‘Some fires will last over the winter’: Canada will face blazes, smoke for a while, Environment Canada says

Smoke from the British Columbia, Northwest Territories fires will travel 'incredible distances'

Elianna Lev
Updated Fri, August 18, 2023








Residents watch the McDougall Creek wildfire in West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, on August 17, 2023, from Kelowna. Evacuation orders were put in place for areas near Kelowna, as the fire threatened the city of around 150,000. Canada is experiencing a record-setting wildfire season, with official estimates of over 13.7 million hectares (33.9 million acres) already scorched. Four people have died so far.

 (Photo by Darren HULL / AFP)

British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the Prairies are going to have a lot of smoke issues well into the fall, according to one weather expert. That’s because fires are expected to continue to burn well into that season.

Terri Lang is a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. She says the smoke is going to be worse in places that are directly downstream from the fires burning in B.C. and Northwest Territories, and in the vicinity of the fires.

However, she explains that smoke forecasting is exceptionally difficult. Not only does it depend on the winds at low levels where the fires are occurring, but the smoke from the fires can be carried to very high elevations in the atmosphere.

“They can be carried to incredible distances,” she tells Yahoo News Canada.

It depends on what the atmosphere is doing. Sometimes it just stays high up in the air, making the sun or moon orange-y, and then other times it’ll mix down to the surface and you’ll get bad cases where visibility and air quality drops. It’s really difficult to forecast.Terri Lang, meteorologist, Environment and Climate Change Canada

In Canada, the prevailing upper winds are westerly. Any angle from westerly that has fires coming from it is going to bring the smoke across in places to the east, and most of Canada is to the east of where the fires are coming from right now.

Lang says Quebec can expect to get hit with the smoke in the next few days, because of the ways the winds are carrying it

To make matters worse, no substantial rain is expected in the forecast. A tropical storm, which will start off as a hurricane, is coming up from the Gulf of California, but considering the deficit of rain Western Canada’s been experiencing for the past year, it would take a lot of precipitation to put out the incredible amount of fires burning.

Why are the wildfires so widespread this year?

As to why the wildfires continue to burn, Lang says Western Canada has been experiencing plenty of hot and dry conditions since May, which helps the fires thrive. Some parts of B.C. experienced the warmest and driest May on record.

“That really set the stage,” she says. “A lot of the spring rains failed to come.”

The past week much of the province has been heating up - with some regions seeing temperatures over 40 degrees. That combined with wind patterns has led to fires taking off.

“It’s good if you’re a fire but it’s bad if you’re fighting that fire,” she says.

Because of the incredible distances that smoke can carry, Canada, particularly in the western regions, is likely to continue seeing the smoke well into the fall and perhaps until the snow starts to come down.

Some fires will actually last over the winter, they get deep into the ground and the peat moss, and then in the spring they’ll fire up again. It’s just the nature of how fires are.Terri Lang, meteorologist, Environment and Climate Change Canada

Related: Follow the latest on the wildfires across Canada

Keith Swirlle rests in his truck while directing traffic from Yellowknife in Fort Providence, N.W.T., Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Canada wildfire evacuees can't get news media on Facebook and Instagram. Some find workarounds

MATT O'BRIEN
Fri, August 18, 2023


Evacuees from Yellowknife, territorial capital of the Northwest Territories, make their way along highway 3, at the edge of a burned forest, on their way into Ft. Providence, N.W.T., Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023.

 (Bill Braden /The Canadian Press via AP)

Before fleeing about 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) south of Yellowknife by car, Agnes Grandejambe looked to social media to find out almost everything she needed to know about escaping the encroaching wildfires.

Some from official government accounts. Mostly from friends and family, including an offer of help from her First Nation band.

But not from news media sites.

That's because Canadian news outlets — including the only one she trusts — have been blocked on Facebook and Instagram as a result of a dispute with the national government.

“People were posting how close the fires were. And we knew the highway kept opening and closing, so we said, ‘OK, we’ll just go,’” said the 65-year-old who is a longtime resident of the capital city of Canada's Northwest Territories.

Her preferred media site, Yellowknife-based Cabin Radio, has been doing its best to get around the ban with help from the station’s audience members who have been taking news from the Cabin Radio website — filled with the latest details — then snapping a screenshot and sharing that image on Facebook and Instagram so that their friends, family and others are more likely to see the information.

“Our audience did an incredible job of undermining that ban on our behalf,” said Ollie Williams, editor of Cabin Radio, speaking by phone after relocating west of Yellowknife to Fort Simpson. “They found workarounds and they got our coverage out to each other, regardless of Meta trying to keep that from happening.”

For their part, reporters have been gathering news and talking to first responders from their cars while themselves having to evacuate. Williams has been using a device for satellite internet service. And the station's general manager is sharing news with his team while volunteering as a bus driver carrying evacuees to the airport.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced earlier this month it would keep its promise to block news content in Canada on its platforms — everything from local outlets like Cabin Radio to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — in response to a new law that requires tech giants to pay publishers for linking to or otherwise repurposing their content online.

Meta stood by its decision Friday, pointing out in a statement issued about the wildfires that people in Canada can continue to use the apps "to connect with their communities and access reputable information, including content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations.”

A government minister on Friday called on Meta to lift the ban on news media.


“What Meta is doing is totally unacceptable,” said Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez on a call with reporters. “I warned them during conversations in the past of the risk of blocking news."

“I’m asking to go back on their decision and allow people to have access to news and information in Canada,” he said.

Meta has been alone in its action. Google’s owner Alphabet has also said it plans to remove news links in protest of the new law, although it hasn't yet followed through. The Online News Act, passed in late June after lengthy debate, doesn't take effect until later this year.

“Meta has preemptively installed a ban that is now having dangerous consequences,” Williams said. The editor said he doesn't put all of the blame on Meta for its arguments with the Canadian government, but local outlets like his had no say in that dispute and how it's governed.

“More importantly, nobody asked our audience,” Williams said. “So the people being affected by this and the people producing the coverage, trying to help, had no voice at any part in that process. The outcome is a stupid and dangerous ban.”

Samuel Woolley, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism and Media, warns that Meta’s blocking of news runs the risk of misinformation taking the place of trusted and vetted content during a natural disaster, at a risk of people's lives.

For years, platforms like Facebook pushed journalists to rely on the platform while profiting from news sharing, he said. But now they are trying to recreate themselves as news-free platforms to get away from some of the responsibility of compensating journalists or being treated as a media entity.

Woolley adds that the loss of reliable news won’t be felt equally. Marginalized communities, people of color and low-income families — who may rely on social media for information when they can’t afford a newspaper subscription, for example — will be impacted the most.

It was Wednesday when Grandejambe decided to leave Yellowknife, packing two vehicles along with four of her adult children and her teenage grandson. She was offered assistance and advice from fellow members of the Behdzi Ahda First Nation, based in the Artic community of Colville Lake where she was born.

An official evacuation order came soon after. But it hasn't always been clear where to go and what to do.

On Friday, she spoke by phone from a motel in Edmonton, Alberta, after a long journey that included an hours-long wait for gas near Fort Providence — a problem that's been thoroughly covered by Cabin Radio.

Her family was still working to get registered at Edmonton’s Expo convention center that has opened up to evacuees from the Northwest Territories. While annoyed by the difficulty of getting good information and what she felt was poor planning by government authorities ahead of the evacuation order, Grandejambe said she was happy her family was safe.

“They’re good. Just calm, cool,” she said. “They’ve been taught since they were small, don't stress over something that’s not in our control.”

—-

AP writers Jim Morris in Vancouver, British Columbia and Wyatte Grantham-Philips in New York contributed to this report.

New report on BP oil’s financial statements sparks outrage online: ’This must end now’

Mike Taylor
Fri, August 18, 2023



The dirty energy industry is raking in profits while citizens worldwide suffer the effects of Earth’s rising temperatures.
What’s happening?

July marked the hottest month on record, and on August 1, BP reported $2.6 billion in second-quarter profits, according to Common Dreams. BP also announced a 10% dividend raise for shareholders. Similarly, Shell reported $5.1 billion in profits for the second quarter and a 15% dividend raise, also per Common Dreams.

​​“This is what a broken energy system looks like: Oil giants get richer because the rest of us get poorer,” Jonathan Noronha-Gant of Global Witness said to Common Dreams. “For BP the energy crisis has been a giant cash grab; for parents across the country it has been an impossible choice between feeding their children and paying their bills.”

In February, BP reneged on climate goals, announcing it would taper cutting pollution from its oil and gas production after it doubled its year-over-year profits in 2022. The United Kingdom-based company had projected a 40% reduction from 2019 levels but moved that target to 25%.

BP also touted its ability to pivot to renewable energy but backed off that tactic in 2013 after it divested its wind power assets. Two years earlier, it had gotten out of the solar power business.
Why is this important?

The National Resources Defense Council stated the industry, which accounts for 80% of Americans’ energy needs, has degraded land, polluted air and water, and acidified oceans.

Oil and natural gas companies also spew methane and volatile organic compounds into the environment. The effects of this industry’s pollution have caused thousands of early deaths, childhood asthma, and adverse pregnancy outcomes and cost taxpayers $77 billion annually, according to a study led by Boston University.

In July, four United States senators asked the Department of Justice to sue the dirty energy industry for “mislead[ing] consumers and discredit[ing] climate science in pursuit of massive profits.”

“In 2021, BP’s CEO described his company as a ‘cash machine’ after soaring oil and gas prices boosted profits,” Noronha-Gant, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, told Common Dreams. “Nearly two years on, and BP is riding the wave of the energy crisis, and handing huge sums of money to its shareholders while the UK’s poverty rates spiral.”
What can be done about dirty energy?

“A phase-out of fossil fuels should include a halt to all new permits for fossil-fuel exploration, production, and infrastructure, a phase-out of all subsidies to fossil fuels, and divestment of all public and private financial investments from the exploration, production, and distribution of fossil fuels,” according to Equitable Climate Action.

Nicolò Wojewoda, Europe regional director at 350.org, told Common Dreams that oil and gas giants such as BP should be held accountable, saying, “This must end now. We must hold them accountable for the damage they’ve inflicted, making them pay for it and phasing their dangerous influence out of existence.”

The Clean Energy Future Is Roiling Both Friends and Foes

Jim Tankersley, Brad Plumer, Ana Swanson and Ivan Penn

The New York Times
Sat, August 19, 2023 

A large crane at Mack Point near Searsport, Maine, another proposed staging ground for offshore wind turbines. (Mason Trinca/The New York Times)


If there is anywhere in the country primed to welcome the clean energy transition, it is Penobscot Bay in Maine. Electricity prices there are high and volatile. The ocean waters are warming fast, threatening the lobster fishery. Miles offshore, winds blow strong enough to heat every home and power every car in the state.

For more than 15 years, researchers at the University of Maine have been honing scale models of floating wind turbines inspired by oil rigs. They are now confident they can mass-produce turbine blades the length of football fields and float them miles into the ocean. It is the kind of breakthrough in clean energy technology that is allowing a much faster transition to renewables than many believed possible, aided by state officials eager to pioneer a floating wind industry.

One key to harnessing that wind lies at the end of a causeway jutting into the bay, on a mostly undeveloped island where eagles fish offshore and people walk in the quiet shade. Many officials see this spot, known as Sears Island, as the ideal site to build and launch a flotilla of turbines that could significantly lessen Maine’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Standing in their way are environmental groups and local residents, all of whom are committed to a clean energy future and worried about the rapid warming of the Earth. Still, they want the state to pick a different site for its so-called wind port, citing the tranquility of Sears Island and its popularity and accessibility as a recreation destination.

On a recent summer morning one conservationist against the plan, Scott Dickerson, sat on a picnic bench and predicted environmental groups would sue to thwart development of the island, as they had many times in the past.

“And that, as you can imagine, is going to run the clock,” he said, costing the state valuable time that could be saved by looking elsewhere.

After years of fits and starts, the transition to renewable energy like wind and solar power is finally shifting into full gear in many parts of the world, including the United States, which has been buoyed by massive new subsidies from the Biden administration. But around the country, the effort is being slowed by a host of logistical, political and economic challenges.

Breaks in supply chains have stalled big projects. Historically low unemployment makes it hard to hire workers to build or install new turbines or solar panels. Shortcomings in the power grid can block newly generated electricity from reaching customers. Federal, state and local regulations, including often byzantine permitting requirements, threaten to delay some construction for years. So do the court battles that almost inevitably follow those permitting decisions.

These problems are not unique to the United States. In Europe, orders for new turbines dropped unexpectedly last year as developers struggled with inflation and sluggish permitting. In parts of China, a growing fraction of electricity from turbines and solar panels is being wasted because the grid lacks capacity. In Australia, clean energy companies have complained about a shortage of skilled workers.

At the same time, it tends to take longer to build solar arrays, wind farms, car chargers and transmission lines in the United States than in China, India and Europe, a recent analysis by the International Energy Agency found.

But no hurdle to a clean energy transition at the speed and scale scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic warming is easier to see than the growing local backlash to large-scale wind and solar projects, like the one roiling Sears Island.

The problem boils down to this: If lawmakers want to ramp up renewables as fast and cheaply as possible, they’ll need to bulldoze or build over some places that people treasure.

While Americans broadly support renewable energy, polls show, they are less enthusiastic about having it in their backyard. One survey from 2021 found that only 24% of Americans were willing to live within 1 mile of a solar farm; the number dropped to 17% for wind farms.

Such resistance is often rooted in anxieties about broader social and economic change in communities where families have lived for generations. But in some cases, like lawsuits trying to stop wind farm development off Massachusetts, groups with funding from fossil fuel interests have stoked fear. Those efforts are their own sort of obstacle to renewables: an attempt by incumbent energy players to protect their market share, even if the economics have turned against them.

A recent analysis found that it would cost less for electric utilities to build new wind and solar farms than to operate most of the existing coal-fired power plants — a stunning shift from 15 years ago, when burning coal was the cheapest way to make electricity.

But after years of rapid growth, installations of wind, solar and batteries slowed by 15% last year, according to the American Clean Power Association, a trade group.

“There’s a lot of capital ready to flow,” said Gregory Wetstone, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, another trade group. “But to get these projects going, you need to get them permitted, you need to get them connected to the grid, you need workers, you need access to supply chains. All of that can still be quite difficult.”

In Maine, many of those challenges are concentrated at one choke point: where to put a new wind port, which state officials have not decided on.

Offshore turbines need a large slab of land where they can be built and launched to sea. That site must connect to highways, to truck in materials, but also sit beside deep water.

The state’s two main contenders are in Searsport, about 30 miles south of Bangor.

One site is an industrial area, Mack Point, clearly visible from Sears Island. It is the spot many locals and conservationists prefer. The company that owns it says it could be easily converted to build and ship offshore turbines.

But some officials have warned that it could be difficult for Mack Point to secure needed permits from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies in order to dredge the bay and build new port facilities.

In Searsport, many residents fear that state officials will bypass Mack Point, which sits on private land and would need to be leased for millions of dollars a year — costs that would probably be passed on to utility customers.

Sears Island, in contrast, is owned by the state. Under a previous agreement with conservation groups, two-thirds of its woods and beaches are to be a nature preserve. The other third is zoned for a port.

Supporters of choosing the island site include Habib Dagher, a godfather of Maine’s offshore wind efforts and the founding executive director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center. He suggested it was worth trading the existing open space of the island for lower energy prices and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

“All of us would like to think that we can have renewable energy with zero impact on the environment — as you know, it’s not possible, right?” Dagher said in an interview at his wind lab. “So our goal, and our challenge, is: How do we minimize impact on environment as we embark on this transformational energy system?”

Conservation groups have fought development on Sears Island for decades, beating back a nuclear power plant, a gas import terminal and more. They reject the idea that they must lose that fight now — even as they lament climate change.

Rolf Olsen is a retired marketing executive and an avid day hiker. He kayaks and likes to swim in Penobscot Bay after mowing his lawn. He drives a white plug-in Toyota Prius and is vice president of a group called Friends of Sears Island, and he sat on a state advisory panel over where to locate the wind port, which he says should be at Mack Point.

On a recent hike, he described what a Sears Island port might look like, in place of the oaks and the birches.

“I have a picture in my mind’s eye. You know, it’s huge, flat, towering concrete and steel,” he said. “It saddens me.”

So, he added, does the warming of the planet.

“I have a granddaughter who’s 3. She’s going to have to live in a different world.”

c.2023 The New York Times Company

Opinion
Opinion: We need to price carbon pollution

Eric Johnson and Peter Rolnick
Sat, August 19, 2023 

Fossil fuels pollute the air and drive fires, drought, floods and storms. Sustainable energy creates more jobs per kilowatt-hour than do fossil fuels.

We know what to do, but can we do it fast enough?

Economists and climate scientists (including Iowa's own James Hansen, who put climate change on the map by testifying before Congress in the 1980s) believe pricing carbon pollution is the only way we can make these changes quickly enough. Iowa City Climate Advocates supports Carbon Fee and Dividend (CFD): 1) Put a fee on carbon pollution, 2) Pass the money collected directly to households, giving everyone a "carbon cashback," 3) Put a carbon border adjustment in place to insure that US companies can compete overseas.

To put Carbon Fee and Dividend in place we need Congress to act, but members of Congress are skeptical. Carbon Fee and Dividend would raise the cost of dirty energy. Even with the dividend for households, could the burden of higher energy prices increase poverty? Would the increased costs to manufacturing cause a recession?

These are fair questions. Fortunately, they have been answered.

Based on the evidence where carbon pricing has been tried (27 countries) and based on the results of studies, the effect on the economy of carbon pricing is minimal. Some examples and studies show a very slight negative effect, some show a very slight positive effect, some show no net effect, but none show an effect big enough to cause a recession or to increase poverty.

And criticisms of carbon pricing do not take into account the increasingly large negative effect on the economy resulting from climate change. The extreme heat the world has experienced these last few weeks is a reminder of how fast the climate is changing: Air quality in Iowa was too dangerous for outdoor workers a few weeks ago due to wildfires in Canada; temperatures off the coast of Florida reached 101 degrees Fahrenheit and a number of coral reefs in the area died as a result; right now all Iowa is either "abnormally dry" or in drought. Payouts to the agricultural sector for failures due to drought come ultimately from the taxpayer, and this is just one way these changes are harming the economy. And however bad the effects of climate change are to all of us, they hit the poorest especially hard.

Eric Johnson

Lastly, the changes that come with shifting to a sustainable economy will improve our lives. Consider the shift from conventional gas to an electric convection oven. Convection ovens use a fan to circulate hot air throughout the oven, resulting in more efficient heat distribution, cooking food 25% faster and at a lower temperature leading to lower energy bills. Convection ovens allow us to prepare meals more quickly and enhance the flavor and texture of food by ensuring that it is cooked evenly — crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. Lower energy bills, more free time, tastier food–what's not to like? And with a rebate from the Inflation Reduction Act, you could get a top-rated electric range with a convection oven for just a few hundred dollars.

But the Inflation Reduction Act, helpful as it is, is not enough; we need a price on carbon pollution. Let Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks know that, because you care about supporting our most vulnerable, and because you want to protect our economy from the effects of a changing climate, you want a price on carbon pollution. You can do this in two minutes by going to citizensclimatelobby.org/get-loud-take-action/price-carbon.

And if you'd like to join Iowa Climate Advocates in our efforts to build political will for a price on carbon pollution, go to iowa-city-climate-advocates.org.

Peter Rolnick

Eric Johnson and Peter Rolnick are volunteers with Iowa City Climate Advocates, which Johnson leads.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Opinion: We need to price carbon pollution. It's a net benefit.

Would a Texas law take away workers' water breaks? A closer look at House Bill 2127

CHRISTINE FERNANDO
Updated Sat, August 19, 2023 

Standing in the mid-afternoon heat, a worker takes a break to drink during a parking lot asphalt resurfacing job in Richardson, Texas, June 20, 2023. While unrelenting heat set in across Texas this summer, opponents of a sweeping new law targeting local regulations took to the airwaves and internet with an alarming message: outdoor workers would be banned from taking water breaks. Workers would die, experts and advocates said, with high temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and staying there for much of the past two months.

 (AP Photo/LM Otero, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More


As unrelenting heat set in across Texas this summer, opponents of a sweeping new law targeting local regulations took to the airwaves and internet with an alarming message: outdoor workers would be banned from taking water breaks.

Workers would die, experts and advocates said, with high temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and staying there for much of the past two months.

But a closer look at the law, and the local ordinances requiring water breaks, reveals a more complicated picture.

At least one political analyst said the dispute is less about worker protection and more about politics, as conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats battle for control of local governments.

House Bill 2127, passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature in April and set to take effect Sept. 1, blocks local governments from enforcing legislation clashing with existing state law. Cities and counties would be required to demonstrate that their policies are in compliance.

Proponents say it will help Texas to live up to its pro-business reputation by eliminating red tape created by a slew of ordinances that may differ city-by-city.

“This legislation will streamline regulations so Texas job creators can have certainty,” said Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton, a co-sponsor of the bill.

Democrats, in contrast, have nicknamed the bill the “Death Star” for the breadth of its potential impact on a wide array of ordinances regulating natural resources, agriculture and labor. Houston and San Antonio are suing to block it.

The law's opponents have particularly homed in on the fact it does not expressly mandate water breaks for outside workers. That has struck a chord during a summer when the state and other areas of the U.S. are baking under historically high temperatures.

“The water break narrative is ... especially compelling as Texas experiences a heat wave,” said Mark Jones, of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

But, he added, there is no evidence that most employers don’t already provide water breaks, and it’s not clear cities with such regulations even enforce them.

“The narrative that somehow the Republican Legislature is going to prohibit workers from being able to take water breaks is not accurate,” he said.

David Chincanchan begs to differ. The policy director of the Workers Defense Project, a nonprofit statewide organization advocating for migrant workers’ rights, said Austin and Dallas have “clear enforcement mechanisms” and penalties for failing to meet water break requirements.

Republican legislators intended specifically to eliminate water breaks, adding language to that effect to later versions of their bill, he said.

“It can’t be called an unintentional consequence when they knew exactly what would happen and refused every opportunity to prevent it from happening,” Chincanchan said.

Jones said the bill is more about politics than policies. He noted the loudest opposition has come from cities where progressive Democrats are in control and said the bill is designed to take autonomy from those cities.

“This is part of the growing tension between the blue cities and counties in the major urban areas and the Republican-controlled state government,” he said.

Leaders of the Texas AFL-CIO, a labor federation of 240,000 union members in the state, acknowledge most employers already provide more water breaks than what is required by ordinances in Dallas and Austin, according to spokesperson Ed Sills. He has not seen local enforcement of water breaks.

But minimal standards are still important on “an issue of life or death,” Sills said.

“If a law is on the books, it still influences behavior," he said, adding that some of the other targeted ordinances deal with tenant rights, predatory lending and excessive noise.

Workers Defense Project spokesperson Christine Bolaños agrees. She said employers in Texas cities with water break requirements often provide more breaks than those in cities without them.

Bolaños, who has spoken with workers about their heat illnesses, added that Spanish-speaking and migrant construction workers can be especially vulnerable because language barriers may prevent them from fighting for their rights or joining a union that could protect them. As a result, she said, their experiences with heat illness are more likely to go undocumented.

The absence of a specific regulation mandating rehydration work pauses wouldn't mean all supervisors give fewer breaks, Bolaños said.

“But it will be on a case-by-case basis and that floor of protection will no longer be in place," Bolaños said. "Construction workers are now going to be left at the mercy of the level of morality of their employers.”

Statistics show heat can kill. There have been at least 436 work-related deaths from environmental heat exposure in the U.S. from 2011-2021, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

With legal challenges pending, the full effect of the bill is untested for now.

That could take years, said Ryan Marquez, a clinical associate professor at the University of House Law Center.

“This bill is broad,” Marquez said. “It’s hard to say exactly how far it will go.”

___

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

GOP Presidential Hopeful Ramaswamy Sued Over Strive’s Practices

Story by Max Chafkin •



(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Vivek Ramaswamy has been rising in presidential polls partly on the strength of his business accomplishments. Before he started running for the Republican nomination, where polling averages now put him in third place behind Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, Ramaswamy founded and ran a drug development company, Roivant, which he took public in 2021. Then he started an asset management firm, Strive, presenting it as a conservative answer to the ESG movement’s focus on investments’ environmental, social and governance impacts. Strive’s motto, meant as a contrast to ESG, is “invest in excellence.”

But two former employees have filed lawsuits in recent months against the investment firm as well as Ramaswamy and his co-founder Anson Frericks that suggest practices at the company were something less than that. They accuse Ramaswamy and Frericks of aggressively pushing employees to violate securities law and of mistreating staff. They also suggest that the company has struggled to meet lofty growth goals for its “anti-ESG” investments.

Christopher Lenzo, a lawyer for plaintiff Joyce Rosely, said the two suits raised questions about Ramaswamy’s seriousness as an asset manager. Strive “was founded, in retrospect, largely as a PR mechanism for the presidential campaign of Ramaswamy,” he said. “Not a lot of thought was given to running it as an investment firm.”

Neither lawsuit has been previously reported. Ramaswamy’s track record will be in focus during next week’s presidential debate, when DeSantis allies have signaled that he plans to concentrate attacks on Ramaswamy. “Strive intends to vigorously defend itself,” the company said in a statement. “Beyond that, it is our policy not to comment on active litigation.” Tricia McLaughlin, Ramaswamy’s communications director, didn’t comment on the lawsuit. She noted that Ramaswamy, who served as Strive’s executive chairman until earlier this year, left Strive when he decided to run for president. “Strive is completely separate from Vivek and his campaign,” she said.

The first suit, filed in Kansas by a regional sales chief who was dismissed as part of a reorganization in March, also says Ramaswamy misrepresented the company’s finances to employees and investors, exaggerating its growth when pitching venture capitalists and recruiting staff. The former employee, John Phillips, claims he was induced to leave a job at JPMorgan that would have paid him more than $1 million in 2022, based on promises made by Ramaswamy and others that Strive was well financed and that Ramaswamy was dedicated to the company.



2024 Presidential Candidates Attend Iowa State Fair© Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

In reality, according to the suit, Strive was “undercapitalized,” and Ramaswamy was planning a presidential bid. The suit was filed in June, three months after Phillips claims he was fired by Strive without cause. Strive has filed a motion to dismiss the case.

In the second suit, filed Aug. 8 in a Union County, New Jersey, court, Rosely claims she was fired as co-head of institutional sales in retaliation for raising concerns about sexual harassment at the firm and violations of securities laws. She contends she saw a Strive executive make aggressive sexual advances toward a more junior staffer.

When Rosely, a veteran of State Street and Goldman Sachs, complained to Frericks, Strive’s president, he told Rosely it was “none of his business,” according to her complaint. At the time, Frericks, a former beer distribution executive who went to high school with Ramaswamy, held the company’s most senior position.

Like Phillips, Rosely claims that Ramaswamy and Frericks pressured her to violate securities laws. She says she was asked to use sales materials that improperly promised future returns and urged to allow employees who were not yet registered to sell securities to pitch clients. Rosely also claims she complained about Ramaswamy’s social media posts, which she believed constituted unlawful securities sales.

Both Phillips and Roseley were fired in March, alongside another executive who Rosely says was also complaining about the securities law violations. She claims that Strive told her the firing was part of a reorganization but also that everyone who was dismissed as part of the reorganization was over 40 years old. Her suit alleges that she was the victim of age discrimination, as well as retaliation for raising concerns about harassment and securities law violations.

In April, a month after the dismissals, Matt Cole, Strive’s chief investment officer, was named chief executive officer. In a June memo, Cole acknowledged the departures of “underperforming members of the distribution team.” He also signaled that Strive, which manages exchange traded funds (or ETFs) with about $1 billion in total assets as of Aug. 17, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, would tone down its political rhetoric and focus on promoting “shareholder capitalism” instead of criticizing ESG. The memo, first reported by Semafor, said that growth in the firm’s funds had slowed in 2023 in part because investors had seen the firm as “political over investment oriented.” The memo said growth had resumed and would accelerate in a “‘hockey stick’ fashion” starting in 2025. —With Silla Brush

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

United Auto Workers President Warns Biden That Trump’s EV Attacks Touch a Nerve

Gabrielle Coppola
Fri, August 18, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden and Democrats need to do more to support the United Auto Workers’ fight for higher wages at battery plants — or they’ll be vulnerable to claims that electric vehicles are destroying good-paying auto jobs, the union’s top leader said.

Former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican frontrunner, has attacked Biden’s EV agenda, warning the transition to electric cars will “decimate” auto jobs. UAW President Shawn Fain, who’s been fighting the idling of a Stellantis NV assembly plant in Illinois and other plants in Michigan, said Trump is touching a nerve.

“I have cautioned everybody in Washington DC that they better understand one thing – our workers’ experience right now with this EV transition is not a good thing,” Fain said in an interview at the UAW’s Detroit headquarters Thursday. “So when somebody else comes along and says, ‘Get ready to watch your jobs disappear,’ that is gonna resonate.”

The UAW is locked in contentious contract negotiations with the so-called “Big Three” auto manufacturers: General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis, maker of Jeep and Chrysler models. Fain met with Biden and senior White House staff last month to brief them on negotiations.

A crucial issue is whether the thousands of workers needed to staff battery plants springing up across the country will earn wages on par with members at vehicle assembly plants. Employees at Ultium Cells LLC, GM’s venture with LG Energy Solution in Ohio, start at $15.50 an hour, half the top wage at assembly plants.

Read more: Detroit Carmakers Resist Pressure to Pay Up for Battery Workers

Fain, who became the UAW’s first directly-elected president this year, is determined to win back benefits given up during the financial crisis to help save car companies. He’s also hinted at striking all three carmakers if no agreement is reached by Sept. 14, when the current contract expires.

Stellantis declined to comment. Ford didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

GM pointed to an earlier statement. “We will continue to bargain in good faith with the UAW to maintain our momentum and to provide opportunities for all in our EV future,” GM said.

The negotiations and broader EV transition present a political challenge for Biden, who’s touted himself as the most pro-union president ever, but has found his aspiration for a clean-energy economy in tension with his friendliness to organized labor.

He waded into the labor conflict this week, calling on the Detroit Three to “take every possible step to avoid painful plant closings.”

The administration has found ways to work wage and labor requirements into its industrial policy push. Those include updating 40-year-old wage standards to ensure contractors on federally-funded construction projects are paid the local rate. But other efforts, like an additional tax credit for union-made electric vehicles that Biden proposed as part of his signature climate law, have fallen flat.

An added challenge is that many of the electric-vehicle and battery investments spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act are cropping up in southern, right-to-work states that aren’t especially friendly to organized labor. Biden’s Department of Energy infuriated the UAW earlier this summer by awarding a $9.2 billion loan to Ford and its South Korean battery partner SK On for three battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Earlier: Union Blasts $9.2 Billion Loan to Ford Over ‘Low-Road Jobs’

Senior Biden adviser Gene Sperling said the president is “strongly committed to a just transition, where every worker has the full and unobstructed opportunity to be part of a union and where existing and new auto jobs remain good, well-paying jobs that can support a family.”

“Since the first day of his administration the President’s goals have remained the same: to have a transition to Electric Vehicles that not only creates more American jobs but more good union jobs,” he added.

The White House’s power is limited: US law restricts the government from directly favoring unionized firms, but gives it leeway, when spending taxpayer money, to establish minimum wage or benefit standards, and to give preference to companies that have reached labor peace deals which reduce the likelihood of strikes.

“It’s not like Biden can just sign something and insist that a new battery plant that’s being built in Indiana is going to be unionized,” said University of North Carolina labor law professor Jeffrey Hirsch, a former US National Labor Relations Board attorney.

“There are more subtle things they can do,” to boost organizing efforts, Hirsch said, both by establishing labor-friendly rules and by using the presidential bully pulpit.

Fain called Biden’s statement this week “a good start,” but said there’s “more work to be done,” without going into specifics.

“When a corporation wants money and they come to the government with their hand out, they always find a way to make it happen,” he said. “When labor goes to the government and says, ‘We need help,’ there’s always a reason why we can’t do it.”

Major labor groups including the AFL-CIO and SEIU have endorsed Biden’s reelection, but the UAW, which endorsed him in 2020, has yet to back a candidate for 2024.

“If you expect to get our endorsement just because you show up one day with your hand out and you got a D in front of your name, that’s not gonna happen,” Fain said. “You’ll get our endorsement through your actions.”

Fain has previously said another Trump presidency would be a “disaster” and discounted the possibility of endorsing him.

--With assistance from Jordan Fabian, Justin Sink, Keith Naughton, Josh Eidelson, Mackenzie Hawkins and David Welch.

(Updates Sperling comments in 13th and 14th paragraphs.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

As Israeli settlements thrive, Palestinian taps run dry. The water crisis reflects a broader battle


Thu, August 17, 2023



JIFTLIK, West Bank (AP) — Across the dusty villages of the occupied West Bank, where Israeli water pipes don’t reach, date palms have been left to die. Greenhouses are empty and deserted. Palestinians say they can barely get enough water to bathe their children and wash their clothes — let alone sustain livestock and grow fruit trees.

In sharp contrast, neighboring Jewish settlements look like an oasis. Wildflowers burst through the soil. Farmed fish swim in neat rows of ponds. Children splash in community pools.

The struggle for water access in this strip of fertile land reflects a wider contest for control of the West Bank — and in particular the Jordan Valley, which Palestinians consider the breadbasket of their hoped-for future state and Israelis view as key to protecting their eastern border.

“People are thirsty, the crops are thirsty,” said Hazeh Daraghmeh, a 63-year-old Palestinian date farmer in the Jiftlik area of the valley, where some of his palms have withered in the bone-dry dirt. “They’re trying to squeeze us step by step,” Daraghmeh said.

Across the West Bank, water troubles have stalked Palestinian towns and cities since interim peace accords of the 1990s gave Israel control over 80% of the West Bank's water reserves — and most other aspects of Palestinian life.

The accords also created a limited self-rule Palestinian government that would provide water to its swelling cities by tapping the rapidly depleting reservoirs it shares with Israel and buying water from Israel's state-run company. The arrangement left the Palestinians who live in the remaining 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli civil control stranded — disconnected from both Israeli and Palestinian water grids. This includes much of the Jordan Valley.

Intended to last five years, the interim accords remain in place today.

“The amount of water that Israel is supplying has not adapted to the needs of Palestinians and in many cases has not changed since the 1970s,” said Eyal Hareuveni, author of a recent report on the water crisis from Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. “The infrastructure is designed to benefit settlements.”

The 500,000 Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank are connected to the Israeli water grid through a sophisticated network that provides water continuously, but Palestinian cities are not. So in the scorching summer, Palestinians get municipal water only sporadically.

With regional droughts intensifying, temperatures rising and Israel’s far-right government entrenching military rule over the territory, Palestinians say their water problems have worsened.

“This is the hardest summer we’ve had in nine years,” said Palestinian Water Minister Mazen Ghunaim.

Ghunaim accused Israel's national water company of reducing water supplies to the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Hebron by 25% for the past nine weeks. Palestinians in Hebron say their taps have run dry this summer for as long as a month.

Osama Abu Sharkh, a 60-year-old carpenter in Hebron’s Old City, has planned each day this summer according to the water flow. When his tap finally springs to life — even if a trickle — his family is jolted into a frenzy of chores: Cooking, cleaning, and, crucially, filling their water tanks. The tanks hold costly trucked-in water during the long stretches when the taps are dry.

Ghunaim claimed the recent water cuts were a “political problem” under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government, which has taken a particularly hard line against the Palestinians. “If we were settlers, they would solve this problem instantly,” he said.

Israel’s water authority called the recent disruption to Palestinian cities a technical problem and directed further questions to COGAT, the Israeli agency that liaises with the Palestinians on civilian affairs.

COGAT denied any reduction in water flow and insisted “the supply is continuing in accordance with the agreements."

But the overall supply is shrinking as the demands of Israeli and Palestinian societies outpace natural replenishment. In the majority of the West Bank where Israel maintains full civilian and security control, Palestinians cannot dig or deepen wells without hard-to-get permits. Since 2021, Israeli authorities have demolished nearly 160 unauthorized Palestinian reservoirs, sewage networks and wells across the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to the United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA.

The rate of demolition is quickening: Over the first half of 2023, authorities knocked down almost the same number of Palestinian water installations as they did all of last year.

Defending the demolitions, COGAT said “the allocation of water for agriculture is performed in accordance with the law.”

In the herding communities of the northern Jordan Valley, Palestinian water consumption is just 26 liters (7 gallons) a day. That is so far below the World Health Organization’s minimum standard of 50-100 liters that it is ranked as a disaster zone, according to B’Tselem.

In contrast, Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley consume 400-700 liters per capita a day on average, the rights group said.

Yet unlike neighboring Jordan and other parched Mideast states, Israel has plenty of water. With a world-leading desalination network and recycled waste water, the country no longer relies on subterranean reserves in the same way it did after first capturing the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war.

“The main motivation for Israeli actions are not so much about water anymore but about politics,” said Jan Selby, a political expert on water issues at the University of Sheffield.

Israel's water network is used not only to power settlements — which most of the international community considers illegal — but also to irrigate the abundant vineyards and olive groves of Jewish outposts, which are built without official authorization.

By empowering Jewish outposts to cultivate disputed land and export fine wines and soft dates, Israel expands authority over the West Bank, said anti-settlement researcher Dror Etkes.

“Agricultural cultivation is a much more effective way to grab land than construction,” he said.

For Ibrahim Sawafta, a local council member of the Palestinian village of Bardala in the northern Jordan Valley, Israeli water allocation has become a zero-sum game: Palestinian water scarcity as a result of Israeli settlement prosperity.

Over the years, he has watched his village shrink as its few available water sources have dried up, leaving dates tasteless and forcing farmers to give up their citrus and banana groves.

More than a dozen farming families have recently left Bardala for a northern town with more water, he said, and others have swapped their fields for better-paying jobs in the flourishing farms of Israeli settlements.

“They don’t want us to be farmers,” Sawafta said of Israeli authorities. “They don't want us to be self-sufficient.”

Isabel Debre, The Associated Press

LORDS OF WAR; GUNRUNNERS

Israel clinches largest-ever defense deal with Germany for $3.5 billion after securing US approval

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Defense Ministry said Thursday it has secured its largest-ever defense deal selling a sophisticated missile defense system to Germany for $3.5 billion after the United States approved the deal.

Although Israel has long had close economic and military links with western European countries, the deal with Germany could draw the attention of Russia, which Israel has maintained working relations with throughout the war in Ukraine. Israel has repeatedly rebuffed requests to sell arms to Ukraine for fear of antagonizing Russia.

Germany will buy the advanced defense system, coined Arrow 3, which is designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles. Israel sought approval for the deal from the U.S. State Department because the system was jointly developed by the two countries.

“The American approval marks a momentous milestone in the strategic relationship between Israel and the United States,” Israeli defense official Daniel Gold said in a statement. “The joint program with the U.S. on the advanced Arrow 3 defense system strengthens our national defense," adding it will extend Germany's defense capability.

The sale still requires additional procedural steps by both Israel and Germany, including approval by both parliaments, according to the director of the Israeli Missile Defense Organization, Moshe Patel. Patel told reporters Thursday that the components of the missile system will be fully delivered to Germany by 2025, with the system reaching full capability by 2030.

Germany launched the European Sky Shield Initiative last year with 17 other nations, including the United Kingdom and Sweden, a joint European air defense system.

Uzi Rubin, the former director of Israel’s missile defense program, said Arrow 3 could be moved to act as a long-range ballistic missile shield for other European countries. He said it was the best defense available against the threat of ballistic missiles but does not protect against cruise missiles or others flying at lower altitudes.

While Israel has turned down requests to provide Ukraine with weapons, it has sent humanitarian aid.

Israel has a delicate relationship with Russia, with whom it coordinates on security issues in neighboring Syria — where it has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against Iranian military positions in recent years. Russia is also home to a large Jewish community.

By moving ahead on the deal with Germany, Israel appears to be counting on the fact that it, as well as a sale of a different missile defense system to NATO member Finland, involves only defensive weapons — and will not fundamentally disrupt cordial relations with Russia.

“Relations are a bit strained,” said Rubin, who is also an expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, a think tank. “But still, we are not supplying Ukraine with any weapons. We do that because we want to keep relations with Russia at an acceptable level.”

Thu, August 17, 2023 
Julia Frankel, The Associated Press