UNCLE JOE'S RAILROAD

Amtrak to buy dozens of new high-speed trains



This image provided by Siemens shows a rendering of one of the new Amtrak trains to be built in the U.S. by Siemens Mobility. Amtrak announced plans Wednesday to spend $7.3 billion to replace 83 passenger trains, some of which are nearly a half-century old. Siemens via AP

By TOM KRISHER
Associated Press
Published: 7/7/2021 

DETROIT — Amtrak plans to spend $7.3 billion to replace 83 passenger trains, some nearly a half-century old, though much of the funding must still be approved by Congress.

Amtrak said Wednesday that under the contract with German manufacturer Siemens AG, some of the trains will be hybrids, able to operate on diesel fuel and electricity where wires are available. The new trains will replace Amfleet, Metroliner and state-owned equipment starting in 2024.

The new engines and passenger cars will be built at a U.S. factory in Sacramento, California.

The new trains will have more comfortable seating, better ventilation systems, individual power outlets and USB ports, onboard WiFi, and panoramic windows. Amtrak CEO William Flynn says they’ll pollute far less than the older trains when operating in diesel mode.

The trains will go to lines in New York, New England, California, the Northwest, Virginia and elsewhere. The railroad has an option to buy 130 additional trains from Siemens.

Siemens says the first delivery will be in 2024 to the Cascades line in the northwest, with the rest continuing through 2030. Manufacturing will start in 2023. The trains will have an engine and roughly six to eight cars.

The contract will include equipment and a long-term parts supply and service agreement, the statement says.

In an interview, Flynn said the trains will be capable of traveling up to 125 mph, and they will be able to shift from electric mode to diesel without current delays due to switching engines. Trains often are limited to 90 mph by track conditions, he said.


Amtrak says money will come from about $200 million already approved by Congress, as well as future funding that has to be approved. “We expect that we will have annual funding for our portion of the train sets,” he said. “If there should be a moment in time when that money isn’t specifically available, we have the ability to finance the units as well,” Flynn said. That money would be repaid by states with trains, and passenger fares, he said.

Amtrak’s board has approved up to $4.9 billion for equipment, parts and service and $2 billion to modify its facilities. Initially Amtrak will buy 73 trains and a 20-year parts and service agreement for about $3.4 billion.

Amtrak ridership hit a record 32.4 million passengers in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Flynn said. Passenger volume is about 62% of what it was before the pandemic, he said.

Prior to the pandemic Amtrak operated around 310 trains per day, but now it’s about 201. Flynn expects the schedule to be fully restored by September or October.

In 2016, Amtrak contracted with French train maker Alstom to build 28 high-speed trains for the Acela Express service in the Northeast Corridor.


The infrastructure bill proposed by the administration of President Joe Biden has $66 billion for freight and passenger rail. Biden regularly rode Amtrak between Washington and his home in Wilmington, Delaware, during his 36 years as a senator and has proposed a big increase in federal money for the rail service.

Supporters say that increased use of public transit and rail would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Biden mocks Ron Johnson for calling climate change 'bulls---'

BY ALEX GANGITANO - 07/07/21 

While touting his infrastructure plan in Illinois on Wednesday, President Biden poked fun at Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) reported remarks downplaying the dangers of climate change.

The president, speaking at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, Ill., said that from 2010 to 2020, Illinois experienced 49 extreme weather events.

“Although, I heard today from the senator north of here that there — the Republican senator — is no global warming,” he said pointing to the crowd.

“Just so you know, there’s no such thing,” Biden added to laughs from the audience.

Johnson, according to CNN's KFILE, said at a Republican luncheon earlier this summer, “I think climate change is — as Lord Monckton said — bullshit.”

"By the way, it is," Johnson reportedly added.

Lord Christopher Monckton is a British climate change denier and conservative political pundit.

“But those weather events cost this state roughly $50 billion in damages,” Biden added in his remarks, referring to the Illinois extreme weather events.

“We’re going to upgrade the electric grid to make it more resilient to extreme weather and other threats. There’s a lot more the agreement’s going to do to encourage that physical infrastructure lays the foundation for a strong and durable and sustainable competitive economy,” he added.

Ron Johnson: Climate change is 'bulls---'

Overnight Energy: 'Eye of fire,' Exxon lobbyist's comments fuel...

In a statement to The Hill earlier Wednesday, Johnson said his opinions on climate change have been "consistent," through his years in public life.

"I am not a climate change denier, but I also am not a climate change alarmist," he said. "Climate is not static. It has always changed and always will change. I do not share Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s [D-N.Y.] view that the 'world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.' Or President Biden saying the 'greatest threat' to U.S. security is climate change."

The president’s remarks in Illinois focused the need for investments in human infrastructure and clean energy, which are elements of a massive jobs and families plan that Democrats expect to pass through reconciliation.

 SPACE STUFF

Scientists find new signs of possible microbial life on Saturn moon

TIM O'DONNELL

2:58 PM

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via Getty Images

Saturn's moon Enceladus, which is believed to have a vast ocean beneath its icy surface, may be a candidate to house microbial life, a new study published in Nature Astronomy by scientists at the University of Arizona and Paris Science and Lettres University suggests, Science Daily reports.

The authors made sure to clarify that their research does not in any way confirm the existence of extraterrestrial microbes on Enceladus, but they did determine, via mathematical models, that the moon's relatively high concentration of methane detected by the Cassini spacecraft is consistent with microbial hydrothermal vent activity on the bottom of Earth's oceans. The researchers were confident that the methane concentration measured by Cassini was too high to have been produced by known physical processes found on Earth, though that doesn't rule out the possibility that unrecorded abiotic processes are the cause, rather than something biological in nature.

Regis Ferriere, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, summed up the purpose of the study. "Obviously, we are not concluding that life exists in Enceladus' ocean," he said. "Rather, we wanted to underscore how likely it would be that Enceladus' hydrothermal vents could be habitable to Earth-like microorganisms. Very likely, the Cassini data tell us, according to our models." Read more at Science Daily.

A discovery found in Germany’s ‘Unicorn Cave’ hints at Neanderthal art

The 51,000-year-old carved bone suggests Neanderthals not only made simple tools, but art, too.

BY HANNAH SEO 

JULY 06, 2021

POPSCI
SCIENCE

New Neanderthal bone art was discovered in the Germany's Unicorn Cave. Unicorncave/Wikimedia 

Neanderthals are often portrayed as Homo sapiens’s crude, primitive relatives, incapable of sophisticated culture, but new archaeological findings are subverting that narrative. In the latest example of Neanderthal art, archaeologists found a 51,000 year old bone carving in the mountain caves of Germany.

The carved foot bone of a giant deer, which shows a chevron-like pattern. V. Minkus, © NLD

Archaeologists were excavating materials from the prehistoric entrance to Einhornhöhle, or the “Unicorn Cave,” in the Harz Mountains in Germany when they found the 2.2 inch-long bone. Scientists identified it as a phalanx, or toe bone, of a giant deer, and radiocarbon dating suggested that it is at least 51,000 years old.


But what was most remarkable about this bone was how it had been modified: Etched into its surface were a series of lines creating a chevron-like pattern. The cuts were clean and uniform, and also served no obvious purpose, which led scientists to conclude that they must have been both intentional and symbolic. They published their findings in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

It’s clear that whoever made the bone carving took time and care. Microscopic analysis of the phalanx shows that the lines are etched pretty deeply, which suggests that the bone was boiled before carving to soften the surface. Giant deer were also not very common in the area at the time. All this evidence points to the idea that the phalanx art had some weighty significance, and was thoughtfully planned and executed.

“We were convinced this must be intentional and probably bears symbolic meaning,” Dirk Leder told VICE. Leder is an archaeologist at the Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage and led the research. But the exact meaning or function of that symbolism is a question that’s “difficult to answer,” he added.

[Related: Neanderthal genes are still helping humans today]

While it is most likely that the bony token is indeed a work of Neanderthals, scientists can’t rule out that it might have been done by Homo sapiens. Uncovered symbolic trinkets and small art pieces are artifacts typically attributed to early humans. But the age of the carved phalanx, 51,000 years old, predates the earliest evidence for humans in the area (about 45,000 years ago).

The paper therefore concludes that “an independent Neanderthal authorship for the engraved bone is thus the most plausible scenario.” This puts more weight behind the idea that Neanderthals might have developed symbolic behavior independently from Homo sapiens—a theory that’s been controversial in the field.


But evidence shows that Neanderthals partook in plenty of other activities that were meaningful if not functional—like burying their dead and decorating themselves with bird feathers. Perhaps now we can add bone talismans to the list.

What does Haiti President Moïse’s assassination mean for Haitians?

With no clear succession of power, it is up to the people of Haiti to navigate this new power vacuum and the international community to support and uplift them

Wen-kuni Ceant |
Jul 7, 2021
THE GRIO

A coup is typically described as the removal or seizure of a government and its powers — technically an illegal and unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, military or dictator. But in Haiti’s case, many are unsure of the circumstances that resulted in President Jovenel Moïse’s untimely death.

 

Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview at his home in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Sources say Moise was assassinated at home, first lady hospitalized amid political instability. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)

Around 2:45 Wednesday morning in Pelerin 5, President Moïse was assassinated and First Lady Martine Moïse severely wounded. Looking from the outside in, this may seem like an unprecedented attack, but for those who have been following the politics of the Moïse regime, this demise is not shocking.

For the last 12 months but certainly, since Feb. 7, (the date that his alleged term ended) there have been outcries for the removal of President Moïse, as many alleged he had overstayed his presidential term. Moïse had been coincidently running the country via presidential decree as both parliament and senate had been disbanded under his authoritarian rule.

His latest attempt at governance came in the form of his referendum agenda in an effort to effectively dismantle the Haitian constitution. Amongst these referendums included immunity for himself and any Haitian president while in office while doing away with the prime minister position in its entirety — opting instead to replace it with a vice president position.

Perhaps Moïse’s interest in doing away with the prime minister position is a reflection of his unlucky fortune with them —ultimately going through seven prime ministers before today’s assassination. His 7th appointee was tapped as recently as two days ago (July 5) and was not properly installed before the late president’s death.


Also Read:
Haitian leader’s killing draws condemnation, calls for calm

Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon and former minister of interior was set to replace interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph — who has overnight become the most powerful man in the country as acting prime minister.

The chaos and unclear succession of power have left Haitians and the diaspora alike grasping for straws on what the future of Haiti will look like. The president of Haiti’s Cour de Cassation (Supreme Court) would naturally be the next in power — but the recent death of the last Supreme Court president, Rene Sylvestre, from COVID-19 complications makes matters even more perilous. No Supreme Court president, no senate and no parliament. Not to mention, the neighboring Dominican Republic has closed its borders and all flights in and out of the country have been immediately suspended until further notice.

But who is responsible?

Although not much is known about the attacks, there are allegations of an unidentified group of mercenaries taking the home — commando style. The language of the killers is unknown; some allege the group was communicating in Spanish, and others claim American English was the language of choice. Some allege the DEA’s (Drug Enforcement Agency) involvement while others implicate Latin America (this allegation has been staunchly denied by the DEA).

Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise, center, leaves the museum during a ceremony marking the 215th anniversary of revolutionary hero Toussaint Louverture’s death, at the National Pantheon museum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)

What is clear is that a trained paramilitary group carried out the attack, and the last time Haiti witnessed an assassination in office it resulted in the infamous occupation of Haiti by the United States Marines. This occurred after President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was murdered on July 28, 1915, and resulted in a 19-year marine occupation sanctioned by President Woodrow Wilson.

But what would happen if history repeated itself? One must only look to the past to see the detrimental effects that the U.S. Marine Occupation had on Haiti. After removing half a million dollars from the Haitian National Bank for “safe-keeping” in New York, they created the Haitian Gendarmerie — a military amalgamation of Haitian and American citizens controlled strictly by the U.S. Marine Corps. In this way, the United States controlled both the military and finances of the country. It wasn’t until President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy,” that military forces officially withdrew from the country nearly 20 years later.

With no clear succession of power, it is up to the people of Haiti to navigate this new power vacuum and the job of the international community (UN, OAS, and individual nations) to support and uplift them as they navigate their way through troubled waters.



Wen-kuni Ceant is the CEO and Co-Founder of Politicking. She is a Fulbright Scholar and through the fellowship she studied health infrastructure in Senegal during the last year. She received her Masters in Public Health in Health Management and Policy in 2016 from Drexel University. Before Drexel, she attended Howard University, in Washington, D.C. where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors with a Bachelors of Science in Biology.

US Job Openings Rise to Record High, Layoffs Hit Record Low

A 'Now Hiring' sign is displayed at a fast food chain in Los Angeles, Calif., on June 23, 2021. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The Associated Press Jul 7, 2021

WASHINGTON—U.S. employers posted a record-high number of open jobs for the second straight month as a rapidly rebounding economy generates intense demand for workers.

The number of available jobs on the last day of May rose slightly to 9.21 million, from 9.19 million in April, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That is the highest since records began in December 2000. The previously reported figure for April of 9.3 million was revised lower.

The number of people quitting their jobs slipped in May from a record high in April, but remains elevated. And the percentage of workers getting laid off hit a record low in May, the report said.

The figures point to a tight job market, with employers forced to pay more to attract workers yet still struggling to fill open jobs. And many workers are leaving jobs for better-paying positions at other companies. It’s unusual for such dynamics to have kicked in with the unemployment rate still elevated at 5.9 percent in June, as the government reported last week.

In May, there was essentially one open job for every unemployed American, a situation that is far more typical of an economy with a much lower unemployment rate.

But the lingering effects of COVID-19 are keeping many potential workers on the sidelines. Some of those out of work are worried about the risk of getting the disease from large crowds, while many older Americans have retired early. And an extra $300 in weekly unemployment aid has allowed Americans to seek out higher-paying jobs rather than return 

Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, noted that job openings appear to have leveled off, with total postings jumping more than 10 percent in March and April, but barely rising in May.

“There are jobs … and there is an urgent need to fill them,” she said in a note to clients.

Open jobs rose in restaurants and hotels, education, and health care. They fell in construction, finance, and transportation and warehousing.

Employers have stepped up hiring, in part by offering higher pay. Job gains picked up in June, the government said last week, as employers added 850,000 jobs, the largest monthly increase since last August. The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.9 percent from 5.8 percent, though that was partly because some people started looking for work that month.

By Christopher Rugaber

Opinion: If you want to fix climate change, you need to fix this flaw in conventional economic thought

Thinking along the margins does no good when what’s needed is wholesale change


A thermometer at the visitors' center at Death Valley National Park in June.

 AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Published: July 7, 2021 
By Tom Brookes, an Gernot Wagner

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Project Syndicate)—Nowhere are the limitations of neoclassical economic thinking—the DNA of economics as it is currently taught and practiced—more apparent than in the face of the climate crisis. While there are fresh ideas and models emerging, the old orthodoxy remains deeply entrenched. Change cannot come fast enough.

The economics discipline has failed to understand the climate crisis—let alone provide effective policy solutions for it—because most economists tend to divide problems into small, manageable pieces. Rational people, they are wont to say, think at the margin. What matters is not the average or totality of one’s actions but rather the very next step, weighed against the immediate alternatives.


The most effective way to introduce new ideas into the peer-reviewed academic literature is to follow something akin to an 80/20-rule: stick to the established script for the most part; but try to push the envelope by probing one dubious assumption at a time.

Such thinking is indeed rational for small discrete problems. Compartmentalization is necessary for managing competing demands on one’s time and attention. But marginal thinking is inadequate for an all-consuming problem touching every aspect of society.
Economics’ power over public discourse

Economists also tend to equate rationality with precision. The discipline’s power over public discourse and policy-making lies in its implicit claim that those who cannot compute precise benefits and costs are somehow irrational. This allows economists—and their models—to ignore pervasive climate risks and uncertainties, including the possibility of climatic tipping points and societal responses to them.

A return to equilibrium—getting “back to normal”—is an all-too-human preference. But it is precisely the opposite of what is needed—rapidly phasing out fossil fuels—to stabilize the world’s climate.

And when one considers economists’ fixation with equilibrium models, the mismatch between the climate challenge and the discipline’s current tools becomes too glaring to ignore.

Yes, a return to equilibrium—getting “back to normal”—is an all-too-human preference. But it is precisely the opposite of what is needed—rapidly phasing out fossil fuels—to stabilize the world’s climate.

These limitations are reflected in benefit-cost analyses of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The traditional thinking suggests a go-slow path for cutting CO2. The logic seems compelling: the cost of damage caused by climate change, after all, is incurred in the future, while the costs of climate action occur today. The Nobel Prize-winning verdict is that we should delay necessary investment in a low-carbon economy to avoid hurting the current high-carbon economy.

To be clear, a lot of new thinking has gone into showing that even this conventional logic would call for significantly more climate action now, because the costs are often overestimated while the potential (even if uncertain) benefits are underestimated.
Marginalized ideas

The young researchers advancing this work must walk a near-impossible tightrope, because they cannot publish what they believe to be their best work (based on the most defensible assumptions) without invoking the outmoded neoclassical model to demonstrate the validity of new ideas.

The very structure of academic economics all but guarantees that marginal thinking continues to dominate. The most effective way to introduce new ideas into the peer-reviewed academic literature is to follow something akin to an 80/20-rule: stick to the established script for the most part; but try to push the envelope by probing one dubious assumption at a time.

Needless to say, this makes it extremely difficult to change the overall frame of reference, even when those who helped establish the standard view are looking well beyond it themselves.

Against the backdrop of this traditional view, recent pronouncements by the International Monetary Fund and the International Energy Agency are nothing short of revolutionary. Both institutions have now concluded that ambitious climate action leads to higher growth and more jobs even in the near term.

Consider the case of Kenneth J. Arrow, who shared a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972 for showing how marginal actions taken by self-interested individuals can improve societal welfare. That pioneering work cemented economists’ equilibrium thinking.

But Arrow lived for another 45 years, and he spent that time moving past his earlier work. In the 1980s, for example, he was instrumental in founding the Santa Fe Institute, which is dedicated to what has since become known as complexity science—an attempt to move beyond the equilibrium mind-set he had helped establish.

Because equilibrium thinking underpins the traditional climate-economic models that were developed in the 1990s, these models assume that there are trade-offs between climate action and economic growth. They imagine a world where the economy simply glides along a Panglossian path of progress. Climate policy might still be worthwhile, but only if we are willing to accept costs that will throw the economy off its chosen path.
Climate investments create jobs

Against the backdrop of this traditional view, recent pronouncements by the International Monetary Fund and the International Energy Agency are nothing short of revolutionary. Both institutions have now concluded that ambitious climate action leads to higher growth and more jobs even in the near term.

The logic is straightforward: climate policies create many more jobs in clean-energy sectors than are lost in fossil-fuel sectors, reminding us that investment is the flip side of cost. That is why the proposal for a $2 trillion infrastructure package in the United States could be expected to spur higher net economic activity and employment. Perhaps more surprising is the finding that carbon pricing alone appears to reduce emissions without hurting jobs or overall economic growth. The problem with carbon taxes or emissions trading is that real-world policies are not reducing emissions fast enough and therefore will need to be buttressed by regulation.

There is no excuse for continuing to adhere to an intellectual paradigm that has served us so badly for so long. The standard models have been used to reject policies that would have helped turn the tide many years ago, back when the climate crisis still could have been addressed with marginal changes to the existing economic system. Now, we no longer have the luxury of being able to settle for incremental change.

The good news is that rapid change is happening on the political front, owing not least to the shrinking cost of climate action. The bad news is that the framework of neoclassical economics is still blocking progress. The discipline is long overdue for its own tipping point toward new modes of thinking commensurate with the climate challenge.

Tom Brookes is executive director of strategic communications at the European Climate Foundation. Gernot Wagner is clinical associate professor of environmental studies at New York University.

This commentary was published with permission of Project Syndicate — Economics Needs a Climate Revolution

Deadly Northwest heat wave: ‘Without climate change this event would not have happened,’ study finds

‘This study is telling us climate change is killing people,’ environmental scientist says


The sun shines near the Space Needle in Seattle in June 28, as temperatures soared well above 100 degrees. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: July 7, 2021
By Associated Press

The deadly heat wave that roasted the Pacific Northwest and western Canada was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change that added a few extra degrees to the record-smashing temperatures, a new quick scientific analysis found.

An international team of 27 scientists calculated that climate change increased chances of the extreme heat occurring by at least 150 times, but likely much more.


The study, not yet peer reviewed, said that before the industrial era, the region’s late June triple-digit heat was the type that would not have happened in human civilization. And even in today’s warming world, it said, the heat was a once-in-a-millennium event.

But that once-in-a-millennium event would likely occur every five to 10 years once the world warms another 1.4 degrees, said Wednesday’s study from World Weather Attribution. That much warming could be 40 or 50 years away if carbon pollution continues at its current pace, one study author said.

This type of extreme heat “would go from essentially virtually impossible to relatively commonplace,” said study co-author Gabriel Vecchi, a Princeton University climate scientist. “That is a huge change.”

The study also found that in the Pacific Northwest and Canada climate change was responsible for about 3.6 degrees of the heat shock. Those few degrees make a big difference in human health, said study co-author Kristie Ebi, a professor at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington.

“This study is telling us climate change is killing people,” said Ebi, who endured the blistering heat in Seattle. She said it will be many months before a death toll can be calculated from June’s blast of heat but it’s likely to be hundreds or thousands. “Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer of Americans.”

In Oregon alone, the state medical examiner on Wednesday reported 116 deaths related to the heat wave.

The team of scientists used a well-established and credible method to search for climate change’s role in extreme weather, according to the National Academy of Sciences. They logged observations of what happened and fed them into 21 computer models and ran numerous simulations. They then simulated a world without greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The difference between the two scenarios is the climate change portion.

“Without climate change this event would not have happened,” said study senior author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford.

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What made the Northwest heat wave so remarkable is how much hotter it was than old records and what climate models had predicted. Scientists say this hints that some kind of larger climate shift could be in play — and in places that they didn’t expect.

“Everybody is really worried about the implications of this event,” said study co-author Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a Dutch climate scientist. “This is something that nobody saw coming, that nobody thought possible. And we feel that we do not understand heat waves as well as we thought we did. The big question for many people is: Could this also happen in a lot of places?”

The World Weather Attribution team does these quick analyses, which later get published in peer-reviewed journals. In the past, they have found similar large climate change effects in many heat waves, including ones in Europe and Siberia. But sometimes the team finds climate change wasn’t a factor, as they did in a Brazilian drought and a heat wave in India.

Six outside scientists said the quick study made sense and probably underestimated the extent of climate change’s role in the heat wave.

That’s because climate models used in the simulations usually underestimate how climate change alters the jet stream that parks “heat domes” over regions and causes some heat waves, said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann.

The models also underestimate how dry soil worsens heat because there is less water to evaporate, which feeds a vicious cycle of drought, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the Nature Conservancy.

The study hit home for University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn’t part of the research team.

“Victoria, which is known for its mild climate, felt more like Death Valley last week,” Weaver said. “I’ve been in a lot of hot places in the world, and this was the worst I’ve ever been in.

“But you ain’t seen nothing yet,” he added. “It’s going to get a lot worse.”

Microsoft’s shadowy presence in antitrust push is angering the rest of Big TechLast 

Software giant has avoided scrutiny while openly supporting actions against Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, and reportedly ducked rules being established in new antitrust bills

MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/ISTOCKPHOTO

By Jon Swartz
Updated: June 29, 2021 

For more than a year, Microsoft Corp. avoided Congress’ antitrust scrutiny with a deft strategy, but the software giant now finds itself the target of rivals’ anger for its finger-pointing tactics.

Much to the exasperation of Apple Inc. AAPL and Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL GOOG, Microsoft MSFT and its president, Brad Smith, has publicly supported antitrust actions against them to gain a competitive advantage, sources close to both companies told MarketWatch. This prompted Apple’s vocal criticism of Microsoft during the Epic Games Inc.’s antitrust trial against the iPhone maker.


Now, insiders at Google, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.57%, and Facebook Inc. FB, -0.65% are increasingly claiming Microsoft has hypocritically presented itself as the White Knight of tech, unsullied by the anticompetitive behavior of Big Tech. All four companies under federal investigation — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook — declined to speak on the record. But representatives from all four emphatically made it clear to MarketWatch that Microsoft is overplaying the antitrust card to make up ground in key technology areas such as mobile and gaming where Microsoft has lagged behind its rivals.

The strategy has worked swimmingly: Microsoft topped $2 trillion in market value last week, joining Apple in the exclusive club while generally dodging the attention of antitrust investigations, a new package of Congressional bills, and lawsuits.

“Microsoft is the original bad actor,” civil liberties attorney Shahid Buttar told MarketWatch, echoing the gripes of Microsoft’s rivals. “It’s pretty laughable, considering what they’ve said about antitrust the past year. This is beyond cynical.”

Don’t miss: Big Tech was built by the same type of antitrust actions that could now tear it down

Microsoft’s diversionary tactics were called into question last week during markup of a package of sweeping antitrust bills designed to rein in Big Tech. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., claimed on the House floor that an early draft of the bills that would have covered Microsoft was rewritten to have the company carved out. Original versions of the draft bills, he pointed out, defined “online platform” as including “operating systems” while the amended versions that were introduced and approved define “online platform” to only include “mobile operating systems.”

This would mean Windows is not a covered platform under the bills. Earlier drafts also included a much lower total of monthly active users (500,000) to be a target of the bill, but it was raised to 50 million, which would exclude Microsoft’s Xbox videogame console. (The bills target companies based on the definition of a “covered platform” with 50 million MAUs or 100,000 monthly active business users run by a company with a market cap of more than $600 billion.)

“I’m trying to figure out why one of the big offenders of Big Tech has mysteriously evaded the scrutiny of this committee,” Massie said. “I’m talking about Microsoft… How is it not covered by these bills?”

A spokesman for Massie declined to comment further.

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On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee passed the final piece of its Big Tech antitrust package. The six bills include one that severely limits acquisitions of competitors, and another that could force Facebook to cleave Instagram and WhatsApp from its holdings.

For more: Judge dismisses Facebook antitrust suit brought by FTC

Reaction from the other four members of Big Tech was quick and furious. The prevailing theme is that Microsoft — the focus of a major Justice Department investigation in the 1990s and early 2000s — is presenting itself as a “good monopolist,” in the words of one executive.

Learning from history, Microsoft — pilloried by rivals during its antitrust battle with the Justice Department in the 1990s and early 2000s — has weaponized the same issue this time around as part of a “master chess strategy,” as one former Microsoft exec now working at a Big Tech rival told MarketWatch.

Rep. David Cicilline, chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees antitrust, emphatically denied any bill was changed to exclude Microsoft and that the company did not have access to early copies.

“We shared drafts of bills throughout the investigation with people who participated in the investigation to get their feedback,” Cicilline said last week. “That happened all throughout the investigation and the drafting. So, they were shared with all of the people participating investigation.” (“I don’t know whether Microsoft would meet the test that is set forth in these five bills,” Cicilline told Axios on its Re:cap podcast on June 17.)

Cicilline did not respond to email messages seeking additional comments on the changes, and on his political contributions of more than $5,000 from Microsoft President Brad Smith. Cicilline said he has “sworn off” tech donations since his subcommittee first began its investigation in 2019. He took $1,000 this year from Glover Park Group, which counts Apple as one of its major clients. Apple does not have a corporate PAC.

See: Tech giants mount defense against House antitrust bills

Smith is a key strategist and frontman in Microsoft’s concerted campaign, and has effectively put the other four tech giants on their heels. For more than a year, Smith has publicly pointed figures at them, while making the case that the software giant is a good corporate citizen.

“When you create technology that changes the world, you have to assume a responsibility for the world that you’ve helped to create,” Smith told Nikkei in December 2020.

In April 2021, Smith renewed his attacks on Google over web content after urging antitrust bodies to review Apple’s App Store a year ago.

Shortly after the bills were introduced on June 11, Smith told Bloomberg three days later: “I think in many ways where this is going is a particular focus on technology platforms that serve as gatekeepers. In other words, they not only serve as a platform like an operating system, but people need to go through them to sell their commerce whether it’s a product that’s on Amazon or an app say in the Apple App Store or through a service like Google search. And I think that’s where we’re going to see more and more government focus.”

“Well, there are aspects of the legislation that was introduced in the house last week that absolutely applies to Microsoft and many other companies,” he later acknowledged to Bloomberg. “I think for all of us, it’s the time to step back, try to think broadly, look beyond ourselves and ask, what’s the right role of technology to serve the economy, our customers, the country, and the world?”

Additionally, Microsoft supports the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, which would require companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google with large numbers of customers to open their platforms to competitors such as Microsoft. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has argued the law would force Apple to permit side-loading apps on the iPhone, which is manually installing software from the internet or a file instead of through an app store. This, in turn, would wreak havoc on the privacy and security of consumers — not to mention expose them to ransomware and malware, he said.

At least one defender of Microsoft — Gus Rossi, who leads tech policy and advocacy at Omidyar Network — said the criticisms conveniently overlook that Microsoft was subject to the “last relevant antitrust investigation” 30 years ago.

“Its rivals have never been exposed to the scrutiny that Microsoft experienced years ago, and now they are trying to adapt,” Rossi told MarketWatch. “They are reacting as Microsoft did in the ’90s. It not only survived, but is a smarter company, policy-wise.”

For its part, Microsoft insists it did not lobby to be excluded from the new antitrust package. “The bills as proposed extends to all operating systems. While this may encompass Windows, which has more than 50 million daily active users, it already operates as an open platform that provides broad choice and opportunity to developers and consumers today,” a Microsoft spokesperson told MarketWatch.

The Smith-led antitrust offensive has earned behind-the-scenes rebukes from the other four members of the Big Tech pantheon, prompting one Apple exec to observe deep antagonisms that now fester between the two companies. Microsoft is also at loggerheads with Amazon, whom it beat out in a bid for a $10 billion cloud-computing contract with the Pentagon in 2019. Amazon is fighting the awarded contract in court.

For more: Big Tech is turning on one another amid antitrust probes and litigation

Microsoft’s antitrust crusade has drawn incredulous responses from those who closely follow antitrust developments in the corridors of tech.

Microsoft hovered on the periphery of the Epic Games’ antitrust lawsuit against Apple last month, with at least five witnesses with links to Microsoft testifying on behalf of Epic. That was as many witnesses as from Epic itself. What is more, Microsoft shielded itself from discovery in litigation by not appearing as a party or sending a corporate representative to testify. Lori Wright, vice president of business development at Microsoft, testified in a personal capacity.

Microsoft is not entirely free of antitrust concerns. In July 2020, Slack Technologies WORK, -0.02%, a provider of chat software for businesses, filed a complaint against Microsoft in the European Union, alleging that the company’s bundling of rival product Microsoft Teams with the widely used Office suite of business software was an anticompetitive abuse of its market power. Slack has agreed to be acquired by Salesforce.com Inc. CRM for $27.7 billion.

This article has been updated.

Opinion: The JEDI reboot allows U.S. to correct its mistake

By Therese Poletti
Published: July 7, 2021 

In the years it took to name Microsoft as cloud-computing partner for Defense Department, the multi-cloud approach became popular, and Pentagon now appears to aim in that direction after canceling previous award


The Defense Department on Tuesday canceled a large cloud contract previously awarded to Microsoft Corp. GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

The abrupt cancellation of a large and important cloud-computing defense contract that took years to complete is actually good news for the country.

Since the earliest requests for proposal years ago for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, or JEDI, the Defense Department’s approach was criticized by analysts and tech companies. The biggest concerns were that the contract called for a single-source provider and spanned more than a decade, a deal that would have locked the Pentagon in with one company and without redundancy plans as the tech ecosystem sprinted toward so-called multi-cloud deals.


So when the Pentagon canceled the 10-year, $10 billion contract in a surprise announcement Tuesday, only Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +0.82% really had a reason to complain. Microsoft’s victory in October 2019 was immediately clouded by a prolonged political battle and accusations by Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.57% of favoritism by former President Donald Trump, who made it obvious on Twitter that he was no fan of then-CEO Jeff Bezos. The JEDI process was rife with lawsuits early on, as companies such as Oracle Corp. ORCL, +3.62% and IBM Corp. IBM, +0.75% complained about the lack of redundancy, and that the JEDI contract was going against standard industry practices.

For more: Therese on The early JEDI War and Amazon’s lawsuit

The Defense Department seems prepared to correct those issues, stating Tuesday that the new contract process will seek to create a cloud would be multi-vendor. It plans to solicit proposals from Amazon Web Services, or AWS, and Microsoft, because they are the only cloud providers that can meet its criteria.

“In the end, the government’s best interests are served by at least having some competition for service, innovation, redundancy, compliance, regulatory and security enhancements,” said Daniel Newman, principal analyst, Futurum Research. “I have long felt that the JEDI contract would be subject to intense post-award scrutiny and the most likely outcome would be a shared contract where the federal government would wind up utilizing the services of both AWS and Microsoft.”

Newman said he does not see the new contract as a 50/50 split, but that the new, shorter-term contract could be split approximately 30/70 between Amazon and Microsoft, respectively.

“If Microsoft gets more, it will be tied to the more comprehensive software suite,” he predicted.

From 2016: Tech is king of Wall Street, thanks to the cloud

While fast advances in technology can be impossible to meld with government procurement processes that take years, there are other benefits from calling a do-over on the past few years of work. Bernstein Research analyst Mark Moerdler said in a note that he believed Microsoft had benefited from the long delays.

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“During complex contracting processes (especially ones that are delayed many times), time does not stand still and government agencies have been moving along adding cloud capabilities,” he wrote. Microsoft has been expanding products it supports and its own partnerships with companies like Oracle and VMware Inc. VMW, +0.80%, and added functionality and capabilities to its own products, he said. “They have also likely been capturing cloud contacts and increasing utilization within the U.S. government.”

While the name of the new multi-vendor contract, Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, may not be as cool as the former JEDI acronym, the new plans are more appropriate for a modern cloud-computing scenario. And that will actually be a good thing for everyone involved.