Security, anti-hate expert urge Trudeau to use caution with campaign 'mobs'

Wed., September 8, 2021,



OTTAWA — The time has come for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to start taking the protests dogging his campaign a little more seriously, a security expert and a member of an anti-hate group say.

While they don't think the threat has reached the level where he needs an American-style secret service bubble to protect him, they say the rising displays of anger dictate that he takes more precautions.

Trudeau's campaign has been repeatedly stalked by vocal groups of protesters — he has called them "anti-vaxxermobs" — that have shouted racist and misogynist slurs at his security detail while hurling obscenities and, in some cases, death threats at the Liberal leader.

The seriousness of the disruptions escalated noticeably on Monday when dozens of protesters, some carrying signs criticizing COVID-19 vaccines and lockdowns, surrounded Trudeau's campaign bus in London, Ont., and threw a handful of gravel at him.

The RCMP declined to comment on what extra precautions they might be talking, beyond saying they constantly review their safety measures.

But a retired RCMP officer who served in the protection details of former prime ministers says Trudeau needs to reconsider the political gain of doing such events, because the next time he could face something more dangerous than gravel.

"Next time, maybe it'll be something harder, or pointier or hotter, and these things have a tendency to ramp up, particularly when you're dealing with people now who are under this long-term stress of having been locked up due to COVID," says Mathers, the founder of an international security consultancy.

"We all have friends that we thought were normal, and we see now that they're perhaps not so much. And these are the kinds of people that are coming out."

Mathers' previous protection assignments included serving on the security detail of Brian Mulroney in the 1980s when the then-prime minister sparked angry protests by showing friendship to American president Ronald Reagan. Mathers was in the Quebec City hotel when the two leaders sang "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" as angry protesters slammed metal barricades outside.

Mathers dismisses some pundits who have opined that Canada needs to adopt a harder security line akin to the U.S. Secret Service. He says comparing the protection requirements of an American president to a Canadian prime minister is "apples to oranges."

Mathers says he knows his ex-colleagues are taking the threats extremely seriously today and are dealing with a client — Trudeau — who is also heeding their advice quite closely.

"My friends who protect the PM did say one thing about him — he always stays in the box, which is in the square of bodyguards, unlike some of the other prime ministers," Mathers says.

Evan Balgord, the executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, says it is possible that some of those following Trudeau could be fantasizing about using violence against their perceived enemies.

PM TRUDEAU HATED EVEN THEN BY THE RIGHT

In their view, those would include Trudeau and public health officials who they blame for the COVID-19 lockdowns,he adds.

Balgord says the groups that have been stalking Trudeau's campaign across the country are organized and believe in conspiracy theories around COVID-19 pandemic.

"I am actually a little bit surprised that more precautions haven't been taken by the prime minister's entourage in particular, to try to keep him safe," Balgord said.

"An unstable person in that environment might take it upon themselves to act out on everybody's shared fantasy of killing the prime minister."

Balgord describes the groups that have been protesting against Trudeau as a "violent insurrectionist movement" that doesn't believe in democracy or in science.

Although the anti-lockdowns movement is "loose" and includes many who are not members of hate groups, it still contains many extreme far-right groups, he says.

He says these groups are organizing their protests in chats groups that his organization monitors on Facebook and Telegram, which allows far-right activists to try to further radicalize those who believe in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. He says they are spreading racist and anti-LGBTQ messages.

Mathers says Trudeau's security detail is also trying to track hostile movements in cyberspace, but the challenges there are growing as more people turn to encrypted apps to cover their tracks.

But he also says the protesters are not as sophisticated as some fear, noting they are getting their information from social media.

"Some people fall victim to their more basic desires, and urges," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2021.

Mike Blanchfield and Maan Alhmidi, The Canadian Press

Fact check: have GHG emissions risen under Trudeau?
Wed., September 8, 2021

Have emissions gone up in Trudeau's tenure as Prime Minister, as the NDP says? 

(Eddy Kennedy/CBC - image credit)

The NDP attacked Justin Trudeau and the Liberals' record on climate change Tuesday, asserting that in spite of big promises, the Grits have failed to lower greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in Canada.

Trudeau and Singh traded barbs Tuesday on the campaign trail over plans to address climate change and lower emissions.

"In 2016, Justin Trudeau ratified the Paris Agreement with a commitment to reduce emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. He promised 'an ambitious plan to reduce emissions,'" the NDP said in a news release.

"Since then, Canada's emissions have only grown – faster than any other G7 nation."

In signing the Paris Climate Agreement, the government initially committed to lowering emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The Liberal government has since adopted a more ambitious target of 40 to 45 per cent by 2030.

But have emissions gone up since that agreement was signed in 2016, which was also the first full year of Justin Trudeau's Liberal government?

With climate change a top issue for many voters this election, CBC decided to fact-check that charge.

What goes up may come down

Strictly speaking, the NDP's statement is true when looking at the official data currently available.

In 2016, Canada's GHG emissions were 707 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to government data. In 2019, the most recent year data are available, that number was 730. Emissions rose slightly from 2018 to 2019 from 728 to 730.

But there are some important nuances to the issue, experts say. The lack of data for 2020, for example, may help the NDP's point.

"It's good that they didn't include 2020, because with COVID of course there were lots of dramatic changes to activity and thus also to emissions," said Felix Pretis, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Victoria and co-director of the Climate Econometrics Research Project.

Canada's greenhouse gas emissions since 1990

Kathryn Harrison, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia who studies climate politics, agrees.

"It is very likely that they fell from 2019 to 2020, because of economic contraction during the pandemic — but we don't have that data yet."

It's important to note that GHG emissions have mostly levelled off since the turn of the millennium after rising steadily throughout the nineties.

One might conclude, based on the veracity of the NDP's claim, that the Trudeau government's policies on climate change aren't effective at reducing emissions. But both Pretis and Harrison say that's not necessarily the case.

Pretis cites the introduction of carbon pricing as an example, which came into effect in 2019.

"We wouldn't expect to see a change in emissions in the same year," he said. "When you put this sort of mechanism in place, a pricing mechanism, it takes a couple of years until we really see a change."

"This past performance of 2016 to 2019 is not necessarily indicative of future performance."

He adds that as the price on carbon goes up — the party plans to raise it to $170 per tonne by 2030 — the policy will have even more of an impact.

CBC

Harrison says it's a policy "lag" the NDP could expect to see with many of its own pledges on fighting climate change.

She also points out that the Liberals have never promised that GHG emission reductions would be linear — that a drop would start in 2016 and continue all the way until reaching the Paris Agreement target in 2030. The Liberals, in other words, may still be able to claim that their plan to reduce emissions and combat climate change is ambitious and on track.

"When you're on an upward trajectory, policies that are working may initially only level off emissions," Harrison said.

"It would be interesting to see how Mr. Singh's government would deliver immediate reductions.".

Pretis adds that while Canada has seen a small rise in absolute emissions from 2016 to 2019, emissions per capita have been roughly flat.

Most of the growth, the two experts say, is because of changes in transportation and oil and gas extraction.

Comparing Canada

The NDP may have good reason to single out Canada within the G7.

Many European countries have seen emissions fall in the past few years, an accomplishment Canada cannot claim. The UK saw GHG emissions drop 2.8 per cent in 2019 compared with the previous year.

"They introduced climate legislation much earlier," Pretis said. "So we have the UK Climate Change Act, which came into effect in the late 2000s, that really started biting a couple of years after that."

The European Union, Harrison says, deserves particular praise in this area. It saw a 3.7 per cent decline in GHG emissions from 2018 to 2019.

"The EU has really led in ambitious climate policies," she said.

The U.S. has seen a decline in emissions since 2005, but not because of a determined government plan — it's largely because coal has become less economical as a power source.

Harrison notes that Canada's population growth may be contributing to its comparatively poor performance in lowering emissions. Canada's population has grown more quickly than Germany's over the past two decades, for example.

While both experts say there are caveats to the NDP's criticism, they still say it's important that Canada lower emissions and not just keep them steady.

"It's important to be forward looking," Pretis said.

"We will need high levels of carbon pricing in order to see a substantial change in emissions, and that's ultimately where we have to get to if we want to reach net zero, which is something that we should all be doing."

Fact check: True.

How rising tennis star Leylah Fernandez overcame pushback en route to U.S. Open


Wed., September 8, 2021,

As a young girl, Leylah Fernandez first dreamed of becoming a soccer player, just like her father. But he had other ideas.

"I don't believe a child should go into a sport because her parents are in it," Jorge Fernandez said. "I want it to belong to her."

A little more than a decade after picking up a racquet, Fernandez, 19, has convincingly laid claim to tennis, preparing to compete in the U.S. Open semifinals, the most important match of her career to date.

She took New York by storm and by surprise, defeating defending champion Naomi Osaka and former world No. 1 Angelique Kerber — but Montrealers who know her from her childhood say it was a long time coming.

The rising tennis star had to overcome pushback on her home turf long before getting her shot at a match in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Leylah Fernandez/Instagram

Fernandez, center, and her family moved from Quebec to Florida to help her career. (Leylah Fernandez/Instagram - image credit)

As a budding tennis player, she learned the sting of rejection early in her career when Tennis Quebec's development program dropped her when she was only seven years old.

"When she found out, she was really heartbroken," Jorge said, holding back tears.

"Some kids get disappointed and then they're off to the next new toy, but she felt it."

Since then, Jorge has coached his daughter, despite not having any previous tennis experience.

Early on, he entertained the possibility of her wanting to quit after a couple of years, but she never did.

Love-Star Alexis, a high school friend of Fernandez at École secondaire Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who used to practise with her on the tennis courts, says she knew her former classmate always had the potential to become a superstar.

Alexis said she remembers Fernandez spending at least three hours a day on the courts, repeating the same shots over and over with her father, and devoting an additional hour to fitness training.

Submitted by Love-Star Alexis

"A lot of people don't put in that much work and also manage school," Alexis said. "I remember people would say 'Oh my God, she's so crazy for training so much, it's not going to lead anywhere,' but she proved the exact opposite."

Her former high school classmate Kylian Mairesse says the reserved Fernandez often missed class for competitions, but her fellow students celebrated her victories — if they found out about them.

"She wasn't someone who ever bragged about winning," he said.

To close friends, Alexis said, Fernandez is "really talkative and really funny" but also "always focused."

Sylvain Bruneau, head of Women's Pro and Transition Tennis for Tennis Canada, said he recalls Fernandez's sheer determination to succeed, even at age 11.

"She's not a big player, but she has a huge heart and huge determination," he said.

"I was really impressed, even then, with her ability to take the ball so early … [and] just the way she was able to focus for 90 minutes non-stop."

"In the tennis world these days, the girls are extremely big and very tall and strong, and she's a little different."

Bruneau said Fernandez's agility and, above all, her mental strength compensate for her "schoolgirl" stature, adding that her success in the game would popularize tennis among young women.

"I think she shows everybody, if you really want it bad and you're willing to do whatever it takes, everything is possible," Bruneau said.

Despite her newfound fame, her father says coming from a "two-car and mortgage" home keeps Fernandez grounded.

But he, like those who knew her as she worked to greatness, also understood that Fernandez's determination would take her places.

"It's expected. We trained so hard," he said.

"It was just a matter of waiting for it to transition to the big stage."

Submitted by Love-Star Alexis

As some countries welcome Afghanistan's refugees, others want to keep them out

Thu., September 9, 2021

Afghan refugees are shown at a Red Cross camp in Avezzano, Italy, on Aug. 31. 

(Andrew Medichini/The Associated Press - image credit)

As pictures of desperation were beamed from Kabul's airport last month, showing thousands of Afghans trying to escape the Taliban and get out however they could, French President Emmanuel Macron went on national TV.

France, he said, needs to "protect itself from a wave of migrants" heading for Europe, declining to say, for now, if it will take more Afghan refugees.

In another corner of the European Union, Croatian President Zoran Milanović declared "all of them should find their place in the United States."

"It's no longer 2015," he said, referring to Europe's last refugee crisis, when 1.3 million people sought asylum there — led by a wave of those fleeing the war in Syria, but which also included many Afghans.

A smaller but steady flow of Afghan migrants has continued ever since, as fighting persisted in the country, then accelerated as the U.S. announced it was preparing to leave after 20 years of conflict.

Last year, well over three million Afghans found their way abroad.

Top 20 countries that took in Afghan refugees in 2020

While Afghanistan's latest humanitarian emergency grows, the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, says "our own monitoring is not confirming any kind of large movements of population outside of Afghanistan."

It's a different story inside the country of 39 million. UNHCR estimates some 570,000 Afghans have left their homes since the start of the year, gravitating to larger cities like Kabul. Around 80 per cent of these internally displaced people are women and children, according to the UN agency.

Some of them may make it out of Afghanistan eventually, but there are few international commercial flights and land crossings are unpredictable and sometimes dangerous.

CBC

With options limited, few refugees reach Western borders, said UNHCR Canada spokewoman Melanie Gallant in an interview.

At this point, "it's not really a crisis" for Europe or the United States, she said, nor does the UNHCR expect it to become one.

Instead, it's neighbouring countries who are bearing the brunt of Afghanistan's flow of refugees.

The UNHCR is planning for up to 500,000 people in Pakistan, Iran and other nearby countries, though Gallant estimates the actual numbers haven't approached that yet, as Afghans who want to flee may not have the means or the necessary visas to leave.

K.M. Chaudary/The Associated Press

Last month, immediately after Kabul fell, more than 100,000 people were hastily airlifted out of Afghanistan by the U.S. military and its coalition partners, including Canada. Those rescued were mainly a mix of foreign nationals and Afghans who worked closely with NATO troops, making them potential targets for a vengeful Taliban.

Officials in Ottawa say 3,500 people came to Canada during the mass evacuations: 1,500 to 2,000 Afghan citizens, and the rest Canadians or residents.

But Ottawa has committed to taking 20,000 Afghan refugees, including those it considers to be the most vulnerable — women, girls and members of Afghanistan's LGBTQ community, as well as those who worked with Canadian Forces.

Some 7,000 Afghans have already come to Canada in the last few years.

CBC News

The U.S. is preparing for 34,000 new arrivals, with many staying in third countries — Colombia and Uganda, for example — temporarily for security screening and processing.

The U.K. has also promised to take in 20,000 Afghan refugees: 5,000 in 2021 and the rest in the coming years.

Still, other countries are firmly closing their doors. Turkey's military has been sent to evict refugees already inside its borders and to prevent new ones from coming in, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisting that his country would not become the EU's "migrant storage unit."

CBC

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that Moscow "doesn't want militants under the guise of refugees."

China is also not accepting any Afghan refugees, worried, in part, that they could import unwelcome religious and political ideas to Xinjiang, the region bordering Afghanistan. It's also the region where Beijing has been working forcefully to supress the local Uyghur population and Muslim practices.

Driven by a mix of violence, fear and rising uncertainty as the Taliban consolidates control in Afghanistan, Gallant cautions that the flow of those displaced is a "volatile situation," which could still upend current estimates and predictions.

Biden, Dems push Civilian Climate Corps in echo of New Deal

Wed., September 8, 2021



WASHINGTON (AP) — Inspired by the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are pushing for a modern counterpart: a Civilian Climate Corps that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs building trails, restoring streams and helping prevent catastrophic wildfires.

Building on Biden's oft-repeated comment that when he thinks of climate change, he thinks of jobs, the White House says the $10 billion program would address both priorities as young adults find work installing solar panels, planting trees, digging irrigation ditches and boosting outdoor recreation.

“We must seize this opportunity to build a big, bold pathway to critical careers, for a diverse generation of Americans ready to take on this existential crisis that we face,'' said Ali Zaidi, deputy White House climate adviser. "It’s national service meets family-supporting careers meets the moment.''

The effort comes as the White House and many Democrats are intensifying their focus on climate change after a series of devastating storms recently battered much of the nation. Touring neighborhoods in New York and New Jersey this week that were devastated by flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Biden said climate change has become “everybody's crisis.”

“The threat is here. It is not getting any better,” Biden said. “The question is can it get worse?”

The proposed climate corps was not included in a bipartisan infrastructure bill approved by the Senate, but it is a key part of an emerging $3.5 trillion package backed by Democrats to help families and address climate change. A vote in the House on both bills could occur by the end of the month.

Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat who has co-sponsored a climate corps bill, said it's important to train the next generation of U.S. land managers, park rangers and other stewards of our natural resources.

“This bold investment is a necessary response to the climate crisis and prioritizes the maintenance and upkeep of public lands,'' he said.

While the jobs should pay at least $15 an hour, those likely to join the climate corps “are not doing it for the compensation,'' Neguse said. "They know it's important to connect to nature and do important work for their state and the nation.''

Details are still being worked out, but Neguse and other Democrats say the program should pay “a living wage'' while offering health care coverage and support for child care, housing, transportation and education.

David Popp, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University, said a key distinction between the original Civilian Conservation Corps and the new climate contingent is that the U.S. economy is not in a depression — great or otherwise — as it was during Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency.

While U.S. employers added just 235,000 jobs in August, the unemployment rate decreased slightly to 5.2% as the economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Most of those being targeted for the new climate corps “could find employment elsewhere,'' Popp said, noting a proliferation of help-wanted signs at retail businesses across the nation.

"I don't know that an unemployed coal worker in West Virginia is going to move to Montana to take a minimum-wage job to restore streams,'' he said.

On the other hand, some of his own students are highly motivated by the climate crisis and may want to spend a year or two on an outdoor job that helps address an existential threat to the planet, Popp said.

"Many young people are very passionate about the environment, and they may see this as an opportunity to do something about the environment and still get paid for it,'' he said.

Republicans largely dismiss the climate corps as a do-gooder proposal that would waste money and could even take away jobs from workers displaced by the pandemic and the push for so-called green jobs.

“My grandfather worked for the CCC, and I remember him telling me how terrible it was, how backbreaking the work was,” said Arkansas Rep. Bruce Westerman, the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee.

“We don’t need another FDR program, and the idea that this is going to help land management is a false idea as well,” Westerman said.

At a committee meeting last week, Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ore., called the proposed climate corps “delusional,'' adding: "Why would we think people are going to suddenly jump at doing really, really hard, dirty, dangerous work because we offer them $15 an hour? That’s not going to happen.”

In a widely circulated piece, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page said Democrats want to "expand government into every corner of American life. It isn’t enough to lecture Americans about the supposed perils of climate change. Now they also want to tax you and other Americans to pay your children to spend years lecturing you.''

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a prominent supporter of the climate corps, said such criticism overlooks important benefits.

The program will help communities recover from climate disasters such as Hurricane Ida and Western wildfires while creating “good-paying jobs that can turn into clean-economy careers,'' Markey said. In the process, the climate corps will “make the country a safer, healthier place that can compete in the global economy,'' he added.

"As the West Coast fights fires and the East Coast fights storms and smoke, the editorial board fights straw men,'' Markey said in a letter to the newspaper.

The urgency of the climate crisis “recalls past chapters of national mobilization,'' Neguse said. “In standing up the Civilian Climate Corps, we will build on that legacy and existing infrastructure to meet the challenges of today.”

Matthew Daly, The Associated Press

Biden Shifts Balance of FERC to Democrats With a Nomination

Ari Natter and Mark Chediak
Thu., September 9, 2021



(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden plans to nominate a Washington utility regulator to fill the remaining open seat at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, potentially tipping the panel’s balance of power in favor of Democrats.

Willie Phillips Jr., the chair of the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia, would replace former FERC Commissioner Neil Chatterjee, who stepped down at the end of last month. Phillips’s appointment, if confirmed by the Senate, would give the top U.S. energy regulatory agency commission a majority of members appointed by Democrats.

The independent five-member agency, which plays a role overseeing liquefied natural gas export facilities, gas pipelines and wholesale power markets, is poised to play a pivotal part of fulfilling Biden’s clean-energy ambitions.

The commission could help Biden deliver on those promises by propelling a massive build-out of transmission lines to connect remote solar and wind farms to towns and cities. The agency could also make it more difficult to build natural gas pipelines.

Commissioners serve five-year terms at the bipartisan agency. The White House designates the chair.

“As the Biden administration advances its plans to tackle the climate crisis and create a clean electricity grid by 2035, FERC will maintain an important role regulating the transmission of renewable energy across the country,” the White House said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg announcing the intent to nominate Phillips.

Phillips is a relatively uncontroversial choice, which could boost his chances of swift Senate confirmation, ClearView Energy Partners said in a research note. He’s is more of a technician and a green pragmatist than a politician or progressive, according to the note.

Progressive Opposition

Some progressive environmental activists, including more than 400 green groups that had pushed other candidates for the job, opposed the nomination.

“This is a disappointing selection,” Food & Water Watch policy director Mitch Jones said in a statement. “Willie Phillips has spent his career working on the side of the oil and gas industry and electric utility giants.”

West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who leads the panel that would approve the nomination, said in a statement that he looked forward to having Phillips appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and “will carefully examine his record and qualifications to serve in this important role.”

The agency dictates how electricity is bought and sold in wholesale markets, which are where most utilities get their power. And the commission’s decisions governing gas pipelines can give developers a green light to invoke eminent domain and install projects on private land.

Phillips, a lawyer with nearly 20 years of legal experience as a utility regulator, led the District Public Service Commission’s efforts to modernize the energy grid and implement the city’s clean energy and climate goals, according to the White House. Before that, he was an assistant general counsel for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a regulatory body.

Polish Senate rejects media bill affecting US-owned company

Thu., September 9, 2021

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's Senate voted on Thursday to reject a media bill seen as targeting a U.S.-owned television network's ability to keep broadcasting independent news that is often critical of the right-wing government.

However, the Senate has no power to stop the bill altogether, as it will now return to parliament's lower house. If it passes there, it would then go to President Andrzej Duda — who, however, has said he would not sign it into law in its current form.

The bill, which passed parliament's lower house last month, would prevent any non-European entity from owning more than a 49% stake in television or radio broadcasters in Poland.

Its practical effect would be to force Discovery Inc., the U.S. owner of Poland’s largest private television network, TVN, to sell its Polish holdings.

The nationalist governing party, Law and Justice, argues that it's a matter of national security to prevent outside bodies from being able to influence public opinion within Poland.

Bogdan Klich, a senator with the opposition party Civic Platform, called the law an “act of war against freedom of speech.”

Pavol Szalaj, a representative of the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders traveled to Warsaw to urge its rejection, saying to a group of protesters outside the Senate ahead of the vote that press freedom in Poland is under threat. He cited other threats in the past to media diversity and said that the today's target is TVN.

“TVN has been a jewel in the crown of Polish democracy for decades,” he said.

Senators in the 100-seat body voted 53-37 against the bill, with three abstentions. When it returns to the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, the vote on the bill will also be a test of whether the ruling party still has a legislative majority following some defections in the governing coalition.

TVN also faces a separate challenge: A refusal to date by the broadcast authority to renew the license for TVN24, the network's all-news station, which expires later this month.

Kasia Kieli, Discovery’s president and managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that despite the Senate's vote the company is “still concerned about the future of TVN and independent media in Poland as the bill can still be passed by the Sejm and the license for our news channel TVN24 is still not renewed.”

Duda, though an ally of Law and Justice, last month called the bill “a controversial solution that is incomprehensible" to the United States, citing the U.S. attitude toward the protection of property and freedom of speech.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that the U.S. was “deeply troubled” by the proposed legislation.

Vanessa Gera, The Associated Press

THE WAR ON VAPING

FDA delays decision on e-cigarettes from vaping giant Juul

Thu., September 9, 2021,


WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health officials on Thursday delayed a high-stakes decision on whether to permit bestselling vaping brand Juul to stay on the market, while banning the sale of thousands of other electronic cigarettes.

The Food and Drug Administration said it rejected applications for nearly 950,000 e-cigarettes and related products, mainly due to their potential appeal to underage teens. Some of the products are currently being sold while many others were only proposed by manufacturers. But the agency didn't rule on Juul, the most popular brand with adult smokers and many teens.

Parents, politicians and anti-tobacco advocates have pressured the FDA for years to ban Juul's high-nicotine devices, which many blame for the recent spike in underage vaping. But the agency said it would need more time to rule on that company's products.

“There’s more work to be done to complete our remaining reviews and ensure that we continue taking appropriate action to protect our nation’s youth from the dangers of all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes,” the agency said in a statement. The agency noted 80% of teens and children who vape use flavored products.

Thursday’s action is part of a sweeping review by the FDA to bring scientific scrutiny to the multibillion-dollar vaping industry after years of regulatory delays. The agency has yet to authorize any vaping product as a less harmful option for smokers.

The FDA faced a court deadline Thursday to issue decisions on marketing applications from Juul and hundreds of other companies. The date was set by a federal judge after anti-tobacco groups successfully sued the FDA to speed up its review.

To stay on the market, companies must show that their e-cigarettes benefit public health. In practice, that means proving that adult smokers who use the products are likely to quit or reduce their smoking, while teens are unlikely to get hooked on them.

FDA regulators previously said they would prioritize Juul and a handful of other key players, but none were included in the agency's announcement.

The delay was immediately panned by anti-vaping groups.

“This is an outrageous move by FDA,” said Meredith Berkman, co-founder of Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes. “Millions of families whose kids’ lives have been upended by the youth vaping epidemic created by Juul have waited long enough for action.”

The FDA didn't indicate when it might rule on Juul and other major manufacturers. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said his group will go back to court if the FDA doesn’t clarify its timeline for the remaining decisions.

E-cigarettes first appeared in the U.S. more than a decade ago with the promise of providing smokers with a less harmful alternative to smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes. The devices heat a nicotine solution into a vapor that’s inhaled.

But there has been little rigorous study of whether the e-cigarettes truly help smokers quit. And efforts by the FDA to begin vetting vaping products and their claims were repeatedly slowed by industry lobbying and competing political interests.

Today, the vaping market includes hundreds of companies selling an array of devices and nicotine solutions in various flavors and strengths. But the vast majority of the market is controlled by a few companies including Juul Labs Inc. — which is partially owned by tobacco giant Altria — and Vuse, part of cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds.

Juul accounts for nearly half of the $4 billion U.S. market but sales have fallen sharply from when the company controlled more than 75%. In 2019, the company was pressured into halting all advertising and pulling all of its flavors except for menthol and tobacco.

The FDA received applications for more than 6 million vaping products. The agency said Thursday it has taken action on 93% of those applications, including for 4.5 million products that were immediately rejected because they were missing key information.

It is still reviewing a smaller number of applications for other non-traditional tobacco products like hookahs, pipes and mini cigars. Those products weren’t covered by the original 2009 law that first gave the FDA authority to oversee some parts of the industry, including the review of new products. Also awaiting review: larger vaping devices with refillable tanks that are mainly popular with adults and sell at specialty vape shops.

The vaping issue took on new urgency in 2018 when Juul’s high-nicotine, fruity-flavored cartridges became a nationwide craze among middle and high school students, leading the FDA to declare an “epidemic” of underage vaping. Last year, the FDA limited flavors in those small vaping devices to just tobacco and menthol, and teen vaping dropped. But the question of whether e-cigarettes should be sold at all remained.

Most experts agree the chemicals contained in e-cigarette vapor are less harmful than tobacco smoke, which contains thousands of cancer-causing chemicals.

“E-cigs and other reduced harm products present a fantastic opportunity to replace cigarettes with far less dangerous products,” said Jonathan Foulds, an addiction and public health specialist at Penn State University. “But I’m concerned this may be the start of an overly aggressive regulation for e-cigarettes — especially compared to how we treat regular cigarettes.”

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Matthew Perrone, The Associated Press

Fed’s Kaplan, Rosengren to Sell All Stocks Amid Ethics Concerns

Catarina Saraiva
Thu., September 9, 2021, 3:30 p.m.·1 min read

(Bloomberg) -- The presidents of the Federal Reserve banks of Boston and Dallas said Thursday they would sell their individual stock holdings by Sept. 30 and invest the proceeds in diversified index funds or hold them in cash.

Eric Rosengren, head of the Boston Fed, and Robert Kaplan, president of the Dallas Fed, released near-identical statements Thursday after their 2021 financial disclosure documents showed investments in a variety of stocks and other financial instruments.

Rosengren’s disclosure listed stakes in four separate real estate investment trusts and disclosed multiple purchases and sales in those and other securities, the documents show.

Kaplan, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, showed multiple $1 million-plus transactions last year as the U.S. economy was convulsed by Covid-19.

California Seeks to Avert Blackouts by Burning More Gas

Mark Chediak and Naureen S. Malik
Thu., September 9, 2021, 


(Bloomberg) -- California is asking the federal government to declare an “electric reliability emergency” so the Golden State can lean more heavily on fossil fuels to avoid blackouts.

The state’s main grid operator wants the U.S. Department of Energy to suspend air-pollution rules for some natural gas-burning power plants in case their output is needed “to meet demand in the face of extremely challenging conditions including extreme heat waves, multiple fires, high winds, and various grid issues,” according to a filing. The last time California received a waiver of such length and breadth was 21 years ago during the Western Energy Crisis.

For a second straight day, authorities urged residents of the biggest U.S. state to conserve energy as a heat wave boosts air-conditioning use.

The emergency request highlights the conflict between California’s green aspirations and the physical reality that wind and solar thus far haven’t been able to cover power shortfalls exacerbated by the shuttering of gas-fired generators. The California Independent System Operator has warned of looming electricity shortages several times this summer.

An emergency declaration by the Energy Department would allow new gas units recently ordered by the state to connect to the grid by the middle of this month, the California ISO said in its filing. It would also relax pollution limits for some other gas plants that would otherwise be forced to temporarily halt power production.

A similar emergency order was issued during the deadly Texas freeze that triggered widespread blackouts, Energy Department spokesman Kevin Liao said.

Clean Energy will drive Deep-Sea Mining to become a $100 billion plus industry, but U.S. can't participate

 

Kitco News  Thursday September 09, 2021 

(Kitco News) - The U.S. has locked itself out from the next major mining frontier -- deep sea mining -- while China leads the world in it, said Alex Gilbert. Achieving the goal of net zero emissions by 2050 would require six times more of certain minerals that are currently mined by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. This has led to a demand in deep sea mining.

Gilbert, who is a Fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, spoke to Michelle Makori, lead anchor and editor-in-chief of Kitco News.

There is a Law of the Sea Treaty set up in 1982 that regulates deep sea mining, but the U.S. cannot participate in deep sea mining because the U.S. did not ratify this treaty. "American companies cannot participate. American companies that are interested in deep sea mining have to go abroad and work as a multinational corporation with their foreign subsidiaries," Gilbert said.

"The country that has received the most exploration permits for deep sea mining so far is China. For the U.S., this is potentially a large concern from an economic competitiveness perspective, because currently China is the leading processor of metals around the world," Gilbert explained. "If you believe that we are going through this energy transition from a fossil fuel based energy system to one based on metals for clean energy, the U.S. plays a central role in the fossil fuel based commodity system."

The shift to clean energy is expected to drive a huge demand for many metals but the International Energy Agency reported that there isn't enough supply at current levels. "The U.S. doesn't have a central role in the supply chain for metals. China is quickly moving across the board, not just for deep sea mining, but around the world it has established claims and mines so it can dominate the supply chain of the future," Gilbert discussed. "The question is how broadly do we ensure critical mineral supply, but that's something the U.S. needs to figure out."

The lack of metal supply has led to a demand in deep sea mining. The global deep sea mining technologies market and equipment is expected to reach about $73 billion by 2030, according to Allied Market Research.

"The potential size of the deep-sea mining market is really large. It is a huge question mark, it's an industry that we are just on the verge of really birthing. We are in the exploration phase. We are moving closely toward the exploitation phase," said Gilbert. "This could be an industry that's anywhere from a very small cottage industry up to a global industry that is a juggernaut. It could be a hundred billion plus industry by 2040 or later."

Gilbert discussed that in order to meet the decarbonization goals we set internationally, it is imperative that we significantly increase the amount of mining we are doing. "The current production levels are not going to be sufficient," Gilbert said. "We are going to have to find new sources, rapidly develop new technologies that are using resources more efficiently, and we are going to need to use more recycling technologies."

In terms of investing in deep sea mining companies, Gilbert emphasized that "This is still an early industry, and he cautions investors to be careful. We see a fair amount of action happening primarily with a Canadian based company called Deep Green. It is currently going public as part of SPAC, which will be called the Metals Company going forward. It is targeting polymetallic nodules for electric vehicle supplies."

Critics of deep-sea mining say that harvesting these nodules on the bottom of the sea could do more harm than good in terms of decarbonization, and this could disturb the ecosystem dramatically. "One of the big issues that we are struggling with is that we only just started exploring the deep seabed in a systematic manner in terms of looking at the biology there. If this is going to be a major source of clean energy we need to resolve these environmental uncertainties, "Gilbert said.