TRANS RIGHTS ARE WORKERS RIGHTS

3 sue to strike Georgia ban on transgender care for workers

JEFF AMY
Wed, December 14, 2022 

ATLANTA (AP) — Two state employees and a public school media clerk are suing the state of Georgia, saying state health insurance illegally discriminates by refusing to pay for gender-transition health care.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Atlanta on Wednesday by Micha Rich, Benjamin Johnson and an anonymous state employee suing on behalf of her adult child.

They argue Georgia's State Health Benefit Plan, which insures more than 660,000 state government and public school employees and retirees, is breaking federal law.

“The exclusion not only harms the health and finances of transgender people seeking gender dysphoria treatment, it also reinforces the stigma attached to being transgender, suffering from gender dysphoria and seeking a gender transition,” the lawsuit argues. “The exclusion communicates to transgender persons and to the public that their state government deems them unworthy of equal treatment.”

The plaintiffs said the rule should be overturned and they should be repaid for the money they spent on procedures not covered by insurance. They have also requested money damages and attorneys’ fees.

The Department of Community Health, which administers the plan, declined comment, according to spokesperson Fiona Roberts.

The lawsuit cites a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that treating someone differently because they are transgender or gay violates a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. The plaintiffs in that case included an employee of Georgia's Clayton County.

The suit also argues that Georgia's actions violate the 14th Amendment right to equal protection, and that in the case of Johnson, violate federal prohibitions against sex discrimination in education.

It's the fourth in a line of lawsuits against Georgia agencies to force them to pay for gender-confirmation surgery and other procedures. State and local governments have lost or settled the previous suits, changing rules to pay for transgender care.

The University System of Georgia paid $100,000 in damages in addition to changing its rules in 2019 when it settled a case brought by a University of Georgia catering manager. A jury in September ordered Houston County to pay $60,000 in damages to a sheriff’s deputy after a federal judge ruled her bosses illegally denied the deputy health coverage for gender-confirmation surgery.

The Department of Community Health, which also oversees the State Health Benefit Plan, agreed to change the rules of Georgia’s Medicaid program in April to settle a lawsuit by two Medicaid beneficiaries.

The lawsuit comes as some other states seek to ban all gender-confirming care for children. Georgia could consider such a ban next year.

The plaintiffs include three transgender men. Micha Rich is a staff accountant at the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts. Benjamin Johnson is a media clerk with the Bibb County School District in Macon. The mother of the third man, identified only as John Doe, is a Division of Family and Children Services administrative support worker in suburban Paulding County and covers the college student on her insurance.

All three were assigned as women at birth but transitioned after therapy. All three were seeking top surgery to reduce or remove breasts. All three appealed their denials and won findings from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Georgia was discriminating against them. The U.S. Department of Justice also started an investigation.

“They did not accept our invitation to negotiate an end to their discrimination without litigation — and, plainly, they didn’t remove the exclusion,” wrote David Brown, legal director for Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, which is representing the plaintiffs..

In the meantime, Rich paid $11,200 for his surgery in 2021 and later declared bankruptcy. The Paulding County family paid $8,769 for John Doe's surgery and is still repaying loans. Both Rich and Doe also say the state also owes them for testosterone prescriptions. Johnson dropped his state insurance and bought coverage elsewhere, having surgery in September.

“My employer should not be able to deny me health care because of who I am,” Rich said in a statement. “For years, I had to put off living my life fully while I waited to have the medical treatments that my doctors and I knew I needed.”

In question are two health plans paid for by the state but administered by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and UnitedHealthcare.

The lawsuit states insurers told the department in 2016 that transgender exclusions were discriminatory. It also says a state lawyer told health plan leadership in July 2020 that a court would likely find the rule illegal.

“Yet the defendants have knowingly and intentionally maintained the exclusion year after year, long after it became plain — and the SBHP itself concluded — that doing so is unlawful discrimination," the lawsuit states.

A recent court ruling found a similar ban in North Carolina to be illegal. The state is appealing. A Wisconsin ban was overturned in 2018. West Virginia and Iowa have also lost lawsuits over employee coverage, Brown said, while Florida and Arizona are being sued.

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Follow Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.

Puerto Rican independence bill goes to U.S. House vote on Thursday



Wed, December 14, 2022 at 5:03 PM·2 min read
By Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Puerto Ricans could move a step closer to a referendum on whether the island should become a U.S. state, an independent country or have another type of government when the House of Representatives votes Thursday on a bill outlining the process.

A House committee approved the Puerto Rico Status Act on Wednesday, paving the way for the full House vote.

The legislation lays out terms of a plebiscite as well as three potential self-governing statuses - independence, full U.S. statehood or sovereignty with free association with the United States. The latter is in place in Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands.

Puerto Rico, which has about 3.3 million people and high rates of poverty, became a U.S. territory in 1898. Activists have campaigned for greater self-determination including statehood for decades.

There have been six referendums on the topic since the 1960s, but they were nonbinding. Only Congress can grant statehood.

"After 124 years of colonialism Puerto Ricans deserve a fair, transparent, and democratic process to finally solve the status question," Representative Nydia Velazquez, a Democratic cosponsor of the bill, said on Twitter.

The Caribbean island's citizens are Americans but do not have voting representation in Congress, cannot vote in presidential elections, do not pay federal income tax on income earned on the island and do not have the same eligibility for some federal programs as other U.S. citizens.

If the bill passes the House, it will need 60 votes in the closely divided Senate and Democratic President Joe Biden's signature to become law.

The legislation has the support of lawmakers of both parties and Puerto Rican officials.

But time is running out as lawmakers have a full agenda before a vacation at the end of next week. A new Congress with a Republican-controlled House will be sworn in on Jan. 3, at which point any legislative process would have to start over.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

With the clock ticking, Puerto Rico status bill faces uncertain prospects


Rafael Bernal

The Hill
Wed, December 14, 2022 

A bill to allow Puerto Ricans an open vote on their status is up in the air, as competing political forces from San Juan to Washington wrestle over a dying deal that months ago was hailed as a generational breakthrough.

The Puerto Rico Status Act cleared the House Natural Resources Committee in July, raising hopes among supporters that it would quickly receive a House vote and go to the Senate.

The bill has sat on the back burner for months, and now its proponents face a choice between a likely symbolic House floor vote and a full reset as Republicans take over that chamber.

At the bill’s core is a deal between Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) and Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón (R-P.R.) to hold a binding referendum for Puerto Ricans to choose between statehood, independence, or independence followed by free association with the United States.

That deal — a historical first between people who represent opposite ends of the Puerto Rican political spectrum — was brokered by outgoing Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), for whom the bill is a legacy item.

But as the last chance for the bill to see a House floor vote approaches, new pressure points are breaking out and putting the vote at risk.

For one, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who played a role in negotiations in Velázquez’s corner, has irked González by proposing amendments perceived as poison pills by many of the bill’s supporters.

That’s led to recriminations from González against Ocasio-Cortez.

“We arrived at agreements, and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t respect or validate or validate those agreements, after having been there for two press conferences — I think that’s an intention to water down the project so nothing is passed,” González-Colón told The Hill last week.

“It’s sad for a person who lives in New York, who doesn’t live in Puerto Rico, keeps in suspense 3.2 million U.S. citizens who live on the island, in a permanent colony,” she added.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response that if González “has something real to say she can tell me in person.”

Still, the bill’s key proponents are pushing for a vote despite the infighting.

“We finally have real momentum to bring this bill to the floor. Yes, of course we should still pass it out of the House during this Congress. It’s critical to move this bill as far as we can. Americans in Puerto Rico deserve nothing less,” said Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.), a statehood supporter who backed González in negotiations.

And many statehood proponents outside of Congress are eager to see the bill pass, if only to keep the status conversation alive.

“There’s an opportunity for the broader American public to be aware of this as an issue that needs to be addressed, and so that people in Puerto Rico as well as stateside Puerto Rican voters, can know that Congress is really interested in doing something about this,” said George Laws García, executive director of the Puerto Rico Statehood Council.

But some in the statehood movement are getting cold feet, arguing that the bill’s core deal could lead voters astray.

The bill allows for a self-executing, binding referendum — if the bill became law the referendum would go ahead as a matter of federal law — that would give Puerto Ricans the opportunity to choose between statehood, independence and independence followed by free association with the United States.

Under the bill, most Puerto Ricans would keep their U.S. citizenship under any of the choices, a provision that many detractors say might not be enforceable.

The bill also lacks detail on a number of issues, like the language of business in Puerto Rican courts and schools if statehood were to win.

“I think it’s a missed opportunity, not because it’s a bad bill, it just has incomplete information in the process that led to it. Again, so rushed, no hearings, no complete discussion on amendments, really has brought us here. So maybe that’s a recognition that they just rushed it through in a bad way,” said Federico de Jesús, the chief lobbyist for Power 4 Puerto Rico.

But for some statehood proponents, offering U.S. citizenship with the two forms of independence was a mistake.

“The practical effect of that is you can have many young people, particularly followers of Bad Bunny, who might believe that utopia. It’s not that free association or independence will win, it’s that it will take votes away from statehood,” said Andrés Córdova, a law professor at Inter American University of Puerto Rico.

Rapper Bad Bunny has come out as a top voice against statehood, essentially arguing that joining the United States in full would harm Puerto Rico’s national identity.

And two prominent supporters of statehood who requested anonymity to speak frankly told The Hill the political timing no longer made sense for passage of the bill.

Those statehooders said a bill passed by an outgoing Democratic House majority was more likely to alienate Republicans than keep the issue alive in Washington, all the while agreeing with Córdova that the bill’s concessions unnecessarily weaken the argument for statehood.

Still, the bill’s proponents want to see a House floor vote, regardless of its slim prospects in the Senate, among other things to prove that the United States is moving in the right direction to respect the right to self determination for its colonized citizens and nationals.

“You know, there’s slim prospects in the Senate, always. We passed a bill, as you recall some years ago, at my instance when I was majority leader the first time. That bill passed the House, it did not get consideration in the Senate. I think the bill has greater prospects in the Senate today. But at bottom is the principle that Americans and our country support, and that is the self-determination of peoples,” Hoyer told reporters Tuesday.

“It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing. I want to do the right thing,” added Hoyer.

THE HOSPITAL CRISIS IN NORTH AMERICA

Staffing crisis at Kansas mental hospital deepens. What will lawmakers do next session?

Katie Bernard
Thu, December 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM·8 min read

Last year, as law enforcement and staff raised alarms that Larned State Hospital, Kansas’ largest psychiatric facility, had reached a “crisis level” of understaffing, Gov. Laura Kelly rolled out pay raises.

The Democratic governor’s plan included an across-the-board increase for workers in the state’s 24/7 facilities, as well as additional pay that would kick in based upon staffing levels.

A year later, the situation in Larned has only worsened. Nearly six out of every 10 positions are vacant as the state confronts a deepening workforce shortage that is particularly acute in a rural state hospital that requires grueling work from its staff.

To fill the gaps, Kansas spent more than $28 million on contract nurses at Larned in the last fiscal year. Meanwhile, the state lacks the beds to fill the mental health needs of Kansans and is exploring opening an additional state hospital near Wichita.

Larned plays a crucial role in Kansas’ mental health infrastructure serving state residents while also managing patients ordered to the hospital by a court for treatment or psychiatric evaluations. Adequate staffing is essential to ensuring the hospital can operate at full capacity and ensure the safety of staff and patients alike.

As lawmakers prepare to return to Topeka next month for the Legislature’s annual session, they’re weighing both short and long term changes.

The Kansas Department of Aging and Disabilities, the agency that oversees Larned State Hospital, says it has taken numerous recruitment steps including advertising positions at universities and local workforce centers. Recently the state signed a contract with KSN in Wichita for TV advertisement of the openings.

“Finding trained medical staff is very difficult for every medical facility across the country right now. The pandemic has caused major issues within the medical community that will take time to address – which is a global issue,” Cara Sloan Ramos, a spokeswoman the agency, said in an email.

“The staffing concerns at Larned is further compounded by its rural location of the hospital.”

Laura Howard, left, the top social services administrator in Kansas state government, discusses a plan to merge two agencies as Gov. Laura Kelly, right, watches, during a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, at the Statehouse in Topeka.

Staffing challenges deepen

One of the challenges for Larned in particular is its location. Larned is a small town with a population fewer than 4,000 located 120 miles Northwest of Wichita. It is a difficult area to recruit workers to.

William Nusser, the mayor of Larned, said there’s efforts within the community to recruit workers including housing developments going up around town. But he doesn’t know if it’s enough.

“When I first started getting involved in the state hospital my theory was I’m giving a 10 foot ladder. I just don’t know if we’re in a 20 foot hole,’” Nusser said. “There’s so much mental health demand and we’re working hard.”

Nusser said the staffing problems at Larned started with former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. Under his administration wages froze at the hospital for years. Pay for state workers quickly fell below market rate and workers began to leave.

In Nusser’s view, the situation was finally improving after Kelly was elected. Then, the pandemic hit.

“People are just burnt out,” he said.

COVID-19 left lasting damage on healthcare workforces nationwide in the private and public sector. Nursing shortages became common across the industry as staff members retired early and left the field. There weren’t enough new employees to fill the gaps.

Kansas emerged from the public health crisis facing an ever deepening workforce shortage. While Kelly’s administration has focused energy on job creation; the state’s unemployment rate was at 2.8% in October, according to the Kansas Department of Labor.

Kansas’ workforce is retiring and young people are, by and large, choosing to leave the state rather than stay and take jobs close to home.

In Larned State Hospital the situation became dangerous.

In the past two years the hospital made headlines for inmate escapes and injuries to staff members. Understaffing, said Sarah LaFrenz, president of the state workers union, contributes to safety concerns.

“You don’t know who’s on there with you. You don’t know how many people you’re going to have. If patients are stirred up or upset about something it makes them harder to handle,” she said. “There’s a higher ability to be assaulted at work.”

To fill the gaps the state has increased spending on agency contracts. According to KDADS the spending increased from $12.1 million in fiscal year 2021 to $38.1 million in fiscal year 2022. Roughly three quarters of that spending was on staff for Larned State Hospital.

Sloan Ramos said the department is planning to request additional funding for the next two fiscal years to sustain the contracts.

But the contracts created a new problem where state employees are working side by side with agency staff getting paid two to three times more to do the same job. It could harm the state’s ability to recruit and retain staff.

Kansas House Appropriations Committee Chair Troy Waymaster, R-Bunker Hill, speaks with reporters following a budget briefing from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s budget director, Wednesday, Jan. 12 at the Statehouse in Topeka.

“Contract nursing is very enticing because you have a very high rate of pay even though there’s no benefits that’s really associated with that. There’s been a concern even with our hospitals across the state, our other healthcare facilities, the contract nurses go into the hospitals and kind of, in a way, recruit other nurses to do the same thing,” said Rep. Troy Waymaster, a Bunker Hill Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee.

“I don’t see it going away, the need for the contract nurses.”

Nusser said pay increases are needed to bridge that gap.

“People are expecting $20 minimum,” Nusser said. “You can’t be at $13.81 and expect your staffing problems to ever get any better.”

But LaFrenz and Lynette Delaney, a union steward for Larned, pointed to broader cultural issues.

Agency staff, LaFrenz said, get better hours than state employees and don’t have to work overtime. State employers, she said, are “being overworked what I would term as to death”

Delaney said staff that have remained aren’t treated well by middle management.

“You get a target on your back, especially if you file grievances or you stand up and fight for your rights,” she said.

LaFrenz worried plans to build a new state hospital in the Wichita region would only exacerbate the problem.

“It’s going to be really difficult right now to say ‘yep that’s the answer’ because if you can’t staff one how do you plan to staff the other,” she said.

Lawmakers plan to approve $50 million in federal COVID-19 relief dollars to build a 50 bed facility in the region.

It’s a project state Sen. Carolyn McGinn, a Wichita Republican, has been pushing for for years because the state’s largest city has no nearby state mental health facility. She and other lawmakers said Wichita will provide a broader labor force than Larned has.

“We have enough people here in our own region that we can handle it,” she said. Furthermore, she added that it would help alleviate wait lists for existing state hospitals.
Lawmakers consider solutions

As a short term solution, Waymaster said the state needs to start considering pay increases on a facility by facility basis, rather than the blanket raises that have been traditional in state government.

“We need to start looking at this in individual areas, in every single facility we have,” he said. “We need to start assessing the different environments for each of our facilities like they do in private business.”

Zach Fletcher, a spokesman for Kelly, said the governor’s next budget would include proposals for recruiting and retaining staff across agencies but gave no details.

“State employees are critical to our public safety and the services provided to Kansans. Just like businesses across the country are doing, the Kelly administration continues to explore ways to attract and retain a qualified workforce for all of our current vacancies, including at our state hospitals,” Fletcher said in a statement.

One thing Kelly’s budget is all but certain to include is the governor’s fifth consecutive proposal to expand medicaid. Kansas is one of just 11 states that has not yet expanded the program. But leaders in the Republican supermajority of the Kansas Legislature are adamantly opposed to the policy.

Sen. Tom Hawk, a Manhattan Democrat, said additional funds that would come from expansion could help the state serve Kansans before they reach the state hospitals and ensure the hospitals themselves have adequate resources.

“We need to stop playing with that issue and recognize that it’s one of the solutions, not the whole solution,” he said.

Kansas state Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, speaks with reporters following a legislative committee meeting on federal vaccine mandates on Oct. 29, 2021, at the Statehouse in Topeka.

Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican, has advocated for finding avenues to lower requirements for professionals seeking jobs in the hospital and consider whether the state is requiring too many hours of classes for some positions.

In addition to seeking short term solutions, discussions are underway on how to remedy the situation in the long term.

An interim committee on mental health beds recommended the state establish a scholarship program for students that commit to working at the state hospital after graduation.

McGinn said the long term solution involves getting students interested in healthcare at a young age and establishing incentives for them to stay in Kansas. In addition to scholarships, McGinn said, that includes work to establish programing in career and technical colleges and within junior high and high schools.

“We’ve got to start a new pipeline and introduce the next generation to healthcare. One of those areas happens to be mental health,” she said.

These Indigenous Women Are Fighting Big Oil—And Winning

Thu, December 15, 2022 

Cofan indigenous leader Alexandra Narváez gives an interview during the first meeting of the indigenous guard in charge of protecting native territories from resource exploitation, in Sinangoe, Ecuador, on Sept. 11, 2022

Ecuador's indigenous guards meet in the Amazon to strengthen strategies to protect their territories, which are threatened by resource exploitation and poaching. Credit - Rodrigo Buendia—AFP/ Getty Images

We are two Indigenous women leaders writing from the frontlines of the battle to save our oceans, our forests, and our planet’s climate. We have good news to share: We know how to beat Big Oil.

From the Amazon rainforest to the shores of the Indian Ocean in South Africa, we have led our communities to mighty victories against oil companies who hoped to profit off our territories. In September 2022, we succeeded in getting a court to revoke a permit that would have allowed Shell to despoil Indigenous farming communities and fishing grounds along the pristine Wild Coast of South Africa. Just a few years earlier in April 2019, we organized Indigenous communities deep in the Ecuadorian rainforests to resist the government’s plans to drill in pristine rainforests and were victorious, protecting half a million acres of forests and setting a legal precedent to protect millions more.

Both were David vs. Goliath victories—and both were opportunities for us to learn where to point that fabled slingshot.

Big Oil has the deepest of pockets and a horrific track record when it comes to corruption, scandal, and environmental crimes. Across the world, Indigenous and local communities know that once the industry gets a foothold in our lands, it leaves ruin in its wake. For instance, the A’i Cofán people of Ecuador’s northern Amazon have borne the brunt of decades of oil industry contamination, deforestation, and health impacts. And the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta have lost their fishing and farming lands to polluting oil operations, and have seen their leaders threatened and murdered when they dared to speak out.

Read More: Biden May Be About to Sign Off on a Huge Alaska Oil Drilling Project

As frontline communities, we must work together to stop Big Oil before they enter our lands. But this, in itself, is no easy task. The industry offers alluring promises of “progress” and “development.” And they have people—in government, the military, police forces, shadowy paramilitary groups, and sometimes in our own communities—who are willing to intimidate, harass, and even kill leaders like us who have the courage to stand up to them. They also have billions of dollars riding on getting permits to suck the oil out of the ground and sea.

So, how did we stop them?

First, we kept our communities together. We fought against the industry’s “divide and conquer” tactics by grounding our battle in our own sacred connection to our lands. Our ancestors and elders understood, as we do today, that Mother Earth is sacred and worth fighting for. We are connected to her through our breath, our stories, our dreams, and our prayers. She gives us everything: water, food, medicine, shelter, meaning. And in return, we protect her.

We also helped our people cut through the false promises and threats by exposing Big Oil’s lies and abuse around the world. That is, we made sure our villagers could learn from the A’i Cofán people of Ecuador, the Ogoni of the Niger delta, and the countless other frontline communities that have suffered at the hands of Big Oil.

As Indigenous women leaders, we know that if we can keep our sacred connection to the land and keep our people united, then we have a fighting chance against any oil company in the world.

We also have the law on our side, which makes Big Oil really vulnerable. In 2007, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognized our right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for any activity that affects our ancestral lands. Our shorthand is “Nothing About Us Without Us.” We, Indigenous peoples, the ancestral owners of some of the most biodiverse, carbon-rich places on the planet (the places that the oil industry wants to get their hands on more than anything), have the internationally recognized legal right to decide what happens on our land.

In South Africa, we were able to protect 6,000 square miles of pristine marine ecosystems off the Wild Coast, saving dolphins and whales from deafening seismic blasts on the ocean floor while also protecting local communities and our planet’s climate from the threat of ramped-up offshore drilling. And on the other side of the world, in Ecuador, we leveraged our internationally recognized rights to protect some of the biodiverse rainforest in the Amazon, jamming the Ecuadorian Government’s plans to drill across millions of acres of Indigenous territories.

But the law alone isn’t enough. To move courts and politicians—and to create legal exposure and reputational risk to companies—we need global community support to keep going.

That means getting financial resources to the frontlines, so that we can protect our leaders, organize our communities, and secure our rights. Only a fraction of 1% of all climate funding currently makes it to Indigenous communities on the frontlines of the climate battle. We need to change that.

It also means sharing our stories and shining a spotlight on our struggles, so that local courts and politicians know that the world is watching. Public solidarity not only prevents corruption and back-room deals, but it also energizes our grassroots campaigns.

We need to continue to pressure governments around the world to finally adopt our internationally recognized right to decide what happens in our lands in their national laws and constitutions. Our peoples have been putting our bodies on the line in the battle to protect Mother Earth for centuries. It’s not only a moral imperative that global governments finally recognize and respect our right to self-determination, but it is also one of the most urgent and effective climate strategies—it’s no coincidence that we are the guardians of over 80% of our planet’s biodiversity. In the Amazon rainforest, half of the remaining standing forest is in our territories. Without us and without our territories, there is no climate solution.

To have a fighting chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we can’t afford to be opening up new oil fields in the lungs of the earth. We need to keep our forests standing. We need to transition to renewable energy.

We are writing this because we see that world leaders, businesses, and NGOs are only making slow, incremental progress on climate despite the urgent existential threat we face. Instead of getting frustrated, we’re doubling down on sharing our formula with other Indigenous guardians on the ground.

We know that time is not on our side—but our spirituality and our rights are. So here’s one idea from two Indigenous women leaders that beat the oil industry, and protected our oceans and our forests: Listen to us for a change.

US pilots are testing the aging A-10 Warthog for a new kind of mission against more advanced enemies

AIR DECOY MISSIONS HELPS ELIMINATE UNLOVED A-10

Michael Peck
Wed, December 14, 2022

B-1Bs and A-10s over the Philippine Sea on November 9.

US Air Force/Capt. Coleen Berryhill

Since arriving in the 1970s, the A-10 has earned a reputation as a tank-killing ground-attack plane.


In recent exercises, the A-10 tried out a new role: deploying decoys to distract enemy air defenses.

The change comes as the US military is shifting its focus and forces to operations in the Pacific.

The A-10 Warthog has made its reputation as a tank-killer, but now the Air Force is testing 50-year-old plane for another mission: launching decoys to protect other aircraft.

During exercises in the Pacific in early November, A-10s were equipped with the ADM-160 Miniature Air Launched Decoy.

Described as a sort of cruise missile, the 8-foot-long MALD weighs less than 300 pounds and has a range of 500 miles. It is equipped with a Signature Augmentation System that mimics the radar signature and flight profiles of specific US aircraft. (The MALD-J variant has a jammer.)

The idea is to launch salvoes of MALDs ahead of a US airstrike to confuse the enemy about how many aircraft are coming and from where.

During Green Flag-West from November 2 to 9, a DATM-160 — a training version of the MALD — was loaded onto an A-10 on an island off the coast of Naval Air Station North Island in California.

A US Air Force crew chief prepares to launch an A-10 for Green Flag-West in California on November 9.

US Air Force/Senior Airman Zachary Rufus

"The A-10 can carry up to 16 MALDs, the same quantity as the B-52, and 12 more than the F-16," according to an Air Force news release.

But interestingly, the MALD isn't being envisioned as a means to protect the A-10. Rather, the Warthog would use its decoys to support other aircraft, such as fifth-generation F-35s and F-22s or bombers.

During another exercise over the Philippine Sea on November 9, A-10 pilots simulated using MALDs in "an integrated strike mission simulation" with B1-B bombers.

"Having a combat-proven platform like the A-10 provide support through their MALD decoys increases the probability that our aircraft and weapons successfully strike their targets," Maj. Daniel Winningham, 37th Bomb Squadron B-1B instructor pilot, said in a release.

Maj. Taylor Raasch, an instructor with the Air Force 66th Weapons Squadron, which participated in Green Flag-West, said that the way the A-10 can "help support the fifth-generation fight in support of a pacing threat is provide the unique capability to carry a multitude of weapons and work in austere environments."

'How are we going to find the boats?'

An A-10 carrying a DATM-160 on California's San Clemente Island on November 7.

US Air Force/Senior Airman Zachary Rufus

While the MALD may be a useful way to protect US aircraft and drive enemy air-defense networks crazy, choosing the A-10 to haul decoys is curious.

The Warthog was designed in the 1970s as a ground-attack aircraft to smash Soviet armored columns invading Europe. That meant it needed a powerful 30-mm cannon and anti-tank missiles, as well as armor plating and a rugged design to survive thick Soviet air defenses — and even with that armament, Air Force planners expected heavy losses.

While the A-10 has respectable range — about 700 miles, which can be extended by aerial refueling — a longer-range decoy-laden aircraft, such as a cargo plane or a drone, might be more useful, especially across the vast Pacific.

Instead, the venerable A-10, which first flew in 1972, seems to be in search of a mission.

US airmen load an ADM-160 MALD on an A-10 at a base in Wisconsin on March 1.

US Air National Guard/Tech. Sgt. Samara Taylor

For years, the Air Force has sought to scrap the Warthog, believing the aging plane might not survive against modern Russian and Chinese air defenses. And for years, the Warthog has kept flying, buoyed in part by a popular image as an aerial tough guy that can dish out punishment and take it, too. (Congress finally relented this month, allowing the Air Force to begin retiring A-10s in the coming year.)

As the US military pivots its focus to the Pacific, some argue that the A-10 would be useful in a war against China, especially if it were armed with long-range missiles.

The mission in support of the B-1B "was a fantastic way to demonstrate how the A-10 is capable of shifting from a close-air-support team mindset to a strike team. We are building on our old principles to transform into the A-10 community the joint force needs," Capt. Coleen Berryhill, an A-10 pilot, said in a release.

November's Green Flag-West exercise also marked a shift. Since 1981, the Air Force has used the exercise to train to provide air support to Army units. This time, the A-10s trained to support the US Navy, including as a ship-killer.

US Air Force Capt. Coleen Berryhill flies near a formation of B1-Bs and A-10s over the Philippine Sea on November 9.

US Air Force/Capt. Coleen Berryhill

While the Warthog's cannon and missiles could pulverize most warships, maritime strike would be a new mission — and one that would be vital in a conflict with China.

"A concern we had in the planning phase of Green Flag was 'how are we going to find the boats?'" said Capt. Joseph Cole, assistant director of operations for the Air Force's 549th Combat Training Squadron. "We know we can kill them, but how can we find them and target them?"

The exercise also saw the A-10 operate from an "austere" island off the California coast, reflecting the Air Force's growing focus on using rugged or improvised airfields in the Pacific. But this also raises questions about supplying the A-10 with fuel, munitions, and especially maintenance in forward areas.

The A-10 was designed a half-century ago for an armor-focused conflict. Ironically, that sort of warfare is now taking place in Ukraine, but US officials have declined to send manned aircraft to Ukraine, and some Ukrainians have cast doubt on the Warthog's utility.

The US military's focus on the Pacific will only increase, but whether the A-10 has a role there remains to be seen.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master's in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Supersonic jet startup Boom says it will create its own engine with 3 partners after every major manufacturer refused to help

Taylor Rains
Tue, December 13, 2022 

American Airlines

Boom Supersonic has announced Symphony, the engine that will power its ultra-high-speed Overture jet.

The propulsion system will feature 35,000 pounds of takeoff thrust and reduce operating costs by 10%.

The news comes a few months after major manufacturers told Boom it wouldn't help it build a supersonic engine.

Boom Supersonic's ultra-high-speed airliner now has plans for an engine.

On Tuesday, the Denver-based startup announced its future Overture jet would be powered by Symphony, the new Boom-led propulsion system that will be "designed and optimized" for the plane.

According to Boom, it will partner with three entities to bring the engine to life, including Florida Turbine Technologies, which is a part of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, to assist with the design. The planemaker has also tapped StandardAero for maintenance, and General Electric subsidiary GE Additive for consulting on metal additive manufacturing, which is also known as 3D printing.

While FTT is not a widely known engine maker like Rolls-Royce or Pratt & Whitney, the over-20-year-old business has been awarded multi-million dollar contracts and has developed a turbojet for cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

"The team at FTT has a decades-long history of developing innovative, high-performance propulsion solutions," company president Stacey Rock said in a press release. "We are proud to team with Boom and its Symphony partners and look forward to developing the first bespoke engine for sustainable, economical supersonic flight."

Designed to operate on 100% sustainable aviation fuel, the new medium-bypass turbofan engine will emit net zero carbon, feature 35,000 pounds of takeoff thrust, have low-weight materials, and reduce overall operating costs by 10% compared to other supersonic engines.

With the Symphony project already started, Boom says Overture, which was recently redesigned, will start production in 2024. Its first flight is set for 2027, with type certification expected by 2029.

The company's small XB-1 prototype, known as Baby Boom, has already begun test flights in Colorado and is intended to demonstrate "key technologies for safe and efficient high-speed flight."

Baby Boom.

Boom Supersonic

The news comes just a few months after every major manufacturer said it would not help Boom create an engine for Overture, with Rolls-Royce saying the "commercial supersonic market is not currently a priority for us."

CFM International joined the trend in October when CEO Gaël Méheust said the company doesn't "see a significant market for an engine that targets a very small potential niche."

Despite the setback, Boom managed to achieve its goal to secure an engine maker by year's end, giving hope to the jetliner's eventual commercial use.

However, Henry Harteveldt, travel analyst and president of Atmosphere Research Group, told Insider in September that "it will be a big challenge" for Boom to build its own engine.

"But, if it is successful in building the jet and the engine, then they get their aircraft and have very unique intellectual property and a business advantage because they will not rely on a third-party engine maker," he explained.

To date, three airlines have invested in Boom, including United Airlines, American Airlines, and Japan Airlines, with United Airlines Ventures president Mike Leskinen welcoming the new project.

"United and Boom share a passion for making the world dramatically more accessible through sustainable supersonic travel," he said in a press release. "The team at Boom understands what we need to create a compelling experience for our passengers, and we are looking forward to a United supersonic fleet powered by Symphony."

Overture is expected to carry between 65 and 80 passengers in an all-business configuration, traveling between New York and London in as little as three and a half hours.

Elon Jet, the Twitter account tracking Elon Musk's flights, was permanently suspended




Amanda Silberling
Update, 12/14/22, 5:50 PM ET: 

Twitter has now updated its private information and media policy to prohibit sharing live location information. When @ElonJet was banned, this policy was not yet public, and there was a multiple hour delay between the banning of @ElonJet and other flight tracker accounts.

The Twitter account @ElonJet, which uses publicly available data to track the whereabouts of Elon Musk's private jet, has been permanently suspended from Twitter.

"My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk," Musk tweeted on November 6. Over the last month, it seems Musk changed his mind.

Jack Sweeney, the University of Central Florida student who created @ElonJet, also operated similar bots that track private jet activity of tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg. Yet none of Sweeney's other accounts have been affected, including an account that tracks the travel of Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal Musk.

Update, 12/14/22, 2:30 PM ET: Jack Sweeney's personal account has been banned from Twitter, along with the accounts of the other automated flight trackers that he operated.

The account has been a sore spot for Musk for a long time. In January, Musk DMed Sweeney on Twitter and offered the student $5,000 to delete @ElonJet, but he turned down the offer.

“Any chance to up that to $50k? It would be great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car maybe even a Model 3," Sweeney responded, according to DMs obtained by Protocol at the time.

Unfortunately, Musk would not be paying Sweeney's tuition.



According to Sweeney, @ElonJet has been under close watch at Twitter HQ. He posted on his personal account that an anonymous Twitter employee told him that his account was visibility limited on December 2. Sweeney also posted a screenshot, allegedly leaked from Twitter's internal Slack, that appears to show Trust and Safety VP Ella Irwin asking that the team immediately apply high visibility filtering to @ElonJet. TechCrunch emailed Irwin for confirmation of the message's legitimacy.

After being suspended from Twitter, Sweeney set up an Elon Jet account on Mastodon.

So why haven't astronauts been back to the moon in 50 years?
Dave Mosher,Hilary Brueck
Wed, December 14, 2022 


Apollo 11 astronauts planted a flag on the moon on July 20, 1969.NASA

The last time a person visited the moon was in December 1972, during NASA's Apollo 17 mission.

Astronauts say the reasons humans haven't returned are budgetary and political, not scientific or technical.

It's possible NASA will be back on the moon by 2025, at the very earliest.

Landing 12 people on the moon remains one of NASA's greatest achievements, if not the greatest.

Astronauts collected rocks, took photos, performed experiments, planted flags, and then came home. But those stays during the Apollo program didn't establish a lasting human presence on the moon.

Fifty years after the most recent crewed moon landing — Apollo 17 in December 1972 — there are plenty of reasons to return people to Earth's giant, dusty satellite and stay there.

NASA has promised that we will see US astronauts on the moon again soonish — maybe by 2025 at the earliest, in a program called Artemis, which will include the first women to ever touch the lunar surface.

Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who ran the agency during the Trump administration, said it's not science or technology hurdles that have held the US back from doing this sooner.

"If it wasn't for the political risk, we would be on the moon right now," Bridenstine said on a phone call with reporters in 2018. "In fact, we would probably be on Mars."

So why haven't astronauts been back to the moon in 50 years?

"It was the political risks that prevented it from happening," Bridenstine said. "The program took too long and it costs too much money."

Researchers and entrepreneurs have long pushed for the creation of a crewed base on the moon — a lunar space station.

"A permanent human research station on the moon is the next logical step. It's only three days away. We can afford to get it wrong and not kill everybody," Chris Hadfield, a former astronaut, previously told Business Insider. "And we have a whole bunch of stuff we have to invent and then test in order to learn before we can go deeper out."

A lunar base could evolve into a fuel depot for deep-space missions, lead to the creation of unprecedented space telescopes, make it easier to live on Mars, and solve longstanding scientific mysteries about Earth and the moon's creation. It could even spur a thriving off-world economy, perhaps one built around lunar space tourism.

But many astronauts and other experts suggest the biggest impediments to making new crewed moon missions a reality are banal and somewhat depressing.
It's really expensive to get to the moon — but not that expensive

Bloomsbury Auctions

A tried-and-true hurdle for any spaceflight program, especially missions that involve people, is the steep cost.

NASA's 2022 budget is $24 billion, and the Biden administration is asking Congress to boost that to nearly $26 billion in the 2023 budget.

Those amounts may sound like a windfall, until you consider that the total gets split among all the agency's divisions and ambitious projects: the James Webb Space Telescope, the giant rocket project called Space Launch System (SLS), and far-flung missions to the sun, Jupiter, Mars, the asteroid belt, the Kuiper belt, and the edge of the solar system. (By contrast, the US military is on track for a budget of about $858 billion in 2023.)

Plus, NASA's budget is somewhat small relative to its past.

"NASA's portion of the federal budget peaked at 4% in 1965," Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham said during congressional testimony in 2015. "For the past 40 years it has remained below 1%, and for the last 15 years it has been driving toward 0.4% of the federal budget."

A 2005 report by NASA estimated that returning to the moon would cost about $104 billion ($162 billion today, with inflation) over about 13 years. The Apollo program cost about $142 billion in today's dollars.

"Manned exploration is the most expensive space venture and, consequently, the most difficult for which to obtain political support," Cunningham said during his testimony.

He added, according to Scientific American: "Unless the country, which is Congress here, decided to put more money in it, this is just talk that we're doing here."

Referring to Mars missions and a return to the moon, Cunningham said, "NASA's budget is way too low to do all the things that we've talked about."
The problem with presidents

Former US President Donald Trump wanted to get astronauts back on the moon in 2024.Reuters/Carlos Barria

President Biden may — or may not — be in office the next time NASA lands astronauts back on to the moon in 2025, or later.

And therein lies another major problem: partisan political whiplash.

"Why would you believe what any president said about a prediction of something that was going to happen two administrations in the future?" Hadfield said. "That's just talk."

The process of designing, engineering, and testing a spacecraft that could get people to another world easily outlasts a two-term president. But incoming presidents and lawmakers often scrap the previous leader's space-exploration priorities.

"I would like the next president to support a budget that allows us to accomplish the mission that we are asked to perform, whatever that mission may be," Scott Kelly, an astronaut who spent a year in space, wrote in a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" thread in January 2016, before President Trump took office.

But presidents and Congress don't often seem to care about staying the course.

In 2004, for example, the Bush administration tasked NASA with coming up with a way to replace the space shuttle, which was set to retire, and also return to the moon. The agency came up with the Constellation program to land astronauts on the moon using a rocket called Ares and a spaceship called Orion. NASA spent $9 billion over five years designing, building, and testing hardware for that human-spaceflight program.

Yet after President Barack Obama took office — and the Government Accountability Office released a report about NASA's inability to estimate Constellation's cost — Obama pushed to scrap the program and signed off on the SLS rocket instead.

Trump didn't scrap SLS. But he did change Obama's goal of launching astronauts to an asteroid, shifting priorities to moon and Mars missions. Trump wanted to see Artemis land astronauts back on the moon in 2024.

Such frequent changes to NASA's expensive priorities have led to cancellation after cancellation, a loss of about $20 billion, and years of wasted time and momentum.

Biden seems to be a rare exception to the shifty presidential trend: he hasn't toyed with Trump's Artemis priority for NASA, and he's also kept Space Force intact.

Buzz Aldrin said in testimony to Congress in 2015 that he believes the will to return to the moon must come from Capitol Hill.

"American leadership is inspiring the world by consistently doing what no other nation is capable of doing. We demonstrated that for a brief time 45 years ago. I do not believe we have done it since," Aldrin wrote in a statement. "I believe it begins with a bipartisan congressional and administration commitment to sustained leadership."

The real driving force behind that government commitment to return to the moon is the will of the American people, who vote for politicians and help shape their policy priorities. But public interest in lunar exploration has always been lukewarm.

Even at the height of the Apollo program, after Aldrin and Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, only 53% of Americans said they thought the program was worth the cost. Most of the rest of the time, US approval of Apollo hovered below 50%.

Most Americans think NASA should make returning to the moon a priority at this point. More than 57% of nationwide respondents to an INSIDER poll in December 2018 said returning to the moon is an important goal for NASA, but only about 38% said that living, breathing humans need to go back. (Others who want the US to land on the moon say robots could do the lunar exploring.)

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

Support for crewed Mars exploration is stronger, with 63% of respondents to a 2018 Pew Research Center poll saying it should be a NASA priority. Meanwhile, 91% think that scanning the skies for killer asteroids is important.
The challenges beyond politics

Many space enthusiasts have long hoped to build a base on the moon, but the lunar surface's harsh environment wouldn't be an ideal place for humans to thrive.NASA

The political tug-of-war over NASA's mission and budget isn't the only reason people haven't returned to the moon. The moon is also a 4.5-billion-year-old death trap for humans and must not be trifled with or underestimated.

Its surface is littered with craters and boulders that threaten safe landings. Leading up to the first moon landing in 1969, the US government spent what would be billions in today's dollars to develop, launch, and deliver satellites to the moon to map its surface and help mission planners scout for possible Apollo landing sites.

But a bigger worry is what eons of meteorite impacts have created: regolith, also called moon dust.

Madhu Thangavelu, an aeronautical engineer at the University of Southern California, wrote in 2014 that the moon is covered in "a fine, talc-like top layer of lunar dust, several inches deep in some regions, which is electrostatically charged through interaction with the solar wind and is very abrasive and clingy, fouling up spacesuits, vehicles and systems very quickly."

Peggy Whitson, an astronaut who lived in space for a total of 665 days, previously told Business Insider that the Apollo missions "had a lot of problems with dust."

"If we're going to spend long durations and build permanent habitats, we have to figure out how to handle that," Whitson said.

There's also a problem with sunlight. For about 14 days at a time, the lunar surface is a boiling hellscape that is exposed directly to the sun's harsh rays; the moon has no protective atmosphere. The next 14 days are in total darkness, making the moon's surface one of the colder places in the universe.

NASA is developing a fission power system that could supply astronauts with electricity during weeks-long lunar nights — and would be useful on other worlds, including Mars.

"There is not a more environmentally unforgiving or harsher place to live than the moon," Thangavelu wrote. "And yet, since it is so close to the Earth, there is not a better place to learn how to live, away from planet Earth."

NASA has designed dust- and sun-resistant spacesuits and rovers, though it's uncertain whether that equipment is anywhere near ready to launch.
A generation of billionaire 'space nuts' may get there

An illustration of SpaceX's Starship vehicle on the surface of the moon, with Earth in the distance.Elon Musk/SpaceX via Twitter

Another issue, astronauts say, is NASA's graying workforce. These days, more American kids polled say they dream about becoming YouTube stars, rather than astronauts.

"You've got to realize young people are essential to this kind of an effort," Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt recently told Business Insider. "The average age of the people in Mission Control for Apollo 13 was 26 years old, and they'd already been on a bunch of missions."

Schweickart echoed that concern, noting that the average age of someone at NASA's Johnson Space Center is closer to 60 years old.

"That's not where innovation and excitement comes from. Excitement comes from when you've got teenagers and 20-year-olds running programs," Schweickart said. "When Elon Musk lands a [rocket booster], his whole company is yelling and screaming and jumping up and down."

Musk is part of what astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman has called a "generation of billionaires who are space nuts," developing a new, private suite of moon-capable rockets.

"The innovation that's been going on over the last 10 years in spaceflight never would've happened if it was just NASA and Boeing and Lockheed," Hoffman told journalists during a roundtable in 2018. "Because there was no motivation to reduce the cost or change the way we do it."

The innovation Hoffman was referring to is work of Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, as well as by Jeff Bezos, who runs aerospace company Blue Origin.

"There's no question: If we're going to go farther, especially if we're going to go farther than the moon, we need new transportation," Hoffman added. "Right now we're still in the horse-and-buggy days of spaceflight."

Many astronauts' desire to return to the moon aligns with Bezos' long-term vision. Bezos has floated a plan to start building the first moon base using Blue Origin's upcoming New Glenn rocket system.

"We will move all heavy industry off of Earth, and Earth will be zoned residential and light industry," he said in April 2018.

Musk has also spoken at length about how SpaceX's forthcoming Starship launch system could pave the way for affordable, regular lunar visits. SpaceX might even visit the moon before NASA or Blue Origin.

"My dream would be that someday the moon would become part of the economic sphere of the Earth — just like geostationary orbit and low-Earth orbit," Hoffman said. "Space out as far as geostationary orbit is part of our everyday economy. Someday I think the moon will be, and that's something to work for."

Astronauts don't doubt whether or not we'll get back to the moon and onto Mars. It's just a matter of when.

"I guess eventually things will come to pass where they will go back to the moon and eventually go to Mars — probably not in my lifetime," Lovell said. "Hopefully they'll be successful."

Top Gas Exporter Australia Caps Prices Despite Industry Protest

NO CANADA (YET)

Ben Westcott
Wed, December 14, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Australia passed a law to cap domestic prices of natural gas to limit the impact of soaring global costs on local power bills, ignoring protests from the nation’s powerful energy exporters.

At a special sitting on Thursday, Australia’s parliament passed legislation to cap wholesale gas prices for 12 months. The government also agreed with state and territory leaders to impose a price ceiling on coal, which would see producers compensated for any operating costs that push their rates above the threshold.

The move follows a tumultuous year for Australia’s energy policy, with the center-left Labor government facing an unprecedented squeeze shortly after its election in May as exporters sought to tap high international prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Liquefied natural gas producers have been vocal in their opposition to the government’s plans, especially a clause that would make currently voluntary agreements mandatory.

The intervention means that domestic gas prices would be capped at A$12 a gigajoule ($8.7 a million British thermal units), above historic local rates but less than a third of international benchmarks, while coal supply would be limited at A$125 ($86) a ton. The legislation will also provide additional energy bill relief for low- and middle-income households through payments to the states and territories.

Speaking ahead of the passing of the bill, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Australia didn’t need to “sacrifice” living standards to ensure a “functional and fair gas market.”

“Without intervention, next financial year retail gas prices are expected to increase by a further 20%, and electricity prices by a further 36%,” Chalmers said. “That’s why urgent action is needed.”

Gas executives met with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Chalmers and Resources Minister Madeleine King shortly before the vote. An industry lobby group representing companies including Shell Plc and ExxonMobil Corp. has campaigned against the legislation, including a mandatory code of conduct expected to be introduced in February 2023 which would include provisions for domestic gas price controls into the future.

The government has so far ignored calls to impose a windfall tax on energy companies. Australia’s natural gas exports are set to jump almost 30% to A$90 billion in the year through June while thermal coal shipments are set to increase 35% to A$62 billion, government forecasts show.

--With assistance from David Stringer.

Why US and EU Are Heading for a Fight Over Green Subsidies: Q&A



Richard Bravo
Thu, December 15, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- European leaders are willing to start a transatlantic fight over Joe Biden’s climate-friendly tax law, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, even though it’s dedicated to boosting green tech and moving toward a carbon-neutral future. They’re upset over the subsidies it will dole out, which they say give American firms an unfair leg up.

“Elements of the IRA risk un-levelling the playing field and discriminating against European companies,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote to the European Union’s 27 leaders on Wednesday. She also unveiled a four-point plan for how to fight back against the American law that would give member states more latitude to invest in their own companies and that would possibly redirect EU funds to firms in need.

Here are the key elements of the dispute:

What is Biden trying to achieve with the IRA?

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act devotes more than $360 billion to climate-related spending, including tax breaks for making and deploying clean-energy infrastructure. The law will provide subsidies for domestic industries, including for electric-vehicle producers, but the American president said earlier this month that it “was never intended to exclude folks who were cooperating with us.”

Why are the Europeans upset about this?

European leaders have been outspoken in their discontent over the law. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire accused Washington of pursuing a “Chinese-style” industrial policy that discriminates against non-US companies. The EU has said it may take the US to the World Trade Organization over the law.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the entire world, but especially Europe, has had to begin the process of reinventing their economies now that they no longer have access to cheap Russian gas. The EU is worried that their companies will be left at a disadvantage if they can’t match the subsidies Washington and Beijing will be providing their industries.

What has been the US response so far?

Even though Biden said that “the US makes no apology” for the law, he did say that he saw room for tweaks to “make it easier for European countries to participate.”

“There’s obviously going to be glitches in it, and a need to reconcile changes in it,” Biden told reporters earlier this month after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Washington.

But it isn’t clear how the law might be revised, as Republicans are unlikely to be willing to amend it after they take control of the House next year.

Why are the Europeans struggling to produce a united response?

So far EU member states haven’t been able to get behind a single strategy for how to counter the American law. Von der Leyen has floated a European Sovereignty Fund to help member states underwrite the green transition. She also suggested rerouting revenue from the bloc’s emissions trading system, saying “it’s clear that not every member state has the fiscal space for state aid, and we need complementary European financing.”

But Germany has advocated streamlining how existing EU funds are distributed and increasing incentives at the national level, pushing back against calls from countries including France for more aggressive bloc-wide measures.

What will this mean for the transatlantic relationship?

The EU’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, told reporters in Paris earlier this month that the climate law could be damaging for European businesses, as well as in other major economies, including Japan and South Korea. But she said avoiding a subsidy race is an absolute priority and the EU is working constructively with the US to find solutions as soon as possible.

“One war at a time is what we can master,” Vestager said, noting the energy crisis in Europe sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We have found solutions on very difficult issues before and we should be able to do it again because I don’t think the geopolitical situation we are in allows for big democracies to have a fallout.”

What’s the next thing to watch?

EU leaders will discuss the bloc’s next steps at a summit in Brussels Thursday and they could put new state-aid rules in effect as soon as January. But all eyes are on Washington and what tweaks Biden is willing to make. If the changes are too small to placate European leaders, then it could herald a new transatlantic subsidy race.

--With assistance from Ania Nussbaum, Alonso Soto, Jorge Valero and Alberto Nardelli.

Macron Implores Europe to Match Biden’s Green Subsidy Package



Ania Nussbaum, Katharina Rosskopf and Michael Nienaber
Thu, December 15, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Emmanuel Macron is calling for the European Union to come up with a robust answer to Joe Biden’s green subsidy package known as the Inflation Reduction Act that includes common funding.

“We must go faster, simplify our rules and provide a macroeconomic answer and a level of aid at the national and European levels that allows us to match what the Americans have done,” the French president told reporters before a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels where they will discuss the issue.

Macron and his EU counterparts have been outspoken over the $369 billion climate and tax law, which they say provides an unfair advantage to North American industries, including electric-vehicle producers. The EU has said it may take the US to the World Trade Organization over the law.

“Although we are allies, we must have this response to strengthen our industrial base and remain competitive,” he said, adding that the response should include “European instruments and common funding.”

EU Divisions

The EU leaders will task the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, to propose how to mobilize national and EU tools to safeguard Europe’s economic, industrial and technological base, according to a draft of the summit conclusion seen by Bloomberg.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled an initial plan on Wednesday that would give member states more latitude to invest in their own companies and that would redirect existing EU money to firms in need. But the leaders will need to address how far reaching the commission proposal will be and, importantly, if it will include new money.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has backed a more moderate response to the American climate and tax law, pushing to streamline how existing EU funds are distributed and increasing incentives at the national level.

“We will also talk about the competitiveness and future viability of our economy, in particular our joint handling of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Scholz told reporters ahead of the summit. He also hinted there would be no immediate action taken on Thursday, saying the topic would come up “more often and repeatedly” in the coming months.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte echoed Scholz’s proposal by pushing back against the idea of joint funding options. “We are not big fans of new money,” Rutte said. “We have to look at existing money and how to use that.”

Sovereignty Fund

The German and Dutch approach has irked some that are pushing for a more rigorous response, arguing that not all nations have the same fiscal capacity to support their domestic companies.

“Member states are not equal when it comes to delivering state aid. Some can deliver a lot more than others,” the EU’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “That’s why we propose to introduce a new sovereignty fund, as a complementary funding to ensure all European countries can benefit from the green transition instead of just a few.”

Germany is planning to spend more than €10 billion ($10.6 billion) to invest in companies switching to clean technologies, according to people familiar with the plan.

“Today we see that too often countries are trying to install a scheme on their own and it looks a bit like a game of the deepest pockets,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Thursday. “And yes, some countries may think they have deeper pockets, but in a few months we’re all at the end of what you can do.”

--With assistance from Alberto Nardelli, Jillian Deutsch, Jorge Valero, John Ainger, Lyubov Pronina, Niclas Rolander, Slav Okov and Krystof Chamonikolas.