It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Alberta’s public service union votes to accept new collective agreement with province
By Emily Mertz Global News Posted December 13, 2021
The two sides reached a settlement in mid-October after months of mediation.
AUPE represents about 95,000 workers in the province, including 22,000 who work in government services such as corrections, sheriffs, trades workers, conservation workers, social services, as well as administrative and support service workers.
The settlement was reached on Oct. 13 after about 20 months of negotiations.
“This round of bargaining has been the most challenging we have faced for many years,” AUPE president Guy Smith said.
“While these negotiations proceeded, our members have worked through a deadly global pandemic while continuing to provide vital services to Albertans. We appreciate the determination our members displayed to support each other and their negotiating team,” Smith added.
“They stood strongly opposed to the proposed employer concessions and to secure a collective agreement that respects them and the services they provide.”
According to the AUPE, it includes: employment security for permanent staff staying in effect until Dec. 31, 2022 a 1.25 per cent salary increase effective Jan. 1, 2023
a minimum 1.5 per cent salary increase with potential for an additional 0.5 per cent increase based on economic factors effective Sept. 1, 2023
an eight per cent salary increase for employees performing duties as part of the Rural Alberta Provincial Integrated Defence response force as a result of significant expansion of policing duties, responsibilities and risks. The 8 per cent increase will be retroactive to April 1, 2021, and remain in place as long as RAPID exists
The union said the government withdrew concessions it had been seeking, including: a four per cent salary rollback the elimination of employment security a significant reduction in shift differential pay a significant reduction in weekend premium pay the elimination of the paid Christmas closure days added benefit plan costs for employees reductions in overtime pay reductions in health spending account provisions
2:03 Alberta nurses and other public sector unions warn of job action after wage rollback request – Jul 7, 2021
Alberta’s minister of finance said he was pleased AUPE members voted to accept the mediator’s recommendation.
“This four-year agreement comes after months of dedicated negotiations between the government of Alberta and the union. Full details of the ratified deal will be made available in the coming days,” Travis Toews said.
“I want to thank AUPE leadership for helping us achieve labour stability for the public service.
“This agreement recognizes the province’s long-term economic outlook and offers members compensation increases in the third and fourth year of the contract.”
Toews said this deal accomplishes the government’s goal of bringing spending in line with other provinces.
“I am hopeful that other public sector unions will look to this successful process, and that bargaining will proceed constructively across the broader public sector,” Toews said.
“The government respects the hard work and dedication of Alberta’s public service employees and their contribution to our province.”
What nonprofits offer to the evolving world of work
The patient effort of understanding problems — this is something people enjoy being a part of, if it is truly valued.
By Kristi Rendahl DECEMBER 14, 2021 JEFF WHEELER, STAR TRIBUNE The pandemic has exacerbated the problem of people leaving nonprofit work, while also deepening the severity of the issues the sector aims to address. Above, food was served at Loaves & Fishes’ Hopkins location in 2019.
The Star Tribune recently reported on the "Great Resignation" in the nonprofit sector ("Nonprofits grapple with sudden staffing shortages," Dec. 6), an unsurprising turn of events given that 75% of employees in the sector are women and that millions of women left employment due to COVID-related child care and school routine disruptions. Nonprofits also are struggling to address the staffing shortage as they compete with for-profit businesses that offer more attractive pay and benefits.
Some organizations are offering generous vacation time and flexible schedules and even are proposing tuition reimbursement in order to improve their odds at finding candidates. Many nonprofits, though, possess something more enticing than even these: the opportunity to create solutions for the problems of our time.
For years the nonprofit sector has discussed the impending exodus of baby boomer generation executives through retirement, along with the leadership and experience gap that would result if we weren't careful. The global coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated this possibility, while also deepening the severity of the issues the sector aims to address: chasms in academic achievements; health inequities; access to technology; hunger; poverty rates; and gender, racial and ethnic inequalities, all of which exist within the United States and are more pronounced on a global scale.
We are no longer simply inviting new staff, board members and philanthropists to join the playing field, because the field has undergone seismic changes. We cannot assume that the same approaches will remain as effective in this new paradigm of awareness and experience.
In addition to traditional pay and benefits, nonprofits are wise to highlight what should be the core, messy work of any organization seeking to have a social benefit, which is, before anything, defining the problems that keep us awake at night. It sounds straightforward, especially if you are pressed to prepare talking points for a one-hour meeting with a prospective donor or are working toward a grant deadline the following day at noon, but it is in fact the most difficult step. And I believe it's the work that people would relish being part of.
Precious little about our society incentivizes a nuanced approach to designing solutions, because we lack the collective patience to develop consensus around what the problems even are. This is the exciting work that can draw the great, creative minds we need — as long as it is actually valued and not sabotaged by shortchanging the process. No one wants to be a cog in a wheel, and the nonprofit sector risks treating people as cogs as much as any for-profit production line.
A mentor once emphasized that organizations become what they reward. If nonprofits reward overextending and operating in crisis mode, which has been necessary but unsustainable, then they will retain staff who do so until they are burned out. As we move into a distinct era, lessons of a global pandemic still mounting, nonprofits must reward other ways of working and their supporters must stop expecting organizations to function as if every last thing is both urgent and important.
We need to reward people for focusing on the work of understanding problems — we need more research, community engagement, collaboration across issues and ideas from those most affected. We do not need more rewards for solutions that exclude voices necessary for deep understanding, reactive approaches to fundraising or siloed decisionmaking, all of which have been adaptive strategies for survival in the sector, but which work counter to the complex and complicated work of defining problems.
Organizational structures are evolving away from strictly pyramid, top-down hierarchies. There is more recognition of differing lived experiences and how that informs people as leaders, followers, donors, clients, or all of the above. It is not sufficient to assume that people come to an organization with the same set of expectations, motivations or even tolerance for problematic systems rooted in outdated and unspoken values. ADVERTISEMENT
It's true that most people want to earn a living, save for the future, maybe buy a home, take a staycation or visit a new place, all while being mentored and respected as a peer colleague. I wonder if they would also like to be invited into more big conversations that have the potential to redefine and transform the community rather than sustain the status quo. It's a risky proposition, I suppose, but messy work always is.
Kristi Rendahl is an associate professor and director of the Nonprofit Leadership Program at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Hong Kong: Lee Cheuk Yan Sentenced For Candlelight Vigil
Union leader Lee Cheuk Yan, along with seven others, has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for “inciting, organising and participating” in a candlelight vigil on the 4th of June 2020.
The event, to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, was organised by the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, of which Lee Cheuk-yan was the chair.
He pleaded guilty in October and in his mitigation to the court said: “To honour the memory of the June Fourth Massacre is a long-held sentiment of mine. As Milan Kundera wrote in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Kniha smíchu a zapomnění), ‘the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’
“This is the struggle of memory against forgetting, as symbolised by the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park.
“The generation of the people of Hong Kong who witnessed the 1989 Movement intensely loved their nation, its people and hoped for the realisation of democracy in China. Our emotions were intertwined with the students and citizens who fought for democracy in Tiananmen Square. We assembled, marched, sat in, and made dona
tions in hope of the triumph of democracy.“But at the sound of the first gunshot, we wept and despaired. Hong Kong would never be the same. The people of Hong Kong moved on from political apathy to activism for the democratic future of Hong Kong, wishing that the dream of freedom and democracy would one day be enjoyed by our compatriots in the Mainland.”
Lee Cheuk-yan is general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions that has been forced to disband.
He’s not a US citizen and US can’t try Assange for treason
The Sydney Morning Herald,
LETTERS
December 15, 2021 —
I have seen Julian Assange portrayed as a journalist, a whistleblower and as a traitor by the US government (“In a decent society, Assange is entitled to justice”, December 14). The fact is that neither he, nor any other Australian citizen, has ever had any formal requirement or commitment of loyalty or allegiance to the US government. It would therefore be an incredible stretch to describe his actions as treasonous. For the US to claim sovereignty over the globe and seek to apply their law to anyone anywhere in the world at will is sheer arrogance. The arrogance succeeds only because of the meek complicity of governments such as ours and that of Britain. Assange released material showing US forces committing atrocities during the Afghan war. This material made the US government look bad. They didn’t like it, expressed confected and selective moral outrage and hunted Assange down. Even if the extradition fails, the US government will have succeeded in warning off any other potential whistleblowers.
John Slidziunas, Woonona
Congratulations to Joyce for the most rational statement I’ve heard from him in a long time. I applaud his statements such as “rights … apply equally … to those who have been less fortunate” and “you can judge a society on whether the protection … is actively pursued in a form where all are truly equal”. I could not help thinking, though, that it is his government that has denied those rights to whistleblowers, Aborigines, and refugees, many of whom, although guilty of no crime, have been held in prison-like conditions for years.
Ron Pretty, Farmborough Heights
Maybe if Assange played top tennis, and preferably doubles, he’d currently be getting high-volume support from many more of all our nakedly hypocritical politicians and governments in the “free” West. Apparently, human rights and associated moral outrage are not universal but can be selectively applied when politically expedient – and when it suits.
Peter Bower, Naremburn
The Deputy PM has said that Julian Assange should either be put on trial in Britain or brought back to Australia. However, a trial outside the US is not likely. The alleged crime was against the United States and courts do not have authority to try someone except for violation of local criminal laws. Julian Assange was indicted in June 2020 by the US Federal Grand Jury in Virginia on multiple counts of criminal conspiracy. It is simply not a crime in Britain or Australia to violate the United States Code and British courts may not try someone for violating American criminal conspiracy laws unless the activity also happens to be a crime in Britain and then the trial would be under British criminal laws.
Harry Melkonian, Vaucluse
Assange embarrassed the US and is paying a high price for doing so. There is no question deals have been done to keep Assange incarcerated without any conviction. According to the present Australian Coalition government, your Australian passport is not worth the paper it is written on.
David Goldstein, Balgowlah
Assange broke no law on American soil and should not be tried for a crime there.
Ron McQuarrie, Budgewoi
The Deputy PM’s stance on Assange is commendable. There is too much political pressure in the US to assure Assange a fair trial in that country. Being tried in Britain or Australia seems a just outcome for all parties.
Clive Hughes, Freshwater
Judging by the newfound power of logical thinking articulated in Joyce’s opinion piece on Assange, maybe self-isolation and a mild dose of COVID-19 should be mandatory for all politicians.
Col Burns, Lugarno
Extradiction of Assange Darkens Human Rights Day: Russia Says WikiLeak founder Julian Assange, London, U.K. |
Photo: Twitter/ @ToddRoy48029477
Over the last 12 years, the U.S. has persecuted the Australian journalist for having denounced the crimes committed by its troops and security agencies in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Friday, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova harshly criticized the decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales to approve the extradition of WikiLeaks Julian Assange to the United States.
"The U.K. High Court has authorized Julian Assange's extradition to the United States. This shameful verdict as part of the political case is yet another manifestation of the Anglo-Saxon tandem's cannibalistic worldview… What a 'fitting' way for the West to mark the Human Rights Day and the end of the 'Summit for Democracy',” Zakharova pointed out.
Previously, the UK High Court upheld a motion presented by the US Department of Justice on the extradition of Assange, who has been held in London's Belmarsh prison since April 2019. Over the last 12 years, the United States has persecuted the Australian journalist for having denounced the crimes committed by U.S. troops and security agencies in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For defending press freedom, Assange could receive sentences of up to 175 years in the United States, a country which accuses him of crimes against its "National Security."
“Julian Assange's extradition is being sought for such revelations as the collateral murder gunning down of civilians, including children and two Reuters journalists by the U.S. in Iraq for which they tried to evade accountability,” WikiLeaks recalled.
In January, the British courts ruled against his extradition. Now, however, the judges authorized it, arguing that the U.S. government had promised not to subject Assange to harsh detention conditions.
"The English decision to extradite Assange to the United States is ignoble. It is a murder under judicial guise. Shame on those who let it happen," said French socialist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who asked his country to grant him political asylum.
On Why We Should Oppose The Persecution Of Julian Assange
Julian Assange is a polarising personality. Admired by many for his work as a whistle-blower, Assange is famously loathed by other people who still hold him accountable for the sexual assault charges that the Swedish authorities finally dropped back in November 2019. All along, Assange and his legal team argued that the Swedish prosecution had the ultimate aim of getting him extradited back to the United States. At the time, Assange’s critics claimed that those fears of extradition were merely an excuse to evade prosecution in Sweden.
Well, it turns out that Assange’s fears about extradition were soundly based. The US continues to seek his extradition to face charges under the US Espionage Act that on conviction carry up to 175 years in prison. Last week – on December 10, Human Rights Day! - the UK courts took a giant step to making that outcome possible. The High Court overturned a previous ruling that Assange’s health and likely treatment (solitary confinement in a US Supermax facility) were sufficient grounds for refusing his extradition.
Not any more. After receiving cross-your-heart promises from the US (a) that Assange, if convicted, would have his physical and mental health needs adequately met and (b) that he might not be sent to a Supermax and might be allowed to serve some of his sentence in an Australian prison, the same UK judge who had made the earlier decision changed his mind, and gave the extradition the green light. This ruling will now be appealed to the UK Supreme Court where – hopefully – the wider issues raised by his case might be revisited. It will take at least two years to go through this process, during which time Assange will continue to be held in Britain’s Belmarsh prison. Assange has now spent almost ten years in confinement, after he first sought refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London in 2012.
For those hung up on Assange’s celebrity status – hero or villain, altruist or narcissist? – His personality traits are beside the point. His prosecution, imprisonment and extradition proceedings amount to a wide-ranging attack on freedom of speech, on press freedom and on the ability of the media to hold governments to account. As the Guardian recently pointed out, the High Court decision is not only a blow for his family and friends, who fear he would not survive imprisonment in the US. It is also a blow for all those who wish to protect the freedom of the press:
The case against him relates to hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, which were made public by WikiLeaks working with the Guardian and other media organisations. They revealed horrifying abuses by the US and other governments which would not otherwise have come to light
Assange’s alleged “crime” was to publish on Wikileaks a trove of documents and cables obtained by Chelsea Manning, a US soldier stationed in Iraq. The material included evidence of war crimes committed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The diplomatic cables contained hundreds of examples of US diplomats being engaged in clandestine activities without the knowledge or consent of the public at home, or in the countries affected. The public interest served by revealing such activities should be obvious. Revealing the atrocities, lies and deceptions of the powerful is what journalism exists to do, in a free society.
Uniquely though, Assange has been prosecuted for doing so, as the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out in 2019:
For the first time in the history of our country, the government has brought criminal charges under the Espionage Act against a publisher for the publication of truthful information. This is a direct assault on the First Amendment.
…This case is nothing less than the first time in American history that the US government has sought to prosecute the act of publishing state secrets, something that national security reporters do with some regularity. While many of the charges [contained in the Assange indictment] involve conspiracy or aiding and abetting, three counts are based on “pure publication”—the argument that Assange broke the law just by posting classified documents on the Internet.
And furthermore:
Read literally, the Espionage Act criminalizes the solicitation, receipt, and publication of any government secret, not just the names of informants. The Justice Department has long taken the position that it can prosecute the act of publishing classified information. But it has not done so, until now, because of concerns that it would open a Pandora’s box of media censorship.
With Assange, Pandora's box has now been opened. If Assange can be prosecuted for publishing leaked information – on the grounds it was “stolen” and because the disclosures (in the state’s opinion) damaged “ national security” then any other journalist is at risk of the same fate for doing their job. The CJR article gives an interesting example of how these things used to be handled. In the mid 1970s, the Ford administration decided not to prosecute the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh for revealing (in a front page New York Times story) the full details of a secret US submarine programme. On that occasion, the US Justice Department chose to go straight to the NYT publishers and quietly remind them it would be in everyone’s best interests if they took national security more seriously next time around.
Thankfully, the Internet has made those sort of cosy arrangements impossible. Yet if Assange is successfully extradited, the precedent cannot avoid having a chilling effect on any revelations about government wrong-doing, given that the documents proving it will almost certainly belong to the state. The evidence will always have been “stolen” and “national security” is a conveniently elastic term. Truth and the public interest don’t provide any defence at all. Governments can always claim that what the public may be interested in isn’t always in their best interest to know.
What To Do
To date, the Australian government has refused to make any critical comment about this ongoing abuse of the legal process to prosecute/persecute one of its citizens abroad. This silence allegedly, is out of “respect” for the legal proceedings. No doubt, the New Zealand government would use the same excuse to avoid taking a stand. Let the court process run its course etc. etc.
Yet only last week PM Jacinda Ardern participated in an online democracy summit hosted by US president Joseph Biden, in which Biden posed as a sterling defender of press freedom:
Opening his Summit for Democracy this week, Joe Biden urged his guests to “stand up for the values that unite us”, including a free press. The US president boasted of his new initiative for democratic renewal, including measures to support an unfettered and independent media: “It’s the bedrock of democracy. It’s how the public stay informed and how governments are held accountable. And around the world, press freedom is under threat.”
You bet it is, including by the Biden White House.(At the same online gathering US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken described a free press as an ‘’indispensable” part of a modern democracy.) With those fine words still ringing in her ears, Ardern surely has a mandate to remind Biden that the US needs to practice what it has just preached – by- for instance, dropping the Assange prosecution.
There’s more. Over the course of the past two decades, the Clark and Ardern governments have made much of New Zealand’s reliance on a rules based international order based on shared norms. One of those norms that has existed for the best part of 200 years, is that you don’t extradite people for offences of a political nature, and (especially) you don’t send them back to where they will be treated inhumanely, for actions and expressions arising from their political opinions.
This is a platform readily available to Ardern to comment on the Assange case. Supposedly we look to the United Nations to take the lead in establishing and defending the rules-based international order. Well, in the Revised Draft Model for Extradition Law that the UN recommends that its member states should adopt, Articles 3a, 3b, and 3f say this:
Article 3: MANDATORY GROUNDS FOR REFUSAL Extradition shall not be granted in any of the following circumstances: (a) If the offence for which extradition is requested is regarded by the requested State as an offence of a political nature….
(b) If the requested State has substantial grounds for believing that the request for extradition has been made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing a person on account of that person's race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, political opinions, sex or status, or that that person's position may be prejudiced for any of those reasons; [bolded emphasis mine]
(f) If the person whose extradition is requested has been or would be subjected in the requesting State to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or if that person has not received or would not receive the minimum guarantees in criminal proceedings, as contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 14…
Sure, this is only a model treaty. No-one has signed it. Yet it strongly indicates what principles with respect to extradition law that the UN wants and expects its member states to adopt and uphold. My point being, our declared support for a rules based international order give us grounds to urge the US to cease its attempts to extradite Assange - because (contrary to UN principles) that extradition is clearly for an offence of a political nature, is held to be motivated by his political opinions, and will result in degrading and inhumane treatment within the US prison system.
Ultimately, if it truly believes in the UN and the international rule of law, New Zealand should not be standing passively on the side-lines while an injustice of this magnitude is being perpetrated - especially given the precedent that Assange’s conviction and continued imprisonment has for the role of the media, here and abroad.
Footnote One: The US government offensive against leakers and journalists who publish leaked information did not begin with Assange, even though his case has taken that campaign to new heights. Barack Obama was the main offender:
President Barack Obama, in fact, set a record for any president with his number of prosecutions against leakers using the Espionage Act. Some observers fear that Obama’s crackdown on leaks paved the way for Trump to do the same.
Footnote Two: Over the years, only a handful of US soldiers have been convicted for war crimes committed during service in Iraq or Afghanistan. See here and also here and also here for some of those examples. Even on the even rarer occasions when a conviction results, the punishment has often been of little deterrent value. For example : the group of US soldiers eventually prosecuted for prisoner torture and maltreatment at Bagram air base in Afghanistan were either acquitted, or fined and demoited, or in the most extreme case, imprisoned for five months.
In a couple of instances (eg Sgt Clint Lorance and Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher) the uniformed murderers in US war zones abroad were pardoned by US President Donald Trump. The rarity of these prosecutions (and the issuing of a presidential pardon to someone as noxious as Gallagher) underlines the double standard being displayed by the dogged US pursuit of Assange:
As Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, has noted: “Virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail.”
On the evidence, the US regards the publishing of the evidence of its war crimes to be a worse offence than committing such crimes in the first place.
Footnote Three: There’s a lucid brief history here of the “political offence” exemption in extradition requests, and of the three main ways- the US, the UK and the Swiss models – that the exemption has evolved over the centuries.
Footnote Four : You might be wondering why Julian Assange can be held liable for the content on Wikileaks, when the famous section 230 ‘safe harbour ‘provision (Available under US telecommunications law), protects other online platforms like Facebook and Youtube from legal liability for the content they carry, and regardless of any harms caused by that content. Moreover, the case law on section 230 extends that safe harbour protection extraterritorially, regardless of where the Wikileaks “head office” (if there is such a thing) is located.
The difference seems to depend on the “stolen” status of the Wikileaks content, and the “national security” harms allegedly caused. Clearly though, the disclosures by Wikiieaks were in the public interest, and it is open to argument as to whether in the long run they did more good than harm to America’s genuine national security concerns. All too often, government use the claim of “national security” like a blanket thrown over a parrot cage, with the aim being to keep the bird in the dark, and silent.
Hawks on both sides need to back off. The resolution of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is a useful analogy.
BY ROBERT KUTTNER DECEMBER 14, 2021 ALEXEI ALEXANDROV/AP PHOTO
A serviceman walks down a road at the line of separation near Sentianivka, Luhansk region, controlled by Russia-backed separatists, in eastern Ukraine, December 9, 2021.
In addition to Donald Trump’s other legacies, Trump’s disastrous foreign policies have left President Biden with three tough foreign-policy challenges—Iran, China, and Russia—that could all turn into full-blown crises in an election year. Of these, Russia is the most vexing. For four years, Trump made a close alliance with Vladimir Putin and signaled that the Kremlin was free to do pretty much what it wanted.
Putin has always been obsessed with control of what’s called Russia’s near abroad, and the catastrophe from his perspective of the dissolution of the USSR’s satellite empire. The loss of Eastern Europe and the Baltics was humiliating enough, but the independence of states that were long part of Russia proper is totally unacceptable.
Russia de facto controls Belarus through a ham-handed Kremlin stooge and local dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. The problem is Ukraine, where Putin is doubly humiliated by the government’s respect for democratic norms and the popular desire for closer economic and military integration with the West.
Putin seems to be gambling that if push comes to shove, the U.S. will not risk World War III over Ukraine. He has massed an estimated 175,000 troops along Ukraine’s border, along with military equipment necessary to support an invasion. This comes on top of previous steps such as Russia’s annexation by force of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014. Ukraine did manage to take back most of the Donbas territory.
Biden, for his part, has warned Putin of dire repercussions if Russia invades, but has stopped short of extending a full Western security blanket to Ukraine. Those consequences could include denying Russia access to the global banking system. On Sunday, the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies issued a joint statement warning Putin of “massive consequences” and “severe cost” if Russia invades Ukraine.
Here is the broader problem. The West’s own hands are far from clean.
Putin seems to be gambling that if push comes to shove, the U.S. will not risk World War III over Ukraine.
I wrote an extensive investigative piece in 2020 titled “Was Putin Inevitable?” Conducting upwards of 50 interviews, I found that the Clinton administration was substantially culpable in wrecking what was then a fragile Russian democracy and an emerging mixed economy.
On one flank, the ultra-free-marketeers, led by Larry Summers—another of Summers’s enduring gifts to posterity!—pressed the Russians to privatize state economic assets long before Russia had a stable capitalist infrastructure. Summers, as Treasury undersecretary for international economic affairs, was the U.S. liaison with the International Monetary Fund. Summers, with no expertise on Russia or its economy, used that leverage to make sure that Russia’s desperately needed IMF aid would be held in abeyance unless Russia rapidly privatized state assets.
This policy led to a fire sale of assets, and the origin of Russia’s current kleptocracy. That disastrous course, coupled with premature liberalization of the ruble, led to speculation, hyperinflation, and an economic near-collapse. Popular Russian support for Western democracy and capitalism collapsed. Meanwhile, Clinton’s national-security hawks reversed the U.S. pledge to Gorbachev and Yeltsin not to expand NATO. So wounded national pride combined with pocketbook distress, and Putin picked up the pieces.
Here is part of what I wrote:
Russia was not just floundering economically but attempting a transition from dictatorship to democracy and the rule of law, as well as from communism to capitalism—goals that are by no means synonymous. The abrupt imposition of marketization, full price decontrol, and crony privatization on an unprepared Russia, as a condition of desperately needed goodwill and aid from the West (little of which materialized), drove Russia in the 1990s into two cycles of hyperinflation, austerity, depression, unemployment, corruption, and then ultranationalist reaction. Approval of the U.S. in Russian opinion polls peaked at 80 percent in 1990. By 1999, it was around 32 percent.
When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl sought to annex the former DDR, he needed and obtained the USSR’s formal approval. The Soviet Union under Gorbachev was a full party to the agreement. Secretary of State James Baker personally assured Gorbachev that no NATO troops would be stationed in eastern Germany, and promised no further expansion of NATO eastward (“not one inch” according to the official transcript). There was even serious talk of inviting Russia to become a NATO member.
But the backpedaling from Baker’s pledge began almost immediately. By the late 1990s, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were in NATO, with the three Baltic nations soon to follow. After Putin succeeded an ailing and politically discredited Yeltsin in 2000, the George W. Bush administration added insult to injury by proposing NATO membership not just for all of Eastern Europe but for the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine, prompting a much more bellicose policy by Putin with respect to both.
All that said, however, the logical conclusion is not that the U.S. should simply let Putin have his way with Ukraine. The terms of the Versailles Treaty of 1919 were also a travesty that needlessly pushed Germany into depression and hyperinflation. But that history hardly excuses Hitler.
The current brinkmanship between Moscow and Washington is reminiscent of innumerable close-call incidents during the Cold War. The most dire of these was the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. That crisis was resolved when Nikita Khrushchev, facing a U.S. naval blockade, turned around ships carrying nuclear missiles to Cuba. In return, President Kennedy made a secret deal to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.
The analogy is some kind of deal in which Russia stands down from its threat to invade Ukraine, and in return the U.S. quietly rescinds its offer to bring Ukraine into NATO. The sticking point is that as long as Ukraine is a democracy, it is an acute affront to Putin’s dictatorship.
The other problem is that U.S. hawks are spoiling for a more direct confrontation with Putin. Alexander Vindman, the former director of European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council, who heroically broke with Trump and his policies on Russia and Ukraine, recently wrote an op-ed titled “How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine,” calling for a much harder U.S. line, and imagining that a prosperous and democratic Ukraine could lead the Russian people “to eventually demand their own framework for democratic transition.” That, of course, is just what worries Putin, and this kind of saber-rattling is not helpful.
Ukraine raises the old tension between U.S. support for fledgling democracies attempting to practice the democratic ideals that America espouses, and U.S. appreciation of realpolitik. Putin, having watched Biden abandon Afghanistan, is calculating that at the end of the day, he cares a lot more about Ukraine than Biden does.
There is a very narrow path to a mutual stand-down, and it may well lead through Brussels or Berlin. That would also be good for the Biden project of improving relations with Europe.
The Europeans, even more than the U.S., need to avert the twin perils of either a capitulation to Putin or a shooting war over Ukraine. Angela Merkel, who speaks fluent Russian, has a good diplomatic relationship with Putin. She is recently unemployed. Merkel for special envoy?
The best case, also reminiscent of the Cold War, is crisis averted, but long-term Russian pressure on Ukraine and Western pushback continues. If Biden can pull that off, it will be another policy success—that an ungrateful public will probably dismiss as insufficient.
ROBERT KUTTNER Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School.
WW3.0
How Do We Stop The Neocons From Starting Another Disaster In Ukraine
If anything, Washington’s neoconservatives have an unerring instinct for survival. Having brought about multiple disasters in the two decades since 9/11—from the Iraq War to the twin debacles in Libya and Syria—the neoconservatives seem to have perfected the art of failing up.
Harvard University’s Stephen Walt once quipped that “Being a Neocon Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.” And in this regard, the story of the Kagan family is instructive. Robert Kagan, a contributing columnist for the Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of pseudohistories such as The Jungle Grows Back, has for years been a leading advocate of American militarism.
His brother, Frederick, is a resident scholar at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute. Writing in the Hill on December 7, Frederick Kagan claimed that Russian control of Ukraine, “would create an existential threat to Poland and even to Romania—one that could be met only by major deployments of U.S. and European ground and air forces to what could become a new Iron Curtain.” He and his wife, Kimberly, who heads the Institute for the Study of War—another pro-war Washington think tank—were close advisers to the disgraced General and former CIA Director David Petraeus. Indeed, both Frederick and his wife are frequently cited as the brains behind the surge strategy pursued by George W. Bush’s administration in 2007-2008.
But the most powerful member of the Kagan clan is Victoria Nuland, who is the wife of Robert and is the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs. Under Obama, Nuland served as the State Department spokesperson, a position for which she was manifestly overqualified (and that becomes especially clear if one takes the qualifications of the current spokesman into consideration), before assuming the role of the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. It was in this role that Nuland helped orchestrate the overthrow of a democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014 that led to a civil war in Ukraine, in which more than 13,000 people have died, according to the United Nations.
Part of the reason the U.S. is at grave risk of a war with Russia—and there is precious little debate about the policies that have brought us to this point—is that foreign policy in Washington is conducted by a virtually closed circle.
And that circle is dominated by people like the Kagans.
Washington’s legacy media organizations play their part in perpetuating these foreign policies as well by functioning as the permanent bureaucracy’s echo chamber. For proof, look no further than the Washington Post editorial page, which from the very start of the Ukraine crisis has been cavalierly dismissing calls for diplomacy and engagement and, instead, has been calling for outright war.
An example of this is the Washington Post view published on their editorial page on August 21, 2014:
“…it is tempting to look for a cease-fire or some kind of time out that would lead to a period of diplomatic negotiation. But what would a pause and diplomacy accomplish? Any negotiations that leave this blight festering in Ukraine must be avoided. The only acceptable solution is for Mr. Putin’s aggression to be reversed.”
As Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of the National Interest, and I
at the time, “Almost as bad as the callousness on display is the lack of candor. At no point did the [Washington] Post actually explain how it would propose to go about reversing Putin’s aggression.”
This remains the case even today. At no point do the armchair warriors braying for war with Russia over Ukraine discuss how such a “reversal” might be carried out, or, even more tellingly, what the odds might be of a successful outcome of a war between the U.S. and Russia.
Not much has changed since the start of the Ukrainian crisis nearly eight years ago. Consider for a moment the testimony on “Update on U.S.-Russia Policy” by Nuland made before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) on December 7.
“We don’t know whether Russian President [Vladimir] Putin has made a decision to attack Ukraine or overthrow its government but we do know he is building the capacity to do so. Much of this comes right out of Putin’s 2014 playbook but this time, it is on a much larger and more lethal scale. So despite our uncertainty about exact intentions and timing, we must prepare for all contingencies, even as we push Russia to reverse course.”
Nuland went on to note that the U.S. government has given $2.4 billion to Ukraine since 2014 “in security assistance,” which included $450 million that was given in 2021 alone.
What, one wonders, has been the United States’ return on this massive investment?
SFRC Chairman Bob Menendez, who, in 2015, was indicted on federal corruption charges, seems to be under the impression that Russians do not have the overwhelming military advantage on their own border. Likewise, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) intoned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would “require us [the U.S.] to escalate.”
Nuland on “what measures are being considered by the administration to counter Russian aggression,” while Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) indicated
that during her conversations with members of parliament (MP) from Estonia, they spoke about the importance of “European unity with respect to Ukraine.” Also, the MPs from Estonia along with Poland and other Eastern European countries expressed anxiousness about “whether or not to station more troops in the Baltic nations,” Senator Shaheen said.
The most astute comment of the day came from Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), who was clearly proud that the committee had achieved a rare bipartisan agreement for a change. He further emphasized that the U.S. stands “united” in support of Ukraine and against Russia.
And Johnson was absolutely correct: The committee was completely united in its desire for conflict over Ukraine, with whom the U.S. has no treaty obligations whatsoever.
Indeed, both Nuland and the SFRC seem to see U.S. national interests where none exist. More worrying still, they seem to possess a kind of blind faith in America’s ability, indeed duty, to shape outcomes of conflicts that are taking place thousands of miles from our shores through a combination of sanctions and military threats.
The SFRC hearing showed, if nothing else, that American foreign policy is held hostage by a venal, avaricious and, above all, reckless claque of elites: From the members of the SFRC to the high U.S. government officials who testify before them; from the staffers who brief them to the scholars and policy hands on whom the staffers rely; right down to the reporters and journalists who uncritically regurgitate what they are told by their ‘anonymous’ administration sources.
As such, one of the most urgent questions before us is: How do Americans of good conscience finally break their stranglehold on power before it’s too late?
US Exit from Weapons Treaty Built Up Russia's Defense Industry Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev declared on Tuesday the development of Russia's Defense and Arms industries occurred after US quit the ABM.
| Photo: Twitter/@MedvedevRussiaE
Published 14 December 2021
In June 2002 the U.S under former President George W. Bush's administration decided to exit the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM), putting an end to the accord that limited Washington and Moscow to only having two ABM complexes.
According to the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, the U.S. decision to quit the ABM Treaty, Russia has stimulated the development of its Defense and Arms industries.
This event, as expected, brought the increase of tensions between Washington and Moscow, he added.
"The Americans still do not have a reliable shield against other countries possessing nuclear weapons, including those whom they tried to make outcasts with the use of sanctions," Medvedev posted on his social media.
U.S. President George W. Bush decided to pull Washington out of the ABM Treaty in 2002, an accord which limited the United States and Russia from having more than 100 anti-ballistic missiles, the reason why the exit of Washington from the treaty de facto ended with the arrangement.
Medvedev highlighted Russia's commitment to strengthening global strategic stability and its willingness to work alongside the United States in this area, over the basis of "the principle of the indissolubility and interconnectedness of strategic offensive and defensive weapons."
"It is important that Washington, too, remains faithful to this course, open to joint work with partners, including within the framework of key strategic agreements, instead of trying to push NATO eastward thoughtlessly or deploy offensive weapons near Russia's borders," Medvedev decreed.
On Tuesday, the Chairman noted the continuous accusations over Russian troops near Ukrainian borders and the presumptions about Moscow's intentions to invade Ukraine.
Russia has been clear that they have no intentions to invade anyone. The Kremlin clarified the concept of "red lines," which Moscow considers included the NATO alliance's expansion eastward.
Hong Kong property tycoons, brokers snap up virtual land in metaverse as valuations soar
14/12/2021
The term “metaverse” is suddenly everywhere, a buzzword constantly on the lips of tech gurus and cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
But the latest group taking an interest in what many believe to be the next iteration of the internet is made up of property tycoons and real estate professionals keen to buy up land in the digital world.
Virtual land sales have become one of the hottest new trends in a tech world increasingly fascinated with the metaverse, a shared, immersive 3D space where people can interact. Valuations for virtual land at times exceed those in the real world. A plot of land on popular metaverse platform The Sandbox, controlled by Hong Kong video games unicorn Animoca Brands, sold for about US$4.3 million last month to Republic Realm, a New York-based firm that develops real estate in the metaverse.
In Hong Kong, where housing is scarce and property is deemed the most critical of investments, the interest around virtual land sales is reaching a fever pitch. If the next iteration of the internet involves three dimensions, many believe virtual land upon which the likes of digital shopping malls and mansions can be built will inevitably become a highly sought-after asset.
Consequently, not only are big conglomerates rushing to get in on the action, individuals including former property brokers and asset managers are also busy scooping up land.
This week Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, the third-generation scion of Hong Kong’s New World Development, announced he has purchased one of the biggest plots in The Sandbox. The 42-year-old billionaire said he will form a “GBA Pavilion” in which start-ups from the Greater Bay Area can sell their products virtually.
Away from the limelight, individuals in the industry are also taking notice. Andrew Man, a Hong Kong-based investment professional at a public property investment company, said he has also started buying up land in The Sandbox.
The amount of interest from buyers is nothing short of astonishing, he said.
“Last Saturday, a new area opened up and the land was sold out in about a second. They made about 100 new plots of land available at the time,” the 29-year-old said. “I was in a WeChat group with a number of other landowners and we all failed to buy one. It’s literally a race for finger speed.”
Man currently owns three plots, one of which has nearly quadrupled in value in the space of a few short weeks. “When I bought it, it was about 1.8 ethers (US$7,241). Now it’s nearing 7 ethers,” he said. Ether is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency.
Virtual land is typically sold in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) which is a blockchain-verified tradeable voucher that guarantees the authenticity of a digital asset. NFTs are then often traded via cryptocurrencies.
The escalating frenzy around virtual land sales has triggered concerns in Beijing reflected in mainland Chinese state media recently.
The Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily newspaper issued a fresh warning last week saying speculators risk “getting burnt” as they try to turn a quick buck buying virtual land. The report said property sales in the metaverse were akin to “product financialisation” and carry the risk of volatility, fraud, illegal fundraising and money laundering.
Man said the conventional wisdom that applies to property investment very much applies in the virtual world as well. The biggest factor that determines the value of a plot of land is unequivocally “location, location, location,” he said.
In turn, there are two factors which determine the value of the location itself: distance from the centre of the metaverse and the callibre of neighbours.
“Someone just paid US$450,000 for a tiny plot of land to become Snoop Dogg’s neighbour in The Sandbox,” he said, “One of my plots is next to a huge unsold plot. I’m just hoping it will eventually be taken up by Disney or something later on.”
Jason Au, director of the Nasdaq-listed investment firm Troops Inc, is also an avid buyer of digital land. Formerly an owner of a property brokerage firm in the Mid-Levels district of Hong Kong, Au joined some NFT enthusiast friends in buying a handful of big plots in Decentraland, another popular metaverse platform similar to The Sandbox, in August. One plot, he believes, is worth nearly HK$10 million (US$1.28 million).
Last month, a parcel in Decentraland was sold for a record US$2.43 million.
“The way I see it, the world of NFTs and cryptocurrencies is kind of like going back to the beginning of the internet when people are registering domain names, etc. It’s like history repeating itself and it is an opportunity for us,” the 41-year-old said.
Au believes owners of virtual land should in the future be allowed to rent it out or treat it as they would physical land.
In an interview with the Post in June, Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said real estate investments are highly relatable to the residents of Hong Kong, making digital land more attractive and understandable than perhaps some other forms of NFT.
“Unlike buying art or other things which can be hard to evaluate their worth, Hongkongers all understand the value of land,” he said.
Letters | In debate on democracy, no denying US electoral system is too friendly to big business Reader discuss the drawbacks of the first-past-the-post electoral system in the US and Canada
Published: 15 Dec, 2021 SCMP The US Capitol in Washington is seen on December 13. Governments elected in a low-representation, first-past-the-post system – in which a relatively small portion of the population is electorally represented – are the easiest for lobbyists to manipulate or “buy”. Photo: Bloomberg
I refer to the article “As Joe Biden’s ‘Summit for Democracy’ convenes, questions arise about how ‘democracy’ is defined” (December 8).
In Canada and the US, our first-past-the-post electoral system – which I find barely qualifies as democratic rule within the spectrum of democracy – seems to serve corporate interests better than those of the general public. It’s basically why those powerful interests resist attempts to change the system to one of proportional representation, as that would dilute lobbyist influence.
Among the electoral systems that are friendly to big business, and thus are favoured by it, governments elected in a low-representation, first-past-the-post system – in which a relatively small portion of the population is electorally represented – are the easiest for lobbyists to manipulate or “buy”.
Proportional representation creates a greater challenge for lobbyists. The elected government, which better represents the electorate as a whole, should be considerably harder for big business to steer, if at all. In our part of the world, big, powerful corporations actually write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and implement, supposedly to save elected officials time. I believe the practice has become so endemic that those who are aware of it (a group that likely includes the mainstream media) don’t bother publicly discussing it.
Frank Sterle Jnr, British Columbia
Covid, conflict and climate worsening hunger in Africa: report The report urged the international community to provide aid in the short term to countries in need, but also invest in agriculture and other related sectors (AFP/Jekesai NJIKIZANA)
Tue, December 14, 2021 Hunger in Africa has worsened significantly with an almost 50 percent rise in those considered undernourished compared to 2014, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other agencies said on Tuesday. A new report says the number going hungry across Africa reached nearly 282 million in 2020 -- more than one-fifth of the population -- an increase of 89 million compared to just six years earlier.
Most of that deterioration occurred between 2019 and 2020, with economic downturns caused by the coronavirus pandemic blamed for exacerbating the chief causes of hunger.
"After a long period of improvement between 2000 and 2013, hunger has worsened substantially" across the continent, said a new report on food security and nutrition released by the FAO, the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
The report looked at trends between 2014 to 2020 but the picture was expected to prove bleaker in 2021 "with no easing of hunger's main drivers".
The prevalence of undernourishment -- defined as when somebody cannot get enough food to meet their needs and maintain a normal and healthy life -- was worst in eastern, western and central parts of the continent.
Africa accounted for 55 percent of the global rise in the number of undernourished people over the reporting period, with the world set to miss the UN's target of eradicating hunger by 2030.
Conflict and climate change were identified as the other two major drivers for the increase in hunger, with the unaffordability of healthy diets and underlying problems such as poverty and inequality also playing a part.
But the onset of economic hardship from the Covid-19 pandemic "added to the already existing challenges, further undermining efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the region".
The report urged the international community to provide aid in the short term to countries in need, but also invest in agriculture and other related sectors to build resilience against climate extremes in the future.
np-sva/txw/pbr
USA
As West Withers, Corporations Consolidate Land And Water Rights
With farms, ranches and rural communities facing historic drought, a worrying trend leads to a critical question: Who owns the water?
Ghost cattle—200,000 made-up heifers. A massive fraud rocking eastern Washington’s arid ranching communities, leading to criminal charges and bankruptcy. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Bill Gates-owned company duking it out at the auction block, each willing to spend more than $200 million to buy 22,500 acres of ranch land and its associated water rights.
These were just some of the headlines from this past summer when Cody Easterday of Mesa, Wash., plead guilty to defrauding Tyson Foods and another unnamed company of more than $244 million. He did so, according to court documents, by billing for the care of those imaginary animals.
After he pleaded guilty, the bidding war on his land started. In June, the Church’s agricultural holding company beat out Gates’ 100C LLC, cementing the Latter-day Saints as one of the largest commercial agricultural landowners in the western United States.
That’s raised troubling questions about land consolidation, a decades-long trend fueled by the demise of the family farm. But there’s a more complicated, and potentially troubling consequence to that purchase.
The water.
As western lands are consolidated, so too are the rights to use the water that flows under and over those lands. As the Pacific Northwest gets warmer and drier, water is becoming a hot commodity that’s attracting investors—whether it’s the Latter-day Saints, large agricultural interests or New York investors.
And while state laws across the region regulate how, when and why water rights are sold, some worry it won’t be enough to hold back the tide.
“I think we are ripe for the picking in terms of speculation and people coming in and trying to get their hands on these water rights,” says Rachael Osborn, a longtime water lawyer in Washington State and cofounder of the Washington Water Trust. “A lot of people are now thinking they are sitting on pots of gold, and they have every intention of trying to sell their water rights when they no longer need them. It’s really unfortunate that we’ve gotten to this point, where people think they can make a lot of money off water.”
Washington’s first water banks were created to offset the impact of new residential developments on in-stream flows in the Yakima River. (BLM photo)
Fewer owners
While dramatic, the Easterday land consolidation—and its possible impact on water rights ownership in the rural West—is hardly an isolated example.
Just this year a Wall Street-affiliated company attempted to acquire private water rights throughout the Columbia River watershed in Washington.
The broad proposal would have allowed the company to bank and then sell or lease that water.
Crown Columbia Water Resources LLC, which is connected to a Wall Street-backed investment firm, filed the application with the Washington State Department of Ecology.
In 2019, that same company was in the news for purchasing water rights throughout the state and attempting to sell and lease them, prompting an ongoing legislative review of water marketing.
A 2018 deal showed the tremendous speculative value of land/water deals in the Columbia River Basin. That’s when Gates’ 100C paid $171 million for 14,500 acres of land (10,500 acres of it irrigated farmland) from the Boston-based John Hancock Life Insurance Company, which had paid $75 million for the parcel in 2010.
It’s not only land acquisitions. Northwest Natural Holding Company—formed in 2018 as the parent company of longtime Portland-based NW Natural Gas Company—has recently expanded into public water utility ownership.
In 2021, the gas company’s NW Natural Water concern announced it had added to its portfolio by acquiring five water companies in Washington, Idaho and Texas, cumulatively investing more than $110 million in the water sector.
Elsewhere in the West, Harvard University has snapped up California vineyards and a Canadian teachers pension plan bought more than 6,000 acres of Washington orchards and its attendant water. ‘World of scarcity’
The summer 2021 drought that strangled parts of the Pacific Northwest has inserted the issue of water rights into nearly every environmental discussion in the region and has raised concerns about speculation and price gouging.
If climate change forecasts prove accurate, the summer of 2021 was a dress rehearsal for the future.
This summer in Oregon the federal government shut off access to water in the Klamath River due to a historic drought, prompting some farmers and activists to threaten to take the water by force.
In Washington, wheat production hit all-time lows reflecting drought-depressed yields.
“You look back to this drought, that was the worst drought we had in 100 years, and it put a fine point on who got water first,” says Jamie Short, a water resources program manager for the Washington State Department of Ecology.
Concerns about water speculation and scarcity aren’t new. And while climate change and drought reinvigorate those worries, experts such as Short caution against oversimplification.
“Consolidation and water rights, (it) isn’t one plus two equals three. It’s really case dependent,” she says. “I don’t think climate change is going to make anything any easier for us. But in a way, it’s a world we already know. A world of scarcity.” Following the opportunity
According to water laws across western states, water can’t be owned, although the right to use that water can be sold, bought and transferred.
In Washington—and elsewhere—there are rules governing the sale of water. For example, water rights must be used, or they are relinquished. Water must be used for a “beneficial” purpose and a water transaction can’t harm senior water right holders.
The regulation requiring that water be used would seem to discourage speculative behavior.
However, Washington and other states have programs that allow users to bank their rights with the state and not relinquish ownership. This has allowed water right holders the ability to effectively sell, trade and buy water.
This is known as water banking.
Banking serves several purposes. Farmers use water banks to sell water rights they no longer need to other farmers. Conservation groups use them to increase in-stream flows to help native fish. Developers use them to secure water for housing and commercial projects.
But this system also gives speculators a place to park their assets and wait until the price has risen, says Osborn.
Osborn, who is semi-retired, teaches water law at the University of Washington. The water-banking program has been particularly helpful for stream and river conservation projects, she says. But as developers and investors shell out more money for water, conservation groups are struggling to compete, as the Seattle Times has reported, “because everybody wants to get their hands on water.” Shrinking farms
The desire to acquire water has helped fuel the ongoing consolidation of western lands.
Consider that in 1987 more than half of all U.S. cropland was operated by midsize farms that had between 100 and 999 acres of cropland, while 15% was operated by large farms with at least 2,000 acres, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture 2018 report.
Over the next 25 years, those numbers shifted dramatically. By 2012, farms with 100-999 acres held 36% of cropland, the same share as that held by large farms.
It’s a similar story in the Columbia River Basin.
The number of farms in Washington decreased by 7% between 2010 and 2019, according to a 2020 USDA report. At the same time the average size of farms increased from 382 to 410 acres.
Many of those properties come with valuable water rights, rights that are increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer people.
Some experts affiliated both with the state and private water-consulting firms, caution that the ways land consolidation will impact water or rights isn’t yet clear.
“To a pretty large extent land consolidation means water consolidation,” says Jonathan Yoder, director of the State of Washington Water Research Center and a professor of economics at Washington State University. “But it’s not at all clear if that is good or bad, or the ways in which that is good or bad.”
Is paranoia justified?
One indication that it may be a bad thing, or at least an issue of concern, came on Nov. 17 when Washington’s Ecology department announced a pilot grant program aimed at funding local water banks, helping upstream communities compete with wealthier downstream agricultural interests.
“The pilot grants are intended to furnish rural communities in headwater basins throughout the state with funds to compete with deep-pocketed water investors,” states a news release announcing the grant.
The grant program is the latest in a series of efforts Ecology has taken to try and understand how, and if, speculation is impacting Washington water.
In 2019, following concern about out-of-state investors, the state Legislature asked the department to examine whether water banking is leading to speculative or monopolistic behavior, says Dave Christensen, the policy and program manager for the Department of Ecology Water Resources Program.
“The Legislature has been concerned and Ecology has been concerned because we’ve been hearing it from our stakeholders,” he says.
In short? So far there’s little evidence of water speculation in Washington, he says. Between 1997 and 2019, there were 54 out-of-basin transfers in Washington State, representing less than 0.3% of the total volume of water used, according to a University of Washington study commissioned by the Department of Ecology and published in 2021.
“The 54 transfers represent 1.5% of the total records that indicate a change of place of use in the Ecology database, implying that the majority of water right transfers in Washington State occur within-basin,” states the study.
The Department of Ecology will continue to examine the issue and present the Legislature with a final report, and policy recommendations, in 2022.
Other experts interviewed for this story also downplayed the risk of consolidation and speculation, noting that water is a difficult substance to transport and pointing to regulations in the West and Washington State in particular.
Daniel Haller, a water resource engineer with Aspect Consulting, which has offices around the Pacific Northwest, says that roughly 90% of all water rights in Washington are held by public entities—whether that’s municipalities, the state or the federal government.
“I think the window for concern is small,” Haller says. “Just because the number of rights is small. There is a subset of water rights that someone could try to speculate on. I just haven’t seen it yet. I think the risk in the future is pretty small.” Political drivers
However, that optimism isn’t universally held and Osborn, the longtime water lawyer, is skeptical of Ecology’s review process.
“Ecology convened this group to assess water banking and make recommendations to the Legislature and their recommendations to the Legislature has nothing to do with controlling price or making sure the benefit comes back to the public,” she says. “Remember these people got these water rights for nothing. Maybe a $10 application fee.”
Osborn believes the state should take 10% or more of the water bought or sold as a sort of “transaction fee.”
While private speculation and out-of-basin transfers are a concern, there are also worries about cities and towns holding onto water rights, says John DeVoe, the executive director of the Oregon-based WaterWatch.
In Oregon, some cities and towns hold onto water rights, not because they need the water but because they hope to sell it to other municipalities.
“A lot of these cities are not using this water for municipal purposes. they are selling it,” he says. “That’s kind of the hallmark of speculation.”
As for state oversight, DeVoe isn’t confident in western states’ regulatory muscle.
“I think state oversight is politically driven,” he says. “And those with the money get to determine how the rules are drawn up and whether they are enforced or not.”
This story first appeared at Columbia Insight. Eli Francovich is a journalist covering conservation and recreation. Based in eastern Washington he’s writing a book about the return of wolves to the western United States. This piece is part of a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), California Health Report, Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, Circle of Blue, Colorado Public Radio, Columbia Insight, The Counter, High Country News, New Mexico In Depth and SJV Water. The project was made possible by a grant from the Water Foundation with additional support from INN.
