Biden taps Pete Buttigieg for transportation post 

and Jennifer Granholm for energy


Daniel Strauss and Vivian Ho
Tue, December 15, 2020, 

Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Joe Biden has picked Pete Buttigieg, his former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, to be his transportation secretary, in a move which would make the former South Bend mayor first out gay person to be confirmed by the Senate to a cabinet post.

The nomination came as more picks for senior positions in Biden’s incoming administration emerged on Tuesday, including Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, to run the energy department.

Buttigieg confirmed he had been tapped as transportation secretary in a tweet on Tuesday evening, saying he was “honored”.

This is a moment of tremendous opportunity—to create jobs, meet the climate challenge, and enhance equity for all.

I'm honored that the President-elect has asked me to serve our nation as Secretary of Transportation.

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) December 16, 2020


Biden said in a statement that Buttigieg was a “patriot and a problem-solver who speaks to the best of who we are as a nation”.

“I am nominating him for secretary of transportation because this position stands at the nexus of so many of the interlocking challenges and opportunities ahead of us,” Biden said, “Jobs, infrastructure, equity, and climate all come together at the DOT, the site of some of our most ambitious plans to build back better.”

Biden’s decisions comes as he rounds out his cabinet of top officials to run federal agencies, having already selected former Obama adviser Tony Blinken as his secretary of state, retired Army Gen Lloyd Austin as his secretary of defense and former Fed chair Janet Yellen as his treasury secretary. He’s also picked former agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack to reprise that role in the Biden administration, and Ohio representative Marcia Fudge to serve as housing secretary.

Buttigieg is one of the few white men Biden has picked to serve as a cabinet secretary.

Granholm’s selection as energy secretary was widely reported on Tuesday and confirmed to the Associated Press by four people familiar with the plans, although Granholm has yet to comment publicly.

Granholm served two terms as Michigan’s governor and defeated the husband of the US education secretary, Betsy DeVos, to win her second term. In November, she penned an op-ed for the Detroit News calling for Michigan’s auto industry to invest in a low-carbon economy, stating that “the time for a low-carbon recovery is now”.

“She’s really a student of the [energy] transition,” Skip Pruss, who directed the Michigan department of energy, labor, and economic growth under Granholm, told Politico. “If you were to ask me what was a limitation in Michigan, I would say that she was slightly ahead of her time.”

Buttigieg, 38, ran an upstart presidential campaign and proved to be a competitive candidate with a knack for building a notable warchest. After he dropped out of the Democratic primary for president, he quickly endorsed Biden.

Buttigieg’s name had floated around lists for multiple cabinet positions. He was often mentioned as a possible candidate for ambassador to the United Nations, a position that some of his supporters noted could help improve his international relations credentials and give him an opening to New York donors. But Buttigieg was passed up for Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a veteran American diplomat.

His name had been mentioned for other positions including secretary of Veterans Affairs. But Buttigieg, a navy veteran, was not interested in that job, according to multiple Democratic supporters. Buttigieg’s team has denied any report or suggestion that he turned down an offer to run that department. He had also been mentioned as a possible secretary of commerce.

Jennifer Granholm speaks during the the Democratic national convention in 2016. 

Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP

Throughout his presidential campaign, Buttigieg struggled to get any traction among African American voters. He will probably face similar questions on how his tenure as mayor of South Bend affected African Americans. Still, as transportation secretary Buttigieg will be involved in a part of the Biden administration that affects African Americans across the country.

Buttigieg’s appointment was met with praise by some high-profile Democrats.

“As a former mayor, he knows the importance of investing in safer, more efficient interstate roads and bridges, and in the connections provided by a secure rail network,” New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, said in a statement. “President-elect Biden has chosen the right person to lead on delivering the promise of clean energy and electric vehicles, on creating new union jobs, and on investments in environmental justice – all of which are inextricably intertwined within our transportation infrastructure.”

Biden’s selection of Buttigieg for transportation secretary drew praise from LGBTQ rights groups, with one calling it “a new milestone in a decades-long effort” to have LGBTQ representation in the US government.

“Its impact will reverberate well-beyond the department he will lead,” added Annise Parker, president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Institute.

The South Bend chapter of Black Lives Matter, however, denounced Buttigieg‘s impending nomination. The group had made their displeasure of Buttigieg known during his presidential campaign, following the 2019 South Bend shooting of a Black man by a white police officer.

“We saw Black communities have their houses torn down by his administration,” said Jorden Giger, BLM’s South Bend leader, in a statement, referring to Buttigieg‘s effort to tear down substandard housing. “We saw the machinery of his police turned against Black people.”

Biden also plans to tap the former Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy to become his domestic climate czar, spearheading Biden’s ambitions for a massive, coordinated domestic campaign to slow climate change. Her counterpart in climate efforts will be the former secretary of state John Kerry, earlier named by Biden as his climate envoy for national security issues.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Biden's agriculture secretary pick disappoints

Black farmers

By Christopher Walljasper

Fri, December 11, 2020

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Joe Biden has promised to address racial inequality in agriculture. But some Black farmers aren't so sure he picked the right man for the job after settling on former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack for agriculture secretary.

Vilsack led the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under former President Barack Obama. His likely return to the post comes at a time of racial reckoning in the United States, and Black voters won't soon forget they helped deliver Biden's victory.

Biden's transition team has said Vilsack's prior experience as USDA chief offers a head start in addressing issues facing the new administration.

"With how many farmers are struggling, the president-elect has been prioritizing experienced leaders – people he knows can hit the ground on day one to get things done," said Sean Savett, spokesman for the Biden transition team.

But Black farmers, who have long viewed the department suspiciously, say Vilsack comes back to his old job carrying plenty of baggage.

"USDA has historically not demonstrated a commitment to racial justice, and we particularly see the track record of Vilsack in the past," said Dara Cooper, co-founder of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance.

"That’s what caused a great concern," said Cooper, whose organization focuses on equitable access to food and land for Black farmers and communities.

Cooper's group, as well as the National Black Farmers Association, say alleged discriminatory practices continued at the USDA while under Vilsack's leadership, including the denial of loans to Black farmers and a decrease in the percentage of dollars loaned to minority farmers.

Vilsack declined to comment but said during the announcement of his nomination Friday he was committed to "rooting out inequities and systemic racism in the systems we govern and the programs we lead."

Many groups representing Black farmers endorsed Biden, who has pledged to "close racial wealth gaps – including for rural Americans of color."

But John Boyd Jr., a farmer and president of the National Black Farmers Association, voiced surprise that Biden picked Vilsack for the USDA over someone like Ohio congresswoman Marcia Fudge, a vocal proponent of increased nutrition funding for black communities and addressing racial discrimination.

"In my one-on-one meeting with him (Biden), he committed that there would be change at USDA for Black farmers," Boyd said.

Fudge, who would have been the first Black woman to lead the agency, reached out to Boyd in late November to discuss issues critical to Black farmers, he said. Vilsack contacted him on Thursday, he added, after the announcement of his selection.

Biden's transition team has announced Fudge will run the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Among other past issues, Vilsack forced Shirley Sherrod, a Black woman, to resign from her position as Georgia state director of rural development for the USDA in 2010, due to an edited tape of a speech that misconstrued Sherrod’s statements as prejudicial against white farmers.

Vilsack later apologized and offered Sherrod a new position, which she declined.

Vilsack's nomination follows Georgia lawmaker David Scott’s selection as the first African American to chair the House Agriculture Committee. Scott has pledged to back a proposal from U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren that would provide grants to Black farmers to purchase farmland and protect them from further losses.

Discriminatory lending practices, often at local USDA offices, denied Black farmers access to funds needed to operate, maintain and purchase farmland, leading to a loss of $120 billion in farmland value, according to a 2018 analysis by Melissa Gordon of Tufts University.

"We talk about the wrongs of the USDA as if it were in the past, but the reality is that they still continue, so there has to be some drastic overhaul," said Cooper.

(Reporting by Christopher Walljasper; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and To

Biden Picks Former Michigan Governor Granholm to Lead Energy


Jennifer Epstein, Jennifer Jacobs and Ari Natter
Tue, December 15, 2020



(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of the politically pivotal state of Michigan, to lead the Department of Energy, three people familiar with the matter said.

The agency is expected to play an enlarged role in the battle against climate change.

Granholm served as energy adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and has been credited with expanding Michigan’s clean energy industry during her two terms as governor.

She served as Michigan’s attorney general from 1999 to 2003, has been an adviser to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ clean energy program and is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

A Granholm representative didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. The Biden transition team declined comment.

If confirmed, Granholm, 61, will take over an agency with an annual budget of $35 billion and a sprawling mission that includes maintaining the nation’s nuclear warheads, its emergency stockpile of oil and researching subjects as varied as super computers and carbon dioxide emissions.

Under Biden, the department is expected to have a role in Covid-related economic stimulus that the president-elect has said will be one of his top priorities. The department was instrumental in dispensing some $90 billion in clean energy stimulus spending under the Recovery Act in 2009 under President Barack Obama.

The Biden administration is expected to restart the department’s energy efficiency standard shop, which ground to a halt under Trump, as well as reinvigorate the agency’s loan programs which holds billions of dollars in loan authority for clean energy projects.

Exclusive-Biden taps former EPA chief for White House climate coordinator role -sources

FILE PHOTO: EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy speaks during a news conference, accompanied by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in Washington

Tue, December 15, 2020, 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Joe Biden will name Gina McCarthy, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration to a new role leading domestic climate policy coordination at the White House, two sources familiar with the process said on Tuesday.

McCarthy will lead inter-agency efforts to coordinate domestic climate change policy and serve as a counterpart to John Kerry, who Biden appointed as his special envoy on climate change.

McCarthy is currently the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental group. As EPA administrator to Obama she crafted some of the Obama administration's signature climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan to slash emissions from power plants.
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She is expected to play a key role carrying out the incoming Biden administration's planned actions to tackle climate change and address environmental justice.

Biden has called for a net zero emission target for power plants by 2035, as well as an aggressive push to shift to electric vehicles and expand the production of renewable energy.

Biden is also expected to name Jennifer Granholm as his energy secretary, Pete Buttigieg as his transportation secretary and New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland as interior secretary.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Valerie Volcovici and David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Aurora Ellis)

Deb Haaland Is Joe Biden's 'Leading Candidate' For Interior Secretary

Jarrett Renshaw and Valerie Volcovici
Tue, December 15, 2020, 

WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico appears to be President-elect Joe Biden's top choice to head the Interior Department, three informed sources said, a pick that would make her the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency.

The position would give her authority over a department that employs more than 70,000 people across the United States and oversees more than 20% of the nation's surface, including tribal lands and national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite.

She has told Reuters she would seek to usher in an expansion of renewable energy production on federal land to contribute to the fight against climate change, and undo President Donald Trump's focus on bolstering fossil fuels output.

Two of the sources familiar with the proceedings said Biden's team was close to finalizing the decision on Haaland but weighing concerns about the loss of a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrats are hanging on to a slim majority. The third source said the decision was made and that an announcement was imminent.

Biden is also in the process of finalizing other key energy and environment picks, including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator and Secretary of Energy - all of which will be crucial to his sweeping climate change agenda.

Two sources said Biden currently favors Jennifer Granholm to run the Department of Energy. Granholm, 61, was Michigan's first female governor and pushed for a transition to green technologies in the longtime car-manufacturing state.

Progressive activists and tribal leaders waged a pressure campaign over the past few weeks for Biden to select Haaland for Interior, sending letters to the Biden transition team and launching a #DebforInterior campaign on social media.

Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, has said she believes the fact that she was being considered for the Interior post was good news for Native American areas.

"I'm glad our country's progressed to a place where an idea like this is a consideration," she said.

The Trump administration had used the Interior Department as a key tool in its "energy dominance" agenda, which prioritized deregulation and fastracking of fossil fuel projects to maximize domestic oil, gas, and coal output.

About a fifth of U.S. oil production comes from federal leases.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Valerie Volcovici with additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Howard Goller and Mark Heinrich)

Deb Haaland Is Joe Biden's 'Leading Candidate' For Interior Secretary

Jennifer Bendery
·Senior Politics Reporter, HuffPost
Tue, December 15, 2020, 2:10 PM MST

Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) is the front-runner to be President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for interior secretary, a source familiar with the selection process tells HuffPost.

“Haaland is the leading candidate,” said this source, confirming a Reuters report that came out earlier Tuesday. “She is great and has strong support.”

The challenge, though, is that if Haaland is offered the job and confirmed to it, she would leave her House seat open at a time when Democrats already have a slim majority. Two other House Democrats, Marcia Fudge (Ohio) and Cedric Richmond (La.), are planning to take administration jobs. If Haaland leaves too, Democrats would have a 219-213 majority until each of those House seats could be filled in special elections.

“There is mounting pressure and increasingly vocal concern not to pull anyone else from the House,” said this source, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely.

No final decisions have been made. And Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill declined to say whether Pelosi supports Haaland potentially taking the interior secretary post.

“We have an existing policy of not commenting on private conversations concerning the transition,” said Hammill. “I am also not in a position to comment on any possible announcements not yet made by the transition.”

But if Biden does pick Haaland for interior secretary, it wouldn’t actually take that long to fill her seat. Per New Mexico’s rules, Haaland could continue being a member of Congress until the Senate confirmed her to the Interior post. That’s when she’d have to resign her House seat, and the New Mexico Secretary of State would have 10 days to set the date of the election. The election would have to occur within 77-91 days of the seat becoming vacant.

So all told, the maximum amount of time from her resignation to a special election is roughly three months. There would only be a general election, between a Democrat chosen by the state Democratic Party and a Republican chosen by the state GOP. And Haaland’s district, New Mexico’s 1st congressional district, is solidly Democratic: Biden won it by 23% in November.

In terms of timing of an interior secretary announcement, the source familiar with the selection process said it will happen “ideally very soon,” but couldn’t say if it would be this week.

Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) would make history as the first-ever Native American Cabinet secretary if President-elect Joe Biden picks her for interior secretary. (Photo: Bill Clark via Getty Images)

If Haaland is chosen, it will be historic. She’d be the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary. She would bring her experience as chairwoman of a House Natural Resources subcommittee with oversight authority for the Interior Department. Her selection would also reflect the will of tribes all over the country, who have been privately and publicly urging Biden to nominate her.

The Interior Department is responsible for managing the country’s natural resources and honoring the federal government’s commitments to Native American tribes, which it has failed to do time and time again. It also oversees the Bureau of Indian Education and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the latter of which manages over 55 million acres of land held in trust for Native Americans by the government. Both agencies are notoriously underfunded and have failed to adequately serve Indigenous communities.

The seismic shift of putting a Native American woman in charge of the department with oversight of public lands ― from which Indigenous people were forcibly removed by the U.S. government ― is not lost on Haaland.

“The symbolism alone, yes, it’s profound,” she told HuffPost last month.

Related...

A Record Number Of Native Candidates Are Heading To Congress

Tribes Want Deb Haaland For Interior Secretary. Some Biden Advisers Are Trying To Thwart Her.

After A Smooth Start, Biden Faces Frustration Over Cabinet Picks

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Report: Of the hundreds of people invited to Mike Pompeo's indoor holiday party, a few dozen showed up


Catherine Garcia
Tue, December 15, 2020



Secretary of State Mike Pompeo found out what happens when you send out 900 invitations to an indoor holiday party during a pandemic that has killed at least 300,000 Americans: not that many people show up.

The Tuesday event for the families of diplomats in high-risk locations was hosted by Pompeo and his wife, Susan, in Washington, D.C. As of Monday night, only about 70 people had accepted their invitations, and even fewer showed up, two U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post. Pompeo had been scheduled to speak, but canceled his address and had someone else deliver a message in his place, the Post reports.

Government health officials have urged people not to attend indoor gatherings amid the pandemic, and several lawmakers and the American Foreign Service Association, a nonpartisan union representing diplomats, asked Pompeo to cancel the party over concerns it would be a super-spreader event. The State Department had said masks would be required and social distancing enforced; photos obtained by the Post show a masked Santa greeting children, with maskless people sitting down to eat around him.


One woman, the wife of a diplomat now overseas, told the Post she RSVPed no on her invitation over worries that if she became sick, there wouldn't be anyone to take care of her children. "It was a completely irresponsible party to throw," she

ICC prosecutor sees 'reasonable basis' for crimes against humanity in Philippine drug war


Tue, December 15, 2020, 

MANILA (Reuters) - The office of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) prosecutor said there is a "reasonable basis" to believe that crimes against humanity were committed during Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.

Since taking office in 2016, Duterte launched a bloody anti-narcotics crackdown in which thousands have been killed, sparking global outrage and criticism from rights groups.

Duterte has at times lashed out at what he said were international efforts to paint him as a "ruthless and heartless violator of human rights" and unilaterally withdrew the Philippines from the ICC's founding treaty in 2018.


The presidential office on Tuesday dismissed the report as speculative and legally erroneous.

"They can do what they want to. We do not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC," Harry Roque, Duterte's spokesman, told a news conference.

The report issued on Monday said "the office is satisfied that information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder, torture and the infliction of serious physical injury and mental harm as other inhumane acts were committed" between 2016 and 2019.

Many people targeted had been on a drug watch lists compiled by authorities or had previously surrendered to police, while a significant number of minors were victims, the report said.

Government data show that 5,942 suspected drug dealers have been killed as of the end of October, though rights groups suspect the death toll is much higher and say thousands more have died in shadowy circumstances.

Rights groups accuse police of systematically executing suspected drug dealers and users. Police deny this and say those killed violently resisted arrest during sting operations.

Philippine police spokesman Ysmael Yu declined to comment, saying his office has yet to receive a copy of the ICC report.

The Hague-based ICC started its preliminary examination of the Philippines drug campaign in 2018 and is due to reach a decision on whether to seek authorisation to open a formal investigation in the first half of next year.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Ed Davies and Jacqueline Wong)

U.S. Feds to delay seeking legal protection for monarch butterfly

FILE - In this July 29, 2019, file photo, a monarch butterfly rests on a plant at Abbott's Mill Nature Center in Milford, Del. Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

JOHN FLESHER
Tue, December 15, 2020

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Federal officials on Tuesday declared the monarch butterfly “a candidate” for threatened or endangered status, but said no action would be taken for several years because of the many other species awaiting that designation.

Environmentalists said delaying that long could spell disaster for the beloved black-and-orange butterfly, once a common sight in backyard gardens, meadows and other landscapes now seeing its population dwindling.

The monarch's status will be reviewed annually, said Charlie Wooley, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Great Lakes regional office. Emergency action could be taken earlier, but plans now call for proposing to list the monarch under the Endangered Species Act in 2024 unless its situation improves enough to make the step unnecessary.

The proposal would be followed by another year for public comment and development of a final rule. Listing would provide a number of legal protections, including a requirement that federal agencies consider effects on the butterfly or its habitat before allowing highway construction and other potentially damaging activities.

Scientists estimate the monarch population in the eastern U.S. has fallen about 80% since the mid-1990s, while the drop-off in the western U.S. has been even steeper.

“We conducted an intensive, thorough review using a rigorous, transparent science-based process and found that the monarch meets listing criteria under the Endangered Species Act," Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith said in a statement. "However, before we can propose listing, we must focus resources on our higher-priority listing actions.”

Scientists will continue monitoring the butterfly's numbers and the effectiveness of what Wooley described as perhaps the most widespread grassroots campaign ever waged to save an imperiled animal.

FILE - In this June 2, 2019, file photo, a fresh monarch butterfly rests on a Swedish Ivy plant soon after emerging in Washington. Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Since 2014, when environmental groups petitioned to list the monarch, school groups, garden clubs, government agencies and others around the nation have restored about 5.6 million acres (nearly 2.3 million hectares) of milkweed plants on which monarchs depend, Wooley said. They lay eggs on the leaves, which caterpillars eat, while adults gather nectar from the flowers.

The volunteer effort “has been phenomenal to see," he said. “It has made a difference in the long-term survival of monarchs and helped other pollinators that are potentially in trouble.”

But advocacy groups say it has compensated for only a small fraction of the estimated 165 million acres (67 million hectares) of monarch habitat — an area the size of Texas — lost in the past 20 years to development or herbicide applications in cropland.

“Monarchs are too important for us to just plant flowers on roadsides and hope for the best,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “They need the comprehensive protection that comes only from the Endangered Species Act, which would save them and so many other beleaguered pollinators that share their habitat.”

The monarch's plight is part of what the United Nations describes as a worldwide crisis threatening 1 million species — one of every eight on Earth — with extinction because of climate change, development and pollution.

Even so, the Trump administration has listed only 25 species — fewer than any since the act took effect in 1973. The Obama administration added 360.

Trump's team also has weakened protections for endangered and threatened species in its push for deregulation. Among other changes, it limited consideration of climate change's effects on animals when evaluating whether they should be listed.

Global warming is one of the biggest dangers to the monarch. It contributes to lengthening droughts and worsening storms that kill many during their annual migration.

About 90% of the world's monarchs live in North America. Scientists measure their abundance by the size of the areas they occupy in Mexico and California, where they cluster during winter after flying thousands of miles from as far away as Canada.

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates the larger eastern population declined from about 384 million in 1996 to a low of 14 million in 2013 before rebounding somewhat, reaching about 60 million last year.

But the California-based western group dropped from about 1.2 million in 1997 to fewer than 30,000 in 2019. Preliminary survey results this fall have turned up only about 2,000, said Lori Nordstrom, the Fish and Wildlife Service's assistant regional director.

While such grim prospects qualify the monarch for listing, officials said the law allows delays when the agency has limited resources and must focus on higher-priority cases under consideration.

Species ahead in line might be worse off, or courts might have set deadlines for decisions on them.

The Great Lakes office, which is handling the monarch case, is considering nine others with higher-priority status. They include the little brown bat, the plains spotted skunk, the Illinois chorus frog, the golden-winged warbler, Blanding's turtle, the Mammoth Springs crayfish, two freshwater mussels and a plant called Hall's bulrush.

Advocacy groups said 47 species have gone extinct waiting to be listed.

“Protection for monarchs is needed — and warranted — now," said George Kimbrell, legal director for the Center for Food Safety. “The Biden administration must follow the law and science and protect them.”

Also this week, the Fish and Wildlife Service said the northern spotted owl, listed as threatened in 1990, has declined enough since then to justify downgrading to “endangered” — or in peril of extinction. But it also was placed behind higher-priority cases.

Nordstrom said the timing of the announcements about the monarch and the spotted owl was coincidental and did not represent a trend toward finding species fit for listing yet putting them on a waiting list.

In this June 2, 2019, file photo, a monarch butterfly wing soon after it emerged in Washington. 

 administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, 

a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, 

should receive federal designation as a threatened species. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

___

Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this story from Oklahoma City.

 In Taiwan pig country, U.S. pork decision rankles, divides families

Staff make marks on a pig on a farm in Pingtung

Ann Wang
Tue, December 15, 2020

PINGTUNG, Taiwan (Reuters) - In southern Taiwan's pig-producing heartland, the government's contentious decision to ease restrictions on imports of U.S. pork is rankling some producers and dividing families.

President Tsai Ing-wen's decision in August to allow imports of U.S. pork containing ractopamine, an additive that enhances leanness but is banned in the European Union and China, has roiled Taiwan politics.

In Taiwan's southernmost county of Pingtung, a major pork-producing area, pig farmer Wu Jung-en, 63, said he was "furious and shocked" when he heard the news.

"I'm quite worried this will make people fear pork, so maybe they won't eat it anymore. It's a terrible thing for us," Wu, who has a heard of about 10,000 hogs, told Reuters.

His 32-year-old son Wu Hung-chi, however, doesn't see it that way.

"I've told my friends that if they're scared, then go and buy warm-body pork," said the younger Wu, referring to meat that is eaten shortly after slaughter, rather than frozen.

"It's a free market. If it's no good it will be phased out. Nobody is forcing you to eat it."

That's an argument the government makes, and says its decision brings Taiwan into line with international practice. Taipei is also hoping the move eases the way for a free trade deal with Washington.

The main opposition Kuomintang party opposes the move on safety grounds, holding noisy protests and flinging pig guts in parliament on one occasion.

Pork is Taiwan's most popular meat, with the average person consuming almost 40 kg annually.

Most pork consumed in Taiwan is domestically-reared, with only around 1% currently coming from the United States.



Teng Hung-chao, a pork farmer for more than three decades who runs an agricultural sales cooperative in Pingtung, said he too was angered by the move, fearing the impact at home.

"The United States is a major pork producer that is quite competitive, so imports will be cost effective. But it can't be forced on us, bringing chaos to our industry and taking it down."

(Reporting by Ann Wang; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

US regulators OK genetically modified pig for food, drugs

This undated photo provided by Revivicor, Inc., a unit of United Therapeutics, shows a genetically modified pig. U.S. regulators have approved a genetically modified pig for food and medical products, making it the second such animal to get the green light for human consumption -- but United Therapeutics, the company behind it says there are no imminent plans for its meat to be sold. (Revivicor, Inc. via AP)

CANDICE CHOI
Tue, December 15, 2020, 

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. regulators have approved a genetically modified pig for food and medical products, making it the second such animal to get the green light for human consumption. But the company behind it says there are no imminent plans to sell it for meat.

The pig is genetically engineered to eliminate the presence of alpha-gal, a type of sugar found in many mammals. The sugar makes its way into many products — including medications, cosmetics and food — and can cause allergic reactions in some people.

The main goal of the company behind the pig, United Therapeutics Corp., is to develop medical products, such as blood thinners, that won't set off such reactions, said its spokesman Dewey Steadman. Eventually, the Silver Spring, Maryland-based firm hopes to develop a way for the pig's organs to be transplanted into people.

The pig, called GalSafe, also has commercial potential as food, but Steadman said the company doesn’t know when it might be able to secure an agreement with a meat producer to process and sell it. He noted the meat allergy the pig addresses, called alpha-gal syndrome, isn't yet considered a major issue.

“It's known, but it's not well known," Steadman said.

Health researchers don't fully understand how the allergy develops, but it has been tied to bites from certain ticks. In 2009, there were 24 reported cases, but more recent estimates exceed 5,000 cases, according to a report by a working group for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Symptoms can include hives, itching, cramping and vomiting. Unlike other food allergies, alpha-gal reactions typically happen several hours after eating beef, pork or lamb, making it difficult to diagnose.

Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the Center for Food Safety, noted that meat from the genetically modified pigs wasn’t tested in people with the allergies.

“You’re offering it up as something they can eat, without knowing whether it addresses their allergy,” Hanson said.

The FDA said it didn’t evaluate allergy-specific food safety, since the company’s application didn’t include data on the preventing such reactions.

The Center for Food Safety has sued the FDA over the first genetically modified animal the agency approved for human food — salmon engineered to grow faster. The group said it's reviewing the agency's decision on the GalSafe pig posted Monday.

Greg Jaffe of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said the FDA's approval of the GalSafe pig announced Monday is also concerning because it came without a chance for public comment.

“Nobody was given notice, and all of a sudden there’s an approved animal," he said.

The company didn't disclose exactly how it altered the animal's DNA. Jaffe said the pig was produced by knocking out a gene responsible for producing the sugar and adding another that serves as a marker for the silenced gene.

Jaffe said he's not aware of any rules on how pork from genetically modified pigs would need to be labeled to be sold in supermarkets. A representative for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees meat labeling, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Steadman said the United Therapeutics pigs would be more difficult to produce than conventional pigs for meat because of requirements governing how they must be kept and slaughtered. He said there are about 25 GalSafe pigs at an Iowa farm.

Long term, he said the goal is to combine the genetic modification with multiple other changes to make their organs acceptable for transplants in people. For years, researchers have been looking into the idea of transplanting pig organs as a way of eliminating shortages of donated organs.

Though there aren't any plans yet to sell meat from GalSafe pigs, the genetically modified salmon could become available in the U.S. soon. AquaBounty, the company that produces the fish, says it is determining the best time to harvest the salmon, which have been growing in indoor tanks at a plant in Indiana.

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