Corporations use government grants to lighten debt load

Government cash grants are a growing but under-disclosed source of corporate financing

ALL CPITALI$M IS STATE CAPIALI$M

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Local and state governments have a variety of tools at their disposal to attract businesses or entice them to stay. One is tax relief. Austin, for example, helped lure electric automaker Tesla in part with property tax rebates worth $14 million over 10 years.

In a study released today from Texas McCombs, Dean and Accounting Professor Lillian Mills finds that another kind of government aid — cash grants — has a different kind of impact. It helps companies lighten their balance sheets by borrowing less.

Corporations that get government cash infusions have debt that’s 2%-3% lower than companies that haven’t received them, the study shows. The reason: Companies that receive the grants can factor the money into their financing upfront, making them less likely to borrow additional funds for capital investments.

That’s good news for the companies, but it’s often hidden by veils of corporate secrecy, says Mills. “Traditionally, corporations have not voluntarily disclosed the government assistance they receive, which makes it difficult for shareholders to effectively value the benefit.”

To pierce the veil, with co-author Ryan Hess, Ph.D. ’21, of Oklahoma State University, Mills analyzed data on corporate financial awards from federal, state, and local governments from 2003 to 2013. The data was compiled from public records by the nonprofit Good Jobs First. Some other findings:

New Corporate Obligations. As a condition of getting a grant, a company often has to make measurable commitments. It might agree to hire a certain number of new employees locally or set wages at a certain level, with penalties if it doesn’t hit targets.

Under-Disclosure. In most cases, companies aren’t publicly disclosing the grants they receive or the obligations they take on.

This under-disclosure is a problem, says Hess. “We don’t really have a good idea as to who’s receiving the assistance. At the same time, we’re seeing that government assistance is just continuing to grow.”

In 2022, the U.S. government gave assistance totaling over $37 billion, compared with $9 billion in 2003, according to Good Jobs First.

Stakeholders Stiffed. Information on grants and obligations is important for shareholders, investors, and the public alike, Hess says. Lacking such information, investors might overvalue a company. If assistance goes away in the future, the company may have to take on more debt, dragging down its stock price.

“As an investor, if you’re aware of government assistance, you may want to do more digging,” says Hess.

People need to know where their tax dollars are going, he adds, as well as what conditions their city’s major employers have to stick to. If a company fails to meet an obligation and loses its grant, it might not be able to stay in the community, hurting the local economy.

More Transparency on the Way? Stakeholders might find such information more accessible in the near future, Mills says. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which sets corporate accounting rules, is developing one on disclosing government grants.

“We look forward to seeing how the disclosure of government assistance evolves under the FASB’s new accounting standard on government assistance,” Mills says. “Stakeholders of both the corporations and the jurisdictions awarding assistance should benefit.”

“Government Assistance: A Growing, Under-disclosed Financing Source” was published today, March 26, 2024, in Accounting Horizons.

---

JOURNAL

Accounting Horizons

DOI

10.2308/HORIZONS-2020-098 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Government Assistance: A Growing, Underdisclosed Financing Source

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Mar-2024

Julian Assange wins temporary reprieve in case against extradition to US

Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, 26 March 2024

Supporters of Assange outside the high court in London on Wednesday.Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

Julian Assange has been handed a reprieve in his fight against extradition to the US after two judges ruled the WikiLeaks founder could take his case to an appeal hearing – but only if the Biden administration is unable to provide the court with suitable assurances.

The president of the king’s bench division, Victoria Sharp, and Mr Justice Johnson said Assange had real prospects of success on three of the nine grounds argued, but adjourned the leave to appeal application to give the US government three weeks to provide reassurance on the relevant matters.

If Assange had been denied permission to appeal he could have been extradited within days to face espionage charges. While the judges’ decision means he avoids that fate it leaves him facing a further wait, with his future still unresolved.

In a written judgment, handed down on Tuesday morning, Sharp said the concerns that had real prospects of success at appeal but which “may be capable of being addressed by assurances” were “that the applicant [Assange] is permitted to rely on the first amendment, that the applicant is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same first amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed”.

At a two-day hearing last month, which Assange was too unwell to attend, his lawyers argued that he faced a “flagrant denial of justice” if extradited to the US to face charges relating to the publication by Assange and WikiLeaks of thousands of classified and diplomatic documents they said had exposed torture, rendition, extrajudicial killings and war crimes.

His wife, Stella Assange, expressed dismay at the judges’ decision. “What the courts have done has been to invite a political intervention from the United States … send a letter saying ‘its all OK’,” she said. “I find this astounding.

“This case is a retribution. It is a signal to all of you that if you expose the interests that are driving war they will come after you, they will put you in prison and will try to kill you.

“The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought.”

Ahead of the decision there had been reports that the US government was considering a plea deal offer to Assange, allowing him to admit to a misdemeanour, which would enable him to walk free from prison in the UK but his lawyers said they had been “given no indication” Washington intended to change its approach.

Sharp stated in Tuesday’s 66-page judgment that the UK home secretary’s lawyer had accepted that there was nothing in place to prevent Assange being charged in the US with an offence that carried the death penalty and it then being imposed.

She cited as evidence of such a risk “the calls for the imposition of the death penalty by leading politicians and other public figures; the fact that the [UK-US extradition] treaty does not preclude extradition for death penalty charges, and the fact that the existing assurance does not explicitly cover the death penalty”.

On free speech protections under the first amendment in the US, Sharp said: “He [Assange] contends that if he is given first amendment rights, the prosecution will be stopped. The first amendment is therefore of central importance to his defence to the extradition charge. Further, if he is convicted, he may wish to invoke the first amendment on the question of sentence. If he is not permitted to rely on the first amendment because of his status as a foreign national, he will thereby be prejudiced – potentially very greatly prejudiced – by reason of his nationality.”

The US has been given until 16 April to file its assurances. If it does not do so, leave to appeal will be granted. If it does provide assurances by that date the parties will be invited to file further written submissions on the issue of leave to appeal with another hearing provisionally listed for 20 May.

Michelle Stanistreet, the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, welcomed the “temporary reprieve” but called on the US to pursue a plea deal.

“The conditionality around the grounds of appeal, which are contingent on the examination of US government assurances that he will not face the death penalty and has the right to free speech, mean the risks to Assange and press freedom remain stark,” she said.

UK court says Assange can't be extradited on espionage charges until US rules out death penalty

SYLVIA HUI and JILL LAWLESS
Updated Tue, March 26, 2024 
 

LONDON (AP) — A British court ruled Tuesday that Julian Assange can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authorities guarantee he won't get the death penalty, giving the WikiLeaks founder a partial victory in his long legal battle over the site's publication of classified American documents.

Two High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authorities give further assurances within three weeks about what will happen to him. The ruling means the legal saga, which has dragged on for more than a decade, will continue — and Assange will remain inside London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has spent the last five years.

Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson said the U.S. must guarantee that Assange, who is Australian, “is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed.”


The judges said that if the U.S. files new assurances, "we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.” The judges said a hearing will be held May 20 if the U.S. makes those submissions.

The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday.

Assange’s supporters say he is a journalist protected by the First Amendment who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan that was in the public interest.

Assange's wife Stella Assange said the WikiLeaks founder “is being persecuted because he exposed the true cost of war in human lives.”

“The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case, which should never have been brought," she said outside the High Court in London.

The ruling follows a two-day hearing in the High Court in February, where Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said American authorities were seeking to punish him for WikiLeaks’ “exposure of criminality on the part of the U.S. government on an unprecedented scale,” including torture and killings.

The U.S. government said Assange’s actions went beyond journalism by soliciting, stealing and indiscriminately publishing classified government documents that endangered many people, including Iraqis and Afghans who had helped U.S. forces.

The judges rejected six of Assange's nine grounds of appeal, including the allegation that his prosecution is political. They said that while Assange “acted out of political conviction … it does not follow however that the request for his extradition is made on account of his political views.”

The judges also said Assange could not appeal based on allegations, made by his lawyers, that the CIA developed plans to kidnap or kill Assange during the years he spent holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, to prevent him from trying to flee.

The judges said “plainly, these are allegations of the utmost seriousness,” but concluded they had no bearing on the extradition request.

“Extradition would result in him being lawfully in the custody of the United States authorities, and the reasons (if they can be called that) for rendition or kidnap or assassination then fall away,” the ruling said.

They accepted three grounds or appeal: the threat to Assange's freedom of speech, Assange's claim that he faces disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen, and the risk he could receive the death penalty.

U.S. authorities have promised Assange would not receive capital punishment, but the judges said that "nothing in the existing assurance explicitly prevents the imposition of the death penalty.”

Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange’s lawyers, said that “even if we receive the assurances, we’re not confident we can rely on them.”

Assange, 52, a computer expert, has been indicted in the U.S. on charges over Wikileaks’ publication in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of classified documents.

U.S. prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange faces 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one charge of computer misuse. If convicted, his lawyers say he could receive a prison term of up to 175 years, though American authorities have said any sentence is likely to be much lower.

Assange’s wife and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles and confinement.

“My concerns about the precarious mental health of Julian Assange and his unfitness to be extradited, as well as the potential for him to receive a wholly disproportionate sentence in the United States, have not been assuaged by the court,” said Alice Jill Edwards, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, an independent expert for the world body.

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy.

The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested and imprisoned him for breaching bail in 2012. Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

A U.K. district court judge rejected the U.S. extradition request in 2021 on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. Higher courts overturned that decision after getting assurances from the U.S. about his treatment. The British government signed an extradition order in June 2022.

___

Associated Press writers Brian Melley in London and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.


WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange’s US extradition appeal delayed

Nick Gutteridge
Tue, March 26, 2024 

Julian Assange has been fighting for years to avoid being extradited from Britain

Julian Assange’s extradition has been delayed as the High Court ruled the United States must give assurances he will not face the death penalty.

In a judgment on Tuesday morning, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson dismissed most of the WikiLeaks founder’s legal arguments for leave to appeal against an earlier ruling which paved the way for his extradition to the US.

However the judges said that unless assurances were given by the United States he would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds.

These assurances are that Assange would be protected by and allowed to rely on the First Amendment – which protects freedom of speech in the US, that he is not “prejudiced at trial” due to his nationality, and that the death penalty is not imposed.

Assange, 52, has been accused of an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Supporters of Julian Assange gathered outside the High Court in central London - Alberto Pezzali/AP

In their judgment, Dame Victoria and Mr Justice Johnson dismissed most of Assange’s legal arguments but said that he would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds unless assurances were given by the US.

The judges said the US authorities had three weeks to give those assurances, with a final decision to be made in late May.

In a 66-page ruling for the Assange case, Dame Victoria said: “Before making a final decision on the application for leave to appeal, we will give the respondent an opportunity to give assurances.

“If assurances are not given, then we will grant leave to appeal without a further hearing. If assurances are given, then we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.”

Stella Assange said the courts have invited 'a political intervention from the United States' - Stefan Rousseau/PA

Speaking after the judgment, Assange’s wife Stella said: “What the courts have done has been to invite a political intervention from the United States... send a letter saying: ‘It’s all ok.’ I find this astounding.

“This case is a retribution. It is a signal to all of you that if you expose the interests that are driving war they will come after you, they will put you in prison and will try to kill you.

“The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought.”

At the start of Assange’s bid last month, Mark Summers KC argued the US’s prosecution would be retribution for his political opinions, meaning it would be unlawful to extradite him under UK law.

But Clair Dobbin KC, for the US, said the plans to extradite and prosecute Assange were based on his alleged actions, not his political opinions.

Scores of Assange supporters demonstrated outside the central London court over both days, waving banners and inviting passing drivers to honk their horns.


Julian Assange faces further wait over extradition ruling

Ian Aikman - BBC News
Tue, March 26, 2024 

Mr Assange's lawyers say he faces up to 175 years in US prison, if convicted

The US must provide assurances that Julian Assange will not receive the death penalty if convicted, before a UK court rules on whether he can appeal against his extradition.

The court has adjourned its decision by three weeks to give the US government time to comply.

US authorities say the Wikileaks founder endangered lives by publishing thousands of classified documents.

His lawyers have argued that the case is form of "state retaliation".

In a High Court judgment on Tuesday, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson said that Mr Assange would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds, unless assurances were given by the United States.

These assurances are that the 52-year-old would be protected by and allowed to rely on the First Amendment - which protects freedom of speech in the US; that he would not be "prejudiced at trial" due to his nationality; and that he would not face the death penalty if he is convicted.

Judges have given the US authorities three weeks to make those assurances, with a final hearing potentially taking place on 20 May.

Who is Julian Assange and why is he facing extradition?


Assange's wife says he 'won't survive US extradition'

"If assurances are not given then we will grant leave to appeal without a further hearing," said Dame Victoria in the court's ruling.

"If assurances are given then we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal."

However, the judges dismissed some grounds of the application to appeal, including Mr Assange's arguments that he was prosecuted because of his political opinions.

If his latest appeal is not granted, Mr Assange will have exhausted all of his legal avenues in the UK. His remaining option would be to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Speaking to the crowd gathered outside the court, his wife, Stella Assange, described her husband as a "political prisoner".

She urged US President Joe Biden's administration not to submit assurances, and instead to "drop this shameful case".

He is facing espionage charges in the US for publishing hundreds of thousands of leaked classified documents in 2010 and 2011.

During February's hearing, Mr Assange's legal team argued that he was being targeted for his exposure of "state-level crimes" and his punishment was "politically motivated".

But lawyers from the US pushed back, saying that WikiLeaks' actions "put lives at risk".

Stella Assange says she is "astounded" by the court's decision to delay her husband's appeal

Mr Assange's lawyers say he faces up to 175 years in jail if he is convicted. But the US government has previously said a sentence of between four and six years is more likely.

He did not attend the court hearing in February due to ill health. Ahead of the hearing, Mrs Assange said she feared for her husband's safety if he was extradited.

"This case will determine if he lives or dies, essentially," she told the BBC.

In 2021, the High Court ruled that Mr Assange could be extradited, rejecting claims that poor mental health meant he risked taking his own life in US jail.

The UK Supreme Court upheld the decision and the then Home Secretary Priti Patel confirmed the extradition order in 2022.

His lawyers took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in 2022, but it was dismissed without a hearing.

Australia's parliament has passed a motion calling on the UK and US to release Mr Assange, though this has no legal bearing on either government.

Assange wins temporary reprieve from US extradition
Reuters Videos
Updated Tue, March 26, 2024


STORY: A momentary reprieve for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday (March 26), after his extradition to the United States from Britain was put on hold.

London's High Court said the U.S. must provide assurances he would not face the death penalty.

U.S. prosecutors are seeking to put 52-year-old Assange on trial on 18 counts.

They are all, bar one, over WikiLeaks' high-profile release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables.

Assange's wife, Stella, hailed the decision by the UK court as "astounding".

"Now the UK courts have invited the United States to issue assurances, the Biden administration should not issue assurances, they should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought, Julian should never have been in prison for a single day, this is a shame on every democracy."

Assange's lawyers sought permission in February to challenge Britain's approval of his extradition, part of a more than 13-year legal battle in English courts.

In their ruling, two senior judges said he had a real prospect of successfully appealing against extradition on a number of grounds.

The court said in its written ruling that Assange arguably would not be entitled to rely on the First Amendment right to free speech as a non-U.S. national.

And that, while none of the existing charges carried the death penalty, he could later be charged with a capital offense such as treason, meaning it would be unlawful to extradite him.

The ruling said his case was at least arguable, citing "the calls for the imposition of the death penalty by leading politicians and other public figures."

The judges said Assange had pointed to a comment by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

When discussing WikiLeaks in 2010, he had said, quote, that "I think there should be like a death penalty or something."

The judgment said that if the U.S. assurances were not forthcoming by April 16, then Assange would be granted permission to appeal.

A further hearing has been scheduled for May 20.

That means his extradition has been put on hold - for now, at least.

Assange's many supporters hail him as an anti-establishment hero and journalist who is being persecuted for exposing U.S. wrongdoing and alleged war crimes.

The U.S. says WikiLeaks' revelations put the lives of their agents at risk, and there was no excuse for his criminality.

Timeline of the Assange legal saga as he faces further delay in bid to avoid extradition to the US

SYLVIA HUI
Updated Tue, March 26, 2024 







Stella Assange, wife of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice, in London, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. Two High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authorities give further assurances about what will happen to him. The case has been adjourned until May 20.

(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)


LONDON (AP) — After fighting for more than a decade to avoid being sent to the U.S., WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing further delays in learning whether he can make a new legal challenge against his extradition.

Assange, 52, faces charges related to his organization's publication of a huge trove of classified documents. He has been in custody in a high-security London prison since 2019, and previously spent seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

As judges at London’s High Court adjourned his case Tuesday to give U.S. authorities more time to submit assurances about what would happen to him if he is extradited, here is a look at key events in the long-running legal saga:

— 2006: Assange founds WikiLeaks in Australia. The group begins publishing sensitive or classified documents.

— 2010: In a series of posts, WikiLeaks released almost half a million documents relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

— August 2010: Swedish prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for Assange based on one woman’s allegation of rape and another’s allegation of molestation. The warrant is withdrawn shortly afterward, with prosecutors citing insufficient evidence for the rape allegation. Assange denies the allegations.

— September 2010: Sweden’s director of prosecutions reopens the rape investigation. Assange leaves Sweden for Britain.

— November 2010: Swedish police issue an international arrest warrant for Assange.

— December 2010: Assange surrenders to police in London and is detained pending an extradition hearing. High Court grants Assange bail.

— February 2011: District court in Britain rules Assange should be extradited to Sweden.

— June 2012: Assange enters Ecuadorian Embassy in central London, seeking asylum on June 19, after his bids to appeal the extradition ruling failed. Police set up round-the-clock guard to arrest him if he steps outside.

— August 2012: Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador.

— July 2014: Assange loses his bid to have an arrest warrant issued in Sweden against him canceled. A judge in Stockholm upholds the warrant alleging sexual offenses against two women.

— March 2015: Swedish prosecutors ask to question Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy.

— August 2015: Swedish prosecutors drop investigations into some allegations against Assange because of the statute of limitations; an investigation into a rape allegation remains active.

— October 2015: Metropolitan Police end their 24-hour guard outside the Ecuadorian Embassy but say they’ll arrest Assange if he leaves, ending a three-year police operation estimated to have cost millions.

— February 2016: Assange claims “total vindication” as the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finds that he has been unlawfully detained and recommends he be immediately freed and given compensation. Britain calls the finding “frankly ridiculous.”

— September 2018: Ecuador’s president says his country and Britain are working on a legal solution to allow Assange to leave the embassy.

— October 2018: Assange seeks a court injunction pressing Ecuador to provide him basic rights he said the country agreed to when it first granted him asylum.

— November 2018: A U.S. court filing that appears to inadvertently reveal the existence of a sealed criminal case against Assange is discovered by a researcher. No details are confirmed.

— April 2019: Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno blames WikiLeaks for recent corruption allegations; Ecuador's government revokes Assange's asylum status. London police haul Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrest him for breaching bail conditions in 2012, as well as on behalf of U.S. authorities.

— May 2019: Assange is sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012.

— May 2019: The U.S. government indicts Assange on 18 charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

— November 2019: Swedish prosecutor drops rape investigation.

— May 2020: An extradition hearing for Assange is delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

— June 2020: The U.S. files new indictment against Assange that prosecutors say underscores Assange’s efforts to procure and release classified information.

— January 2021: A British judge rules Assange cannot be extradited to the U.S. because he is likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions.

— July 2021: The High Court grants the U.S. government permission to appeal the lower court's ruling blocking Assange's extradition.

— December 2021: The High Court rules that U.S. assurances about Assange's detention are enough to guarantee he would be treated humanely.

— March 2022: Britain’s top court refuses to grant Assange permission to appeal against his extradition.

— June 2022: Britain's government orders the extradition of Assange to the United States. Assange appeals.

— May 2023: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Assange should be released and “nothing is served” by his ongoing incarceration.

— June 2023: A High Court judge rules Assange cannot appeal his extradition.

— Feb. 20, 2024: Assange's lawyers launch a final legal bid to stop his extradition at the High Court.

— March 26, 2024: Two High Court judges in London give U.S. authorities three more weeks to submit further assurances, including a guarantee that Assange won't get the death penalty, before deciding whether they will grant him a new appeal against his extradition.

Stella Assange, wife of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, releases a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice, in London, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. Two High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authorities give further assurances about what will happen to him. The case has been adjourned until May 20.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Australia’s carbon credits system a failure on global scale, study finds

Adam Morton Climate and environment editor

THE GUARDIAN 
Tue, 26 March 2024 

A co-author of the study researchers found there was ‘nowhere near the forest cover that you should see’ given the number of carbon credits issued.

Photograph: Hilke Maunder/Alamy

Australia’s main carbon offsets method is a failure on a global scale and doing little if anything to help address the climate crisis, according to a major new study.

Research by 11 academics found the most popular technique used to create offsets in Australia, known as “human-induced regeneration” and pledged to regenerate scrubby outback forests, had mostly not improved tree cover as promised between about 2015 and 2022.

The peer-reviewed study, published in the nature journal Communications Earth & Environment, analysed 182 projects in arid and semi-desert areas and found forest cover had either barely grown or gone backwards in nearly 80%.

Related: What’s really happening with emissions and the climate crisis in Australia

The academics said it meant these projects were therefore not reducing emissions as promised, and polluting companies that bought offsets created through these projects were often not reducing their impact on the climate as they claimed.

They said this was a globally significant problem as Australia’s forest regeneration method is the world’s fifth biggest nature-based offsets program, with projects covering nearly 42m hectares, an area larger than Japan.

More than 37m carbon credits – each meant to be worth a tonne of CO2 drawn from the atmosphere and worth between $750m and $1bn – had been issued for these projects by June last year.

The authors of the study include Andrew Macintosh, an environmental law professor at the Australian National University (ANU), a former head of a carbon credit integrity assurance body and more recently a sharp critic of the management of the scheme. Two years ago he described it as a “sham” and a fraud on taxpayers and the environment.

Carbon offsets are used by the government and polluting companies as an alternative to cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

Instead of reducing their own pollution, they can choose to buy offsets - known as Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) - that are meant to represent a reduction in emissions elsewhere.

Each carbon credit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide that has either been stopped from going in the atmosphere, or sucked out of it.

Methods approved to generate carbon credits in Australia include regenerating native forest that has been cleared, protecting a forest that would otherwise have been cleared (known as “avoided deforestation”) and capturing and using emissions that leak from landfill sites to generate electricity.

Credits were bought by the government through the $4.5bn taxpayer-funded emissions reduction scheme or, increasingly, by polluters on the private market.

The researchers said the findings add to growing scientific literature that highlighted “the practical limitations of offsets and the potential for offset schemes to credit abatement that is non-existent, non-additional and potentially impermanent”.

Megan Evans, a senior lecturer in environmental policy at the University of New South Wales in Canberra and a co-author of the new study, said the researchers found there was “nowhere near the forest cover that you should see” given the number of carbon credits issued.

“What this means is that the projects are not actually sequestering the amount of carbon claimed, and we’ve got a whole bunch of carbon credits in the system that don’t represent one tonne of CO2,” she said.

“Most of these credits are being used to offset heavy emitters under the safeguard mechanism, so we’re not actually reducing carbon emissions at all. The overall outcome is we’re increasing the amount of carbon pollution.

“We’re ultimately getting worse outcomes for the climate than if we didn’t have these [forest regeneration] projects.”

The researchers called on the Australian government to stop issuing carbon credits to regeneration projects in uncleared areas “for the sake of the integrity of Australia’s carbon market and the country’s decarbonisation efforts”.

The Clean Energy Regulator, which manages the scheme, said it had confidence in the integrity of the carbon credit scheme and the human-induced regeneration method. “A number of reviews have confirmed the integrity of the HIR method,” a spokesperson said.

The climate change minister, Chris Bowen told the ABC’s RN Breakfast on Wednesday that a review of the carbon credit scheme that he commissioned from Ian Chubb, a former Australian chief scientist, had backed the integrity of the system.

Bowen said Chubb found the scheme was “basically sound”, but needed some reforms that were being implemented. The Chubb review was not asked to examine individual projects.

Bowen said the regulator had also asked Cris Brack, an honorary ANU associate professor and forest researcher, to review the performance of five-year-old projects and found they were “demonstrating regeneration, and proponents are implementing the project activities”.

“There’s been other checks in relation to the significant increase in vegetation that we’re looking for and it has found that increasing vegetation exists,” Bowen said.

The carbon credits generated through forest regeneration can be used by companies to meet emissions reductions goals under the safeguard mechanism, a Coalition policy revamped under Labor to require the country’s 215 biggest industrial polluting facilities to reduce their emissions intensity by up to 4.9% a year.

The projects analysed in the new paper are mostly in dry outback areas in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia. They do not involve tree planting, but are said to regenerate native forests by reducing the impact of grazing by livestock and feral animals.

Critics, which have included the Australian Conservation Foundation, say research suggests grazing by livestock and feral animals mostly does not affect “woody vegetation cover”. The study said the total amount of woody vegetation cover in the areas analysed increased by less than 1% after grazing was reduced.

Related: Forget nuclear: would Peter Dutton oppose a plan to cut bills and address the climate crisis? | Adam Morton

The researchers examined 75 projects that they said, based on the number of credits they received, should have had near 100% forest cover, but found the actual coverage in 2022 was only 21%. This was only a 1.8% increase since the projects were registered, they said.

Don Butler, an ANU ecologist who led the statistical analysis, said the changes largely mirrored what happened in nearby areas not included in the projects.

David Eldridge, another co-author and a longtime NSW government scientist now at the University of NSW’s Centre for Ecosystem Science, said the results of the study were not a surprise. “They align perfectly with what decades of research in Australia’s rangelands suggests would occur,” he said.

Trump ally Clark attempted 'coup' at US Justice Dept, ethics counsel says

Updated Tue, March 26, 2024
By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Jeffrey Clark, a former senior official in the U.S. Justice Department, made false claims as he attempted to enlist the agency in former President Donald Trump's efforts to undo his 2020 election loss, a Washington ethics lawyer said on Tuesday.

Clark is facing a disciplinary hearing which could see him lose his license to practice law. Trump tried to put Clark in charge of the Justice Department in his administration's final days as Clark sought to pursue the former president's false claims of widespread voter fraud.

"What Mr. Clark was attempting to do was essentially a coup at the Department of Justice," Hamilton "Phil" Fox, the District of Columbia Bar disciplinary counsel said in his opening argument.

Harry MacDougald, a lawyer representing Clark, denied that Clark had violated attorney ethics rules. He said Clark was engaged in "internal debate and disagreement" within the department about the impact of voter fraud on the election.

"Mr. Clark should not be here for giving his candid opinion and independent judgment," MacDougald said.

Clark, who served as acting head of the Justice Department's civil division under Trump, faces a multi-day hearing on ethics charges that accuse him of attempting to take actions "involving dishonesty" and that "would seriously interfere with the administration of justice."

Clark sought to send a letter to Georgia officials in December 2020 falsely claiming that the Justice Department had "identified significant concerns" that may have led to Trump's loss in that state, according to ethics charges filed in 2022.

The hearing is being held by a three-member committee of the Board on Professional Responsibility, an arm of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. If it finds that Clark violated ethics rules, it could recommend that his license be suspended or revoked. The full board would take up such a recommendation, with final action in the hands of the appeals court.

The D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates lawyers accused of violating legal ethics rules, brought the case against Clark.

Trump is the Republican candidate challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 U.S. election. Trump faces criminal charges in state court in Georgia and federal court in Washington over his attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.

Clark is one of Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia case and has pleaded not guilty. Clark is listed as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the federal case. The ethics panel is expected to delve into incidents relevant to those cases.

Justice Department leaders found no evidence of widespread voter fraud and refused to send Clark's proposed letter. Trump backed off his plan to name Clark as acting attorney general after department leaders and top White House lawyers threatened to resign in protest.

Two of Clark's Justice Department superiors - former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, have cooperated with the ethics probe and are expected to testify during the hearing.

Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, an outspoken Trump ally, and former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows may testify on Clark's behalf, his lawyers said.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; editing by Will Dunham, Andy Sullivan and Marguerita Choy)


Former Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark fights to save law license as disciplinary trial begins

Kyle Cheney
Tue, March 26, 2024


Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who worked closely with former President Donald Trump in a bid to subvert the 2020 election, should face professional consequences — including the potential loss of his license to practice law — for his effort to throw the nation into chaos, D.C. bar disciplinary authorities argued Tuesday.

But a lawyer for Clark said it would be unreasonable to punish him for his work during the tumultuous days ahead of Jan. 6, 2021, when he spearheaded a proposal to encourage state legislatures to consider overturning the results. That plan was never adopted and Trump ultimately turned it down. Punishing Clark for being on the losing side of a policy dispute would set a dangerous precedent, Clark’s team argued.

The alternate realities were on display Tuesday as bar investigators began laying out their case to penalize Clark for his role in Trump’s scheme to remain in power. Investigators charged Clark with violating professional rules of conduct in late 2020 by attempting to coerce his bosses to send a letter to Georgia lawmakers encouraging them to reconsider the outcome of the election there based on “significant concerns” about the integrity of the vote.

For Clark, the opening arguments in the case — heard by a three-member panel of the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility — were never supposed to happen. Clark has spent two years fighting legal battles intended to scrap the case altogether, contending that the D.C. Bar has no jurisdiction over the conduct of federal government lawyers. But a federal court rejected Clark’s position, and an appeals court declined to step in to block the case from moving ahead.

Hamilton Fox, the lead investigator for the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel, said Clark’s efforts amounted to a “coup” attempt within the Department of Justice, aimed at taking out the sitting leadership in order to effectuate a plan that would have thrown the 2020 election into even further disarray. Clark held unauthorized talks with Trump, violating DOJ policies against White House contacts, and then sought to outflank then-Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue, by telling them he planned to accept an offer from Trump to take over the department unless they agreed to send his proposed letter to Georgia.

The showdown, which has been well documented by the Jan. 6 select committee and prosecutors in Georgia, led to an Oval Office confrontation on Jan. 3, 2021, in which Trump ultimately backed down from his plans to elevate Clark amid a mass resignation threat by top DOJ and White House officials. Clark has been criminally charged by Georgia prosecutors for his role in Trump’s effort to reverse the outcome of the election, and he was identified as a co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s Washington, D.C. case against Trump.

Donoghue was Fox’s first witness on Tuesday, describing his work to review claims of election fraud in 2020 and finding many of the fraud claims lodged by Trump and his allies to be meritless. He also described his conversations with Trump, recalling that Trump urged Rosen to simply declare the election “corrupt” and let him and his Republican allies in Congress do the rest. Donoghue recalled trying to educate Trump about DOJ’s limited role in elections and its work debunking many of the false allegations of fraud that had been circulating.

Disciplinary proceedings against the lawyers who formed the backbone of Trump’s effort have aired significant new details about the two months that threatened the peaceful transfer of power in 2020 and 2021.

John Eastman, one of the architects of Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election, is expected to face a disbarment ruling by Wednesday, when a California judge issues her proposed punishment for alleged violations of professional conduct.

Rudy Giuliani has similarly had his law license suspended in New York and Washington, D.C.

And other attorneys involved in failed legal efforts to overturn election results in 2020 have also faced disciplinary charges, some of which are still pending.

Clark’s case is unique, however, because he was employed by DOJ at the time as acting head of the department’s Civil Division and Environment and Natural Resources Division. He first reached Trump’s radar as a result of efforts by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who helped connect the little-known DOJ official to the president. Trump, who had publicly expressed frustration that the Justice Department hadn’t done enough to back up his claims of election fraud, soon began floating the notion of elevating Clark to replace Rosen.

Clarks’ lawyers, though, say punishing him for taking cues from the president — the chief law enforcement officer of the United States — and advocating for a position that he genuinely believed would send a chilling effect across government. Clark’s efforts were intended to remain confidential — and the letter he drafted, which was never sent to Georgia, was supposed to remain secret, protected by various forms of executive and law enforcement privilege, until a leak to the press exposed the fraught discussions.

Clark’s attorneys said he intends to argue, using witnesses from Georgia and statistical experts that Trump has relied on in the past, that his concerns about the election were well-founded, that DOJ officials rebuffed them and the entire dispute amounts to an internal disagreement about what DOJ’s official position should have been.

“There is nothing dishonest and nothing in violation of the rules of professional conduct about proposing a change in position,” Clark’s lawyer, Harry MacDougald, argued. “Mr. Clark did nothing wrong.”

Clark is unlikely to testify in the proceeding. His lawyers have indicated he is likely to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if called to the stand.

Fox intends to rely on testimony from White House and DOJ officials — including Donoghue, Rosen and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin. Clark’s lawyer said he intends to call former Attorney General Edwin Meese, as well as a member of the Atlanta-area election board who opposed certifying the results.

Vietnam party leader Trong invites Russia's Putin to visit, state media reports

AMERIKA'S TRADING PARTNER

Reuters
Tue, March 26, 2024 

Russian President Putin shakes hand with Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen in Hanoi

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam Communist Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit the Southeast Asian country during a telephone call on Tuesday, Vietnamese state media reported.

Vietnam remains one of Russia's closest partners in Asia, ties developed during the Soviet era, and Hanoi is a major buyer of Russian weapons.

"President Putin happily accepted the invitation and agreed for the two sides to arrange (the visit) at a suitable time," the official Vietnam News Agency reported.


Vietnamese state media reported in October that Putin had accepted an invitation from Vietnam's president for a visit, but that has not taken place. The invitation was extended months after the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin.

In Tuesday's call, Trong congratulated Putin on being re-elected as Russian president, and sent his condolences to Russian people and families of the victims of the concert attack outside Moscow last week.

The leaders also discussed ways to promote cooperation in security, defence, trade and tourism.

(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Ed Osmond)


Vietnam minister says president's resignation has not affected policies

David Brunnstrom and Simon Lewis
Updated Tue, March 26, 2024 

Plenary session of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting in Jakarta

By David Brunnstrom and Simon Lewis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son said on Tuesday the resignation of the communist-ruled country's third president in little over a year has not affected Hanoi's foreign and economic policies, given its collective leadership and policymaking.

Asked during a visit to the United States about Vo Van Thuong's resignation last week, Son told Washington's Brookings Institution think tank Vietnam was undergoing an anti-corruption campaign that has been welcomed by the international community and businesses.

"The resignation of the president I think in Vietnam has not affect(ed) our foreign policy as well as our own policies of economic development," he said.

"If you look at the situation in Vietnam, we have collective leadership, we have collective foreign policy. We have collective-decided economic development."

Son cited Communist Party congresses held every five years where economic development plans are set out and agreed among party leaders. "And I think (if) one or two figures in the leadership has resigned, (it) does not change this situation."

Son, who held talks in Washington on Monday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and USAID Administrator Samantha Power, said Vietnam hopes Washington will soon recognize it as a market economy.

The U.S. currently considers Vietnam a 'non-market economy' in import injury cases, which can lead to significantly higher anti-dumping duties and Hanoi's ambassador to Washington warned this year that maintaining the resulting punitive duties on Vietnamese goods is bad for increasingly close bilateral ties.Son said the United States and Vietnam should boost economic trade and investment cooperation after agreeing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership last year.

"We should focus on supply chain resilience, infrastructure connectivity, digital economy, energy, green economy and logistics," he said.

Thuong's resignation has raised questions about stability in Vietnam, given he was only elected last year after the sudden dismissal of his predecessor.

With accumulated foreign direct investment higher than its gross domestic product, Vietnam's stability is crucial to multinationals with large operations in the Southeast Asian manufacturing hub, including U.S. firm Apple, which has many key suppliers in the country.

That stability, which has been guaranteed for decades by a state tightly controlled by the Communist Party, now looks less certain, analysts say, although they agree the current leadership changes will not impact the country's key policies, including its "bamboo diplomacy" aimed at keeping good relations with the United States and China at the same time.

Son said Vietnam sought good relations with all major powers and welcomed ongoing efforts to stabilize relations between the United States and China.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Writing by Caitlin Webber; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Opinion

The USA is now producing more oil and gas than any nation ever has. It’s a triumph

David Blackmon
Mon, March 25, 2024 

Oil rig pumpjacks, also known as thirsty birds, extract crude from the Wilmington Field near Long Beach, California. US oil and gas production has boomed, offering the nation energy security and economic benefit - David McNew/Reuters

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in January that US domestic production of crude oil for September 2023 set a new all-time high of 13,247,000 barrels per day. That fact probably deserved more notice than it received given that it was the most oil any nation on earth had ever managed to produce in a single month.

Even more remarkable is the fact that US producers managed to break the record in November, and then exceed the September number again in December, the most current month for which full data is available. It is likely November’s all-time record of 13,319,000 barrels per day (bpd) has been exceeded at least once again during the first quarter of 2024, as producers find ways to wring more production out of each wellbore.

That ability to increase per-well performance through the application of more effective processes and advancing technologies has been crucial to the ability to raise overall production given that the upward curve has continued even in the face of an active rig count that has dropped by over 25 per cent in the past 15 months. That is a feat the US industry has never achieved in any other period in modern times.

The September 2023 record took place exactly 15 years after American crude production had hit a production nadir not seen since 1943, when the manpower and resource requirements of fighting World War II slowed the business to a crawl. The US churned out just 3,974,000 bpd in September 2008, a level the State of Texas alone exceeded by almost 2 million bpd 15 years later.

Those were the days before the shale revolution kicked off in earnest. Indeed, it was the very next month, October, 2008, when the first successful horizontal oil well was drilled in the Eagle Ford Shale formation in South Texas. Management at the company that drilled that first well, Petrohawk Energy, thought they were drilling for dry natural gas. Imagine their surprise when the light brown sweet oil began flowing up the pipe along with the gas stream.

Two years later, drillers were completing successful horizontal wells in the first of many productive shale formations in the Permian Basin of West Texas. By 2012, production from Texas, which had amounted to just a little more than 1 million bpd in 2008, had risen to 3 million bpd. In November 2023, Texas produced 5,657,000 bpd, and would rank as the 4th biggest producing nation on earth if it were a standalone country.

These numbers are stunning, and they are coming in the face of a President, Joe Biden, and an administration that continues to invoke federal regulations and executive orders designed to impede the industry’s ability to grow. So, other than advancing technology and human ingenuity, how do we account for this ongoing expansion of America’s energy might?

It can be explained through the convergence of several key factors:

Firstly, a confluence of ideal geology and geography. Through an extremely fortunate accident of history, it turns out that the most productive shale formations happen to lie beneath regions in which the federal government owns little or no land. Two of the most prolific regions – the Eagle Ford and Permian Basin – lie all or mostly in Texas, where the feds own virtually no land at all outside of military bases and Lake Falcon, which is fed by the Rio Grande River on the border with Mexico. This means that the Texas state government exercises virtually all operational regulatory authority related to oil and gas operations in the state. The prolific Bakken Shale is mainly contained in North Dakota, and the DJ Basin is in central Colorado, where the feds own only a relatively small percentage of the land.

Second, America is fortunate in its law. Simply put, no US president has much ability to regulate the domestic industry’s operations unless they take place on lands owned by the federal government. As a result, the Biden administration – like the Obama administration before it – has been left to try to impede the industry at the margins, using such ploys as slow-playing approvals for interstate pipelines and the recent halt in permitting for new LNG export facilities. The EPA is also trying to slow it down with a multitude of new regulations on methane and auto emissions.

Third, a timely law signed by Barack Obama. He probably didn’t really realize it at the time, but former President Barack Obama essentially issued a full speed ahead order in December 2015, when he signed an omnibus spending bill into law that contained language repealing a 1975 ban on exports of US crude oil. This repeal came at a time when some producers were finding it difficult to find space in any domestic oil refinery to process the light, sweet grade of oil being produced from US shale, since most of the refineries were equipped to refine heavy grades of crude coming from overseas. This new ability to export crude for refining overseas basically gave a green light for further expansion of US shale regions.

Today, America ranks as the largest producer of both oil and natural gas on Earth, and there is no sign that is likely to change anytime soon given that the industry is conducting its business more efficiently and effectively than at any time in history. As a result, the USA enjoys almost complete energy security: we have no need for oil and gas from unsavoury regimes overseas, and we even have enough left over to help supply our friends – such as Britain. This could change if voters decide to award Biden a second term in November, giving his regulators four more years to invoke even more onerous roadblocks to growth.

But even that seems doubtful. If the history of the oil and gas industry has taught us nothing else, it is that markets and human ingenuity seem to always find ways to overcome attempts by politicians and regulators to pick winners and losers.

David Blackmon had a 40 year career in the US energy industry, the last 23 years of which were spent in the public policy arena, managing regulatory and legislative issues for various companies. He continues to write and podcast on energy matters


Indian refiners buy more US crude as Russia sanctions tighten

Arathy Somasekhar
Mon, March 25, 2024 

FILE PHOTO: An oil tanker is seen docked at Ingleside near Corpus Christi


By Arathy Somasekhar

HOUSTON (Reuters) - More than 250,000 barrels per day of U.S. crude is set to arrive in India next month, the highest in more than a year, ship tracking data showed, amid tighter enforcement of sanctions on Russian crude.

India, the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, is looking to diversify its oil supplies as fresh U.S. sanctions on Moscow threaten to dent Russian oil sales to India, the biggest buyer of Russian seaborne crude.

About 7.6 million barrels of oil, or 256,000 barrels per day (bpd), were headed to India on three very large crude carriers and three Suezmax vessels, according to ship tracking firm Kpler.

The ships, which were largely headed to India's west coast, were chartered by Reliance Industries, Vitol, Equinor and Sinokor, among others, according to data from financial firm LSEG.

India was the top buyer of Russian oil last year after other groups retreated from purchases following Western sanctions on Moscow for its invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.

Last month, the U.S. tightened efforts to reduce Russia's oil trade adding sanctions on state-owned shipping firm Sovcomflot and 14 crude oil tankers involved in Russian oil transportation.

India's Reliance, operator of the world's biggest refining complex, will not buy Russian oil loaded on tankers operated by Sovcomflot after recent U.S. sanctions, sources told Reuters last week.

More Indian refiners plan to shun Sovcomflot vessels, which may weigh on imports of Russian oil and leave Russia with fewer outlets for its flagship product, sources said.

(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

SURPRIZE

Biden, Promising Corporate Tax Increases, Has Cut Taxes Overall

Jim Tankersley
Mon, March 25, 2024 

President Joe Biden walks on stage during a visit to the Intel campus in Chandler, Ariz., March 20, 2024. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times)


WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, amping up a populist pitch in his reelection campaign, has repeatedly said he would raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations to make them pay their “fair share.”

Republicans say Biden has “an unquenchable thirst for taxing the American people.” His Republican opponent in the election, former President Donald Trump, said recently that Biden was “going to give you the greatest, biggest, ugliest tax hike in the history of our country.”

So it might come as a surprise that, in just over three years in office, Biden has cut taxes overall.


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The math is straightforward. An analysis prepared for The New York Times by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank that studies fiscal issues, shows that the tax cuts Biden has signed for individuals and corporations are larger than the tax increases he has imposed on big corporations and their shareholders.

The analysis estimates that the tax changes Biden has ushered into law will amount to a net cut of about $600 billion over four years and slightly more than that over a full decade.

“It’s reasonable to conclude from those numbers that the Biden tax policy hasn’t been some kind of radical tax-raising program,” said Benjamin R. Page, a senior fellow at the center and author of the analysis.

The analysis strictly looks at changes to taxes over the course of Biden’s presidency, including some direct benefits to people and businesses that flow through the tax code. It does not measure the effects of inflation or certain regulations, which Republicans sometimes label “tax hikes” since they can raise costs for companies and individuals.

It also does not measure the social or economic benefits of Biden’s spending policies, or of his regulatory efforts meant to help consumers, like cracking down on so-called junk fees and limiting the cost of insulin and other medication.

Instead, the analysis provides a comprehensive look at what Biden has done to the tax code, and how those policies add up.

It is clear by that measure that his record has not matched his own ambitions for taxing the rich and big companies — or Republicans’ attempts to caricature him as a tax-and-spend liberal.

That’s largely because Biden has struggled to pass his most ambitious tax-raising plans. “It’s what can be got through Congress and signed,” Page said. “They were subject to compromise.”

A White House spokesperson, Michael Kikukawa, said in an email that Biden was “proud to have cut taxes for the middle class and working families while cracking down on wealthy tax cheats and making big corporations pay more of their fair share.”

The president’s enacted tax cuts include incentives for companies to manufacture and install solar panels, wind turbines and other technologies meant to reduce fossil fuel emissions, which are a centerpiece of the climate law he signed in 2022. That law also contained tax cuts for people who buy certain low-emission technologies, such as electric vehicles and heat pumps.

Biden gave tax breaks to semiconductor factories as well, as part of a bipartisan advanced manufacturing bill he signed earlier that year.

The president also included temporary tax breaks for individuals and certain businesses in his 2021 economic stimulus bill, the American Rescue Plan. The legislation expanded a tax credit for parents. It provided $1,400 direct checks for low- and middle-income Americans, which were technically advance payments on tax credits.

Biden has partly offset all of his tax cuts with a pair of major new levies. Corporations are now required to pay a tax when they buy back their own stock. Another tax requires large corporations to pay a minimum 15% federal income tax, even if they qualify for deductions that would have made them owe less.

The president has also directed tens of billions of dollars to the IRS to help crack down on high earners and corporations that evade paying the taxes they owe — an effort that will increase federal tax revenues but does not increase tax rates.

But the president has struggled to persuade Congress — including a sufficient number of Democrats, in the two years his party controlled the House and the Senate on his watch — to sign on to a fleet of other proposed tax increases.

Biden’s budget requests have been filled with ideas for taxing high earners and corporations. Those have failed to gain traction on Capitol Hill. His most recent budget includes about $5 trillion of tax increases spread over a decade, including long-standing Democratic plans like raising the corporate income tax rate to 28% from 21%.

Republicans assailed Biden for tax plans they say will cripple the economy. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, chair of the Budget Committee, said in a hearing Thursday that Biden believed “in more government and more spending and more taxing as the answers to the problems that our country faces.”

Biden has emphasized his tax proposals in recent weeks, including during his State of the Union address. The president has repeatedly said he would not raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000 a year, while calling on millionaires and billionaires to pay more.

He has also vaunted his tax record, as he did last week in Las Vegas. “In 2020, 55 of the largest Fortune 500 companies made $40 billion in profits,” Biden said. “They paid zero in federal taxes. Not anymore.”

Biden was referring to the corporate minimum tax created by the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 law that also included the climate-related tax incentives. The Treasury Department has struggled to implement that tax, which companies faced for the first time last year.

The department does not yet have data on how many corporations will pay the tax for 2023, officials said this week.

c.2024 The New York Times Company

Banks Reducing Ultra-Long Mortgages, Canada Watchdog Says


Christine Dobby
Tue, March 26, 2024 


(Bloomberg) -- The rapid run-up in mortgages during the pandemic represents a “pocket of risk” to the financial system but Canadian lenders are starting to get the problem of ultra-long home loans under control, according to the country’s bank watchdog.

“During the Covid years, the principal unintended consequence of what we went through was this buildup in mortgage underwritings,” Peter Routledge, who heads the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, said Tuesday at a National Bank of Canada financial-services conference in Montreal.

“That created a risk concentration and that’s worried us really since it formed,” he said. But he added that this is a “pocket of risk. I don’t consider this risk systemic, but it could lead to a period of uncertainty in the housing system.”

At the height of a housing market boom fueled by the low-interest rate environment, banks handed out 40% more home loans compared to pre-pandemic averages, he said. Plus, half of those were variable-interest rate mortgages, compared to the regular rate of less than a quarter, he said.

“Notwithstanding that risk, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how Canadians and their lenders continue to manage it down,” Routledge said.

Canadian lenders now have about C$220 billion ($162 billion) of mortgages with amortization periods — the length of time permitted to pay off the loan — longer than 35 years. That’s down 27% from just under C$300 billion at its height, he said.

“That’s a really good sign and I’m encouraged by that.”

Routledge’s remarks struck a more optimistic tone than comments he made last fall, when he issued stern warnings about the particular risks of variable-rate mortgages with fixed monthly payments, including calling them a “dangerous” product during a government hearing.

Read More: Canada’s Bank Watchdog Wants to Rein In Ultra-Long Mortgages

Borrowers with these types of loans have seen the portion of their monthly payment that goes to interest increase dramatically until they are no longer paying down any portion of the loan’s principal.

This has led to amortization periods theoretically stretching decades beyond the standard 30 years. But the contract with the bank does not actually change, so when the homeowners go to renew their mortgage at the end of a typical five-year term, they’re likely to face significantly higher monthly payments.

Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Bank of Montreal are the only three major lenders that permit such negatively amortizing mortgages. Over the six months through the end of January, the trio saw this type of mortgage decrease by 27% to a combined C$94 billion. That was down from C$128.3 billion at the end of July, according to their quarterly reports.

Routledge did not specifically highlight the risk of negatively amortizing mortgages during an on-stage interview Tuesday, though in a copy of prepared remarks, he said the housing system would be better served if such products “were less prevalent.”

 Bloomberg Businessweek

 

Moscow attack raise fresh concerns for Paris Olympics

Francesco FONTEMAGGI
Mon, March 25, 2024 

France will deploy an additional 4,000 soldiers on its streets in the wake of the attack in Moscow (IAN LANGSDON)


The attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 130 people has raised fresh security fears for the Paris Olympics, leading France's interior minister to promise Monday that police and intelligence services would be "ready".

The government upgraded the country's terror threat level to its maximum on Sunday, with France a frequent target of the Islamic State (IS) group which has claimed responsibility for Friday's bloodshed in the Russian capital.

President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that the IS entity believed to be behind the killings -- known as Khorasan, which is a branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- had also sought to attack France.

"This particular group made several attempts (at attacks) on our own soil," Macron told reporters after arriving on a trip to the French South American region of French Guiana.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that the Paris Olympics, which begin on July 26, were an obvious future target.

"France, because we defend universal values, and are for secularism... is particularly threatened, notably during extraordinary events such as the Olympics," he told reporters.

"The French police, gendarmes, prefects, intelligence services, will be ready," he added, saying that "we have a very effective intelligence system. We stop plots developing almost every month."

The heads of intelligence services would hold a meeting on Thursday "to discuss all the conclusions of the attack on Moscow," he added.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said that 4,000 extra soldiers would be deployed nationwide in the days to come.

"The terrorist threat is real, it's strong," he told reporters, adding that two plots had been thwarted already this year.

- Terror plots -

At least 137 people were killed when gunmen stormed Moscow's Crocus City Hall on Friday evening before setting the building on fire.

The assault echoed an attack on the Bataclan music venue in Paris in November 2015 which left 90 people dead and was also claimed by the Islamic State group.

The Olympics have been attacked in the past -- most infamously in 1972 in Munich and again in 1996 in Atlanta -- with the thousands of athletes, huge crowds and live global television audience making it a target.

French organisers have faced persistent questioning over their choice of opening ceremony, which is set to take place outside of the athletics stadium for the first time.

Athletes are instead set to sail down the river Seine in a flotilla of river boats in a made-for-TV extravaganza that has been resisted by some security officials because of the challenges for police.

Organisers say there is no plan B, but have suggested that the ceremony might be downgraded -- meaning athletes might not board the boats -- in the event of credible threats against the event.

French security forces are screening up to a million people before the Games, including athletes and people living close to key infrastructure, according to the interior ministry.

France was last placed on its highest terror alert in October after a suspected Islamist burst into a school in the north of the country and stabbed a teacher to death.

The alert was downgraded in January.

The highest alert of the so-called "Vigipirate" system means that security forces will maintain a more visible presence on French streets and be posted in front of possible targets such as a government buildings, transport infrastructure or schools.

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