AUSTRALIA
Labor accused of ‘fiddling at the margins’ on super as Greens urge greater crackdown on tax concessions


Amy Remeikis
Fri, 3 March 2023 

Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Greens are urging the Australian government to go further on superannuation tax concessions in order to boost jobseeker payments and double commonwealth rent assistance.

But the party has stopped short of threatening to block government legislation if Labor doesn’t agree, with negotiations on the housing fund and climate safeguards bill continuing while the super debate rages.

Labor needs the Greens and at least two crossbench senators to agree to its legislative change to reduce the tax concession on earnings above $3m in super accounts, after the Coalition declared it a no-go area.

With the Aston byelection looming, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has seized on the government’s modest announcement to try to claim broader changes are in the works.

“It has a broader impact than the government’s claiming and I really worry about them unsettling people about their decision to put money into superannuation, which should be a stable asset class,” he said on Thursday.

But the Greens’ treasury spokesperson, Nick McKim, argues Labor’s changes don’t go far enough and, by ending all tax concessions above the indexed $1.9m balance transfer rate, rent assistance could be immediately doubled.

Related: 80,000 people will be hit by Labor’s super changes. How much will it hurt?

Asked by reporters on Saturday whether Labor would consider lowering the threshold of proposed superannuation changes to $1.9m, prime minister Anthony Albanese said he believed Labor had “got the balance right”.

“The Greens will always find a reason to try to say that what Labour’s proposing is something that they have a different position from,” Albanese said. “It will come in after the next election in 2025.”

The Parliamentary Budget Office modelled the Greens’ request to cap superannuation concessions above $1.9m, and instead apply tax according to income. Under the current settings, that could add $54.6bn over the next 10 years to the budget, which the Greens say could be used to alleviate poverty.

Labor’s policy to raise the concessional tax rate on super earnings above $3m from 15% to 30% from 1 July 2025 would impact 0.5% of the population. The Greens policy, according to the PBO analysis, would impact 1.2% of super holders, but would be less likely to grow as the $1.9m threshold increases with inflation.

McKim said it would be a small change that could have a big impact on the most financially vulnerable.

“Fiddling at the margins on superannuation tax concessions while proceeding with stage-three tax cuts is just a money-go-round scheme for the rich,” McKim said.

“Labor is basically proposing to rob Peter to pay Peter. If Labor gets real about tackling inequality, we can raise serious money to help address the cost of living crisis, like ending handouts to the top 1% to fund an increase in income support or doubling rent assistance.”

The maximum rent assistance an eligible single person can receive is $151.60 a fortnight if living alone, or $135.40 if sharing. For someone with children, the assistance is $178.36 for one or two children and $201.32 for three or above.

Anti-poverty advocates such as the Antipoverty Centre have argued against raising rent assistance and instead focus on raising the rate of welfare, to ensure the money goes to where it is most needed, and not landlords.

The Greens have said they will continue to advocate for raising welfare above $44 a day, but are focusing on immediate assistance, arguing this plan could be enacted on 1 July.

“There are more people sleeping rough every night in this country than there are people impacted by Labor’s super plan,” the Greens senator Janet Rice said.

“This money could be a downpayment on increasing social security payments above the poverty line.”

The Greens have not drawn a line in the sand over the proposal when it comes to the government’s negotiations on its super changes, and other areas where the party holds the balance of power, but are demanding more action for renters and those with housing instability as part of its negotiations.

The party is pushing the government to implement a rental freeze, working with the states through national cabinet, in an attempt to address the cost of living rental crisis, while also withholding support for Labor’s housing fund plan, arguing it does not go far enough.

The government needs the Greens’s support for not just its housing future fund, but also the national reconstruction fund, its safeguards mechanism and now the super changes.

But with a start date of 1 July 2025 for the super changes, after the next election, the government has some more wriggle room on the timing, as it seeks to get its other hallmark legislation through the parliament ahead of the May budget.

‘Very precarious’: Europe faces growing water crisis as winter drought worsens

Jon Henley in Paris, Sam Jones in Madrid, Angela Giuffrida in Rome, and Philip Oltermann in Berlin
Fri, 3 March 2023 

Photograph: Valentine Chapuis/Getty Images

The scenes are rare enough in mid-summer; in early March, they are unprecedented. Lac de Montbel in south-west France is more than 80% empty, the boats of the local sailing club stranded on its desiccated brown banks.

In northern Italy, tourists can walk to the small island of San Biagio, normally reached only by boat, from the shore of Lake Garda, where the water level is 70cm (27in) lower than average. The Alps have had 63% less snow than usual.

In Germany, shallow waters on the Rhine are already disrupting barge traffic, forcing boats heading up into central Europe to load at half capacity, and in Catalonia, now short of water for three years, Barcelona has stopped watering its parks.


After its driest summer in 500 years, much of Europe is in the grip of a winter drought driven by climate breakdown that is prompting growing concern among governments over the water security for homes, farmers and factories across the continent.

Related: Driest February in England since 1993 signals drought ahead, say experts

A study published in January by Graz University of Technology in Austria, whose scientists used satellite data to analyse groundwater reserves, concluded that Europe has been in drought since 1918 and its water situation was now “very precarious”.

Torsten Mayer-Gürr, one of the researchers, said: “I would never have imagined that water would be a problem here in Europe, especially in Germany or Austria. We are actually getting problems with the water supply here. We have to think about this.”

The World Weather Attribution service said last year northern hemisphere drought was at least 20 times more likely because of human-caused climate change, warning that such extreme periods would become increasingly common with global heating.

Andrea Toreti, a senior scientist at the European Drought Observatory, said: “What is unusual is the recurrence of these events, because we already experienced a severe to extreme drought a year ago, and another one in 2018.

“Clearly, in some parts of Europe, the lack of precipitation and the current deficit is such that it won’t be easy for water levels to recover before the start of the summer,” Toreti told Euronews. Experts have said the coming months will be crucial.

A map of current droughts in Europe from the EU’s Copernicus programme shows alerts for low rainfall or soil moisture in areas of northern and southern Spain, northern Italy and southern Germany, with almost all of France affected.

France recently recorded 32 days without significant rainfall, the longest period since records began in 1959, and the state forecaster Météo-France has said little or no precipitation of note is expected until at least the end of the month.

Simon Mitelberger, a climatologist, said about 75% less rain had fallen across France last month than usual for February, continuing a year-long trend. Nine of the past 12 months had seen rainfall up to 85% below the norm, he told France Info news.

France’s CNRS scientific research centre said that by comparing droughts before 1945 and since 1945 it had established that last summer’s drought was caused by anthropogenic climate change and this winter’s showed “the same characteristics”.

Local authorities in all seven of the country’s major river basins have been ordered to start enforcing water restrictions as the government works on a crisis plan to tackle a shortage that it has said will inevitable lead to “water scarcity problems” this year.

The minister for ecological transition, Christophe Béchu, warned that France would have to cope with up to 40% less water in coming years, adding that the country was already on a “state of alert” and restrictions in some areas were fully justified.

“The situation is more serious than this time last year,” Béchu said. People in four southern départements have been barred from filling swimming pools or washing their cars, while farmers must cut their water consumption by up to half.

Echoing the terms he used to describe the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, called this week for a “sobriety plan” to save water and warned the “time of abundance” had come to an end.

“All of us are going to have to be careful,” he said. Among the government’s plans are modernising agricultural irrigation, which represents up to 80% of consumption in summer, boosting wastewater recycling, and reducing loss due to leakage.

All of Spain has been in drought since January 2022, but water supplies in Catalonia have fallen so low that authorities this week introduced laws including a 40% reduction in water used for agriculture, a 15% reduction for industrial uses, and a cut in the average daily supply per inhabitant from 250 litres to 230 litres.

Related: Europe’s worst ever drought: in pictures

Rubén del Campo, a spokesperson for the state meteorological agency Aemet, said the situation showed no sign of improving over the coming months. The worst affected areas were the northern third of the country and parts of Andalucía and the south of Castilla-La Mancha, he said.

Asked about the role of global heating, Del Campo said that while drought had always been a natural phenomenon because of Spain’s geographical location, a change had been seen over recent decades.

“We’ve noticed the droughts in the south of Spain are lasting longer and that, when the rains come, they’re shorter but more intense,” he said. “It’s badly spaced out. When the rains are hard, they’re less useful for refilling reservoirs and watering the fields, which need gentler rain.”

In January, Spain’s environment minister, Teresa Ribera, warned of the inescapable reality of the climate emergency, saying the country had to be prepared for “much longer cycles of extreme drought and periods of incredibly tough flooding”.

The average amount of available water had fallen by 12% since 1980, Ribera noted, and projections suggested a further drop of between 14% and 40% by 2050. “We can’t depend solely on rain when it comes to guaranteeing the supply of drinking water or water for economic uses,” she said.

Spain’s socialist-led government in January approved a €23bn (£20bn) plan to protect and improve water supplies by investing in areas including infrastructure, water treatment and purification, irrigation modernisation and flood-risk management.

The island of San Biagio in Lake Garda, Italy, now accessible by foot due to lake levels falling by 70cm.

 Photograph: Alex Fraser/Reuters

The government in Italy is reportedly preparing to create a taskforce including a “super-commissioner” and officials from several ministries to tackle the effects of severe drought, which is already starting to impact agriculture.

Water levels in the Po, the country’s longest river that nourishes several northern and central regions, were 61% down on the February norm. While recent rainfall has alleviated some pressure, the environment and energy security minister, Gilberto Pichetto, warned last week water rationing may be required in some areas.

“The problem of drought is serious,” he told Corriere della Sera. “We’ve only had half the average amount of snow. We found ourselves with waterways, lakes and reservoirs in a very critical state, and hydroelectric basins in extreme difficulty.”

Italy’s national research council (CNR) said last month that rainfall in the north was 40% lower than average in 2022, adding that the absence of precipitation since the beginning of 2023 had been “significant”.

A leading meteorologist, Luca Mercalli, said Italy would only avoid a repeat of last summer’s extreme drought if there was plentiful rainfall during spring. “It’s the last hope,” he said. “If we have no spring rain for two consecutive years, that would be the first time this has ever happened.”

In central and northern Europe, lack of precipitation has so far mainly been seen in Alpine regions where winter tourists have faced snowless skiing pistes.

In the state of Tirol, Austria, for example, the towns of Landeck and Reutte have measured their driest winter on record, while in parts of Switzerland municipalities have again had to urge citizens to save water, after already doing so last summer.

But scientists warn the impact of the winter drought will most likely be felt in Germany and Austria’s lower regions in the coming months: less snow over the winter means less meltwater to feed the rivers of central Europe in the warmer months.

“Today’s snow deficit could potentially become tomorrow’s summer drought,” said Manuela Brunner, a professor in hydrology and climate impacts at Zurich’s ETH university.

The meteorologist Josef Eitzinger, of Vienna’s Institute of Meteorology and Climatology, told the dpa news agency: “If this spring’s weather is similar to that of 2022, dryness will increase significantly.” He pointed to historically low water levels at Lake Neusiedl, a key water source straddling the border between Austria and Hungary.

UK
Revealed: 37 security breaches reported by nuclear police force over one year

Paul Dobson
Sat, 4 March 2023 

The CNC is an armed force that protects 10 civilian nuclear sites across the UK, including Torness and Dounreay in Scotland.

The police force that guards the UK’s nuclear plants reported 37 security breaches last year, including the thefts of a uniform, confidential documents, an officer’s day book and three “classified” Microsoft tablets.

Alongside the thefts, there were 12 instances of personal data being compromised, and a further 19 cases where staff lost their warrant or identity cards.

The findings were revealed in a freedom of information (FoI)request by the independent investigative journalism co-operative The Ferret, which asked the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) for details of security incidents in 2021-22.

The 37 incidents reported last year was the highest number for eight years.

The CNC is an armed force that protects 10 civilian nuclear sites across the UK, including Torness and Dounreay in Scotland.

It is also responsible for the security of nuclear energy material when it is being transported and says that countering terrorism is “at the heart” of its remit.

But campaigners said the force had allowed an “appalling litany of security breaches” that undermine the nuclear industry’s claim its sites are among the most secure in the country.

One activist argued that “few things could be worse than terrorists getting into a nuclear plant” and called for an “urgent inquiry into why the CNC are doing such a terrible job” of preventing security incidents.

The force said it takes security issues “extremely seriously” and has a “robust process” for dealing with reported breaches.

It claimed the majority of security incidents were “low level”, such as the “mistyping an email address or sending a document with the wrong security classification”.

All of the stolen items were taken from vehicles, according to the FoI response. The tablets – which are listed as Microsoft Surface Pros – included classified information and were stolen while vehicles were outside secure premises.

The thefts of the day book and uniform, alongside the loss of the identity cards, are all listed as “low level breaches” by the force.

The CNC said these thefts had happened in two incidents when thieves accessed unmarked vehicles while they were parked at service stations. The tablets were encrypted and immediately wiped once the thefts were reported, it claimed. Examples of personal data being compromised include information being “incorrectly uploaded to a cloud platform” and correspondence being sent to personal email addresses or the wrong external team.

There was also an incident of “inappropriate access to and sharing of police information” but the FoI response does not provide any further information about this.

The CNC has more than 1,100 firearms officers at its disposal and has access to “over 10 different weapons systems’’.

The force has stationed armed police at non-military nuclear sites across the UK since 2005, after a decision was made to bulk up security at plants in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the US. Its annual budget has grown by around £20m since 2016-17 and now sits at just over £120m. However, this increased spending power has not reduced the number of reported security breaches, which have more than doubled in the last six years.

In 2021, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) – which oversees the civil nuclear industry – also recorded the highest number of security issues at UK nuclear sites for at least 12 years.

The 456 incidents flagged to the ONR across the nuclear industry that year included unauthorised people gaining access to secure areas of plants and cybersecurity threats such as attacks using malicious software.

The growing number of security incidents comes at the same time that the UK Government has announced its ambition to boost production of nuclear energy.

It wants to build 24 gigawatts of new nuclear power capacity by 2050. One new station – Hinkley Point C in Somerset – is already under construction, while another – Sizewell C in Suffolk – has received planning permission.

Dr Paul Dorfman, chairman of the Nuclear Consulting Group, said he was “hugely concerned about the wisdom of this strategy” at a time when “security incidents are on the rise”. He claimed that renewable technologies are a “cheaper, quicker and safer” option to reach climate targets than nuclear energy.

Richard Dixon, the former director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, questioned whether the breaches meant “any old terrorist can simply buy a security badge and a uniform down the local pub”.

‘Can any old terrorist buy a security badge and uniform down the local pub?’

He added: “This is an appalling litany of security breaches. Because of the risk of terrorist attack, the nuclear industry always tells you their sites are among the most secure in the country”.

Julie Carlisle, a data protection officer for the CNC, said the increase in reporting in 2021-22 is “considered a positive thing” as it “demonstrates the security culture” at the force, adding: “Since the two thefts from vehicles, we have reiterated the message to all employees that no CNC property, including uniform, must be left when a vehicle is unattended and we’ve seen no further incidents. The CNC takes any potential security issues extremely seriously and has a robust and tested process for recording and dealing reported breaches.”

Western Cities Vote to Keep U.S. Nuclear Dream Alive (For Now)


Molly Taft
Thu, March 2, 2023

The proposed NuScale facility in Idaho.

A group of cities in the Western U.S. have voted to move ahead with a new nuclear project that could help revolutionize how clean power is generated in this country—despite sharply rising costs for the project.

On Tuesday, a group of 26 cities in Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, and Nevada said they wanted to continue with their investment in what could become the U.S.’s first cluster of small modular reactors. NuScale, the company behind the project, told the group in January that costs for the energy generated by the planned project had jumped more than 50% since it last calculated its estimates.

Nuclear power is a crucial form of baseload energy that can provide reliable, carbon-free electricity at a low operating cost. But large-scale nuclear projects in the U.S. have traditionally been infrastructure behemoths, often taking decades to construct with specialized parts made for each plant. That has made it difficult in recent years for nuclear plants to compete with the plummeting costs of natural gas and renewables, as plants struggle to recoup their up-front investment. Small modular reactors, known as SMRs, can theoretically cut the costs of larger reactors by using factory-made parts that are shipped to the site.

The design for NuScale’s SMR was approved in late January by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; it’s the first SMR design ever approved by the U.S. government, and only the seventh reactor design to be approved. The test project is set to be built in Idaho, and the six-reactor, 482-megawatt project would come online in 2030. The coalition of cities involved in the Idaho project are known as the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), a network of local utilities and other agencies that have signed up to become the first customers of the nation’s first-ever SMR.

The cost increases NuScale informed the cities of in January were due to pretty basic stuff around supply chain management and inflation. Materials all over the world are generally more expensive than they have been in past years, and SMRs, while smaller than traditional reactors, are still huge infrastructure projects. Still, NuScale said it had revised its estimates for the price of the power up so much that WIRED reported last month that some cities would go from paying $58 per megawatt-hour of power to $89; the project’s total costs now sit at around $9.3 billion. It’s an uncomfortable echo of other nuclear projects in the U.S. that have experienced ballooning costs. The UAMPS coalition saw three cities already drop out of the agreement with NuScale in 2020, after the company previously revised its costs upward.

“The project will support our decarbonization efforts, complement and enable more renewable energy, and keep the grid stable,” Mason Baker, the CEO and General Manager of UAMPS, told Reuters. “It will produce steady, carbon-free energy for 40 years or longer.” Baker said that UAMPS thought the project was still a good idea because the cost increases were due to supply chain materials used in other projects, not specific to nuclear technology.

The decision to move forward with the project from UAMPS is a vote of confidence in the future of the industry—and an illustration of the difficulties some cities face in figuring out where to get power in the future, as dirty energy moves off the grid.

Jordan Garcia, a deputy utilities manager for the city of Los Alamos, New Mexico, told WIRED that parched hydropower plants and retiring coal plants means the city will have to scramble to find another source of renewable energy to meet its decarbonization goals if the NuScale plant doesn’t come through.

“We may have to actually invest in a natural gas unit to bridge the gap until something else comes along,” he said.

 Gizmodo

Plan to incinerate soil from Ohio train derailment is ‘horrifying’, says expert

Tom Perkins
Sat, March 4, 2023 

Photograph: Alan Freed/Reuters

Contaminated soil from the site around the East Palestine train wreck in Ohio is being sent to a nearby incinerator with a history of clean air violations, raising fears that the chemicals being removed from the ground will be redistributed across the region.

The new plan is “horrifying”, said Kyla Bennett, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility non-profit. She is one among a number of public health advocates and local residents who have slammed Norfolk Southern and state and federal officials over the decision.

Related: ‘Crafting an illusion’: US rail firms’ multimillion-dollar PR push

“Why on earth would you take this already dramatically overburdened community and ship this stuff a few miles away only to have it deposited right back where it came from?” Bennett asked.

Incinerating the soil is especially risky because some of the contaminants that residents and independent chemical experts fear is in the waste, like dioxins and PFAS, haven’t been tested for by the EPA, and they do not incinerate easily, or cannot be incinerated.

A Norfolk Southern train carrying vinyl chloride used to produce PVC plastic derailed on 3 February in the small industrial town of 4,700 people, located at the edge of the Appalachian hills in Ohio.

As the fire threatened to ignite tankers full of the chemical days later, emergency responders, fearing a major explosion, conducted a controlled burn of the substance.

Environmental researchers say the combustion of vinyl chloride almost certainly created dioxins, a highly toxic chemical that can remain in the environment for years. However, the EPA has resisted calls to test for it, and the agency removed from its website the results of its in-depth soil analyses, so it’s unclear which chemicals are in the soil.

Chemicals like dioxins must be incinerated at extremely high temperatures, and the combustion of some substances can be difficult or unpredictable during incineration, said Carsten Prasse, an environmental health professor at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on risk science. Those issues are generating uncertainty about the plan’s safety.

“My concern is basically do we just translate the issue that’s right now in the soil into another medium by blowing it into the air?” he asked. “That is not necessarily the case, but I’m not sure that we can exclude this at this point, so it is an issue.”

The ground also likely contains PFAS, informally called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and no human-made method to destroy the compounds has been fully developed.

“The effectiveness of incineration to destroy PFAS compounds and the tendency for formation of fluorinated or mixed halogenated organic byproducts is not well understood,” the EPA has written.

Still, it is putting residents’ health at risk by sending potentially PFAS-contaminated soil to the incinerator, Bennett said.

“The most important thing in my mind is the human health and health of the environment, so right now that should be priority number one, and things like this fly in the face of basic human decency and science,” she added.

The incinerator, owned by Heritage Thermal Services, is already burning PFAS waste from the Department of Defense, which prompted a federal lawsuit from a coalition of local environmental groups. Heritage also faced an investigation and enforcement action from the EPA in 2015 after officials determined the facility had violated the Clean Air Act nearly 200 times between 2010 and 2014.

Among the chemicals that had been released at dangerous levels was dioxin, and among the issues cited by the EPA were a failure by Heritage to maintain a required minimum temperature, raising questions about whether the facility can handle more dioxin and PFAS waste.

The facility has also recorded air quality violations in eight of the last 12 quarters, EPA records show.

Local environmental groups have been fighting with Heritage over its emissions since the incinerator was built in the 1990s, said Amanda Kiger, director of River Valley Organizing. She has been assisting residents in East Palestine about 15 miles north, but lives near the incinerator in East Liverpool, both of which are in Columbiana county.

“[Environmental officials] are just dumping more shit on Columbiana county,” Kiger said. “They say, ‘We already poisoned them so it doesn’t matter if we poison them more.’”

In a statement to news outlets, Heritage said it is “providing support at the site in accordance with the cleanup plan approved by government agencies with jurisdiction over the response to the event”.

East Palestine’s waste disposal has raised fresh questions about the disposal of toxic substances. Some of the waste is being sent to incinerators around Ohio, while about 1.5m gallons of wastewater is being injected into wells deep into the Earth’s crust near Houston. Deep wells can leak waste into groundwater, and are thought to cause earthquakes.

Meanwhile, some contaminated soil was shipped to a Michigan landfill with a history of discharging PFAS into a public sewer system. A state-of-the-art incinerator in Arkansas is likely equipped to more safely handle the East Palestine waste, Kiger said.

“But how do you say, ‘Not in my backyard – give it to someone else’?” she asked. “They got us fighting each other.”

WTF

Ohio law enforcement links Erin Brockovich to potential for 'special interest terrorism' threat in East Palestine

The report assesses the risk posed by Brockovich and activist groups in the wake of the Norfolk Southern train derailment.

Jana Winter
·Investigative Correspondent
Thu, March 2, 2023 

Activist Erin Brockovich poses at her home In Agoura Hills, Calif., on March 16, 2021.

 (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

Ohio law enforcement issued a report late last month warning that events planned in East Palestine by the environmental activist Erin Brockovich could prompt a terrorist threat from violent extremists, according to an intelligence bulletin obtained by Yahoo News.

Dated Feb. 24 and distributed to law enforcement agencies by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Ohio Statewide Terrorism Analysis & Crime Center Terrorism Analysis Unit Situational Awareness [STACC TAU] report obtained by Yahoo News "assesses that special interest extremist groups will continue to call for changes in governmental policy, which may lead to protests in/around East Palestine and/or at the Statehouse in Columbus.”

The report then singles out the reaction by Brockovich, a whistleblower who helped build a successful lawsuit against the California utility company Pacific Gas and Electric in a case involving contaminated groundwater, to the Feb. 3 train derailment and release of toxic chemicals in East Palestine.

“On 24 February, environmental activist Erin BrockovichUSPER [United States person] is scheduled to be in East Palestine to explain residents’ legal rights. Brokovich has urged the community to use common sense and ask questions. Brockovich is also placing blame solely on Norfolk Southern.The STACC TAU assess this event could potentially increase tensions within the community.”

The report assesses the risk posed by Brockovich and other activist groups that have planned events in East Palestine in the wake of the Norfolk Southern train derailment and the controlled burn of vinyl chloride, a carcinogenic ingredient used in the production of plastic products after the derailment.

“According to the FBI, special interest terrorism differs from traditional right-wing and left-wing terrorism in that extremist special interest groups seek to resolve specific issues, rather than effect widespread political change,” the report states. “Such extremists conduct acts of politically motivated violence to force segments of society, including the general public, to change attitudes about issues considered important to the extremists’ cause.”

Drone footage shows the freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 6. (NTSB Gov/Handout via Reuters)

Brockovich, who was played by the actress Julia Roberts in the 2000 film named after her, was in East Palestine on Thursday afternoon to host an event. She did not immediately respond to Yahoo News’ request for comment.

This situational awareness report is highly problematic, said former FBI agent Mike German, who worked on a recent Brennan Center report about issues with DHS fusion centers.

“Obviously, there is no reason to have included Erin Brockovich's name or a description of her advocacy in a law enforcement intelligence report, much less a ‘situational awareness’ report by a state fusion center's terrorism analysis unit,” German told Yahoo News. “Almost all of the activity described in this report is rightly protected by the First Amendment and poses no threat of harm, and therefore should be of no interest to terrorism intelligence units.”

Contacted by Yahoo News, the Ohio Department of Public Safety denied that it had issued a report identifying Brockovich as a possible terrorist threat.

“Erin Brokovich is listed as an ‘environmental activist’ and the brief mention of her falls under the heading of ‘various individuals or groups have responded to the train derailment,’” the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s Jay Carey told Yahoo News in an email. “The fact that she is an ‘environmental activist’ that has ‘responded to the train derailment’ is factual and has been well documented by media accounts. Any inference otherwise is incorrect.”

DHS posted the report on its intelligence sharing platform on Feb. 28, making it available to its more than 150,000 local, state and federal police and other partners nationwide.

“Fusion Centers are state and locally owned and operated centers that actively share, analyze, and operationalize threat-related information between federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners,” a DHS spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. “DHS supports Fusion Centers through the presence of DHS personnel and information sharing technology, but DHS does not run or operate Fusion Centers.”

The report also referred to the environmental group Earthjustice, which, it stated “called on Governor DeWineUSPER to declare a state of emergency," pointing to the "contaminated waterways" and subsequent deaths of thousands of fish.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, right front, speaks to concerned residents as the host of a town hall meeting at East Palestine High School on Thursday.

(Michael Swensen/Getty Images)

“Earthjustice works with communities across the country to protect people’s health,” Debbie Chizewer, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Midwest Regional office, told Yahoo News.

“In East Palestine, Earthjustice is supporting partners that have been exposed to toxic chemicals as they call for much needed resources, monitoring, cleanup of the contamination, as well as protections to prevent disasters like the explosion of a chemical-carrying cargo train in the future.”

The report obtained by Yahoo News stated that East Palestine police and fire department officials reported having received threats but had determined they were not credible. It was not clear, however, why they were mentioned in the report.

“This report should not have described any noncriminal activity, particularly after it stated that the terrorism analysis unit is ‘unaware of any credible direct threats regarding the East Palestine train derailment,’” German said. “This flawed reporting only clogs our national intelligence networks with inappropriate materials that undermine effective counterterrorism and law enforcement analysis, by overwhelming intelligence analysts with unhelpful misinformation that dulls the response to genuine threat warnings.”

Former DHS Acting Undersecretary John Cohen agreed that the inclusion of Brockovich’s name was, as he put it, “a bit problematic,” and said that law enforcement needed to be more careful in describing what is and is not considered a threat.

“When reporting on online or other activity that may be protected speech, authorities need to be very clear how that speech relates to threat-related activities or other public safety issues,” Cohen told Yahoo News. “It’s fine to catalog what different people are saying, but from a law enforcement perspective, they need to be clear where there is a nexus with the need for an operational response.”

AFTER 9/11 THE FBI DECLARED 

ECO ACTVISTS AS TERRORISTS

SO CALLED'PRO-LIFE'GOP
South Carolina becomes the latest GOP-led state with a bill to make the death penalty a punishment for abortion

Sarah Al-Arshani
Sat, March 4, 2023 

An exterior view of the South Carolina State House, Columbia

Epics/Getty Images

Several states have banned and criminalized abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

A South Carolina legislator proposed the death penalty as punishment for women who get abortions.

The new bill, still in the legislature, would equate abortion to homicide.

South Carolina is the latest GOP-led state to propose a bill that would make the death penalty a punishment for abortion.

State Rep. Rob Harris introduced the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023 last week, which could make getting an abortion the same as committing homicide. The bill had been prefiled in December and is now sits in the Judiciary Committee.

"What I did the other day is I took the opportunity while the rest of the house was dealing with H. 3774, Human Life Protection Act, a different bill, I put the first amendment on that bill when we were processing it on the floor and I tried to amend it to basically strike the whole thing and replace it with my bill," Harris told WBTW.

South Carolina state law currently punishes abortion with up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $1,000. The new bill would work to define a fetus as any state of development as a person that "should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death."

The bill states its purpose was to "ensure that an unborn child who is a victim of ASSAULT is afforded equal protection under the assault laws of the State, with exceptions."

"If we call it life and define it as life, then why should anyone, not just mothers, why should anybody be able to take that life? If it's life, it needs to be protected like any other life," Harris told WPDE.

Vicki Ringer, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, criticized the bill.

"That's a hard pill to swallow for anybody," Ringer told WBTW. "To recognize that you are not valuable. To call this equal protection, it is far from equal. It is giving greater weight to a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus than it is to a human being. You can consider a fetus to be a person, but you can't consider it to have more weight than the living person who is a life fully lived on this planet."

The development comes as at least 13 states have banned abortion following the Supreme Court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade last June.

The penalty is one of the harshest, but this isn't the first time a state lawmaker has proposed the death penalty for abortion. In March 2021, Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton proposed legislation that would ban and criminalize abortion which could carry the death penalty, the Texas Tribune reported. The bill, similar to those like it in the past, did not pass the state legislature.

Harris did not respond to Insider's email request for comment at the time of publication.

Michigan House repeals 1931 abortion ban following passage of Proposal 3


Arpan Lobo, Detroit Free Press
Thu, March 2, 2023

The Michigan House of Representatives on Thursday moved to repeal Michigan's 1931 ban on abortion, which remains on the books even though it was rendered unenforceable when the state's voters overwhelmingly approved Proposal 3 to enshrine the right to an abortion in the constitution. Representatives voted 50-38 to remove the laws from Michigan's books, with two Republican lawmakers — state Reps. Thomas Kuhn, R-Troy, and Donni Steele, R-Orion Twp. —-joining Democrats in voting in favor of the repeal.

What's in the bills?

The two bills passed Thursday repeal the 1931 Michigan law which made abortion illegal in Michigan, with the exception to save the life of the pregnant person. The law was rendered unconstitutional after the passage of Proposal 3 in November.

House Bill 4006 repeals the 1931 law, which states it's illegal for any individual, mainly doctors, to assist with an abortion. House Bill 4032 repeals related sections of the Michigan Penal Code.

The 1931 law hasn't been enforced for years. It was rendered unenforceable under Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court case that determined a national constitutional right to abortion access. But when the court overturned Roe in June, abortion access in Michigan was thrown into question, leading to a series of lawsuits to keep abortion legal until Proposal 3's passage.

Abortion-rights protesters march through downtown Detroit following a rally at the Theodore Levin Federal Court building in Detroit to protest against the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. On Thursday, March 2, 2023, the Michigan House of Representatives voted to remove an inactive 1931 law banning abortion in Michigan

What do supporters and opponents say?

Democratic lawmakers backing the repeal said voters had made their positions clear. State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia, who sponsored HB 4006, ripped a page out of a lawbook on the House floor symbolizing the repeal of the state's abortion ban.

“I cannot put into words how much it weighs on me … because the decision to leave this law on the books led to confusion and fear,” she said, referencing the unclarity of abortion access following Roe's reversal.

State Rep. Julie Brixie, D-Okemos, said the decision to get an abortion should remain between a woman and her doctor, not the government, noting her own decision to obtain an abortion.

“Privacy and personal freedoms are fundamental to our values," Brixie said.

Republicans were unsuccessful in introducing a series of amendments to HB 4006. Many GOP lawmakers decried the vote Thursday, saying it was unnecessary to repeal the 1931 law. Others criticized the practice of abortion entirely.

“There is nothing more precious than life itself. These bills are an attempt to spike the ball," said state Rep. James DeSana, R-Carleton.

Kuhn, one of the Republicans to vote in favor of the bills, said he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and voted that way, "notwithstanding my personal belief on abortion or any other issue."

During a Wednesday committee hearing, the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood testified in favor of the bills. The Michigan Catholic Conference testified against them, and Right to Life of Michigan issued a statement in opposition.
What's next?

The package of bills making up the repeal still must pass through the Michigan Senate, which is mulling its own set of bills striking out parts of the outdated law, before it can advance to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for signature.

Young California ranchers are finding new ways to raise livestock and improve the land

Kate Munden-Dixon, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sustainable Food Systems, Indiana University

Leslie Roche, Associate Cooperative Extension Specialist, University of California, Davis
THE CONVERSATION

Sat, March 4, 2023 

Sonoma County, California hired this herd of sheep from Sweetgrass Grazing to reduce invasive plants and flammable fuels and make room for native plants on protected land. Sonoma Open Space, CC BY-ND

As California contends with drought, wildfires and other impacts of climate change, a small yet passionate group of residents are attempting to lessen these effects and reduce the state’s carbon emissions. They are ranchers – but not the kind that most people picture when they hear that term.

These first-generation ranchers are young, often female and ethnically diverse. Rather than raising beef cattle destined for feedlots, many are managing small grazing animals like sheep and goats. And they are experimenting with grazing practices that can reduce fire risk on hard-to-reach landscapes, restore biodiversity and make it possible to make a living from the land in one of the most expensive states in the country.

Our research focuses on food systems, rangelands and livestock production. In our recent work, we found new ranchers in California using innovative strategies that they believe can mitigate fire risk to communities and improve soil through grazing.

We see an opportunity for the public and government agricultural agencies to support these producers, who are reframing livestock production systems in ways that could benefit the environment.

A hard industry to enter

Ranching is a family operation in California, with the vast majority raising beef cattle. The primary ranchers on traditional operations are mostly male, mostly white and generally in their late 50s to early 60s. They typically work together with their children, which lets younger generations draw on decades of knowledge and experience, as well as long-term connections to the land and to rural communities.

Because land in California is expensive, there are few independent first-generation beef cattle ranchers. Several first-generation ranchers whom we interviewed relayed stories of friends leaving the state to find places with cheaper land and fewer regulations. One explained that expanding urban edges and more profitable land uses are rapidly transforming rural landscapes and making it difficult, if not impossible, to “make a go of it” as a new rancher.

New ways to ranch

Climate change is challenging farmers and ranchers across the U.S. in many ways. On western rangelands, climate variability has increased the magnitude and number of extreme wildfires that occur each year. Wet years cause vegetation to thrive, while subsequent severe droughts turn it into deadly fuel.

Our research team wanted to understand how first-generation ranchers were adapting to California’s changing climate. Our preliminary research indicated they were less prepared for future droughts than more established ranchers, and they were less likely to use drought adaptation strategies, such as raising fewer animals than their land can support in good years. This approach hedges against the risk of bringing animals to market during dry years, when prices are less favorable.

But we soon discovered a new generation of ranchers who are creating different and often entirely new types of production systems in response to California’s climate extremes and high costs. Because they are starting from scratch, many of them do not view their practices as adapting, we learned. Rather, they see these techniques as central elements of a new kind of ranching.

A herd of dairy goats grazing in Southern California. 

Kate Munden-Dixon, CC BY-ND

For example, we interviewed one young first-generation cattle rancher who is experimenting with “mob grazing” – putting animals on small areas of land in dense groups for periods as short as a few hours, then moving them to new plots. Moving his herd as a close-knit unit across pastures mimics the natural movements of historical elk herds that use to roam coastal California.

His goals are to increase soil carbon storage and native vegetation by using hoof trampling to break up and incorporate residual plant matter into the soil after grazing. Then the pasture receives a long rest, which allows the soil and grass to recover.
An emerging model

New ranchers are spread throughout the length of California, from grassy foothill regions of the Sierra Nevada along the state’s eastern edge to the Pacific coast ranges. Many established California ranching families have large land holdings in multiple locations, but new ranchers tend to have smaller and fewer parcels of land.

Diversification is a key economic and ecological strategy. The average new rancher raises two types of livestock, and one-third of them also produce crops. The majority of these new ranchers (53%) are managing sheep, while less than half (47%) are raising beef cattle.

Many of these new ranchers view improving the environment with grazing animals as a way to positively affect the world. Like millennials in general, they want their work to be purpose-driven and are seeking work-life balance.

Although many are struggling to survive economically, these emerging ranchers believe they are providing a public service to communities. Some of them suggested to us that California should reconceptualize ranchers as ecosystem stewards who use grazing animals to restore watersheds and habitats, creating more resilient communities.

These services are valuable in California, where active management of landscapes can foster and enhance the state’s incredible biodiversity. It also reduces grasses and other forages that are potential fuel for devastating fires.
Beyond beef

So far, however, new forms of ranching have received little public buy-in or assistance. While this type of ranching has been gaining popularity, many policymakers and agricultural agencies still tend to equate livestock production with California’s US.19 billion beef cattle industry.

We see a critical opportunity for the public and government agencies to actively support ranchers who are working to mitigate the climate crisis. Several new and expanding funding streams could provide public support to new producers, including California’s Healthy Soils Program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program.

Consider the staggering impact of wildfires, which generated billion in insurance claims in California in 2018. Expanding incentive programs for new and beginning ranchers who are interested in fire mitigation and climate adaptation could support California’s land management goals.

However, without an increase in outreach and support, the future of these new ranchers is uncertain. Help from university researchers and agricultural and natural resource extension advisers is crucial to increase the number of new ranchers who begin and stay in ranching. And partnerships among universities, government agencies and nonprofits can help the next generation pursue innovative solutions to offset carbon emissions and reduce wildfire risks.

Kate Munden-Dixon is a member of the American Association of Geographers

The association is a funding partner of The Conversation US.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

It was written by: Kate Munden-Dixon, Indiana University and Leslie Roche, University of California, Davis.

Read more:

Gold rush opportunists, hippie goat ladies, Latino newcomers: California entrepreneurs dream of cheese

In fire-prone California, many residents can’t afford wildfire insurance

Collaboration, not fighting, is what the rural West is really about

Kate Munden-Dixon receives funding from USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE). She is a member of the American Association of Geographers.

Leslie Roche receives funding from USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE).

NO SUCH THING

Biden admin works on 'green' natural gas as U.S. vies for top LNG spot



A natural gas well platform owned by Encana north of Parachute, Colorado


Fri, March 3, 2023 
By Timothy Gardner and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Biden administration is holding talks with global energy companies and foreign officials in an effort to set standards for certified natural gas, a form of the fuel that producers market as climate friendly.

The effort comes as the United States seeks to sustain its liquefied natural gas, or LNG, exports to Europe to displace Russian fuel, while also promoting efforts to fight global warming.

A credible market for certified natural gas could help it tackle both goals at once. Gas can be certified as low- or no-carbon if its producers can prove they have reduced greenhouse gas emissions associated with getting it to market, or if they purchase carbon offsets to cut its net climate impact.

"It's a big priority for us to make sure that the role we're playing in ... supplying natural gas to our allies at a time of great energy security need is done in a way that is climate responsible," said Brad Crabtree, an assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) fossil energy and carbon management office.

The United States has become the world’s top gas producer in recent years, and competes with Qatar to be top LNG exporter.

Crabtree said he hosted a workshop in October with gas industry representatives, including a new industry group called the Differentiated Gas Coordinating Council (DGCC), to discuss standards for certified gas.

His office has also had talks with European Union representatives, Japan, Norway, the United Arab Emirates, and Britain, and others on approaches to reduce methane emissions from the industry, a spokesperson said.

On March 9 Crabtree will also host a private meeting on certified gas at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston with about 20 speakers, according to a copy of the invitation seen by Reuters.

Gas producers have attempted to market certified gas at a premium for years, using third-party certifiers - like non-profit MiQ and startup Project Canary - to prove the fuel has been produced and transported in ways that minimize emissions.

But a lack of unified standards on measuring and verifying emissions across the gas supply chain, and Europe’s energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have prevented low-carbon gas markets from taking off.

While gas burns cleaner than other fossil fuels, its main component is the powerful greenhouse gas methane, which can leak into the atmosphere from drilling, processing, shipping and distribution.

'CHAOTIC'

Certifiers rely on a dizzying array of competing measurement technologies to evaluate those emissions, including satellites, planes, drones and land-based systems, along with differing methodologies for how to interpret the data.

"The downside of all the innovation and creativity is that it also is very chaotic," Crabtree said.

Tom Hassenboehler, a lobbyist who helped form the DGCC industry group said the administration can help promote the certified gas market by laying out practices and standards to boost trust in the product.

During the Obama administration, the DOE helped build confidence in fracking by collaborating on a report and website on the disclosure of fracking fluids. It could play a similar role in certification markets, said Hassenboehler.

Williams Cos Inc, a gas processing and transportation company aligned with DGCC, says it will certify emissions cuts across the gas supply chain, to be verified by the auditor KPMG, LLP.

“The market is driving that because our customers want to see a credible documentation of the of the emissions,” said Chad Zamarin, a Williams executive vice president. Any government help to "verify that or provide additional comfort ... is something that makes a lot of sense.”

PureWest Energy, a private gas producer aligned with DGCC, did not immediately comment.

MiQ, which says it certifies nearly 20% of U.S. gas output, said Washington needs to show leadership.

"Any silence from the administration on this only results in more opacity and blurriness," said Ben Webster, MiQ's director of policy.

At Project Canary, which is in DGCC and says it certifies nearly 11% of U.S. gas output, Chief Commercial Officer Tanya Hendricks said the administration should use funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to deploy advanced monitoring technologies.

The U.S. does not endorse any one verification system, Crabtree said.

'TRAIN HAS LEFT THE STATION’

 If successful, certified gas could help sustain U.S. LNG exports to European markets and put perhaps put pressure on Russia to clean its gas once the war in Ukraine ends, experts said.

The thousands of miles of pipelines from Russian gas fields to Europe leak methane but there is little transparency about how much, said Leslie Palti-Guzman, president and founder of the research group Gas Vista.

Meanwhile, U.S. LNG is not only linked to methane leakage, but takes large amounts of energy to supercool and ship, adding to its carbon footprint.

Nobody knows which is cleaner, "but certified gas could strengthen the case for the U.S. and challenge the Russians to report credible numbers" on its methane emissions, said Robert Kleinberg, a Columbia University research scholar who advises DGCC, free of charge.

Palti-Guzman said certified gas could also be key to securing a longterm role for U.S. LNG in Europe where carbon prices last month hit a record 100 euros per tonne.

"The train left the station," she said. "It's only a matter of time before Europe makes (climate change) a priority again."

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Marguerita Choy)