INDIA

Climate solution: Green hydrogen company Ohmium raises $250M

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT

April 26, 2023

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An engineer works in the research and development area at the Ohmium manufacturing facility in Chikkaballapur, outside Bengaluru, India, Tuesday, April 25, 2023. The company announced Wednesday, April 26, it has raised $250 million to expand production of machines that can make clean hydrogen and displace fossil fuels. Ohmium's role is to make electrolyzers, the devices that take water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

In what could prove a milestone for an industry that hopes to help address climate change, the Silicon Valley company Ohmium announced Wednesday it has raised $250 million to increase production of machines that can make clean hydrogen and displace fossil fuels.

Some climate experts say burning hydrogen can substitute for burning coal, oil or gas, for example in making steel or cement — without contributing to climate change. That’s been largely theoretical, but real world examples are now growing.

Just four or five years ago, a company working on clean hydrogen from water would not have been able to raise several hundred million dollars, said Daryl Wilson, executive director of the Hydrogen Council. But now there’s rapid growth and demand for it, and a broader recognition that it’s key to addressing climate change, he said.

Mark Viehman, a hydrogen and clean fuels expert at the consulting firm Capgemini, called $250 million a “very impressive” fundraise, and said its own recent research found that 64% of energy and utility companies plan to put money into low-carbon hydrogen efforts by 2030.

Ohmium’s role is to make electrolyzers, the devices that take water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen.

CEO Arne Ballantine said the company will use the $250 million to scale up its plant in Chikkaballapur, outside Bengaluru, India, continue research at the Fremont, California headquarters to reduce the cost of production, and add to its 400-person workforce. Private equity group TPG’s Rise climate fund is the lead investor.

Ballantine said he plans to make enough electrolyzers each year to supply 2 gigawatts’ worth of hydrogen — enough for a few steel or fertilizer plants or several refineries.

Countries and industries are setting ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide from heavy manufacturing using hydrogen. There are also plans to use it in power generation and transport. The United States, European Union, Canada and India are offering tax credits and production incentives for clean, or green, hydrogen.

The International Energy Agency said in September that global hydrogen demand reached 94 million tons in 2021. Nearly 200 million tons will be needed by 2030 to get on track for net zero emissions by 2050, it said. There are about two dozen major electrolyzer manufacturers.

An electrolyzer produces clean hydrogen if it draws electricity from a grid that’s powered by renewable energy, such as wind and solar. Ballantine said Ohmium clients are completely focused on this method. This will be a major change, because less than 1% of hydrogen produced globally now comes from renewable energy, according to the IEA.

It will take a significant ramp-up in electrolyzer manufacturing and in zero-carbon electricity to meet the demand for low-emissions hydrogen, said Emily Kent, the U.S. director for zero-carbon fuels at the Clean Air Task Force. That’s because it requires massive amounts of electricity to run the electrolyzers.

Most hydrogen today is made from natural gas, which means greenhouse gases are released to get it out of the ground, and then more can leak as it travels through pipelines. Then to crack the hydrogen from natural gas, companies burn more fossil fuel to make steam, releasing more planet-warming greenhouse gases, unless carbon capture technology is used. This common method does not require an electrolyzer and the hydrogen then goes on to be used mainly in the refining and chemical sectors.

Some U.S. power plants plan to use Ohmium’s “Lotus” electrolyzer as a partial substitute for natural gas. Ohmium is also collaborating with Spanish energy company Cepsa and renewable energy developer Amp Energy India on green hydrogen projects. It announced an agreement last week to send an electrolyzer to a liquified natural gas import terminal in Andalusia, Spain.

Each electrolyzer can generate up to 50 tons of hydrogen per year, costs a few hundred thousand dollars and comes in a cabinet 8 feet high by 5 feet wide by 6 feet long, according to Ohmium. They’re interlocking and modular, in case more than one is needed.

Ballantine said it can be difficult to grasp exactly what hydrogen gas is and how it is useful in lessening climate change. But if he shows someone a piece of steel and says it was made releasing far less greenhouse gases, because we burned hydrogen made from water instead of burning coal to heat it up, then they get it, he said.

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

Bank: Asia must quit coal faster to stem worst climate woes

By SIBI ARASU

April 27, 2023

A couple walk on a hill called 'Teletubbies Hill', a locally popular tourist attraction, as the chimneys of Suralaya coal power plant looms in the background, in Cilegon, Indonesia, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Asia must rapidly cut fossil fuel subsidies and plow more money into a clean energy transition to avoid catastrophic climate change that puts its own development at risk, according to a new report Thursday, April 27, from the Asian Development Bank. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Asia must rapidly cut fossil fuel subsidies and plow more money into a clean energy transition to avoid catastrophic climate change that puts its own development at risk, according to a new report Thursday from the Asian Development Bank.

The region’s economic development is being fueled in a carbon-intensive way that is well above the world average, said David Raitzer, an ADB economist and one of the authors of the report. He urged quick action on an energy transition for greater benefits and lower costs.

“Ambitious action on climate change with well-designed policies can have a massive payoff,” Raitzer said.

Several countries are developing new coal-fired power plants in Asia, which accounts for 94% of the global pipeline of coal-fired power plants under construction, planned, or announced, according to the report.

Even as China, India and Indonesia accounted for a third of all emissions of planet-warming gases in 2019, six of the top 10 countries most affected by extreme weather in the first two decades of this century were in Asia, according to earlier studies. It’s estimated that up to $1.5 trillion in losses and damage to property were recorded in the region during that period, including unprecedented flooding in Pakistan that affected 33 million people last year.

The report estimated that 346,000 lives would be saved annually by 2030 if developing countries in Asia meet their goals for shifting to clean energy, leading to reduced air pollution. And it projected social and economic benefits from the shift equal to five times the cost of climate change impacts.

But investment in clean energy is lacking. Developing countries in Asia spent $116 billion in 2021 on subsidizing fossil fuels — much more than subsidies for renewables. Raitzer said international coordination is essential to change that.

“To reduce emissions efficiently, perverse subsidies for fossil fuels that exist now must be removed and there should be no new coal,” said Raitzer.

Other energy experts agree.

“A lot of development in Asia is linked to fossil fuel systems, which becomes a problem,” said Swati D’Souza, a New Delhi-based energy analyst with the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis who has been researching Asia’s energy transition for most of a decade.

New investments in fossil fuels should be avoided, D’Souza said.

“They will become stranded assets and the costs of dealing with them will fall on governments and ultimately the local communities and people,” she said.

The report said $397 billion has been invested in the clean energy transition in Asia’s developing countries, but an average annual investment of $707 billion is needed in those countries to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) called for in the Paris agreement to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

The report recommends reducing subsidies for fossil fuels, putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions and providing more policy incentives for clean energy. It said a carbon price of $70 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 and $153 by 2050 would help achieve net-zero goals.

Carbon pricing can take many forms, but generally is a way to make companies or governments pay the potential costs of climate change — heat waves, unseasonable rains, health effects — made worse by their emissions.

“Kicking the can down the road by waiting until after 2030 to strongly reduce emissions will not be in the region’s or the world’s best interest,” said Raitzer.

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Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

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

California passes 1st-in-nation emission rules for trains

By SOPHIE AUSTIN

yesterday

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Los Angeles skyline is seen above the Union Pacific LATC Intermodal Terminal is seen on Tuesday, April 25, 2023 in Los Angeles. California's Air Resources Board is set to vote on a rule to cut greenhouse gas and smog-forming emissions from diesel-powered locomotives used to pull rail cars through ports and railyards.

 (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California approved Thursday a first-in-the-nation, ambitious rule limiting rail pollution to aggressively cut greenhouse gas emissions in the state’s latest move to establish itself as a global leader in the fight against climate change.

The rule will ban locomotive engines more than 23 years old by 2030 and increase the use of zero-emissions technology to transport freight from ports and throughout railyards. It would also ban locomotives in the state from idling longer than 30 minutes if they are equipped with an automatic shutoff.

“It is time to kickstart the next step of transformation, with trains,” said Davina Hurt, a California Air Resources Board member.

The standards would also reduce chemicals that contribute to smog. They could improve air quality near railyards and ports.

But some say it’s too soon for the locomotive standards. Wayne Winegarden, a Pacific Research Institute senior fellow, said the rule would be expensive for rail companies, and increased costs will mean higher prices for many goods that move by rail.

The Association of American Railroads said in a statement “there is no clear path to zero emissions locomotives.”

“Mandating that result ignores the complexity and interconnected nature of railroad operations and the reality of where zero emission locomotive technology and the supporting infrastructure stand,” the group wrote.

Freight railways are an efficient means to transport the roughly 1.6 billion tons of goods nationwide across nearly 140,000 miles (225,308 kilometers), much cleaner than if those goods were trucked, it said.

The transportation sector contributed the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions nationwide in 2020, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But rail only accounts for about 2% of those emissions.

Kristen South, a Union Pacific spokesperson, said in a statement the rail company is “deeply disappointed” by the vote, adding that the rule is too ambitious for the current technology and infrastructure.

Union Pacific is working to cut greenhouse gas emissions in part by spending $1 billion to modernize locomotives and testing out engines powered by electric batteries, South wrote.

California passes rules to reduce train emissions

The California Air Resources Board has approved new rules to cut emissions and air pollution from diesel-powered trains. The railroad industry opposes the rules and questions whether California's authorities to regulate trains. (April 27) (AP Video/Terry Chea)

Cecilia Garibay, a project coordinator with the 50-member Moving Forward Network based at Occidental College, said California needs “the strongest, most protective in-use locomotive regulation” that sets an example for the nation.

The standards would need approval from the Biden administration to move forward. They follow rules approved by the EPA to cut emissions from heavy trucks.

Locomotives pull rail cars filled with food, lumber, oil and other products through railyards near neighborhoods in Oakland, Commerce, San Bernardino and other California cities.

They run on diesel, a more powerful fuel than gasoline, producing greenhouse gases and pollution that is harmful for nearby residents.

Other states can sign on to try to adopt the California rule if it gets the OK from the Biden administration.

The rule is the most ambitious of its kind in the country.

“The locomotive rule has the power to change the course of history for Californians who have suffered from train pollution for far too long, and it is my hope that our federal regulators follow California’s lead,” said Yasmine Agelidis, a lawyer with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, in a statement.

Diesel exhaust is a health hazard. According to California regulators, diesel emissions are responsible for some 70% of Californians’ cancer risk from toxic air pollution. The rule would curb emissions on a class of engines that annually release more than 640 tons of tiny pollutants that can enter deep into a person’s lungs and worsen asthma, and release nearly 30,000 tons of smog-forming emissions known as nitrogen oxides. The rule would also drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions from locomotives, by an amount akin to removing all heavy-duty trucks from the state by 2030.

It’s important to tackle emissions from a sector that often burdens low-income residents and communities of color, and that has plans to expand passenger rail, said Air Resources Board Chair Liane M. Randolph.

Rail companies can participate in incentive programs run by the state to ease the cost of transitioning to zero-emissions locomotives, the agency said.

California has already set out to make big emissions cuts in other areas. The state approved a transition to zero-emissions cars and a roadmap to achieve carbon neutrality, meaning it would remove as many carbon emissions as it releases, by 2045. The board is also considering a rule to electrify a group of heavy trucks that transports goods through ports.

For activists and residents who’ve lived in areas affected by heavy rail pollution, the fight for cleaner trains is decades in the making.

Jan Victor Andasan, an activist with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, grew up in West Long Beach and now organizes residents there. It’s a neighborhood near the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach that is “surrounded by pollution” from trains, trucks and industry.

“We support rail, but we support rail if they’re doing all their best to mitigate their emissions,” Andasan said.

Residents shared stories Thursday of children who live near railways having to share inhalers to ease asthma symptoms and families taking extreme measures to rid their homes of diesel fumes.

Some activists would like California to go further, for example, to limit locomotive idling to 15 minutes. They are also concerned that increased demand from online shopping is causing more rail traffic that burdens communities.

The EPA recently approved California rules requiring zero-emission trucks, depending on the type, to make up between 40% and 75% of sales by 2035.

Heidi Swillinger lives in a mobile home park in San Pablo, a small city in the San Francisco Bay Area, along the BNSF Railway. She estimates that her home is just 20 feet (6 meters) from the tracks. She said it’s not uncommon for diesel fumes to fill her house, resulting in a “thick, acrid, dirty smell.”

“Nobody wants to live next to a railroad track,” Swillinger said. “You move next to a railroad track because you don’t have other options.”

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Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @sophieadanna

Berlin sees 10th day of road blockades by climate activists

By FRANK JORDANS

yesterday

A police officer attempts to remove the hand of a climate activist from the road at Grosser Stern, in front of the Victory Column, in Berlin, Friday, April 28, 2023. Climate activists staged a tenth straight day of protests in Berlin on Friday, blocking key roads during rush hour and bringing parts of the German capital to a standstill.

Members of the group Last Generation glued themselves to the road, causing long tailbacks for commuters driving into the city. 

(Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — Climate activists staged a 10th straight day of protests in Berlin, blocking key roads during rush hour and bringing parts of the German capital to a standstill Friday before being removed by police.

Members of the Last Generation group glued themselves to the road, causing a traffic jam for commuters driving into the city. The group wants to draw attention to the threat of global warming and the need for governments to step up measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

At a crossing in the north of the capital, many drivers waited patiently for police to clear the road, though some hurled abuse at the activists, calling them “terrorists” and “scum.” Several pedestrians applauded the protesters, giving them a thumbs-up, while one passerby offered them food and water.

Last Generation has acknowledged that its protests are provocative, but it argues that by stirring friction it can encourage debate within society about climate change.

“Sure, there are those who insult or criticize us,” activist Theodor Schnarr said. “But I’ve got the feeling that more and more people are coming to us on the streets and saying they think this is a good thing.”

Schnarr said the group believes disruptive but peaceful protests are justified, because of the enormity of the climate crisis and the urgent need to tackle it.

“We have all the solutions. The German government just needs to implement them,” he said.

But Frank Silzle, a motorist who was inconvenienced by Friday’s blockade, said that while he agreed with the group’s aims, he objected to its tactics.

“Ultimately I think it’s counterproductive, what they’re doing,” Silzle said. “I understand their cause completely, but the way they’re going about it is sadly causing a counterreaction within the population that is very, very harmful to the cause.”

Berlin police said that about 500 officers were deployed to deal with more than a dozen blockades Friday.

The protests come at an awkward time for the government, which is hosting an international climate meeting in the capital next week where it will push for other countries to do more to curb planet-warming emissions even as it faces criticism at home for failing to do enough.

German government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann said the government “shares, in principle, the goal of drastically reducing CO2 emissions in order to stop and prevent climate change.”

“We just think the path taken by the climate movement, or some of these activists, is the wrong path for drawing attention to this,” she told reporters.

Hoffmann said the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, an event taking place in Berlin on May 2-3, remains focused on achieving the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times.

Some German politicians have called for tougher police measures and sentences against activists for blocking roads. So far, most courts have either acquitted activists or issued them fines, though three Last Generation members recently received prison sentences ranging from three to five months in southern Germany.

The group plans to meet with Germany’s transportation minister next week to discuss its demands. They include the introduction of a universal speed limit on German highways, a move that experts say would be a quick and cheap measure to cut emissions.

Meanwhile, activists from the organization Extinction Rebellion staged a protest Friday outside the Danish parliament in Copenhagen.

The protest’s goal was “to pressure the government to bow to our simple demands for more protected nature and less industrial agriculture in Denmark,” the demonstrators said in a statement.

“If politicians still do not do what is clearly necessary, we will return and rebel again on May 12,” they said.

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Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Police officers unglue a climate activist from the road in Berlin, Friday April 28, 2023

Earth in hot water? Worries over sudden ocean warming spike

By SETH BORENSTEIN

April 27, 2023

The sun rises above the Atlantic Ocean as waves crash near beach goers walking along a jetty, Dec. 7, 2022, in Bal Harbour, Fla. The world's oceans have suddenly spiked much hotter and well above record levels, with scientists trying to figure out what it means and whether it forecasts a surge in atmospheric warming.

 (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

The world’s oceans have suddenly spiked much hotter and well above record levels in the last few weeks, with scientists trying to figure out what it means and whether it forecasts a surge in atmospheric warming.

Some researchers think the jump in sea surface temperatures stems from a brewing and possibly strong natural El Nino warming weather condition plus a rebound from three years of a cooling La Nina, all on top of steady global warming that is heating deeper water below. If that’s the case, they said, record-breaking ocean temperatures this month could be the first in many heat records to shatter.

From early March to this week, the global average ocean sea surface temperature jumped nearly two-tenths of a degree Celsius (0.36 degree Fahrenheit), according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, which climate scientists use and trust. That may sound small, but for the average of the world’s oceans — which is 71% of Earth’s area —to rise so much in that short a time, “that’s huge,” said University of Colorado climate scientist Kris Karnauskas. “That’s an incredible departure from what was already a warm state to begin with.”

Climate scientists have been talking about the warming on social media and amongst themselves. Some, like University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Mann, quickly dismiss concerns by saying it is merely a growing El Nino on top of a steady human-caused warming increase.

It has warmed especially off the coast of Peru and Ecuador, where before the 1980s most El Ninos began. El Nino is the natural warming of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide and spikes global temperatures. Until last month, the world has been in the flip side, a cooling called La Nina, that has been unusually strong and long, lasting three years and causing extreme weather.

Other climate scientists, including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Gregory C. Johnson, say it doesn’t appear to be just El Nino. There are several marine heat waves or ocean warming spots that don’t fit an El Nino pattern, such as those in the northern Pacific near Alaska and off the coast of Spain, he said.

“This is an unusual pattern. This is an extreme event at a global scale” in areas that don’t fit with merely an El Nino, said Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi. “That is a huge, huge signal. I think it’s going to take some level of effort to understand it.”

The University of Colorado’s Karnauskas took global sea surface temperature anomalies over the past several weeks and subtracted the average temperature anomalies from earlier in the year to see where the sudden burst of warming is highest. He found a long stretch across the equator from South America to Africa, including both the Pacific and Indian oceans, responsible for much of the global temperature spike.

That area warmed four-tenths of a degree Celsius in just 10 to 14 days, which is highly unusual, Karnauskas said.

Part of that area is clearly a brewing El Nino, which scientists may confirm in the next couple months and they can see it gathering strength, Karnauskas said. But the area in the Indian Ocean is different and could be a coincidental independent increase or somehow connected to what may be a big El Nino, he said.

“We’re already starting at such an elevated background state, a baseline of of really warm global ocean temperatures, including in the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean. And suddenly you add on a developing El Nino and now we’re like off the chart,” Karnauskas said.

It’s been about seven years since the last El Nino, and it was a whopper. The world has warmed in that seven years, especially the deeper ocean, which absorbs by far most of the heat energy from greenhouse gases, said Sarah Purkey, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography. The ocean heat content, which measures the energy stored by the deep ocean, each year sets new record highs regardless of what’s happening on the surface.

Since that last El Nino, the global heat ocean content has increased .04 degrees Celsius (.07 degrees Fahrenheit), which may not sound like a lot but “it’s actually a tremendous amount of energy,” Purkey said. It’s about 30 to 40 zettajoules of heat, which is the energy equivalent of hundreds of millions of atomic bombs the size that leveled Hiroshima, she said.

On top of that warming deep ocean, the world had unusual cooling on the surface from La Nina for three years that sort of acted like a lid on a warming pot, scientists said. That lid is off.

“La Nina’s temporary grip on rising global temperatures has been released,” NOAA oceanographer Mike McPhaden said in an email. “One result is that March 2023 was the second highest March on record for global mean surface temperatures.”

If El Nino makes its heavily forecasted appearance later this year “what we are seeing now is just a prelude to more records that are in the pipeline,” McPhaden wrote.

Karnauskas said what’s likely to happen will be an “acceleration” of warming after the heat has been hidden for a few years.
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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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

In Arizona, fresh scrutiny of Saudi-owned farm’s water use

By SUMAN NAISHADHAM

yesterday

This image shows an Almarai logo in Cairo, Egypt, on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. Fondomonte Arizona, a subsidiary of Almarai Co., has for nearly a decade grown alfalfa in the American Southwest that is sent to the Gulf kingdom to feed cows there. Arizona rescinded a pair of drilling permits that would have allowed Fondomonte to pump up to 3,000 gallons of water per minute to irrigate its forage crops.

 (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

In rural Arizona’s La Paz County, on the state’s rugged border with California, the decision by a Saudi-owned dairy company to grow alfalfa in the American Southwest for livestock in the Gulf kingdom first raised eyebrows nearly a decade ago. Now, worsening drought has focused new attention on the company and whether Arizona should be doing more to protect its groundwater resources.

Amid a broader investigation by the state attorney general, Arizona last week rescinded a pair of permits that would have allowed Fondomonte Arizona, a subsidiary of Almarai Co., to drill more than 1,000 feet (305 meters) into the water table to pump up to 3,000 gallons (11 kiloliters) of water per minute to irrigate its forage crops.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Attorney General Kris Mayes said she thought most Arizonans see it as “outrageous” that the state is allowing foreign-owned companies “to stick a straw in our ground and use our water for free to grow alfalfa and send it home to Saudi Arabia. We just can’t — in the midst of an epic drought — afford to do dumb things with water in the state of Arizona anymore.”

Mayes, a Democrat, sought the revocations after she said her office had found inconsistencies in the permit applications. Mayes vowed to look into Fondomonte’s operations and water use last year after the Arizona Republic reported that the Arizona State Land Department leased the company thousands of acres of farmland for below market value.

Fondomonte did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the AP. Its lawyers have said previously that the company legally leased and purchased land in the U.S. and spent millions on infrastructure improvements.

Years of drought have ratcheted up pressure on water users across the West, particularly in states like Arizona, which relies heavily on the dwindling Colorado River. The drought has also made groundwater — long used by farmers and rural residents with little restriction — even more important for users across the state.

Saudi Arabia, struggling with its own water shortages in the past decade, restricted the growth of some forage crops in the country. That Fondomonte chose Arizona as a place to grow such crops has angered some in the state, which has faced two consecutive years of federal water cuts from the Colorado River, a primary water source for the state.

Officials from both parties have criticized the use of state water by foreign-owned entities, with Gov. Katie Hobbs, also a Democrat, saying in her January state of the state address that she, too, would look into the practice. The state’s groundwater, Hobbs said, “should be used to support Arizonans, not foreign business interests.”

That same month, Republican state legislators introduced a bill to prohibit sales of state lands to foreign governments, state enterprises and any company based in China, Russia or Saudi Arabia.

“There’s a perception that water goes to local uses,” said Andrew Curley, a professor of geography and the environment at the University of Arizona. “When you recognize it’s going far away, that the products and benefits of this water are exported overseas, that really provokes people’s attention.”

Foreign entities and individuals control roughly 3% of U.S. farmland, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Canada is the largest holder — mainly of forestland. Fourteen U.S. states have restrictions on foreign individuals or entities owning farmland, but limitations vary widely and no state completely prohibits it.

Fondomonte also farms in California’s Palo Verde Valley, an area that gets its water from the Colorado River. Those operations have attracted less scrutiny. And it’s not the only foreign company that farms in the Southwest. The United Arab Emirates-owned Al Dahra ACX Global Inc. grows forage crops in Arizona and California, and is a major North American exporter of hay.

U.S. farmers themselves export hay and other forage crops to the Middle East — mainly to Saudi Arabia. China is the primary export market for U.S. hay.

In Arizona, renewed attention to Fondomonte’s water use is raising questions about the state’s lack of regulation around pumping groundwater in rural parts of the state.

Phoenix, Tucson and other Arizona cities have restrictions on how much groundwater they can pump under a 1980 state law aimed at protecting the state’s aquifers. But in rural areas, little is required of water users besides registering wells with the state and using the water for activities, including farming that are deemed a “beneficial use.”

“Frankly, I believe they are not doing their jobs,” Mayes said about Arizona’s Department of Water Resources’ oversight of rural areas. The department declined to comment on the revoked drilling permits or the need for more groundwater regulation.

Mayes, along with hydrologists and environmental advocates, says more studies are needed of groundwater basins in rural areas — such as La Paz County, an agricultural county of about 16,000 people. Currently, Arizona doesn’t measure how much groundwater users pump in such areas, which means there is little understanding of how much water an operation like Fondomonte — or other farms — uses.

Almarai’s holdings in the Southwest are just one example of the farmland the company and its subsidiaries operate outside Saudi Arabia. It farms tens of thousands of acres in Argentina, which has also faced severe drought conditions in recent years.

Holly Irwin, a member of the La Paz County Board of Supervisors, has long opposed Fondomonte using water in the county. She said she’s fielded complaints from residents for years that it’s getting harder to pump water in nearby wells and has repeatedly asked the state to do something about it.

“We need to have some sort of regulation so it’s not all just being pumped out of the ground,” Irwin said.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Brittney Griner gets emotional discussing Russian detainment

By JOHN MARSHALL

April 27, 2023

Brittney Griner holds court with Phoenix Mercury

Brittney Griner speaks out as she heads back to the WNBA with the Phoenix Mercury; doesn't discuss Russia imprisonment. (April 27)

PHOENIX (AP) — Hope bounced around Brittney Griner like a buoy and an anchor.

Hope of returning home, hope of a miracle, was all she had all those months in custody in Russia. On the days hopelessness crept in, days that grew as her detainment stretched into a second winter, optimism drowned in despair.

Photos of her family half a world away kept Griner afloat.

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“Just being able to see their faces, that did it for me,” Griner said Thursday in her first news conference since being released. “The moment where you kind of want to give up, you look at the photos and it kind of brings you back to what you’re waiting on. You’re waiting to be back with your families, with your loved ones in a safe place.”

Griner has been safe since a nearly 10-month detainment in Russia on drug-related charges ended with a prisoner swap in December.

Griner kept a low profile following her return to the U.S. while adjusting to life back home, outside of appearances at the Super Bowl, the PGA Tour’s Phoenix Open and an MLK Day event in Phoenix.

She returned to the spotlight at a news conference on Thursday, an event attended by roughly 200 people inside the lobby of the Footprint Center, home of the Phoenix Mercury and the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, Griner’s wife, Cherelle, and members of the Mercury organization gave the WNBA star a standing ovation as she appeared from behind a banner and climbed onto the riser.

“Different than a basketball press conference today,” said Griner, her eyes beaming and a huge smile across her face. “A LOT of media in here today.”

Griner gained international attention in February 2022, when she was arrested after Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. She later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

After months of negotiations between Washington and Moscow, Griner was exchanged in the United Arab Emirates for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout on Dec. 8.

Griner kept her emotions in check during the news conference while thanking everyone who helped secure her release, including President Joe Biden, but had to take a moment to compose herself after being asked about her resiliency through the ordeal.

“I’m no stranger to hard times,” Griner said, fighting back tears. “Just digging deep. You’re going to be faced with adversities in life. This was a pretty big one. I just relied on my hard work to get through it.”

Griner faced an adjustment period once she returned to the U.S., one that’s still ongoing.

She spent some time in San Antonio, where she picked up a basketball for the first time in nearly a year. Wearing low-stop shoes on an outdoor court, Griner put up a few shots, even trying to see if she can still dunk (yes, she can).

“I thought I was like 16 again,” she said. “I mean, my ankles did not like it, but it was good.”

Once back in Phoenix, Griner walked around town, taking in the scenery of her hometown with a newfound appreciation that comes with a freedom she didn’t have for nearly 10 months.

“Walking around town was a little bit different, but it felt good being back to being on U.S. soil, especially when you’re back here in the Valley,” Griner said. “It was really warming and nothing but love, being out and about, just trying to get back to just being normal.”

From left; Artist Antoinette Cauley, Cherelle Griner, WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner, Neda Sharghi, chair of Bring Our Families Home, and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs pose for photographers after unveiling a 30-foot mural depicting individuals detained abroad, Thursday, April 27, 2023, outside the Footprint Center in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Normal will include a return to the Mercury.

Griner announced shortly after her release that she would play in the WNBA this season and re-signed with the Mercury on a one-year deal. The seven-time WNBA All-Star and two-time league defensive player of the year started slowly and has ramped up training in preparation for the Mercury’s opening game on May 19.

“I feel like I’ve hit the corner and just loving it now, but at first there was a point where it was like, wow, dang, I really want to do this this fast right now?

“But no, it was so worth it. So worth it.”

Griner is returning to the WNBA but won’t be playing abroad again, unless it’s with Team USA.

“I’m never playing overseas again,” the two-time Olympic gold medalist said. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA.”

Griner’s new normal also will include working with Bring Our Families Home, a campaign formed in 2022 by the family members of American hostages and wrongful detainees held overseas.

Griner said her team has been in touch with the family of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who’s being detained in Russia on espionage charges.

Griner and BOFH unveiled a mural outside the Footprint Center with the faces of Americans detained overseas and will work to bring as many of them home as possible.

“No one should be in any of the conditions that I went through or they’re going through,” she said.

The Russian prison conditions at times spiraled Griner into hopelessness. The familiar faces of her family always brought her back, hope returning until she was finally able to reunite with them.

Intelligence chief: Russian spy ring had ‘source’ in France

THEY HAVE SINCE THE TIME OF THE TSAR

By JOHN LEICESTER

yesterday

Head of France's intelligence agency DGSI Nicolas Lerner, center, attends a remembrance gathering for murdered Stephanie Monferme, a mother and local police employee, in Rambouillet, southwest of Paris on April 30, 2021. The French chief of counter-intelligence has given new details about a Russian spy ring broken up last year by France. The director of the DGSI security agency said the six Russian intelligence agents were caught red-handed interacting with a source on French soil.

 (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

LE PECQ, France (AP) — The French chief of counterintelligence has given new details about a Russian spy ring broken up by France in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, saying the six intelligence agents were caught red-handed interacting with a source on French soil.

The director of the DGSI counterintelligence and counterterrorism agency, Nicolas Lerner, was speaking to a French parliamentary enquiry looking into foreign efforts to influence or corrupt political parties, leaders and opinion-makers in France. His testimony was delivered behind closed doors in February. But the website of the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, published his comments this week.

Lerner described the unmasking of the Russian agents as “one of the most significant counter-intelligence operations carried out by the DGSI in recent decades.”

The six intelligence officers were “caught in the act of treating with a source on the national territory” and expelled, Lerner said, without giving more details.

At the time, in April 2022, France’s Foreign Ministry said the Russian “clandestine operation” was unmasked by “a very long” DGSI investigation. It said the six agents posed as diplomats and that their activities were “contrary to our national interests.” Its statement made no mention of a source in France.

France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, also made no mention of a French source for the spies in his tweet last April that hailed the “remarkable counterespionage operation” by the DGSI which “obstructed a network of Russian clandestine agents.”

A week prior to those expulsions, as the horrors of war crimes committed by Russian forces in Bucha, Ukraine, were coming to light, France also expelled 35 Russian diplomats. saying their activities were ” contrary to our security interests. ”

Expulsions, including tit-for-tat retaliations by Moscow, have been a feature of the deepening gulf between Russia and countries opposed to its war in Ukraine. Sweden this week expelled five Russian Embassy employees suspected of spying. Norway expelled 15 Russian diplomats earlier this month. Russia this week responded by ordering 10 Norwegian diplomats in Moscow to leave.

In his sworn testimony, Lerner told lawmakers that Russia had long been running the largest spy operation in France, using intelligence officers posing as diplomats.

“The country that historically has the most important system is Russia. This tradition continued to the present day. In each Western country, several dozen officers — their number has diminished significantly since the start of the Ukraine crisis — from the three Russian intelligence services carry out intelligence and interference actions under diplomatic cover.”

He added that China also “maintains a network under diplomatic cover that is much less developed than Russia’s.”

Lerner suggested to lawmakers that they also should be on their guard about the risk of intelligence agents seeking to ensnare them. He said the DGSI was in regular contact with lawmakers to alert them and “if necessary to let them know who they are dealing with.”

“In recent months, we have done this several times, after detecting contacts with Russian intelligence officers under diplomatic cover,” he said.

More broadly, the French counterintelligence chief said that previous unwritten rules that rival countries observed in the Cold War were collapsing in a new era of more aggressive and direct confrontation.

“From 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall, certain tacit rules, which one can like or disagree with, governed relations between nations,” he said.

“Each bloc broadly respected the other’s sphere of influence. All of that has disappeared. Now, the way some countries see it is that the only rules are the fait accompli and the law of the strongest.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine and https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine-a-year-of-war

China pushes to digitize mines in attempt to make them safer

By HAN GUAN NG

yesterday

PHOTO ESSAY 23 PICS

A miner pulls back the wire fence near the shearer at the mining face of Xiaobaodang Coal Mine near the city of Shenmu in northwestern China's Shaanxi province on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. China is using “smart” technology to try to improve its safety record in coal mines, as part of a push by the National Energy Administration to bolster output and stem frequent accidents and collapses. Huawei Technologies Ltd., better known for telecommunications equipment and the target of U.S. sanctions, has pivoted to other industries including self-driving cars, factories and mines. 

(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

SHENMU, China (AP) — China is using “smart” technology to try to improve its safety record in coal mines, as part of a push by the National Energy Administration to bolster output and stem frequent accidents and collapses.

Smart-mine sensors monitor aspects such as gas buildup and flooding or ventilation levels, and set off an alert if any reach a dangerous level. The sensors, located inside the mine and on carts and tools, transfer the data via 5G, allowing for real-time monitoring by a central command.


Huawei Technologies Ltd., better known for telecommunications equipment, teamed up with state-owned Shaanxi Coal Industry Co to pilot its intelligent coal mine technology in Hongliulin and Xiaobaodang. Huawei has pivoted to other industries including self-driving cars, factories and mines amid U.S. sanctions that led it to report a 70% decline in profits from last year in March.

The system has allowed Shaanxi to reduce the number of people working underground by 42% at the Xiaobaodang mine, while increasing production levels. Miners now work with the help of robots, which monitor equipment while centrally-controlled shearers are used to collect coal.

In March, China said that 53 miners involved in an accident in a large mine in Inner Mongolia were either missing or dead. The mine collapsed in February after a landslide.

FASCISM U$A

GOP uses state capitol protests to redefine ‘insurrection’
TOPSY TURVEY ORWELLIANISM
By KIMBERLEE KRUESI and ALI SWENSON

yesterday

1 of 8
 Montana Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr hoists a microphone into the air on Monday, April 24, 2023, as her supporters interrupt proceedings in the state House by chanting "Let Her Speak!" in Helena, Mont. The silencing of Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker in Montana, marks the third time in a month that Republicans have attempted to compare disruptive but otherwise peaceful protests at state capitols to insurrections. The tactic follows a pattern set over the past two years when the term has been misused to describe public demonstrations and even the 2020 election that put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. (AP Photo/Amy Beth Hanson, File)

Silenced by her Republican colleagues, Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr looked up from the House floor to supporters in the gallery shouting “Let her speak!” and thrust her microphone into the air — amplifying the sentiment the Democratic transgender lawmaker was forbidden from expressing.

It was a brief moment of defiance and chaos. While seven people were arrested for trespassing, the boisterous demonstration was free of violence or damage. Yet later that day, a group of Republican lawmakers described it in darker tones, saying Zephyr’s actions were responsible for “encouraging an insurrection.”

It’s the third time in the last five weeks — and one of at least four times this year — that Republicans have attempted to compare disruptive but nonviolent protests at state capitols to insurrections.

The tactic follows a pattern set over the past two years when the term has been misused to describe public demonstrations and even the 2020 election that put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. It’s a move experts say dismisses legitimate speech and downplays the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Shortly after, the U.S. House voted to impeach him for “incitement of insurrection.”

Ever since, many Republicans have attempted to turn the phrase on Democrats.

“They want to ring alarm bells and they want to compare this to Jan. 6,” said Andy Nelson, the Democratic Party chair in Missoula County, which includes Zephyr’s district. “There’s absolutely no way you can compare what happened on Monday with the Jan. 6 insurrection. Violence occurred that day. No violence occurred in the gallery of the Montana House.”

This week’s events in the Montana Legislature drew comparisons to a similar demonstration in Tennessee. Republican legislative leaders there used “insurrection” to describe a protest on the House floor by three Democratic lawmakers who were calling for gun control legislation in the aftermath of a Nashville school shooting that killed three students and three staff. Two of them chanted “Power to the people” through a megaphone and were expelled before local commissions reinstated them.


Montana transgender lawmaker silenced again
Republican legislative leaders in Montana persisted in forbidding Democratic transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr from participating in debate for a second week as her supporters brought the House session to a halt Monday — chanting “Let her speak!” from the gallery before they were escorted out. (April 24)
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As in Montana, their supporters were shouting from the gallery above, and the scene brought legislative proceedings to a halt. Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton condemned the Democratic lawmakers.

“(What) they did today was equivalent, at least equivalent, maybe worse depending on how you look at it, of doing an insurrection in the Capitol,” Sexton, a Republican, told a conservative radio station on March 30.

He later clarified to reporters that he was talking just about the lawmakers and not the protesters who were at the Capitol. He has maintained that the Democratic lawmakers were trying to cause a riot.

To Democrats, Republicans’ reaction was seen as a way to distract discussion from a critical topic.

“They are trying to dismiss the integrity and sincerity of what all these people are calling for,” said Tennessee Democratic Rep. John Ray Clemmons. “They’re dismissing what it is just to avoid the debate on this issue.”

Legal experts say the term insurrection has a specific meaning — a violent uprising that targets government authority.

That’s how dictionaries described it in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the term was added to the Constitution and the 14th Amendment, said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University.

Protests at the capitols in Montana and Tennessee didn’t involve violence or any real attempts to dismantle or replace a government, so it’s wrong to call them insurrections, Tribe said.

Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, said insurrection is understood as a coordinated attempt to overthrow government.

“Disrupting things is a far cry from insurrection,” Gerhardt said. “It’s just a protest, and protesters are not insurrectionists.”

Nevertheless, conservative social media commentators and bloggers have used the word insurrection alongside videos of protesters at state capitols in attempts to equate those demonstrations to the Jan. 6 attack, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to halt certification of the presidential vote and keep Trump in office. Some of the rioters sought out then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and shouted “Hang Mike Pence” as they roamed the Capitol.

Republicans’ use of the term insurrection in these cases isn’t just wrong, it’s also strategic, said Yotam Ophir, a University at Buffalo communications professor who focuses on misinformation. Repeating a loaded term over and over makes it lose its meaning and power, he said.

The term also serves two other purposes for Republicans: demonizing Democrats as violent and implying that the accusations against Trump supporters on Jan. 6 were exaggerated, Ophir said.

In Montana, one widely shared Twitter post falsely claimed transgender “insurgents” had “seized” the Capitol, while the right-wing website Breitbart called the protest Democrats’ “second ‘insurrection’ in as many months.”

The Montana Freedom Caucus, which issued the statement that included the insurrection description, also demanded that Zephyr be disciplined. The group includes 21 Montana Republican lawmakers, or a little less than a third of Republicans in the Legislature. It was founded in January with the encouragement of U.S. House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Matt Rosendale, a hardline Montana conservative who backed Trump’s false statements about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Republican lawmakers eventually voted to bar Zephyr from participating on the House floor, forcing her to vote remotely. Notably, Republicans largely avoided referencing insurrection when discussing the motion, but some did accuse Zephyr of attempting to incite violence and putting her colleagues at risk of harm.

The Montana and Tennessee examples follow at least two other statehouse protests that prompted cries of “insurrection” from Republicans.

Donald Trump Jr. cited “insurrection” in February in a tweet claiming transgender activists had taken over and occupied the Oklahoma Capitol. But according to local news reports, hundreds of supporters of transgender rights who rallied against a gender-affirming care ban before the Republican-controlled Legislature were led in through metal detectors by law enforcement and protested peacefully.

In Minnesota, some conservative commentators used the word insurrection earlier this month as demonstrators gathered peacefully outside the Senate chambers while lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled Legislature debated contentious bills ranging from LGBTQ issues to abortion. There was no violence or damage.

The rhetoric lines up with the refusal among many Republicans to acknowledge that the Jan. 6 attack was an assault on American democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.

“My colleagues across the aisle have spent so much time trying to silence the minority party that anyone speaking up and amplifying their voice probably strikes them as insurrectionist, even though it doesn’t resemble anything like it,” said Clemmons, the Democratic lawmaker in Tennessee.

RELATED COVERAGE– 

Montana trans lawmaker fights on during 1st day of exile
– 'Blood on your hands': Montana lawmaker's words not unusual
– Montana transgender lawmaker barred by GOP from House floor
– Rep. Zooey Zephyr's town feels divide from rest of Montana

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Kruesi reported from Nashville and Swenson from New York. Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta; Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minnesota; Sam Metz in Salt Lake City and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

Montana trans lawmaker fights on during 1st day of exile

By AMY BETH HANSON, BRITTANY PETERSON and SAM METZ

April 27, 2023

Transgender lawmaker fights for space in hall 

PHOTOS VIDEO

Montana lawmaker Zooey Zephyr began her first day in legislative exile with renewed confidence that Republican lawmakers’ unprecedented vote to silence her has only amplified her message. 


HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr spent her first day in legislative exile Thursday relegated to a bench in a noisy hallway across from a snack bar outside the state House chambers where she is no longer allowed.

Zephyr defiantly stayed put even after the Republican House speaker said she couldn’t be there and a House security officer threatened to move the bench where she had set up her laptop. She listened to debate and voted remotely from there, with a gold sticky note on the wall above her head that read “Seat 31,” her seat assignment in the house. The note was placed there by transgender and nonbinary Rep. SJ Howell.

RELATED COVERAGE

– Montana transgender lawmaker silenced: What to know
– Rep. Zooey Zephyr's town feels divide from rest of Montana
– Polarization means punishment for minority party lawmakers
– Montana transgender lawmaker barred by GOP from House floor

Republicans had wanted Zephyr to participate from behind the doors of the House Minority’s offices a day after they voted to ban her from the House floor for the rest of the session, which ends early next week.

Her refusal to do so came as Democrats sought to keep Zephyr’s banishment in plain view after a week’s worth of nationwide public scrutiny over Republicans’ unprecedented actions to silence her, which continued Thursday.

Republicans moved to sideline Zephyr further by shutting down the two committees she serves on and moving the bills they were to hear to other committees, Democratic Rep. Donavon Hawk said in a statement.

“I walked out yesterday with my head held high and I walked in with my head held high today, ready to do my job,” Zephyr told The Associated Press.

As cameras snapped and espresso beans churned in a machine nearby, Zephyr and Democratic leaders promised she would remain in the public eye unless Republicans elected to further limit where she could go in the Capitol.

“There are many more eyes on Montana now,” Zephyr said. “But you do the same thing you’ve always done. You stand up in defense of your community and you ... stand for the principles that they elected you to stand for.”

The motion Republicans passed bars Zephyr from the marble-pillared House, the gallery above it and a waiting room, but not the public space in the hall where she set up. Minority Leader Kim Abbott said the lawmaker would be voting there, within public view.

The showdown began last week, when Zephyr told lawmakers backing a bill to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors that they would have blood on their hands. The phrase has been used recurrently by both Republicans and Democrats discussing the nation’s most polarizing issues, but Montana House leaders said they would block Zephyr from participating further in the debate until she apologized for saying it.

Zephyr did not back down, instead participating in a protest that disrupted Monday’s House session as observers in the gallery chanted, “Let her speak!” — an action that led to Wednesday’s vote to banish her from the floor.

The Republican response to her comments, and her refusal to apologize for them as demanded, have transformed Zephyr into a prominent figure in the nationwide battle for transgender rights and placed her at the center of the ongoing debate over the muffling of dissent in statehouses.

“Silencing an elected representative, in an attempt to suppress their messages, is a denial of democratic values. It’s undemocratic,” White House Press Secretary Kaine Jean-Pierre said Thursday.

Rep. Zooey Zephyr sits for a portrait at the Montana State Capitol.

 (AP Photo/Tommy Martino)

The attention is a new phenomenon for Zephyr, a 34-year-old serving her first term representing a western Montana college town after being elected in November.

In her interview with the AP, Zephyr likened efforts to silence her to the decision by Tennessee lawmakers to expel two Black representatives for disrupting proceedings when they participated in a gun control protest after a school shooting in Nashville. The two were quickly reinstated.

Tennessee lawmakers not only rejected gun control laws, but by expelling the lawmakers they sent a message saying: “‘Your voices shouldn’t be here. We’re going to send you away,’” Zephyr said.

Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, walks out of the Montana House of Representatives after lawmakers voted to ban her from the chamber. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP)

As in Montana, GOP leaders in Tennessee had said their actions were necessary to avoid setting a precedent that lawmakers’ disruptions of House proceedings through protest would be tolerated.

Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson, one of the lawmakers who was expelled earlier this month, has called the Montana standoff anti-democratic and Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt likened her fight to Zephyr’s after being served notice Wednesday of a complaint filed against her that she said was an effort to silence her voice on a gender-affirming care ban under consideration.

“It’s so important that we not be silent about this from state to state to state. And it’s so important that people stand up against this rising movement, this radical movement, and say it is not welcome,” she said.

Zephyr is undeterred. She said throughout the events of the past week, she has both aimed to rise and meet the moment and continue doing the job she was elected to do: representing her community and constituents.

“It’s queer people across the world and it’s also the constituents of other representatives who are saying, ‘They won’t listen’ when it comes to these issues. It’s staff in this building who, when no one is looking, come up and say ‘Thank you,’” she said.

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The story has been edited to correct that the color of the sticky note is gold not pink.

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Metz reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press reporter Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.