boilers for their heating.

Household and business consumers, energy suppliers and opposition politicians are clamoring for urgent government action to do more to avoid putting the most vulnerable in desperate situations.

The University of York has estimated 58 percent of UK households are at risk of fuel poverty by next year.

The crisis is forecast to worsen from next January, when average bills could top 5,000 pounds according to some projections as Ofgem updates the cap every three months, rather than the previous norm of twice a year.

The leader of the main opposition Labour party, Keir Starmer, has called for a freeze in energy bills at the current cap level.

Outgoing premier Johnson has vowed to leave major fiscal decisions to his successor, who will be announced on September 5 following a summer-long leadership contest.

Good Law Project to sue Ofgem over price

 cap failure

“The announcement today will devastate families. Just who and what is Ofgem for? Do not be fooled. This is a choice. And the choice they’ve made is to let low-income consumers and small businesses bear the brunt of this crisis."

by Joe Mellor
2022-08-26




Legal campaign group Good Law Project, Fuel Poverty Action, and the Highlands and Islands Affordable Homes Warmth Group have announced they are planning to sue the energy regulator Ofgem, over its failure to mitigate the impact of rising energy bills on consumers.

This is likely to be the first legal action of its kind over the energy bills crisis, and others may join the action – including vulnerable individuals disproportionately impacted by Ofgem’s actions.

As you can see Martin Lewis is beyond angry about this decision to hike energy prices.

Watch



In response to Ofgem’s announcement today that it is raising the price cap to an eye-watering £3,549, Jo Maugham, Director of Good Law Project said:

“The announcement today will devastate families. Just who and what is Ofgem for? Do not be fooled. This is a choice. And the choice they’ve made is to let low-income consumers and small businesses bear the brunt of this crisis.

“We believe Ofgem can – and should do more. We intend to put the question before the High Court, and will ask for a fast-tracked timeline to reflect the urgency of this crisis”.

Poverty

The Ofgem announcement will push millions of people into poverty this winter and the average household bill up by £1,578 – an 80 per cent increase from the current cap.

GLP will ask the High Court to ensure the regulator upholds its legal duties to, among other things, carry out an impact assessment before confirming the price cap increase, including assessing the disproportionate impact on elderly people, children and people with disabilities.

Good Law Project argues that Ofgem has the power to do more to protect vulnerable people and believes before raising the cap, Ofgem is legally required to:Provide evidence it has carried out a proper impact assessment
Consider appropriate mitigation measures for the most vulnerable, including a lower social tariff.

In July, the campaign group wrote to Ofgem, expressing concern about its decision-making. We asked it to provide proof of its impact assessments. It failed to produce any such evidence. Last week GLP put the regulator on notice of formal legal action if it failed to uphold its duties. A formal response to the letter is expected today, but today’s announcement provides no indication that an impact assessment has been carried out.

Related: Watch: Energy price cap to rise more than 80% from Oct – Martin Lewis’ emotional response is chilling

Energy price cap increase: ‘Alarmed’ charities urge government to ‘act now’


26 Aug 2022


Charities have called for urgent government action after Ofgem announced today that the typical household energy bill will increase to £3,549 ( $4,193.14 US Dollar ) a year from 1 October.

The cap set by the government energy regulator, which limits how much providers can charge customers in England, Scotland and Wales, is set to rise by 80% from it's current level of £1,971 for the average household.

Amid a cost-of-living crisis, charities said the government must step in to prevent millions of people from being pushed into poverty.

Sector bodies also warned that charities themselves are being hit by increased energy bills, while demand for their services is set to increase.
Turn2us: ‘Not acceptable to consign more than a quarter of us into poverty’

Thomas Lawson, chief executive of national poverty charity Turn2us, said: “Today’s meteoric rise in the energy cap will cripple those of us in the UK already struggling to stay afloat. This is no longer a choice between heating and eating, but not being able to afford either. This is as big an emergency as the impact of Covid and needs a similarly confident government response.

“As one of the wealthiest economies, it’s simply not acceptable to consign more than a quarter of us into poverty.”

The charity is calling on government to introduce a cap on energy costs and increase the value of Universal Credit and legacy benefits by a minimum of £25 a week, saying “the government must act now”

Joseph Rowntree Foundation: This ‘will plunge many into destitution’

Katie Schmuecker, principal policy adviser at the JRF, said: “It is simply unthinkable that the price rises announced today can go ahead without further government intervention on a significant scale. To force the burden of rising wholesale energy prices onto households will plunge many into destitution.”

She added: “People are already being pushed into heart-breaking situations, disconnecting themselves from energy, skipping showers and going without food so their children can eat. And this is before we’ve even hit the big price rise and colder weather. Households are crying out for certainty and security.”

JRF research has found that almost half, 47%, of those on low incomes who are not in receipt of means-tested benefits are already going without one essential item or food, one third are in food insecurity and more than one fifth can’t afford to keep their home warm.

Groundwork: ‘We are alarmed at the volume of requests for help’

Graham Duxbury, Groundwork UK’s chief executive, said: “As a charity that supports people living in fuel poverty, we are alarmed at the volume of requests for help that are coming through.

“Energy companies, charities and independent experts all agree that the measures in place are not enough. As well as more emergency financial support and a long-term commitment to improving the energy efficiency of our homes we also need more – and better coordinated – advice.”

So far this year, Groundwork’s Green Doctors in Yorkshire have given out almost twice as many emergency fuel vouchers as in the whole of 2021-22. They have seen a 25% increase in fuel debt support requests and a 46% increase in people having mental health issues associated with stress from money issues.

The organisation said funding on some programmes has almost all been allocated, with four months left of the year, “before the cold weather begins and people start relying on their heating to stay warm and well”.

Centre for Ageing Better: ‘Already around 10,000 people die a year because their homes are too cold’

Carole Easton, Ageing Better’s chief executive, said: “Millions now face a long, cold and dangerous winter. Already around 10,000 people die a year because their homes are too cold. There is a clear and present danger that this number will rise significantly this winter without drastic measures.”

She said “immediate financial support is necessary” and “we also need government to take proactive and sustainable steps”.

Easton added: “UK homes are among the least energy efficient in Western Europe and the financial support government currently provides to homeowners to do something about this is insufficient. Four in five homes that are the coldest and are occupied by households on below-average incomes don’t even qualify for government support.”

Trussell Trust: ‘We have already seen a 50% increase in need at food banks’

Polly Jones, head of policy and research at the Trussell Trust, said the charity is “deeply concerned” that this “will be disastrous for people on the lowest incomes and will leave many with no option but to use a food bank”.

“In recent months, we have already seen a 50% increase in need at food banks compared to before the pandemic,” she said.

The charity is calling on the government to take immediate action and have joined together with 70 organisations to call for at least doubling the additional support offered to people on the lowest incomes.

“Furthermore, the government should provide better, long-term funding for local crisis support, so local authorities can provide much needed support directly in our communities. Only then will we be able to end the need for food banks in the future,” she added.

Family Fund: ‘The outlook is very grave’

Cheryl Ward, chief executive at Family Fund, said: “We know that current severe inflationary pressures are affecting millions of people across the land, but for families caring for disabled and seriously ill children, who have even greater costs, the outlook is very grave. The choices between putting food on the table, paying for energy or clothing and sensory equipment are stark”.

“We very much welcome this latest £150 payment from government,” said Ward, “but we know from the increasing calls we are now getting from our families, facing spiralling costs on every front, that more support will be needed. We are therefore, along with other charities, asking ministers to consider urgently how future support can be given.”

Pro Bono Economics: ‘Charity incomes are already feeling the squeeze on donations’

Nicole Sykes, policy and communications director at PBE, said: “Without further action, the new energy price cap leaves charities and many of the millions they support facing a dire financial situation heading into winter. Many of those who require support from charities are especially exposed to rising energy costs, particularly disabled people with conditions made worse by cold or needing energy to run lifesaving equipment.

“Charity incomes are already feeling the squeeze on donations as a result of the cost-of-living crisis. This hike in the energy price cap will only step up demand for charity services, while increasing charities’ own costs - particularly in older buildings with less insulation, and facilities offering energy intensive services like hydrotherapy.

“It is vital that the new prime minister acts fast with a package of support to hold back a wave of hardship, debt and destitution. But we also need a longer-term strategy for growth and economic security, to build up our national resilience to future shocks.”

NPC: ‘Destitute people can’t wait, it’s time to get on and give’

Dan Corry, chief executive at NPC, said: “Today's announcement confirms our worst fears. As we have been saying for some time, this cost-of-living crisis is going to be as big a threat to livelihoods and well-being as Covid-19 and a great deal worse for those at lower income levels. Many more people need help, yet charities will find it harder to support them as energy prices and soaring inflation increase their own costs and erode the value of their reserves and pre-pledged donations.

“Charities will undoubtedly strain every sinew not to let down the people they work with. But they need help.

“Of course, the government should do more and show the same courage it did during the pandemic with the furlough scheme and the Universal Credit uplift. But, as we said in our recent report on confronting this crisis, philanthropists and grantmakers also need to do everything in their power to help charities, and they should be doing it now. Destitute people can’t wait, it’s time to get on and give.”

The U.S. Senate Might Be About to Kill 

Biden's Clean Energy Plans

Alejandro de la Garza

Thu, June 30, 2022 

Deepwater Wind installing the first offshore wind farm at Block Island, Rhode Island, August 14, 2016. Credit - Mark Harrington/Newsday RM—Getty Images

You might not expect to see fireworks in congressional debates over offshore energy worker regulations. But in a little-noticed March meeting of the House transportation and infrastructure committee, things got heated between Rep. Garret Graves (R., La.) and Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D., Mass.) as they argued over an amendment to the 2022 Coast Guard reauthorization bill that would ban foreign flagged ships with multinational crews from working off the U.S. coast. The back-and-forth ended on a sour note. “If my friend wants to keep hiring Russians, that’s fine,” Graves said.

“If my friend from Louisiana wants to thwart the clean energy industry in the United States,” Auchincloss responded, “then that’s fine.”

Committee chairman Peter DeFasio (D., Ore.) stepped in to note his support for the amendment and it ultimately passed. While not yet enacted—the bill will likely come up before the Senate commerce committee in the next month—wind energy proponents are worried. American Clean Power, a renewables industry group, said the new provision would “cripple” the offshore wind industry and stymie President Joe Biden’s efforts to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. (Unlike Europe and Asia, the United States has almost no offshore wind power at present, and even Biden’s aspirations lag far behind the ambitions of other countries.)

The crux of the debate comes down to certain kinds of highly specialized ships needed to perform mega-construction tasks like erecting huge turbine components and laying miles of underwater cables, which will be needed as offshore construction on the U.S.’s few approved ocean wind projects actually gets underway. The provision would mandate that only U.S. ships with American crews be allowed to work on offshore energy projects, including those big lift jobs, or, if foreign ships are used, they must be crewed either by Americans, or by sailors and workers that match the vessel’s flag of origin: for example, a ship flying the Norwegian flag should be crewed only by Norwegians.

There’s American boats to do a lot of the smaller supporting tasks around that construction, and the bill’s proponents say there’s a big problem of foreign boats with low paid workers taking American jobs. Of the few ships designed to do the specialized heavy lift work, most are registered in different countries than where the crew is from because of financial or regulatory expediency. Lower foreign wages give those ships an unfair advantage, say supporters of the new provision, effectively thwarting the U.S. shipbuilding industry from getting financing to roll out ships capable of building offshore wind turbines. “If the law continues to allow foreign entities to enjoy cost advantages we don’t have, and an unlevel playing field, we simply cannot compete with them,” says Aaron Smith, president of the Offshore Marine Service Association, an industry group that advised on the provision in the Coast Guard bill.

But that situation is also why the bill could mean big problems for offshore wind projects planned up and down the East coast: the U.S. simply doesn’t have many of those types of specialized ships, and the U.S. offshore wind market is so small that even blocking foreign ships from coming still might not make a good enough financial case to get American versions built.

“Every wind turbine installation vessel that is not able to come to the United States because of this provision would eliminate 1,460 megawatts of offshore wind from being installed a year, which would be 4.9 million tons of carbon dioxide,” says Claire Richer, federal affairs director at American Clean Power. Instead, she suggests subsidies to build U.S. offshore wind vessels, rather than mandates that block ships from working here.

In theory, foreign ships could switch their registrations and crews to comply with the law, though that could be difficult since some highly specialized personnel can’t be easily swapped out. Of some essential ships, like the nine worldwide designed to place wind turbine foundations on the seafloor, every single vessel is registered in countries like the Bahamas where the entire crew is permitted to be from somewhere else. And the harsh reality is that there’s so much offshore wind work to be done around the world that the owners of the ships are likely not to bother with the hassle, and just stick to construction jobs in Asia and Europe, leaving the fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry high and dry. And even if protectionism eventually helps build up a domestic offshore construction fleet, some in the offshore wind industry say that the result, free from international competition, would be inferior to the ships building wind power in Europe or Asia, meaning a slower offshore wind rollout.

The whole issue points to an uncomfortable opposition in the green energy transition: we need to decarbonize the economy as fast as possible to avert the worst effects of climate change, but the quickest and most efficient way of doing so sometimes means dropping politically popular protectionism in favor of free trade. The balance between efficiency and protectionism has been long established—things get cheaper when you open the doors to the foreign market, and some domestic industry suffers—and for decades the balance of U.S. policy was weighted firmly toward globalism. Then, around the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s campaign invoked the evils of the North American Free Trade Agreement (“The worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere.”) so many times as to make the position politically radioactive.

There’s lots of good reasons to prioritize U.S. green industry—and there’s an argument to be made that sometimes a bit of protectionism is necessary to get the ball rolling. But there are also trade-offs to blocking foreign competition. Usually, it means higher prices: more expensive steel and socks. In the case of offshore wind, it could mean even more delay in developing a desperately-needed source of green power as we wait for our own industry to catch up—assuming it ever really does. There’s a lot of jobs around offshore wind, and only some of them involve manning the ships that come by for a few months to drop components in the water. If the price of those additional American crews means tipping the climate balance even further in the wrong direction, our leaders should think carefully about if it’s really worth it for the rest of us.

ALBERTA

A party divided cannot stand — especially if they can’t stand their leader

The UCP may not fall as a result of its divisions. But after the result of the party’s leadership review vote is announced on May 18, it’ll have to be either all Jason Kenney or no Jason Kenney at all!

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney addresses a carefully curated crowd of about 100 supporters at a UCP “Special General Meeting” in Red Deer April 11 (Photo: Screenshot of United Conservative Party video). 

Credit: Twitter screenshot / United Conservative Party

by David J. Climenhaga

April 25, 2022

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

That goes for political parties too, I daresay.

And I’d say the United Conservative Party (UCP) led by Premier Jason Kenney is getting perilously close to the point where it’s so divided against itself, that if nothing changes, it’ll have to have to be folded up like a tent, thrown in the back of a blue pickup truck, and driven out of town!

It’s been apparent for a while there are serious divisions within the UCP – COVID deniers versus public health affirmers, Progressive Conservatives versus Wildrosers, neoliberals versus social conservatives, rural MLAs versus urban MLAs, possibly even climate change deniers versus “green conservatives,” to borrow a phrase from Preston Manning.

It looked for a spell as if the UCP – cobbled together in 2017 to restore the Progressive Conservative dynasty created by Peter Lougheed, who led the PCs to power in 1971 and created the big-tent model that kept them there until 2015 – might actually have cast out the demon of division animated in 2009 by the advent of the Wildrose Caucus in the Alberta Legislature, and its near miss with power in 2012.

Whether it was principally the superb campaign run by NDP Leader Rachel Notley or the divisions that bedevilled the Conservatives will forever be debated, but the rift in the conservative movement unquestionably contributed to the NDP victory in 2015 that ended 44-year PC Dynasty, and eventually the PC Party itself.

Kenney was anointed leader in a somewhat-tainted UCP vote in 2017. He seemed to lay to rest any doubts about the unity of the new conservative party, though, with his convincing electoral victory in 2019.

There were lots of Albertans, on the right and the left, who concluded then Kenney was the saviour of the right, who had resuscitated the indivisible Alberta Tory coalition of old.

But that ole Demon Division was not so easily cast out. Disagreement over how to respond to COVID seems to have been the catalyst, and Kenney’s own inclination to use polarization as a political tool certainly contributed.

That led to the party referendum on Kenney’s leadership now being conducted through a controversial – and itself divisive – mail-in vote, with allegations of cheating in the wind and Kenney himself calling members of his own party “lunatics” and implying that without him at the helm, bigotry would run wild in the UCP.

By the end of last week, no politically alert Albertan could miss the fact the UCP has become a public snake pit, with MLAs, party members and political staffers mud-rasslin’ on social media and in the press.

On Friday, Postmedia political columnist Rick Bell quoted eight sitting UCP MLAs publicly assailing their leader in a single column! In addition, he tossed in two Independent MLAs exiled from the UCP Caucus by Kenney for disloyalty to raise the total to 10.

Quoting Chestermere-Strathmore MLA Leela Aheer, Bell wrote: “With the NDP, people had concerns about certain policies. ‘With us, they’re concerned about corruption.’”

Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie, from the party’s COVID-skeptical right, called Kenney “a federal Ottawa elitist.” Richard Gotfried, the moderate former Progressive Conservative from Calgary-Fish Creek, told Bell the premier is beholden to a small circle with “very little skin in the game in Alberta.” Same thing? Sure sounds like it.

Brian Jean, Kenney’s chief leadership rival in 2017 and victor in a recent by-election in Fort-McMurray-Lac La Biche on a platform of replacing the premier, made it clear that, this time, he won’t stand for cheating by Kenney’s supporters.

The same day, Kenney’s interim issues manager, Bryan Rogers, called the MLAs quoted in Bell’s column “just the same old crew” with a clip of clowns from an episode of The Simpsons.

The intramural mudslinging on social media got so bad and so public the Canadian Press reported on it.

“An internal feud battering Alberta’s governing party took a new twist after Premier Jason Kenney’s issues manager went on Twitter to compare Kenney’s United Conservative backbench critics to clowns,” wrote CP’s Dean Bennett in the deadly serious tones to which the national news service defaults.

Airdrie-East MLA Angela Pitt, another of the UCP MLAs quoted by Bell, took to Twitter to fire back: “This is exactly the kind of bullying and intimidation that happens every day from the Premier’s staff. MLAs provide dissenting opinions and they are ridiculed like clowns or called insane.”

Members of the UCP, which under Kenney has edged very close to the Christian right in Alberta, should be familiar with the metaphor about what happens when houses are divided against themselves.

It was famously used by Jesus of Nazareth himself in his memorably clever defence against Pharisaical accusations he’d been working on the sabbath by, among other things, casting out demons.

It was used again by the first Republican president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, to describe the state of that Union in 1858, on the brink of the U.S. Civil War.

“I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided,” Lincoln added on June 6 that year at the Republican State Convention in Springfield. The Springfield in Illinois, that is, not the one in The Simpsons.

At the risk of channeling President Lincoln, I don’t expect the UCP to fall either, at least before the next general election.

But after the result of the party’s leadership review vote is announced on May 18, it’ll have to be either all Jason Kenney or no Jason Kenney at all!

Will France’s Yellow Vests come back to haunt Macron on election day?

Fri, 1 April 2022


The most potent protest movement in recent French history, the Yellow Vest uprising looked at one point like it might bring a premature end to Emmanuel Macron’s presidency. More than three years after it was smothered, its politicised remnants are counting on their ballots to finish the job.

France’s upcoming presidential election has been described as the least suspenseful in decades, a lopsided contest in which Macron is widely expected to prevail over a motley crew of challengers rejected by a majority of voters.

It’s a prospect 56-year-old Jérôme Batret finds hard to stomach, more than three years after the farmer from rural Auvergne first donned a “yellow vest” in protest at Macron’s government – joining an unconventional insurgency that caught Paris elites napping, rattling the government, baffling commentators, and eventually inspiring copy-cat protests around the world.

Named after the now-famous fluorescent waistcoats that are mandatory in French cars, the Gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) staged more than 60 consecutive weeks of protests against economic hardship, mounting inequality and a discredited political establishment. They manned roundabouts across the country night and day, took to the streets of towns and cities on every Saturday, and at their peak in December 2018 even stormed the Arc de Triomphe in central Paris, amid scenes of chaos not witnessed since May 1968.

On the day a sea of yellow swarmed the Champs-Elysées, protesters in Batret’s usually tranquil hometown of Le Puy-en-Velay set fire to the local police prefecture with a molotov cocktail. When the French president paid a secretive visit days later to offer shaken officers his support, his vehicle was chased away by angry protesters shouting “Tous pourris” (You’re all corrupt) and “Macron resign”.

Batret was among the very first Gilets jaunes, manning a nearby roundabout non-stop for three weeks. During those heady days, it felt like Macron’s fall was “only a matter of days”, he recalls in an interview with FRANCE 24. Little did he expect the young president would see off the challenge and come back stronger three years later, poised for another mandate.

“He didn’t respect the people back then and he doesn’t respect them now,” says Batret, citing Macron’s pledge last year to “emmerde” (piss off) those who reject Covid-19 vaccines. “We have a president who wants to piss off his own people – and yet he’ll win again.”

‘Politicians in Paris don’t give a shit about us’

Like other rural and suburban workers who formed the backbone of the Yellow Vest insurgency, Batret says his spending power has plummeted during Macron’s five years in office – a turbulent term marked by the coronavirus pandemic and now the fallout from the war in Ukraine. Surging energy prices mean most of his earnings are now swallowed up by the fuel he needs to run his car and tractor, and heat his house.

“People in Paris tell me it’s not so bad for them, but out here in the countryside we’ve got no choice,” he says. “My sons work 35 kilometres from home. That’s 400 euros per month in petrol just to get to work.”

The trigger for the Yellow Vest uprising was an unpopular fuel tax, ostensibly designed to finance France’s transition to a green economy – though it soon became apparent that its proceeds would mostly be used to plug a budget deficit widened by the government’s tax cuts for businesses. The levy infuriated motorists in rural and suburban areas starved of public transport and other services, where households are heavily reliant on their cars.

This original association with motor vehicles, cemented by the symbol of the high-visibility vests, allowed some commentators in well-connected cities to dismiss the protesters as recalcitrant, selfish motorists unconcerned by climate change – an image that has largely stuck.

“Politicians in Paris don’t give a shit about us,” says Batret. “They make empty promises come election time and then leave us to rot. They have no respect for the people.”

A longtime conservative voter, the organic farmer says he will no longer vote for career politicians “who’ve never done anything real in their lives”. On April 10 he will cast his ballot in favour of Jean Lassalle, the Occitan-speaking son of Pyrenean shepherds who was fined 1,500 euros in 2018 for wearing a gilet jaune in France’s National Assembly.

“I know lots of people who never voted before but are now interested in the ‘small candidates’, like Lassalle, [trotskyist Philippe] Poutou, and others who never get mentioned in the media,” says Batret. “I also know people who’ll back extremists like [far-right polemicist] Eric Zemmour, but that says more about their state of despair than their true beliefs.”

When voters head back to the polls two weeks later for the second-round run-off, polls suggest they are likely to face a repeat of the 2017 duel between Macron and veteran far-right candidate Marine Le Pen – a prospect Batret is not relishing.

“On April 24 they’ll be telling us to back Macron as the lesser evil, but I don’t think he is,” he says. “If it’s Macron versus Le Pen again, I’ll vote Le Pen. And if it’s Zemmour, I’ll leave the country.”

‘The Gilets jaunes didn’t just evaporate’

Within months of the rioting witnessed on the Champs Elysée in late 2018, the number of Yellow Vests out on the streets had starkly diminished, and Macron could claim to have largely seen off the most formidable challenge to his presidency.

In terms of its material objectives, the movement was only partially successful. It forced the government into a series of crisis measures to prop up purchasing power, for instance by raising minimum pensions, which helped sap support for the movement. So did Macron’s “Great National Debate”, called in response to the protests, which the ubiquitous president soon turned into a town-hall road-show offering him unrivalled media coverage – while the Yellow Vests were kept at bay.

Still, the movement left an indelible mark on France, sending a clear warning to the country’s self-styled “Jupiterian” president and putting neglected swathes of the country back on the map.

“The Gilets jaunes didn’t just evaporate after taking off their vests,” says Magali Della Sudda, a researcher at Sciences-Po in Bordeaux, who has studied the uprising from its inception and continues to monitor its resurgences.

While the Yellow Vests are now a scattered and diminished force, Della Sudda identifies successive “waves of mobilisation”, some coinciding with policies or statements that galvanised protesters, like the introduction of a Covid-19 health pass restricting people’s freedom of movement or Macron’s pledge to “emmerde” anti-vaxxers.

“There are signs the movement is picking up again, focusing once again on its original themes of purchasing power and social justice,” she says, pointing to the tentative return of Yellow Vests on roundabouts across the country.

“Of course history never repeats itself quite the same way, but we can expect the movement to gain traction again, in one form or another, in the coming months – for instance if Macron puts his pension reform back on the table,” she adds, referring to an unpopular pension overhaul which the government forced through parliament without a vote and then suspended amid the pandemic.

Della Sudda says this year’s presidential campaign has done very little to address the grievances voiced by the Yellow Vests and their supporters, further fuelling popular resentment of politicians. Having pored over some of the tens of thousands of cahiers de doléances (complaint books) drawn up as part of Macron’s national debate, she points to a glaring gap between the country’s dominant political discourse and ordinary people’s real concerns.

“There is a huge discrepancy between the complaints voiced by the Gilets jaunes and by the broader public and the way political parties and the media fail to address these topics,” she says. “It took a war in Ukraine for candidates and the media to start talking about purchasing power – but the problem of energy and food prices did not start with the war.”

Surveys have consistently placed the cost of living at the top of voters’ concerns, followed by health and the environment – largely mirroring the priorities listed by French citizens in the cahiers de doléances, particularly those from rural areas where hospitals and other public services have shut over the years. And yet prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the presidential campaign was dominated by talk of immigration and Islam, driven by the unrivalled media exposure enjoyed by the likes of Zemmour.

>> Pushing far-right agenda, French news networks shape election debate

The gross inadequacy of the campaign means it is still unclear whether the bulk of the Gilets jaunes will boycott the polls or choose to cast protest votes instead, says Della Sudda, though stressing that the uprising has left a profound imprint on many, politicising citizens who previously shunned the polls. She says there are signs large swathes of the movement will seize on the opportunity to deliver their verdict on Macron’s government.

Toppling France’s ‘presidential monarchy’

The Yellow Vests’ relative inexperience of politics has contributed to generating misconceptions – as with their use of the term “apolitical” to stress their rejection of traditional party politics. Studies carried out at the height of the movement revealed that most participants were first-time protesters with no political or union affiliation. A majority said they didn’t believe in the traditional left-right divide, but theirs was a rejection of partisan politics, not of politics per se.

One of the defining features of the Yellow Vests is their attempt to reclaim politics by wresting it from the control of parties and institutions they see as undemocratic. As Della Sudda puts it, “one can credit the movement with getting the French to show interest in their institutions and constitution – a remarkable feat in its own right.”

Those institutions are failing the people, says 56-year-old Sabine, a primary school teacher from the Montpellier area in southern France, who declined to give her full name. She ranks among the numerous Gilets jaunes who have taken up grassroots politics after years of abstaining from the electoral process.

“I used to boycott the Fifth Republic’s anti-democratic elections,” she says, referring to the presidential regime instituted more than 60 years ago by France’s wartime hero, General Charles De Gaulle. “But after five years of Macron, I’ve decided to use my ballot to stop the rot.”

Sabine likens the Yellow Vest experience to a personal and collective awakening to politics and rampant injustice. She describes its members as “society’s invisible people who have risen up, who have sprung from the earth with their bright jackets, a symbol of alertness and visibility”.

“First there was the uprising, then the movement took root on roundabouts and on social media, and by way of regular meetings and assemblies,” she says. “Over time we were able to elaborate a political thought, in the noble sense of the word, meaning a commitment to improve the society we live in.”

More than three years after they first donned their bright jackets, Sabine and a dozen fellow activists are back on the roundabout they occupied on the outskirts of Montpellier at the start of the movement. After lengthy discussions, most members have agreed to back leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon on April 10.

“There were two main requirements for our choice of candidate: to carry our aspirations and have a chance of beating Macron. Mélenchon is the only one who meets both,” the teacher explains. She points to his pledges to impose a cap on prices, boost wages, bolster public services and convene a constituent assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution and replacing France’s “presidential monarchy”.

>> A new Republic: Leftist Mélenchon promises to topple France’s ‘presidential monarchy’

“Mélenchon is not our ideal candidate, he’s not to everyone's taste and we are well aware that there’s no easy fix. But he’s our best option. We’re at a crossroads: either we change course now or we let those in power dismantle our social system,” Sabine adds. “But our struggle won’t end at the ballot box. Whoever wins on April 24, we’ll keep up the fight.”

Anyone but Macron

A veteran leftist who is having his third shot at the presidency, Mélenchon is locked in a battle for second place with his longtime rival Le Pen – and polls suggest he is likely to fall short once again, missing out on the April 24 run-off. Second-round data also looks more encouraging for Le Pen, who has significantly narrowed the gap with Macron since she lost by more than 20 percentage points five years ago.

>> Closing in on Macron: Could Le Pen’s blandest campaign be her most successful yet?

On paper, the narrowing gap means Le Pen is more likely to benefit from the “anyone but Macron” vote than Mélenchon, says Della Sudda, with some supporters claiming that widespread anger could propel her to an unlikely victory over the president.

“It’s an argument I’ve been hearing on the roundabouts, voiced by a minority of Yellow Vests. But it’s not clear it will translate into widespread support for Le Pen,” she says. “Anti-Macronism is just one component of the Yellow Vest vote; and the National Rally doesn’t carry all of their aspirations – far from it.”

Both the National Rally and Mélenchon's La France insoumise (France unbowed) have been cautious in their appeals to the Gilets jaunes, wary of scaring away more moderate voters, says Frédéric Gonthier, a political scientist at the Pacte research centre in Grenoble, who has carried out extensive surveys of the Yellow Vest movement.

“Mélenchon and Le Pen are trying to present themselves as credible alternatives to Macron, by softening the more divisive elements in their platforms and tempering their populist pitch,” he explains. “For candidates who are trying to project an image of respectability, overtly anti-elitist statements aimed at seducing the Yellow Vests would be counterproductive.”

Vying for the working-class vote, the two candidates have focused on the hardship endured by France’s most vulnerable, hoping to draw the Yellow Vests among them without overt appeals.

Mélenchon has had to tread carefully, says Gonthier, noting that many Yellow Vests were deeply suspicious of his longtime membership of the Socialist Party, seeing him as a political “apparatchik”. As for Le Pen, “her party is deeply uncomfortable with the issue of police brutality, which is intimately associated with the Gilets jaunes.”

A tiny window of opportunity

The Yellow Vests’ often violent protests were met with a fierce crackdown that eventually smothered the movement, but not the anger. During the first months of unrest, dozens of protesters, journalists and bystanders suffered shocking injuries – including gouged eyes and hands ripped off – as a result of the rubber bullets and stun grenades used by riot police, while scores of officers were also wounded. The government’s steadfast refusal to question the police tactics, with Macron at one point saying “there is no such thing as police violence”, infuriated the Yellow Vests and further radicalised its diehard members.

Daniel Bodin’s voice breaks into sobs when recalling the violence of those days. The 66-year-old was among the first to man the roundabout near Montpellier, where he and Sabine still don their high-visibility jackets. “We’d never seen anything like it before. They treated us like pariahs,” he says of the “brutal repression” ordered by a president he describes as “authoritarian”.

There is something visceral about the revulsion Macron elicits among many Yellow Vests, who are prone to citing his derogatory comments – such as telling an unemployed man he need only “cross the street” to find a job, complaining about the “crazy money” France spends on welfare, and urging pensioners to “complain less” about their shrinking allowances.

“His comments are proof of his contempt for small folk like us, but it would be foolish to stop at that. It’s the laws he passed that upset me most,” says Bodin, pointing to the Covid-19 health pass and a contentious law extending police powers as evidence of civic freedoms being curtailed under Macron.

Like others in his group, Bodin is routing for Mélenchon in the election. He sees it as the only chance to reverse “the downward slide into neoliberal economics” and “put our politics back into the people’s hands”. He singles out for praise the leftist candidate’s pledge to introduce a so-called “citizen’s initiative referendum”, giving voters the power to initiate policy and revoke their elected representatives.

“But we are neither fans, nor groupies,” he cautions. “And we don’t claim to tell people how they should vote – that’s what political parties do.”

Bodin acknowledges deep divisions within the Yellow Vest movement, between those willing to engage with the electoral process and others who “would rather wait for the system to collapse or a civil war to break out”. “I understand those who are disgusted by politics and don’t want to vote,” he adds. “But we have a tiny window of opportunity and we must give it a try.”