KENNEY'S PALS

Oil and gas companies now owe Alberta rural communities $253M in unpaid taxes

Janet French 

CBC
y

 Robson Fletcher/CBC

 Delinquent companies owe Alberta municipalities a combined $253 million in unpaid property taxes, the Rural Municipalities of Alberta says.

Alberta's Municipal Affairs Minister says his government needs to do more to force oil and gas companies to pay overdue property taxes to municipalities.

Minister Ric McIver acknowledged legislation last year didn't go far enough just as the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) said delinquent oil and gas companies now owe municipalities $253 million in unpaid taxes. It's a number that has ballooned during the last three years.

McIver said there are "no excuses" for companies to leave municipal governments in the lurch while high oil prices furnish them with profits.

"What we all thought would work, hasn't yet. So we're going to try something else," McIver said during a legislative committee on Monday night.

Last year, the legislature passed a bill that restored municipalities' ability to place special liens on property owned by oil and gas companies that didn't pay their taxes.

McIver called the tool a "hammer" that would hopefully persuade companies to pay their tax bill, or arrange a payback plan, rather than sending municipalities to court looking to seize company assets, which is complex and expensive.

Although some counties and rural municipalities managed to recoup money, more debts piled up elsewhere, McIver said.

The RMA survey found the unpaid taxes owed to its members rose by 3.3 per cent by the end of 2021, compared with 2020.

RMA wants regulator crackdown

Skirting tax bills is unfair to municipalities, which must find extra cash, cut expenses or lay off employees to balance their budgets, said RMA president Paul McLauchlin. It's also unfair to rural taxpayers to shell out more money for fewer services.

"They're causing undue harm and distress to rural Albertans," he said.

In some municipalities, the industry can make up 60 to 90 per cent of their expected tax base.

Covering the difference prompts municipalities to delay road and bridge repair or construction projects – the very infrastructure companies rely upon to operate in the area, he said.

Some of the corporations in arrears are hard to track down – a few are numbered companies based in the Cayman Islands, McLauchlin said.

If the status quo continues, Alberta is going to end up with insolvent municipalities, he warned.

He said there are steps the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) could take to make life more difficult for cheating companies, but the government lacks the will to hold the industry accountable.

The regulator now can consider whether a company owes taxes when reviewing an application for an energy license or transfer application. McLauchlin says it should be required.

The AER should also rely on municipal information about whether a company owes taxes rather than trusting companies to self-report, he said. Owners shouldn't be able to transfer any assets without paying their taxes, nor should they be allowed to operate, McLauchlin said.

"In its simplicity, it's frustrating," he said. "Really, the tool is there."

These were tools the RMA also requested last year when legislation was up for discussion.

At the legislature on Tuesday, McIver said they didn't think those measures were necessary, at the time. He left the door open to using such tools now.

"I would say, 'Sure, if the AER can help, if RMA would like, we should ask them.' " McIver said. "But before I jump into that, I think I've got to do some homework."

CBC has requested comment from the AER and Alberta's energy minister.

ALBERTA

Independent MLA complains to RCMP about Kenney staff correspondence with private company

Paige Parsons 

© Dave Bajer/CBC News 

Central Peace-Notley MLA Todd Loewen says he's spoken with RCMP, alleging that a senior official in the premier’s office may have broken the law by seeking out political support from an unnamed Alberta company.

Independent MLA Todd Loewen says he's spoken to Alberta RCMP about his allegations that a senior official in the premier's office may have broken the law by seeking out political support from an unnamed Alberta company.

Loewen, who was expelled from the United Conservative caucus in May 2021 over his open defiance of Premier Jason Kenney's leadership, is basing his allegations on a description in a November 2021 column by Calgary Herald writer Don Braid.

"I look forward to the police investigating it fully and coming up with the truth," Loewen said Tuesday while speaking to reporters at the legislature.

The RCMP confirmed Loewen's complaint was received, but wouldn't say if an investigation has been opened. A spokesperson did say all complaints to the RCMP are reviewed.

A Kenney spokesperson said Tuesday that the RCMP has not contacted anyone in the premier's office,and hasn't provided any further comment.

In the November column, Braid writes about an email an executive from an Alberta company sent to colleagues, stating that an official from the premier's office asked the executive to round-up existing and new members to attend the United Conservative Party's annual general meeting held Nov. 19-21 and participate in board voting.

According to Braid, the email went on to state that by providing the requested support to Kenney, the company could then "leverage that into further, meaningful dialogues with his cabinet."

Loewen said he doesn't know what company Braid was writing about, but alleges he's heard rumours about other Alberta companies being approached in a similar manner.

In a letter Loewen sent to Alberta RCMP in February, Loewen argues that this request could violate sections 121-1-C and 121-1-D of the Criminal Code if the unnamed company does business with the provincial government.

121-C prohibits government officials and staff from demanding, accepting, offering or agreeing to a benefit of any kind from a person who has dealings with the government, unless they have the consent of the head of the branch of government that they're affiliated with.

121-1-D prohibits anyone who has or pretends to have influence with the government from demanding or accepting a benefit in exchange for providing influence.
Upcoming leadership review

Loewen's allegations come as Kenney readies for a leadership review that will be held at a special general meeting in Red Deer, Alta., on April 9.

Asked about the timing of waiting to go public with his allegations until this week, Loewen said the start of the legislative session allowed him to put his questions to the UCP in the chamber, and said that the premier's chief of staff recently taking a temporary leave of absence to work on Kenney's leadership campaign may be "related."

When Loewen raised the issue in the legislature on Monday, government House leader Jason Nixon called Loewen's allegations "junior high games" and said the chief of staff's leave to work on the campaign is a normal process.

Nixon pointed to Loewen's own recent presence at political meetings ahead of the leadership review. Loewen said Tuesday he has attended a few meetings and has spoken one-on-one with many people, encouraging them to vote on April 9 if they are unhappy with Kenney's leadership.

Report: Beijing-backed hackers breach at least 6 U.S. state governments

Cybersecurity firm Mandiant said Tuesday in its new threat report that a Chinese-state sponsored espionage group targeted six U.S. state government networks. 

File SP-Photo/Shutterstock

March 8 (UPI) -- Chinese government-backed hackers have breached at least six U.S. state government networks since last May, Mandiant cybersecurity firm confirmed Tuesday in a new report.

Mandiant identifies the Chinese-state sponsored espionage hacking group as APT 41 in the new report, and classifies it among the Advanced Persistent Threats groups, which it pays special attention to since they receive direction and support from the national government.

APT41 exploited vulnerabilities in web applications to compromise at least six U.S. state government networks between May 2021 and February 2022, according to the report.

In particular, APT41 exploited "a previously unknown zero-day vulnerability in a commercial-off-the-shelf (CoTS) application, USAHerds," the report said.

The vulnerability exploited in the application, which 18 states use for animal health management, was similar to a previously reported vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange Server where the encryption keys were shared in all installations.

Sharing these encryption keys went "against the best practices of using uniquely generated machineKey values per applications instance," so "once APT41 obtained the machineKey, they were able to compromise any server on the Internet running USAHerds," the report said.

The report noted that this means there "are potentially additional unknown victims," beyond the six states confirmed, and Mandiant Senior Threat Analyst Rufus Brown told The Verge "this is likely" the case.

"We say 'at least six states' because there are likely more states affected, based on our research, analysis, and communications with law enforcement," Brown said. "We know that there are 18 states using USAHerds, so we assess that this is likely a broader campaign than the six states we have have confirmation."

The APT41 also exploited the Java Log4j vulnerability, also known as Log4Shell, which allows remote code execution on vulnerable servers, and was previously disclosed in December.

"In late February, APT 41 re-compromised two previous U.S. state government victims," the report added, "demonstrating their unceasing desire to access state government networks."

Though the intent of the hackers is not yet known, "this is pretty consistent with an intelligence operation, likely espionage," Brown told The Verge. "Whatever they're after here is really important, and it seems like they'll continue to go after it...At the end of the day, this stuff is not going to end until the folks behind it are arrested."

Back in September 2020, the Justice Department charged five fugitive Chinese nationals of the hacking group and two Malaysian nationals who conspired with them to profit from attacks. The attacks included targeting more than 100 companies, pro-democracy organizations and universities worldwide to steal proprietary information and digital currency, resulting in millions of dollars in losses.

Mandiant has also played a role in helping Microsoft uncover the Russian government-backed SolarWinds hack against U.S. government agencies in 2020.

Google announced Tuesday it's buying Mandiant for about $5.4 billion to protect customers.

Uber, Lyft, DoorDash Panned for New Lobby Group to Fight Worker Rights

"Imagine if they spent all this money paying workers fairly instead of on propaganda to prevent them from having to pay workers fairly," Gig Workers Rising said of app-based companies.

Lyft driver Al Aloudi speaks to demonstrators during a March 25, 2019 San Francisco protest against the company's pay cuts and its announcement that it is going public on Friday.

 (Photo: Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)


BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS

March 8, 2022

An app-based worker advocacy group on Tuesday decried companies including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash for launching a new lobby group to fight federal and state-level efforts to protect workers and reclassify them as employees instead of independent contractors.

"There's nothing about working on an app, or having some flexibility in your work schedule that means people need to forfeit basic workers' rights."

The Hill reports the new lobby group, called Flex, will push back against Democrats' Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a sweeping bill that, if passed, would expand collective bargaining rights, improve access to union elections, and impose penalties on businesses that exploit their workers.

The group will also fight state-level legislation to classify app-based drivers and other workers as employees—a status that would confer minimum pay, healthcare, and other benefits denied to independent contractors.

"Imagine if they spent all this money paying workers fairly instead of on propaganda to prevent them from having to pay workers fairly," the advocacy group Gig Workers Rising tweeted about app-based companies in response to Flex's formation.

The Wall Street Journal notes that some of Flex's members were previously members of the Internet Association, a lobby group representing tech titans including Facebook and Google.

Critics accuse app-based companies of seeking to extract maximum profits from their workers without providing them with the basic benefits and protections due to employees.

At the state level, Lyft in December made the largest one-time political donation in Massachusetts history—$13 million—to a coalition launched to fund a ballot measure that, if passed, would deny drivers employee status.

Meanwhile, tech companies including Uber and Lyft are backing a bill seeking to prevent app-based drivers from being classified as employees in Washington state. The measure, H.B. 2076, passed the state House in February and is expected to face a Senate vote as soon as next week.

The Massachusetts and Washington battles closely mirror California's fight over Proposition 22, a measure approved by voters in November 2020 that exempts app-based driver companies from classifying their workers as employees.

In what was the costliest ballot initiative in California history, Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash collectively spent $160 million supporting Prop 22. The app-based companies also pushed drivers to vote "yes" on the measure, while some high-profile opponents of the bill endured intense harassment.

Computer security researcher and app-based worker advocate Katie Moussouris on Monday said people should not believe the "propaganda" of app-based companies "trying to classify drivers as anything less than full-time employees."

"There's nothing about working on an app, or having some flexibility in your work schedule," she tweeted, "that means people need to forfeit basic workers' rights."

'Shocking': Report Warns US Likely to Miss Modest Vaccine Donation Goal

"The Biden administration is not on track to meet its commitment of donating 1.2 billion vaccine doses this year. 

The White House quietly dropped the timeline in its new pandemic plan."

President Joe Biden tours the Pfizer Kalamazoo Manufacturing Site on February 19, 2021 in Portage, Michigan. 

(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS

March 9, 2022

An analysis published Tuesday warns that the Biden administration is likely to miss its modest goal of donating more than 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses to the world by the end of September, a concern the White House seemed to tacitly acknowledge last week by omitting the timeline from its new Covid-19 preparedness plan.

Authored by Zain Rizvi of Public Citizen and Jo Walker, a PhD student in Yale's Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, the new report finds that the Biden administration is set to fall short of its vaccine donation commitment "absent a surge of funding and political support for global vaccinations."

"By the end of February, the U.S. had shipped 474 million doses, donating doses at a rate of 60 million in recent months," the report notes. "To meet the 1.1 billion dose target, the U.S. would have to donate 626 million doses in seven months, or about 90 million doses per month. That would require increasing the donation rate by 50%."

The assessment comes as Covid-19 remains a serious threat worldwide, killing more than 7,000 people each day and wreaking havoc on health systems across the globe.

Experts have been warning since the start of the vaccine rollout that failure to achieve sufficient global inoculation against the coronavirus virtually guarantees that additional mutations will emerge and spread, prolonging the deadly pandemic and its far-reaching societal consequences.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 90 countries are not on track to fully vaccinate 70% of their populations by the start of July 2022. The latest figures from Our World in Data indicate that just 13.6% of people in low-income countries have received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose as rich nations continue to hoard doses and key technology.

In an interview with the New York Times, Rizvi said it is "shocking" that the Biden administration is struggling to meet donation commitments that advocacy groups have criticized as inadequate. Public health campaigners have also criticized the Biden White House for focusing its attention largely on vaccine charity while neglecting technology transfer and global manufacturing.

In the new report, Rizvi and Walker note that "after a brief spike in December, donations in January and February lagged behind the required pace."

"The reason for the delay is unclear," the report states. "But it comes after a Politico story in June reported that the Biden administration had used more than a billion dollars intended to assist countries with vaccine distribution to pay for Pfizer vaccines."

Last month, Politico reported that the Biden administration is "running out of money to support the global vaccination push, and negotiations with Congress on securing new funding have stalled." Such cash shortages are an indication that "more delays may be coming," Rizvi and Walker write.

"Biden promised a war time effort against the virus," the report continues, alluding to president's vow to make the U.S. the "vaccine arsenal" of the world. "But a narrow reliance on donations, without a larger strategy on delivery and manufacturing, has undermined the global vaccination effort. The Biden administration can move forward by rapidly requesting additional funding from Congress to make ambitious investments in delivery and manufacturing. One million lives may be at stake."

Related Content


For Fraction of Pentagon Budget, World Could Prevent 1.5 Million Covid Deaths

Rizvi and Walker's analysis was released days after the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that "while the U.S. has contributed far more [coronavirus vaccine doses] than any other donor, its rank falls considerably when standardized by GDP."

"The U.S. falls to 6th when ranked by pledged doses per $1 million GDP and is more in line, but still lower than, other large economies such as Germany and France," KFF notes. "By this measure, Bhutan ranks first, followed by the Maldives, Germany, France, New Zealand, and then the U.S."

A veteran who set up a business delivering Amazon packages says he feels trapped and can't shut down because of potentially high exit fees for returning Amazon's branded vans

insider@insider.com (Isobel Asher Hamilton) 

© Provided by Business Insider 

Amazon Prime delivery trucks. 

MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images

A veteran who started an Amazon delivery business told Protocol he wanted to shut it down.

He said he was afraid of exit fees he could owe Amazon if he terminated his contract.

He said Amazon charged for damages to the vans and the damages could run upward of $100,000.

A veteran who set up an independent business delivering packages for Amazon told Protocol he wanted to shut his business down but was too afraid of anticipated exit fees from Amazon.

Amazon's vast delivery network is partly made up of delivery service partners, third-party contracted firms that deliver the tech giant's packages to customers.

The veteran, along with other DSP owners who spoke with Protocol, said they were dependent on federal Paycheck Protection Program loans to bolster their income or they previously were.

The veteran told Protocol he wanted to close his business but was too scared of the exit fees he could incur.

"They make it extremely difficult for you to get out of the program," he said. "If I were to say, 'Hey, I can't do this anymore,' they write down every nick or scratch on a vehicle; the average person that tries to return the vehicle, you're looking at well over $100,000 of damages they are going to find in your fleet."

Amazon did not immediately comment when contacted by Insider about Protocol's report.

Amazon offers DSP owners a "flexible lease" option that lets them lease Amazon-branded vans from an unnamed "third party fleet management company."

The veteran set up his DSP after he saw an ad that specifically encouraged veterans to apply by saying the usual requirement for applicants to have $10,000 in startup cash could be waived for veterans, he told Protocol.

Protocol granted the veteran and other DSP owners it spoke with anonymity because they were afraid Amazon might retaliate against them.

Vice also published a report on Monday about Amazon DSP owners shutting down their businesses.

One delivery service partner told Vice she shut down her business in October because she was falling into debt and showed the publication an invoice for $64,465 for damages on 20 vans.

Delivery service partners have butted heads with Amazon before over the degree of control it exerts over them and their drivers.

A woman who started a DSP business filed a lawsuit against Amazon in January alleging the tech giant squeezed her profit margins with its performance standards.

That lawsuit said Amazon charged delivery service partners for returned vehicles through its van-leasing contractor when a DSP contract was terminated and that one person was charged "$19,000 in exit fees each for multiple vans."

CNN reported in September that two delivery service partners threatened litigation against Amazon over working conditions for their drivers. After the legal threat, Amazon terminated its contracts with them. They then filed a lawsuit against Amazon in October alleging it made "unreasonable" demands of their drivers, Bloomberg reported.

House lawmakers ask Justice Dept. to open criminal investigation into Amazon

Amazon said on Wednesday that there is "no factual basis" for accusations of criminal conduct concerning a federal investigation into the company's competition practices.

 File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


March 9 (UPI) -- House lawmakers asked the Justice Department on Wednesday to investigate online retail giant Amazon, saying that they believe some laws were broken when the company was testifying in Congress about its competition practices.

In a letter to the department, the House judiciary committee said that it's possible Amazon broke the law and "certain" that Amazon executives did a couple years ago when the panel's antitrust subcommittee was investigating tech companies' market dominance.

The panel sent the 24-page letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which asks the department to investigate Amazon for obstructing Congress or violating other federal laws.

"Amazon engaged in a pattern and practice of misleading conduct that appeared designed to influence, obstruct, or impede the committee's 16-month investigation into competition in digital markets," the committee said in a statement Wednesday.

Lawmakers on the panel also said that Amazon executives lied under oath.

"Amazon lied through a senior executive's sworn testimony that Amazon did not use any of the troves of data it had collected on its third-party sellers to compete with them," the letter states. "But credible investigative reporting showed otherwise."

The 2019-20 investigation looked into claims that Amazon used its digital platform to favor its own products above those from other vendors.

"After Amazon was caught in a lie and repeated misrepresentations, it stonewalled the committee's efforts to uncover the truth," the letter says.

Amazon has long denied the accusations.

"There's no factual basis for this, as demonstrated in the huge volume of information we've provided over several years of good faith cooperation with this investigation," an Amazon spokesperson said, according to The Hill.

Illinois zoo announces birth of critically endangered Amur leopard cubs

March 9 (UPI) -- The Niabi Zoo in Coal Valley, Ill., has announced the birth of two critically endangered Amur Leopard cubs, a male and a female.
The cubs are thriving the Niabi Zoo said on Facebook. A third cub was also born, however, the newborn was only able to survive a few days.

Amur Leopard cubs are the most critically endangered big cat in the world with fewer than 100 left, the zoo said. Only seven others were born in 2021.

The births come after the Niabi Zoo was chosen by the Amur Leopard Species Survival planning group as a partner in 2019. The zoo, following COVID-19 related delays, received Iona from the U.K. to breed with their male Amur leopard named Jilin.

Jilin and Iona are now first-time parents.

"We are honored and excited to have been able to contribute to such an important conservation program for such a critically endangered species. It speaks very well of the regard in which Niabi is held in the international conservation community, and to the expertise of the Niabi Zoo animal care staff," director Lee Jackson said in a statement.

First pig heart transplant recipient dies 2 months after surgery

The first person to receive a pig heart transplant has died, the hospital that carried out the surgery has said. David Bennett, 57, underwent the operation in January as he was ineligible for a human heart transplant.

The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in the US announced on Wednesday that David Bennett has died, roughly two months after becoming the first-ever human to receive a genetically modified pig's heart. 

"We are devastated by the loss of Mr. Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end. We extend our sincerest condolences to the family," said Bartley P. Griffith, who conducted the surgery.

Bennett received the heart transplant on January 7 and passed away on March 8.

"His condition began deteriorating several days ago. After it became clear that he would not recover, he was given compassionate palliative care. He was able to communicate with his family during his final hours," the statement from the hospital said.

First-of-its-king transplant

Bennett was admitted to UMMC in October in need of a heart transplant but was classified as ineligible for a conventional heart transplant.

To keep him alive, he was placed on a heart-lung bypass machine. The transplant was his last option.

The US Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization for doctors to carry out the pig-to-human heart transplant on December 31.

This first-of-its-kind surgery only recently became a valid option thanks to developments in gene editing tools. The heart given to Bennett had been genetically modified to prevent rejection.

Experts have long looked to pig organs as a potential source for transplants due to their similarity with humans, but organ rejection and increased viral infection risk meant that prior efforts had failed.

Doctors still 'optimistic' about pig-to-human transplants

Bennett's son called the procedure a "miracle." His new heart functioned "very well for several weeks without any signs of rejection," the hospital said on Wednesday.

"Before consenting to receive the transplant, Mr. Bennett was fully informed of the procedure's risks, and that the procedure was experimental with unknown risks and benefits," the statement added.

Doctors at the UMMC said that despite the loss, the experience had helped them learn and they "remain optimistic and plan on continuing our work in future clinical trials," Muhammad Mohiuddin, director of the university's cardiac xenotransplantation program, said.

"We have gained invaluable insights learning that the genetically modified pig heart can function well within the human body while the immune system is adequately suppressed." 

ab/msh (dpa, AFP, Reuters)

Biden’s inflation plan upends thinking on jobs sent overseas
By JOSH BOAK

President Joe Biden speaks in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, March 4, 2022, in Washington. Biden has a solution for high inflation that seems counterintuitive: Bring factory jobs back to the U.S. This challenges a decades-long argument that employers moved jobs abroad to lower their costs by relying on cheaper workers. 

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has a solution for high inflation that seems counterintuitive: Bring factory jobs back to the U.S.

This challenges a decades-long argument that employers moved jobs abroad to lower their costs by relying on cheaper workers. The trend contributed to the loss of 6.8 million U.S. manufacturing jobs, but it also translated into lower prices for consumers and put downward pressure on inflation in ways that kept broader economic growth going.

It was a trade-off that many corporate and political leaders were privately comfortable making.

Now, with inflation at a 40-year high, the president has begun to argue that globalization is stoking higher prices. That’s because proponents of outsourcing failed to consider the costs of increasingly frequent global supply chain disruptions. Recent disruptions have included the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of basic goods like semiconductors, destructive storms and wildfires and, now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has sent oil prices soaring.

Biden says the federal government can pursue two courses on inflation. It can either pull back on support and cause wages and growth to cool, or it can get rid of the pressure points that can lead to inflation when emergencies and uncertainties occur.

“We have a choice,” Biden said Friday when announcing plans by Siemens USA to add 300 jobs. “The way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poorer or have a better plan to fight inflation: Lower costs and not your wages.”

The president then unspooled his thinking that more manufacturing of semiconductors inside the U.S. would lead to more cars and other products being produced domestically. That would fill the supply chain and, in theory, bring prices down.

But this plan would take years to implement and the consumer price report being released Thursday is expected to show that annual inflation rose to nearly 8% last month, according to the financial data firm FactSet.

Biden’s challenge is that he’s got long-term plans on inflation to address pain that consumers are feeling each day, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, who described Biden’s plan as “optics.”

“Semiconductor manufacturing facilities take years to build,” he said. “Inflation’s here now, and it’s it’s an issue now.”

Biden’s assertion sets up an ideological battle with Republicans, who blame the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package for being excessive and flushing more cash into the U.S. economy than was needed. GOP lawmakers have said inflation — up from recent averages of about 2% — is entirely the president’s fault, while the administration is trying to say the bigger problem rests with the structure of the global economy.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and others said last week that inflation — especially for gasoline — was the key source of the nation’s angst ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

“You don’t need a speech to know what the state of the union is. You feel it every time you go to the grocery store and the gas pump,” McCarthy said on Twitter.

Critics see this new Biden effort as largely an attempt at political damage control, rather than a data-driven approach to reducing inflation.

“It’s primarily about optics,” said Scott Lincicome, director of economics and trade at the libertarian Cato Institute. “The Biden administration clearly knows that inflation is a political albatross. And they are looking for anything and everything to show American voters that they have a plan to fix the problem.”

Lincicome argues that the vast majority of inflation is caused by Federal Reserve efforts to boost growth, Biden’s relief package and the general challenges of restarting an economy after the pandemic. Restoring factory jobs that went elsewhere would not address those challenges and any arguments for that are based on the belief that supply chain disruptions have become a permanent feature of the global economy, he says.

“Global supply chains lower costs and increase efficiency,” Lincicome said. “The idea that reshoring will somehow lower costs assumes a permanent pandemic situation and that’s just not reality.”

The Biden administration, for its part, is making that exact argument — supply chain disruptions are becoming more common and weighing on prices in ways that companies previously failed to consider.

The White House contends that the existing setup of the U.S. economy makes it vulnerable to disruptions that drive up prices. When companies first sent jobs overseas, they failed to fully account for the possible setbacks and challenges that can occur overtime with distant factories.

People were not accounting for increased “risks and disruption, and they weren’t thinking about five-, 10-year horizons,” said Sameera Fazili, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council. “They were looking at minimizing costs over a one-year horizon, two-year horizon.”

The administration is basing its argument, in part, on analyses done by the McKinsey Global Institute. A 2020 report by the institute found that companies will likely experience supply chain disruptions lasting a month or longer every 3.7 years, which increases costs and cuts into profits.

The risks examined in the report range from a “supervolcano” to a “common” cyberattack. There are political risks as well, as 29% of all global trade in 2018 came from countries ranked in the bottom half of political stability by the World Bank, an increase from 16% in 2000.