'We Should All Be Water Protectors': Ilhan Omar Visits #StopLine3 Organizers Day After Activists Block Enbridge Worksites


"We owe it to future generations, to the Indigenous communities we've signed treaties with, and to every living being on this planet to stop building fossil fuel infrastructure."

by Kenny Stancil, staff writer
Published on Saturday, January 30, 2021 Common Dreams



"There is still an opportunity for us to stop" the construction of Line 3, said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Saturday, January 30, 2021. "It is going to be really important for people to raise their voice." (Photo: Giniw Collective/Twitter)


Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota traveled to the northern part of her state on Saturday to meet with Indigenous leaders and environmental justice advocates who are organizing opposition to Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline project.

"We owe it to future generations, to the Indigenous communities we've signed treaties with, and to every living being on this planet to stop building fossil fuel infrastructure," said Omar.

Today, I am in Northern Minnesota meeting with indigenous leaders organizing to #StopLine3.

We owe it to future generations, to the indigenous communities we've signed treaties with, and to every living being on this planet to stop building fossil fuel infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/7eMbUbZ7In— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) January 30, 2021

Omar's visit comes after two water protectors in Park Rapids brought an Enbridge worksite to a halt on Friday by locking themselves to barrels of concrete. Also on Friday, activists at two additional worksites in the Fond de Lac Reservation temporarily blocked construction by "climbing into the bottom of trenches dug for the pipeline," remaining there until they were arrested, the Pine Journal reported.

BREAKING: 2 Water Protectors locked to barrels of concrete, halting work at an Enbridge Line 3 worksite not far from the Mississippi River headwaters Enbridge wants to ram tar sands under.

You stopped KXL, @JoeBiden. #NowDoLine3

cc: @GovTimWalz #StopLine3 #PandemicPipeline pic.twitter.com/MuijjRJobJ— giniw collective (@GiniwCollective) January 29, 2021

"We need everyone doing everything and together we will stop Line 3," Lauren Berube, one of the participants in the direct action in Park Rapids, said in a statement.

A couple hundred miles south, almost 600 people heeded Berube's call and took to the streets of St. Paul on Friday night to protest the Line 3 project, calling on Minnesota's Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to rescind the permit for the pipeline to prevent drastic ecological and social harm.

Yesterday over 500 people gathered in St. Paul to demand that @POTUS & @GovTimWalz honor the treaties and revoke Line 3 permits.

Biden has shown with KXL that he will respond to pressure - we must continue to demand that he #StopLine3. pic.twitter.com/FWARUm2oAi— Resist Line 3 (@ResistLine3) January 30, 2021

As Common Dreams has reported, climate justice and Indigenous rights advocates are opposed to the expansion of the Line 3 pipeline, which would send 760,000 barrels of crude oil every day from Alberta through North Dakota and Minnesota, to Wisconsin—traversing more than 800 wetland habitats, violating Ojibwe treaty rights, and putting current and future generations at risk of polluted water and a despoiled environment.

Since Enbridge began working on the pipeline in late November 2020 despite pending lawsuits, opponents have attempted to halt construction through civil disobedience, with additional arrests being made in December and January.

The Pine Journal on Friday detailed how Taysha Martineau raised $30,000 on GoFundMe to purchase a piece of land adjacent to Enbridge's planned route through the Fond de Lac Reservation. The parcel has been become "Camp Miigizi," a home base for water protectors who want to impede further construction on Line 3 so that outstanding legal challenges can be heard.

"I'm hoping that by slowing them, I'm ensuring that day in court for my relatives," said Martineau.

Walz, who said publicly in February of 2019 that projects like this one "don't just need a building permit to go forward, they also need a social permit," has been widely condemned for giving Enbridge the green light to continue working on Line 3 even though it has been described as "a tar sands climate bomb."

Earlier this month, progressives praised President Joe Biden for revoking a federal permit allowing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S. and urged him to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline and Line 3 as well, "since the scientific and human rights principles are exactly the same," as Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, put it.

Following Omar's meeting with #StopLine3 organizers on Saturday, environmental activist Winona LaDuke thanked the Democratic lawmaker for the "leadership and solidarity" she demonstrated by "visiting our beautiful territory in the north to protect our water."

In a video interview, Omar said that "there is still an opportunity for us to stop" the construction of Line 3. "It is going to be really important for people to raise their voice."

"We know that our governor has the ability to do something but has chosen not to," Omar added. "Biden, at the moment, has taken action on some of the pipelines across the country, and we are urging him to take action in regards to this one because he does have that ability."

Rep. @IlhanMN visits Northern Minnesota to urge President Biden to #StopLine3 pipeline: “We have to stand together and make sure that our [Indigenous] brothers and sisters have their lives and their culture and their livelihoods intact.” pic.twitter.com/8Pc3r23MWQ— Forbes (@Forbes) January 30, 2021

"We need to collectively protect the environment, to see ourselves as stewards of the earth that we [have] been allowed to exist on," Omar tweeted on Saturday night. "There shouldn't just be particular people who are thought of as water protectors, we should all be water protectors."

Bolstering Reconciliation Case, Study Shows $15 Wage Would Boost Federal Budget By $65 Billion

"My Republican colleagues used reconciliation to give almost $2 trillion in tax breaks to the rich and large corporations... You know what? I think we can use reconciliation to protect the needs of working families."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer 
Monday, February 01, 2021

Service industry workers listen to remarks and hold up signs during a rally on January 26, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for One Fair Wage)


A new study by a labor economist at the University of California, Berkeley estimates that raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 would have a positive federal budget impact of $65.4 billion a year, a finding that could bolster progressive lawmakers' push to pass the long overdue pay hike through the filibuster-proof reconciliation process.

"We've got to address the crises facing working families and we're going to pass reconciliation."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders

Under current Senate rules, measures deemed to have a "merely incidental" impact on the federal budget cannot be approved through reconciliation, which requires just a simple majority vote.

But U.C. Berkeley economist Michael Reich, the author of the new research paper (pdf), told the New York Times on Sunday that his analysis shows boosting the federal minimum wage to $15 along the lines proposed by the newly introduced Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would have "pretty substantial budgetary impacts."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, pointed to Reich's findings as further evidence that the minimum wage increase would meet the standard required by the so-called "Byrd Rule," which gives senators the ability to block provisions of reconciliation bills that don't have a direct impact on the federal budget.

"We've got to address the crises facing working families and we're going to pass reconciliation," Sanders told the Times.

According to Reich's paper, the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 "would have a positive effect on the federal budget of $65.4 billion per year" through a combination of decreased spending on some social safety net programs—which many workers are forced to rely on due to low wages—and increased tax revenue.

New: A $15 minimum wage would save taxpayers $65.4 billion a year including:

-$32 billion in reduced spending
-$21.2 billion in more revenue
-12.2 billion in Social Security expenditures

If that's not a direct impact on the budget, I don't know what is. https://t.co/enHunY9SSx

— Warren Gunnels (@GunnelsWarren) February 1, 2021


A new report by three experts at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank, comes to a similar conclusion as Reich. According to the Times, which got a look at the EPI study ahead of its publication, the analysis "found that there would be 'significant and direct effects' on the federal budget by increasing payroll tax revenue by $7 billion to $13.9 billion and reducing expenditures on public assistance programs by $13.4 billion to $31 billion."

"This is a sizable chunk of money, no matter how you look at it," David Cooper, senior economic analyst at EPI, said in an interview with the Times.

"I personally think we ought to be getting rid of the filibuster, but at the very least we ought to be expanding reconciliation to apply to many more prospects."
—Rep. Ro Khanna

The two studies come as progressive lawmakers are ramping up pressure on Democratic leaders to aggressively use the reconciliation process to pass a robust coronavirus relief package, a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, and other key priorities without having to seek support from hostile and seditionist Republicans.

"I personally think we ought to be getting rid of the filibuster, but at the very least we ought to be expanding reconciliation to apply to many more prospects," Rep. Ro Khanna (D. Calif.) told the Wall Street Journal last week.

The Senate parliamentarian is tasked with deciding whether a provision qualifies under reconciliation—but Vice President Kamala Harris or, in her absence, Senate president pro tempore Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) have the constitutional authority to overrule the parliamentarian.

Bill Dauster, an expert on federal budget law who served as deputy chief of staff for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), wrote in an op-ed for Roll Call last month that "as raising the minimum wage is budgetary, the parliamentarian should allow it to be included in reconciliation."

"If the Senate parliamentarian does not advise them that Congress can include the minimum wage in budget reconciliation," added Dauster, "Harris or Leahy should exercise their constitutional authority to say that it can."

Speaking to the Associated Press last week, Sanders said that "my Republican colleagues used reconciliation to give almost $2 trillion in tax breaks to the rich and large corporations in the midst of massive income inequality."

"They used reconciliation to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act and throw 32 million people off the healthcare they had," the Vermont senator continued. "They used reconciliation to allow for drilling in the Arctic wilderness. You know what? I think we can use reconciliation to protect the needs of working families."

 

'Inhumane': As CBO Warns Employment Won't Recover Until 2024, GOP Offers Mere 3-Month Extension of Jobless Aid

"Workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own shouldn't be constantly worrying that they are going to lose their income overnight."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) speaks with reporters in the Senate subway after a vote in the Capitol on Tuesday, January 26, 2021. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

As the Congressional Budget Office projected Monday morning that U.S. employment likely won't recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2024, a group of Senate Republicans unveiled a $618 billion coronavirus relief proposal that would only extend emergency jobless aid for three months—an offer that Senate Democrats immediately rejected as cruel and unacceptable.

"The package outlined by 10 Senate Republicans is far too small to provide the relief the American people need," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), incoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. "In particular, a three-month extension of jobless benefits is a non-starter."

"Many states still have not gotten benefits out the door after Donald Trump's tantrum in December caused them to lapse, and we're facing another cliff in just six weeks."
—Sen. Ron Wyden

With pandemic unemployment programs set to expire next month without congressional action, Wyden said that "we can't keep jumping from cliff to cliff every few months." At present, around 18 million Americans are receiving some form of unemployment assistance.

"Many states still have not gotten benefits out the door after Donald Trump's tantrum in December caused them to lapse, and we're facing another cliff in just six weeks," said the Oregon Democrat. "Workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own shouldn't be constantly worrying that they are going to lose their income overnight."

Led by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the GOP group on Monday released a relief proposal that amounts to less than a third of the size of President Joe Biden's opening offer—a scaled-back figure that was reached by trimming or completely lopping off major sections of Biden's $1.9 trillion plan. For example, the Republican measure does not include any money for state and local aid or housing assistance, and it excludes the $15 federal minimum wage provision that Biden proposed.

Additionally, the Republican plan would provide checks of $1,000—$400 less than the direct payments Biden proposed—and further tighten eligibility requirements for the money. Only individuals earning less than $40,000 a year and married couples earning less than $80,000 a year would receive the full direct payment under the GOP proposal.

The 10 Republican senators are expected to meet with Biden at the White House later Monday afternoon to discuss the $618 billion counteroffer.

In a statement ahead of the meeting, Saru Jayaraman, executive director and co-founder of advocacy group One Fair Wage, urged Biden to stick to his promise of a bold relief package.

"Screwing working people over by cutting them out of the recovery deal wouldn't just be bad policy but bad politics for the hundreds of thousands of workers who supported Biden and the Democrats in their pledges to raise the minimum wage and end the subminimum wage for essential restaurant workers," Jayaraman warned.

Here is the topline breakdown of the $618 billion Senate GOP COVID relief proposal.
The 10 GOP senators, led by @SenatorCollins, meet with Pres. Biden at 5pm today at the White House. pic.twitter.com/CXO2OSMHhZ

— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) February 1, 2021

Economist Claudia Sahm tweeted Monday that "what infuriates me most about the Republican proposal" is that "cuts back on support for the unemployed."

"Saving money on the backs of the unemployed and their families is inhumane," wrote Sahm.

The Republican senators are offering to extend the current federal unemployment boost of $300 per week through the end of June, whereas Biden's plan calls for a six-month extension with a weekly federal supplement of $400. Progressives have urged (pdf) Biden to go further by restoring the $600-per-week unemployment boost that expired at the end of July.

"With a labor market this shaky and the pandemic raging, now is certainly not the time to take our foot off the gas."
—Lindsay Owens, Groundwork Collaborative

"Best of all would be [to] put essential relief on autopilot and tie it to economic conditions," wrote Sahm, referring to so-called automatic stabilizers. "I know that one is a bigger fight. I will stick with it until it's won. Countless, tragic examples in this crisis that we cannot let Republicans hold relief hostage."

The CBO said Monday that while it expects U.S. economic growth to bounce back substantially within the next few months, the nation's total employment levels are likely to remain below what they were before the coronavirus pandemic for several years. According to the independent budget office, the U.S. unemployment rate will likely remain above the 2019 average of 3.7% for the rest of this decade.

"We have an opportunity to do much better than 'pre-pandemic levels,'" Janelle Jones, chief economist at the Labor Department, tweeted in response to the CBO's projections. "For millions of Americans, that was not good enough. It was a state of economic instability and insecurity. Let's do better."

Pushing back against the argument that the CBO's findings on economic growth suggest a large stimulus package is unnecessary, Lindsay Owens of the Groundwork Collaborative told the Washington Post that "with a labor market this shaky and the pandemic raging, now is certainly not the time to take our foot off the gas."

While the group of 10 Republicans portrayed their $618 billion offer as an attempt to move toward bipartisan "compromise" on the next stimulus package, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) tweeted Monday that "we're not compromising on whether Americans get real help or not."

"Cutting help for families, eliminating aid for state and local governments—totally unacceptable," Merkley wrote. "We must pass a serious plan to meet the scale of this crisis—with GOP support if possible, without if necessary."

On tap: More violent MAGA sedition, even mock secession? Spineless Repugs alone hold the Stop Sign

Despite being the slam-dunk impeachment of all time, cowardly Repugs can still betray their honor and oaths to the Constitution.

By

 Robert S. Becker

 -

February 1, 2021NationofChange

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Image Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

The cult of Trump feverishly looks to the Confederacy’s Lost Cause Martyrdom Scheme

News flash: the bizarro Conniver-in-chief just lost his entire Senate trial defense team. And nitwit Giuliani can’t substitute, being a potential witness. The exiting attorneys likely insisted on gold bars in advance, aside from guffawing at Trump’s crazed strategy to condone the House insurrection indictment because the election was “stolen.” In such separate worlds are these positions, we look to satirist Andy Borowitz to explain, “Trump to Defend Self After Receiving Law Degree from Trump University.” That’ll ice it, Trump being the only criminal defendant, acting for himself, who could induce 17 craven Rethumpicans to find him guilty.

Senate conviction remains a long shot, but, strangely enough, a bi-partisan whacking would be the best thing for everyone – for the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the mental health of 90% of America. Only conviction forever kills Trump’s farcical election lie – and outlaws another run. Alas, justice must wait as the Senate looks to duplicate what Trump always counts on: running away, bankruptcies, never being held accountable. If Trump escapes this most obvious rap, how do we hold anybody responsible for anything? If a president gets away with inciting a treasonous riot (warring against the government), then badly wounded are the integrity of elections, thus majority rule, thus voting, thus democratic representation. Could one oblivious buffoon do so much damage? Not alone. Despite being the slam-dunk impeachment of all time, cowardly Repugs can still betray their honor and oaths to the Constitution.

Only conviction summarily removes the cancer that opened the gates for the MAGA crowd to do their worst by undermining faith in enduring American institutions. Any Trump thugsters who invaded the Capitol, calling to lynch Mike Pence, if not members of Congress, must be expunged from the body politic. What better vaccination is there against a political pandemic that will certainly outlive its virulent, viral cousin?

Mock Confederacy rises again?

Judging by the surge and duration of current sedition, Trump’s anti-American rebellion invokes traitorous Confederate forebears (thus all those kind words for white supremacy). First came sputtering, lie-induced outrage, then threats, then failed attacks on state houses, and now a direct assault on the Capitol. And all locked down by an irrational conspiracy, overflowing with gall, that posits Biden as the Cheater-in-chief. For today and history, no one but the phony, deranged, witless grifter from Queens will own that prize.

All the mounting evidence, especially that multiple radicals conspired when organizing the Capitol assault, supports terrorist expert and retired Army General Stanley McChrystal’s assessment: even without Trump, the “radical movement he helped create has its own momentum and cohesion now and simply awaits a new charismatic leader to fill the gap left by Trump.” He adds, “something very dangerous has been woven, and it’s further along than most Americans care to admit,” openly comparing MAGA terrorists to Al-Qaeda.

Thus, imagining the next sequence requires no genius. However impeachment turns out, the Senate vote will incite more terrorist threats, building on their tragic, avoidable success in D.C., more focused protests, and likely more destruction and bloodshed. Whatever happens, is this not the predictable finale for all those who defy the American experiment: secession? Are senators Cruz or Hawley or Rand Paul all that different from bellicose southerners egging on Civil War by ridiculing our most basic Constitutional mandates? Are there not at large enough militants hundreds o9f with millions of guns to sustain years of wreckage? In contrast, for the record, right now thousands of Russians fighting for freedom are overcoming cold and arrest to challenge Putin’s tyranny, especially the abuse of one opposition leader. Quite a nifty difference in protest movements.

The best, if now increasingly squandered guarantee of justice and national stability depends on an overwhelming Congressional consensus that confirms the Biden election, rule by law and the Constitution. All else falls short. Another big civil war may not be looming, but there’s a world of pain between one appalling Capitol invasion vs. what tens of thousands of angry, armed extremists could pull off. So not only are heroic, rightwing “peacemakers” missing in action, but indefensible Senate obstruction gives insurrectionists approval to rampage at will. If Trump gets away with inciting a riotous, treasonous mob, brace for Palin’s bad advice: “don’t retreat, reload.” All that, despite the obvious double-bind: were Trump convicted, however unlikely, that way martyrdom lies. Were he acquitted, that way lies a void of accountability, thus more chaos, confusion and who knows what else (guessing the new, egregious bottom is a fool’s errand). If complicit rightwing officials fail to impede “don’t retreat, reload” thugs, we all better learn to duck and run with agility.

The last desperate Trump scam

How many fantasized that Trump’s frightful exit would defuse his impact, even partly damp down the insurgents he dragged into the Republican Party. So much for reducing Trump’s “mainstreaming of madness, as Frank Figiuzzi, ex-FBI/MSNBC commentator puts it. One step further, Wash Post’s Dana Milbank declares, “This is not mere madness — it is madness with consequences.” General McChrystal completes the hat trick with this dire parallel, “President Trump has updated the [Confederate] Lost Cause with his ‘Stop the Steal’ narrative, that they lost because of a stolen election,” thus driving the extremist base. Trump gave them “legitimacy to become even more radical,” McChrystal informed Yahoo News.  

Trump’s calculated martyrdom is his last desperate play to resurrect a Lost Cause replay of this southern myth. That abysmal rewriting of history posited how Southern belligerence was justified, with noble, romantic aims. The Civil War was never thus about plantation slavery nor oppressing blacks, but an heroic quest, reflecting the superior Southern culture of grace, honor, civility and glory vs. the greedy, mercantile, wealth-obsessed North. As with Trump, all Lost Cause scams are about redemption and the magical return of overt deplorables to legitimacy. Thus, for over a century all those public, post-war statures that glorified traitors (many toppled).

How different is the South’s Lost Cause scheme from Trump’s much cruder “Stop the Steal”? In Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong and Teaching What Really Happened, sociology professor James W. Loewen establishes that “Confederates won with the pen (and the noose) what they could not win on the battlefield: the cause of white supremacy and the dominant understanding of what the war was all about.” Lost Causes, whether Trump’s or the Confederacy’s, represent the ultimate fake news, trying to win with propaganda what reality emphatically withheld. The worst outcome from the Civil War was/is to sustain 1860’s tensions, reinforced now by discrimination, institutionalized racism and hiring police to brutalize law-abiding black citizens.

The slave-holding, Southern rebellion will never “rise again,” but Trumpism, with or without the Conniver-in chief, is the greatest menace to the US of A, dwarfing the now hard-fought coronavirus pandemic. The only way to “Stop the Steal” lost cause is for the current crop of elected Retrumplicans to reverse course (and perhaps keep their national party from disintegration). If elections, let alone Congressional operations, are not sacrosanct, then doomsayers claiming America is finished will be proved right.

Remember, the Confederacy, always a long shot to win on the battlefield, caused four years of unspeakable disruption, and hundreds of thousands of deaths, without resolving the underlying cultural, political or moral/ racial conflicts. Few doubted that America would overcome 9/11 attacks; many more today are not so sure about Trumpism, when aided and abetted by a craven national party’s leadership. If looking to foment a new kind of civil war, MAGA terrorism is more dangerous than religious fanatics thousands of miles away.

Robert S. Becker

For over a decade, Robert S. Becker's independent, rebel-rousing essays on politics and culture analyze overall trends, history, implications, messaging and frameworks. He has been published widely, aside from Nation of Change and RSN, with extensive credits from OpEdNews (as senior editor), Alternet, Salon, Truthdig, Smirking Chimp, Dandelion Salad, Beyond Chron, and the SF Chronicle. Educated at Rutgers College, N.J. (B.A. English) and U.C. Berkeley (Ph.D. English), Becker left university teaching (Northwestern, then U. Chicago) for business, founding SOTA Industries, a top American high end audio company he ran from '80 to '92. From '92-02, he was an anti-gravel mining activist while doing marketing, business and writing consulting. Since then, he seeks out insight, even wit in the shadows, without ideology or righteousness across the current mayhem of American politics.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$T CONSULTANT

McKinsey to pay US$573 million for role in US opioid crisis

Lawsuits unearthed documents showing how McKinsey worked to drive sales of Purdue Pharma's OxyContin painkiller.

PHOTO: REUTERS

NEW YORK (NYTIMES) - McKinsey & Co, the consultant to blue-chip corporations and governments around the world, has agreed to pay US$573 million (S$764.8 million) to settle investigations into its role in helping "turbocharge" opioid sales, a rare instance of it being held publicly accountable for its work with clients.

The firm has reached the agreement with attorneys general in 47 states, the District of Columbia and five territories, according to five people familiar with the negotiations. The settlement comes after lawsuits unearthed a trove of documents showing how McKinsey worked to drive sales of Purdue Pharma's OxyContin painkiller amid an opioid epidemic in the United States that has contributed to the deaths of more than 450,000 people over the past two decades.

McKinsey's extensive work with Purdue included advising it to focus on selling lucrative high-dose pills, the documents show, even after the drugmaker pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal criminal charges that it had misled doctors and regulators about OxyContin's risks. The firm also told Purdue that it could "band together" with other opioid-makers to head off "strict treatment" by the Food and Drug Administration.

McKinsey will not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, to be filed in state courts on Thursday (Feb 4), but it will agree to court-ordered restrictions on its work with some types of addictive narcotics, according to those familiar with the arrangement. McKinsey will also retain emails for five years and disclose potential conflicts of interest when bidding for state contracts. And, in a move similar to the tobacco industry settlements decades ago, it will put tens of thousands of pages of documents related to its opioid work onto a publicly available database.

States will use the civil penalties - US$478 million of which must be paid within 60 days - for opioid treatment, prevention and recovery programs, the people said. It will be the first money states will see after Purdue Pharma in October agreed to pay US$8.3 billion and plead guilty to federal criminal charges over its marketing of OxyContin. Purdue declared bankruptcy, meaning the states party to that agreement will have to line up with other creditors.

Separately, members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue, agreed last fall to pay the federal government US$225 million in civil penalties, and are in talks with other litigants to pay US$3 billion.

Many states were dissatisfied with the October deal, which the Trump administration's Justice Department reached only days before the former president was defeated in November's election.

The amount McKinsey is paying is also substantially more than it earned from opioid-related work with Purdue or Johnson & Johnson, Endo International and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, its other opioid-maker clients, one of the people said.

A spokesman for McKinsey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

One former McKinsey partner called the settlement hugely significant because it shatters the distance McKinsey - which argues that it only makes recommendations - puts between its advice and its clients' actions. For decades, the firm has avoided legal liability for high-profile failures of some clients, including the energy company Enron and Swissair, Switzerland's defunct national airline. The former partner asked for anonymity because former McKinsey employees are bound by confidentiality agreements.

Making McKinsey and its competitors even more vulnerable is the fact that in recent years they have aggressively moved into a new line of work, not only offering management advice but also helping companies implement their suggestions.

"As we look back at our client service during the opioid crisis, we recognize that we did not adequately acknowledge the epidemic unfolding in our communities or the terrible impact of opioid abuse and addiction on millions of families across the country," the company said in a statement. The firm later changed the statement to read "misuse" instead of "abuse."

The agreement with the 47 states - Nevada, Washington and West Virginia weren't party to it - doesn't preclude the Biden administration from also seeking legal action against McKinsey. Additionally, several counties and cities across the country - including Mingo County in West Virginia, one of the states hardest hit by the opioid crisis - have sued McKinsey in recent days.

The Asian Voice
Indian farmer protests a daunting challenge for Modi government: Daily Star columnist
The writer says that had the Bharatiya Janata Party foiled the farmers' journey through its territory, it might have given rise to a serious law and order situation, something the saffron party can ill-afford.

Indian security personnel clash with Indian people during a protest in solidarity with Indian farmers who are protesting at various borders adjoining New Delhi, India on Feb 3 2021. 

PHOTO: EPA-EFE

Pallab Bhattacharya

2/3/2021

DHAKA (THE DAILY STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The biggest political challenge that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government faces right now is the agitation on the outskirts of Delhi by farmers coming mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western part of Uttar Pradesh.

The protest by thousands of farmers has already entered its third month, and there is no sign of a resolution even after eleven rounds of talks between the protesters and the government.

Both sides are firmly entrenched in their respective position on the fate of the three new contentious agricultural laws piloted by the Modi government as one of its bold reform initiatives.


While the farmer unions insist on total repeal of the laws, the government has offered to make changes in the legislation to address their concerns, an offer that the unions lost no time in rejecting.

What's more worrying for the government is that the farmers are intensifying their agitation and have threatened to block highways across India on Feb 4 to press their demand.

Desperate to end the protest which has already set off churnings within a section of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the government had offered to put the three laws on hold for 18 months to allow more discussions on the issue.

But it did not work as the protesters apparently took it as a sign of its defensive posture. The offer to suspend the laws was made after taking a cue from a suggestion made earlier by the Supreme Court.

The apex court's proposal to appoint an expert panel to study the laws was seen as "a face saver" for the government, but some have also called it a "judicial overreach".

The agitation, which had been peaceful for the first two months, took a violent turn on Jan 26 when the farmers riding tractors smashed through security barricades and entered the Indian capital from various points.

The most serious part of the violence was the protesters storming the Red Fort, an iconic Mughal-era landmark, and the hoisting of a religious flag at the ramparts from where the prime minister addresses the nation on Independence Day on August 15 every year.

There have been allegations and counter-allegations from both sides, but there is no doubt that the violence came as a setback to the farmers who were hit by a rift as two of the 40-odd unions of farmers pulled out of the agitation.

A number of national and regional farm unions, with separate leaders, have come under the umbrella banner of Samyukt Kisan Morcha for the ongoing agitation.

However, the protest by the other unions not only continues but the number of protesters also appears to be swelling.

The three new laws in question are: The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.

The farmers' contention is that the laws will lead to the creation of private mandis (village markets for selling crops) which, along with the state-run Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMC), will push all agriculture businesses towards private markets.

This, they argue, will end the existing government markets and intermediary (commission agents) mechanism for procurement and allow large, financially powerful traders and corporate houses operating in the markets to procure farm produce at "incidental" prices.

The farmers also want the federal government to provide the legal guarantee of a minimum support price (MSP) for their crops by introducing a new law.

Another key contention of the farmers is that since the state governments will not be able to collect market fee, cess (a form of tax) or levy for trade outside the APMC markets, the laws will make them vulnerable to corporates which might exploit them.

On the other hand, the government has proposed that there will be a uniform policy of taxes, fee and cess for both government and private markets.

But the farmers are distrustful of that, claiming the government would delay procurement and turn the public markets inefficient.

In Punjab and Haryana, the commission agents and farmers enjoy a relationship developed over the decades under the existing system of crop procurement.

On an average, at least 50-100 farmers are attached to each agent who takes care of farmers' financial loans and ensures procurement and prices for their crops.

Farmers are apprehensive that the new laws will do away with these agents and have them replaced by corporate houses that may not help them in their hour of need - for example, in cases not related to farming such as marriage in the family or house construction.

Inherent in this is the fear of the new and the uncertainties that inevitably come with any change.

A majority of the protesting farmers are from Punjab where the ruling Congress party and main opposition party Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have already shown their support to the farmers. According to a study by Punjab Agricultural University, there are more than 1.2 million farming families in Punjab and 28,000 registered commission agents.

A large part of Punjab's political economy relies on funds infused by federal and state-owned procurement agencies that buy a major portion of wheat and rice grown in the state.

In the 2019-2020 rabi crop season, Punjab supplied 129.1 lakh ( hundred thousand) tonnes of the 341.3 lakh tonnes' wheat procured for the federal government's pool.

A sizable number of the protesters are also from neighbouring Haryana state, ruled by BJP, where the party is in a catch-22 situation.

To enter Delhi, farmers from Punjab have to cross through Haryana but the state government has failed to prevent the swelling crowds of protesters coming to Delhi from Rajasthan and Punjab, the two states ruled by the Congress.

Had the BJP foiled the farmers' journey through its territory, it might have given rise to a serious law and order situation, something the saffron party can ill-afford.

A question that is often asked is why farmers in other Indian states are not hitting the streets in support of their colleagues in Punjab and Haryana.

There is no APMC Act in at least 15 Indian states, and nearly 18 states allow private markets and direct purchase from farmers by private corporate houses.

It is estimated, therefore, that the three farm laws are expected to make a difference only in some states and chiefly in respect of cereal crops and onion because most of the vegetables are already out of the purview of APMC markets.

In pushing through the farm laws, Narendra Modi's BJP government followed up on its economic agenda, which revolves around market economy, as vigorously as it pursued its political-ideological agenda of scrapping the special constitutional status of Kashmir and criminalising instant triple talaq as a step towards a uniform civil code.

According to the government, the idea behind the three laws is to liberalise the farm markets in the hope that doing so would make the whole system more efficient and allow farmers to get more options to sell their crops and thereby stand a chance to earn a more remunerative price.

India's progressive deregulation of the farm sector envisages a shift from input subsidies and procurement regimes like MSP to income support and facilitation of greater private investment in agriculture, which badly requires fund infusion particularly to build cold chain infrastructure and other forms of value addition and join the global food supply chain that remains insulated from disruptions like Covid-19.

This is also a foreign policy objective strongly advocated by the Modi government in its outreach to major countries like the US, Japan and Australia.

According to an official estimate, India's share in global food markets stands at 2.3 per cent. The efforts to make India a key link in the global food supply chain by becoming a major food exporter need a major investment in agriculture.

As the budget session of parliament progresses, the opposition is gearing up to corner the government on the issues of farm laws and the unrelenting protests by farmers at Delhi's borders.

And with many parties including regional outfits and some BJP allies - some of which have clout in rural areas - rallying behind the farmers, the government has its task cut out.

The RSS' call to the government to be sensitive in handling the farmers' agitation has drawn murmurs of discontent in a section of the BJP that feels that the issue could have been handled more tactfully.

One view is that since the government is ready to put the three laws on hold for one and a half years for facilitating more talks with the farmers' unions, this could have been done before the bills containing the laws were introduced in parliament last year, or that they could have been referred to a select committee once the objections were flagged, which would have weakened opposition to the laws.

On the other hand, the farmers would do well to show flexibility, an ingredient inherent in across-the-table negotiations, for any resolution to be reached.

Pallab Bhattacharya is a special correspondent for The Daily Star. The paper is a member of The Straits Times media partner Asia News Network, an alliance of 23 news media titles in the region.

 MYANMAR COUP UPDATE

Evidence shows oil industry flaring in Texas being done without permits

“Our state regulators—and our industry—has a long way to go to clean up our act.”

By

 Nick Cunningham

 -

February 1, 2021DeSmogBlog

Image Credit: Julie Dermansky/DeSmogBlog

In 2019 and 2020, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) conducted three helicopter surveys over the oil fields of West Texas. Flying over flare stacks at more than three hundred oil and gas drilling sites, EDF staff used infrared cameras to document unlit flares whose methane pollution is invisible to the naked eye. Their survey found that roughly 1 in 10 flares in the Permian basin were either unlit or malfunctioning. And a new report adds another layer onto this problem—whether the flares are even permitted in the first place.

The incidence of flaring natural gas, which is primarily methane, at drilling sites in the Permian basin skyrocketed in recent years as fracking proliferated and the industry drilled tens of thousands of wells. Burning natural gas at the wellhead would be wasteful enough, but some drillers simply release the gas into the atmosphere, a practice known as “venting.”

When a flare is unlit, it releases huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere rather than carbon dioxide, and methane is more than 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas over a 20-year period. The EDF finding suggests that the climate pollution from the Permian basin was much worse than previously thought.

No Permit, No Problem?

The climate impact isn’t the only issue with the Permian’s flaring that has been flagged recently. Environmental watchdog group Earthworks looked at 45 drilling sites on state land that EDF surveyed. They cross-referenced those sites with a database published by the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), which regulates the oil and gas industry and issues permits for flaring.

In a report released Thursday, January 28, Earthworks found that of the 45 surveyed sites, 34 of them — or 75 percent — did not even have flaring permits from the RRC. And eight of them were identified by EDF as having unlit or malfunctioning flares.

Oil companies are allowed to flare their methane gas for only 10 days after a well is drilled. They can receive waivers to flare for longer periods of time, but that is supposed to be only for exceptional circumstances. In practice, however, the RRC dishes out flaring permits far and wide. In 2019, the RRC issued 6,900 such permits, and never denied a single permit over the course of the multi-year drilling boom in the Permian basin.

In other words, while rampant flaring is commonplace, some companies are flaring without even obtaining the necessary permits. Worse, some of the flares aren’t lit, making their climate impact much higher.

The environmental groups were only able to sample a very small slice of drilling sites in the Permian basin, which has grown to become one of the largest producing oil fields in the world. Earthworks only looked at 45 sites on state land, but there are over 36,000 drill sites on state land in Texas, so the amount of unpermitted and unlit flaring is likely vastly higher than we know. The Texas General Land Office (GLO), which permits drilling on state land, did not respond to a request for comment.

Report: @earthworks 75% of #oilandgas flares on State Land could be unpermitted.
@txglo, @TCEQ, and @txrrc are allowing oil & gas companies to skirt the law at the expense of Texans’ health & climate. They must stop issuing new permits.https://t.co/81QtpR02K4 pic.twitter.com/SDd41qmABn

— TXsharon (@TXsharon) January 28, 2021

“The law requires flaring permits because the practice is wasteful and polluting, as Republicans and Democrats alike have agreed over the past few months,” Earthworks’ Senior Field Advocate, Sharon Wilson, said in a statement. “The oil and gas industry’s contempt for the law coupled with the GLO, TCEQ [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality] and [Texas Railroad Commission] failures to uphold it illustrates why permitting of new oil and gas operations must end.”

The scourge of flaring in the Permian basin has been known for years. In 2020, EDF estimated that methane escaping from oil and gas operations in the most productive part of the Permian basin was three times what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates, although in the worst cases, individual sites leaked methane at 100 times the national average rate. 

“This report adds to a mounting pile of evidence that Texas’ flaring regulations — or lack thereof — are entirely inadequate,” Emma Pabst, an advocate with Environment Texas, said in a statement. “As we head into our state’s legislative session, we need lawmakers to know that when it comes to stopping routine flaring, inspections and enforcement are paramount to address the problem of climate change.” 

Turning down the tap on methane

The report comes at a time when the Biden administration is looking to tighten the screws on methane. In 2016, the Obama administration imposed federal methane regulations on oil and gas operations, including on pipelines. The Trump administration repealed those rules in 2020, and separately, a U.S. federal court struck down the same Obama-era rules. However, on January 20, as part of a slew of Day 1 executive orders, President Joe Biden directed the EPA to consider new methane regulations.

The oil industry itself has come around to the idea of federal regulation. For years, industry pushed for “voluntary” measures only, touting its own efforts to reduce methane emissions. It fought tooth and nail against regulation and applauded the Trump administration’s efforts to gut federal oversight.

But pressure has continued to increase as the climate crisis worsens, and not just from environmental groups. On at least two occasions in the last few months, deals to export American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe fell through — one to Ireland and one to France — due to concerns about unregulated methane in the U.S.

The pressure is forcing a change of heart within the oil industry. One of the issues the American Petroleum Institute (API) said that it wanted to cooperate on with the Biden administration was federal methane regulations. In addition, a few oil majors voiced support for methane regulations last year ahead of the Trump rollback.

Investors are also advising regulation. “We view methane regulation, which has received support from many oil & gas corporates, as constructive for the industry’s ‘social license’ to operate,” Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to clients on January 28. The investment bank added that methane emissions from leaks, flaring, and venting are “avoidable without much incremental cost for public Energy companies.”

A recent report by industry analysts at Rystad Energy, on behalf of EDF, came to a similar conclusion. Rystad estimates that 40 percent of expected flaring could be zeroed out by 2025 at no cost. “A lot of this is avoidable,” Mike McCormick, a principal at Rystad, told Bloomberg.

It is worth noting that the industry’s word should not be taken at face value. API’s support for methane regulation came with the caveat that the industry “should be included in discussions to shape a regulatory regime that’s sensible,” which suggests it wants a particular outcome.

Meanwhile, BP, which has been outspoken about its energy transition ambitions, and has specifically supported federal methane regulation, is doing something quite different on the ground. Bloomberg reports that on January 26, BP went to the Texas RRC to obtain 121 flaring permits.

Even the RRC, which by all accounts has given the industry free rein over the past half-decade, expressed frustration.

“I am amenable to allowing fair time for flaring to occur in certain circumstances, but limits must be set,” Jim Wright, a Republican who joined the three-member commission in January, said in a statement. Instead of approving the permits, as has been customary in the past, the RRC decided to delay a decision until its next meeting.

While the RRC may begin to look a bit more closely at requests for flaring permits, the Earthworks report makes clear the scale of the issue — there are likely many more instances of flaring and venting than the RCC even knows about. As the report shows, Cyrus Reed of Sierra Club Lonestar chapter, said in a statement: “Our state regulators — and our industry – has a long way to go to clean up our act.”

UPDATE 01/29/2021: In an emailed statement to DeSmog, Andrew Keese, a spokesperson for the Texas RRC said: “The RRC’s commitment to further reducing flaring is reflected in actions commissioners took last November to revamp the application for exceptions.” Keese is referring to the RRC’s decision to require more information from companies that want flaring permits, and a vow to reduce allowed flaring times. Critics say the move didn’t go far enough.

Keese also pointed to the decline in flaring intensity. “The most recent RRC production data shows that in the last year and half, the percentage of natural gas flared compared to the natural gas produced in Texas dropped from a high of 2.3% in June 2019, to 0.77% in November 2020. During the same period, the volume of gas flared decreased by more than 71%,” Keese said. This, however, encompassed a period in which drilling activity collapsed due to the pandemic.