Why the Texas grid causes the High Plains to turn off its wind turbines


Jayme Lozano
Wed, August 3, 2022 

The Abilene Reporter-News

LUBBOCK — The state’s High Plains region, which covers 41 counties in the Texas Panhandle and West Texas, is home to more than 11,000 wind turbines — the most in any area of the state.

The region could generate enough wind energy to power at least 9 million homes. Experts say the additional energy could help provide much-needed stability to the electric grid during high energy-demand summers like this one, and even lower the power bills of Texans in other parts of the state.

But a significant portion of the electricity produced in the High Plains stays there for a simple reason: It can’t be moved elsewhere. Despite the growing development of wind energy production in Texas, the state’s transmission network would need significant infrastructure upgrades to ship out the energy produced in the region.

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“We’re at a moment when wind is at its peak production profile, but we see a lot of wind energy being curtailed or congested and not able to flow through to some of the higher-population areas,” said John Hensley, vice president for research and analytics at the American Clean Power Association. “Which is a loss for ratepayers and a loss for those energy consumers that now have to either face conserving energy or paying more for the energy they do use because they don’t have access to that lower-cost wind resource.”

And when the rest of the state is asked to conserve energy to help stabilize the grid, the High Plains has to turn off turbines to limit wind production it doesn’t need.

“Because there’s not enough transmission to move it where it’s needed, ERCOT has to throttle back the [wind] generators,” energy lawyer Michael Jewell said. “They actually tell the wind generators to stop generating electricity. It gets to the point where [wind farm operators] literally have to disengage the generators entirely and stop them from doing anything.”

Texans have already had a few energy scares this year amid scorching temperatures and high energy demand to keep homes cool. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s electrical grid, warned about drops in energy production twice last month and asked people across the state to lower their consumption to avoid an electricity emergency.

The energy supply issues have hit Texans’ wallets as well. Nearly half of Texas’ electricity is generated at power plants that run on the state’s most dominant energy source, natural gas, and its price has increased more than 200% since late February, causing elevated home utility bills.

Meanwhile, wind farms across the state account for nearly 21% of the state’s power generation. Combined with wind production near the Gulf of Mexico, Texas produced more than one-fourth of the nation’s wind-powered electric generation last year.

Wind energy is one of the lowest-priced energy sources because it is sold at fixed prices, turbines do not need fuel to run and the federal government provides subsidies. Texans who get their energy from wind farms in the High Plains region usually pay less for electricity than people in other areas of the state. But with the price of natural gas increasing from inflation, Jewell said areas where wind energy is not accessible have to depend on electricity that costs more.

“Other generation resources are more expensive than what [customers] would have gotten from the wind generators if they could move it,” Jewell said. “That is the definition of transmission congestion. Because you can’t move the cheaper electricity through the grid.”

A 2021 ERCOT report shows there have been increases in stability constraints for wind energy in recent years in both West and South Texas that have limited the long-distance transfer of power.

“The transmission constraints are such that energy can’t make it to the load centers. [High Plains wind power] might be able to make it to Lubbock, but it may not be able to make it to Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston or Austin,” Jewell said. “This is not an insignificant problem — it is costing Texans a lot of money.”

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Some wind farms in the High Plains foresaw there would be a need for transmission. The Trent Wind Farm was one of the first in the region. Beginning operations in 2001, the wind farm is between Abilene and Sweetwater in West Texas and has about 100 wind turbines, which can supply power to 35,000 homes. Energy company American Electric Power built the site near a power transmission network and built a short transmission line, so the power generated there does go into the ERCOT system.

But Jewell said high energy demand and costs this summer show there’s a need to build additional transmission lines to move more wind energy produced in the High Plains to other areas of the state.

Jewell said the Public Utility Commission, which oversees the grid, is conducting tests to determine the economic benefits of adding transmission lines from the High Plains to the more than 52,000 miles of lines that already connect to the grid across the state. As of now, however, there is no official proposal to build new lines.

“It does take a lot of time to figure it out — you’re talking about a transmission line that’s going to be in service for 40 or 50 years, and it’s going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars,” Jewell said. “You want to be sure that the savings outweigh the costs, so it is a longer process. But we need more transmission in order to be able to move more energy. This state is growing by leaps and bounds.”

A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released after the February 2021 winter storm stated that Texas has substantial and growing reliability and resilience problems with its electric system.

The report concluded that “the failures that caused overwhelming human and economic suffering during February will increase in frequency and duration due to legacy market design shortcomings, growing infrastructure interdependence, economic and population growth drivers, and aging equipment even if the frequency and severity of weather events remains unchanged.”

The report also stated that while transmission upgrades across the state have generally been made in a timely manner, it’s been challenging to add infrastructure where there has been rapid growth, like in the High Plains.

Despite some Texas lawmakers’ vocal opposition against wind and other forms of renewable energy, the state has prime real estate for harnessing wind power because of its open plains, and farmers can put turbines on their land for financial relief.

This has led to a boom in wind farms, even with transmission issues. Since 2010, wind energy generation in Texas has increased by 15%. This month, the Biden administration announced the Gulf of Mexico’s first offshore wind farms will be developed off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana and will produce enough energy to power around 3 million homes.

“Texas really does sort of stand head and shoulders above all other states when it comes to the actual amount of wind, solar and battery storage projects that are on the system,” Hensley said.

One of the issues often brought up with wind and solar farms is that they may not be able to produce as much energy as the state needs all of the time. Earlier this month, when ERCOT asked consumers to conserve electricity, the agency listed low wind generation and cloud coverage in West Texas as factors contributing to a tight energy supply.

Hensley said this is where battery storage stations can help. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, utility-scale batteries tripled in capacity in 2021 and can now store up to 4.6 gigawatts of energy. Texas has been quickly developing storage projects. In 2011, Texas had only 5 megawatts of battery storage capacity; by 2020, that had ballooned to 323.1 megawatts.

“Storage is the real game-changer because it can really help to mediate and control a lot of the intermittency issues that a lot of folks worry about when they think about wind and solar technology,” Hensley said. “So being able to capture a lot of that solar that comes right around noon to [1 p.m.] and move it to those evening periods when demand is at its highest, or even move strong wind resources from overnight to the early morning or afternoon hours.”

Storage technology can help, but Hensley said transmission is still the big factor to consider.

Solar is another resource that could help stabilize the grid. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Texas has about 13,947 megawatts of solar installed and more than 161,000 installations. That’s enough to power more than 1.6 million homes.

This month, the PUC formed a task force to develop a pilot program next year that would create a pathway for solar panels and batteries on small-scale systems, like homes and businesses, to add that energy to the grid. The program would make solar and batteries more accessible and affordable for customers, and it would pay customers to share their stored energy to the grid as well.

Hensley said Texas has the most clean-energy projects in the works that will likely continue to put the region above the rest when it comes to wind generation.

“So they’re already ahead, and it looks like they’re going to be even farther ahead six months or a year down the road,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Why the Texas grid causes the High Plains to turn off its wind turbines

Palestinians left in tense limbo by Israeli expulsion order

ZIONIST APARTHEID IS ETHNIC CLEANSING






nA boy plays by the family house, at the Palestinian hamlet of Khallat al-Dhaba, in the cluster of Bedouin communities in Masafer Yatta, West Bank, Monday, Aug. 1, 2022. Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta, in the occupied West Bank, fear they could be expelled at any time after Israel's Supreme Court ruled in favor of the military earlier this year in a two-decade legal battle.

 (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)More

SAM McNEIL
Thu, August 4, 2022 

AL-FAKHEET, West Bank (AP) — After repeatedly rebuilding his home only to have it demolished by Israeli soldiers, Mohammed Abu Sabaha has a new plan to remain on the land — he is moving into a cave.

Abu Sabaha is among some 1,000 Palestinians at risk of expulsion from an arid region of the occupied West Bank that the Israeli military has designated as a live-fire training zone. Israel's Supreme Court upheld their expulsion in May after a two-decade legal battle.

Most residents of the area, known as Masafer Yatta, have remained in place since the ruling, even as Israeli security forces periodically roll in to demolish structures. But they could be forced out at any time, and rights groups fear Israel will do it gradually to evade international scrutiny.

The entrance to Abu Sabaha's cave is surrounded by the ruins of homes and animal pens that the soldiers demolished in earlier raids. The coo and cackle of chickens can be heard from inside a wrecked coop. A set of stone steps leads down into the cave, where he has strung up electrical lights, but it will take time to turn it into a home for his wife, parents and six children.


“We have suffered a lot because of this ruling. Especially the kids, who were born here,” he said, standing in the dimly lit cave. “They fled demolitions, then went back when we rebuilt, so many times.”

When the army isn't demolishing homes it is staging training exercises nearby. Tanks throw up dust clouds and heavy machine-gun fire and explosions echo across the desert hills. Abu Sabaha says his 3-year-old daughter Zeynab tenses up every time she sees them.

“She's always afraid they will come to destroy once again," he said.

The military declared this part of Masafer Yatta a firing and training zone in the early 1980s. Israeli authorities said the residents — Arab Bedouin who practice a traditional form of agriculture and animal herding — only used the area part of the year and had no permanent structures there at the time. In November 1999, security forces expelled some 700 villagers and destroyed homes and cisterns. The legal battle began the following year.

The families say they have been there for decades — from long before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war — and have nowhere else to live. Some residents have traditionally resided in caves part of the year, as they graze sheep and goats in different areas.

Israel’s Supreme Court sided with the state in May, after the villagers rejected a compromise that would have allowed them to enter at certain times and practice agriculture for part of the year.

Since then, the army has demolished several structures and seized vehicles, setting up roadblocks and checkpoints to limit movement, according to Nidal Younes, head of the local council.

“All of this is within the framework of occupation, to frighten, to scare, to make people’s lives extremely difficult to force them to leave,” he said.

Masafer Yatta is in the 60% of the occupied West Bank known as Area C, where the Israeli military exercises full control under interim peace agreements reached with the Palestinians in the 1990s. Palestinian structures built without military permits — which residents say are nearly impossible to obtain — are at risk of demolition.

Area C is also home to several Jewish settlement outposts that are protected by the army despite being built without Israeli authorization. Nearly 500,000 settlers live in communities across the West Bank, most of which were planned and approved by the government. Many resemble small towns or suburbs, with apartment blocks, shopping malls and factories.

The Palestinians and the international community view the settlements as a major obstacle to resolving the century-old conflict because they absorb and divide up the land on which a future Palestinian state would be established alongside Israel.

Israel officially considers the West Bank disputed territory subject to negotiations, but every government since 1967 has expanded settlements, and the country's dominant right-wing parties are opposed to Palestinian statehood. One of the Supreme Court justices who issued the ruling on Masafer Yatta is a settler.

Eugene Kontorovich, a legal scholar at Israel's Kohelet Policy Forum, a right-wing think tank, said Israel could not allow “private squatters to determine the uses of state land" and was justified in barring people from entering a military firing range.

“The technical, legal justification is that it’s not their land," he added.

Rights groups say several other Palestinian communities across the West Bank could face similar threats of expulsion if the international community does not pressure Israel over Masafer Yatta. Israel has declared firing zones in 20% of the West Bank, affecting some 5,000 Palestinians from 38 communities, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for the Israeli rights group B'Tselem, said Israel would likely implement a “quiet transfer” in which it gradually makes life so difficult that families trickle out on their own.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which has been waging a legal battle on behalf of the residents of Masafer Yatta for more than two decades, has filed another petition against the Supreme Court ruling.

Roni Pelli, an attorney with the group, said the “terrible ruling” goes against international law, which prohibits the transfer of civilians out of occupied territory.

“The legal consequence is that international humanitarian law is no longer relevant in the West Bank because the military commander can issue any order he wants,” she said.

“You don’t have to put people on trucks to force them from the land," she added. "I am really, really worried that it might become a humanitarian disaster.”

___

Associated Press reporters Emily Rose in Jerusalem and Nasser Nasser in al-Fakheet, West Bank contributed to this report.

Kyrsten Sinema Is Demanding Democrats Keep A Tax Break For The Super-Wealthy

Kevin Robillard
Wed, August 3, 2022 

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) wants Democrats to drop a provision tightening a tax loophole associated with hedge fund managers and private equity executives from their $740 billion package enacting President Joe Biden’s climate, health care and tax plans, according to reports from Politico and Axios.

Sinema’s apparent desire to nix the provision — which raises just 2% of the proposal’s total revenue and does not even fully close the loophole — does not immediately endanger Democrats’ hope of passing the legislation out of the Senate in the coming days. But it shows how the moderate first-term senator is willing to protect some of the country’s wealthiest Americans from even small tax hikes.

Sinema’s office would not directly confirm nor deny the reports, and said the senator is still reviewing the legislation and awaiting rulings from the Senate parliamentarian on its contents. Politico and Axios also reported Sinema wants additional funding for drought resiliency — a key priority for Arizona, where water supply remains a top issue.

The carried interest loophole is infamous. It allows hedge fund managers and venture capitalists to have their income taxed at the 15% capital gains rate instead of at much higher income tax rates, often saving them millions of dollars a year. Wall Street has worked ferociously to defend the loophole over the course of the past decade, ensuring its survival despite pledges from Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to eliminate it.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) leaves her office to walk to the Senate Chambers in the U.S. Capitol Building on Aug. 2 in Washington, D.C. 

(Photo: Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images)

The loophole is now most closely associated with the private equity industry, where it applies to the 20% of a fund’s investment profits that its managers take in on top of a fixed fee. If Democrats close the loophole, managers will instead pay the top marginal income tax rate of 37%.

Democrats’ existing proposal, agreed to by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), would not eliminate the loophole. It would instead require managers to hold investments for five years instead of three years to get the more favorable rate, and create stricter requirements for those investments.

Manchin and Schumer’s proposal would raise just $14 billion over the next decade, while a plan from Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to completely close it would’ve raised $70 billion.

Still, even the modest proposal appears important to Manchin.

“On the carried interest — for the wealthiest one-tenth of 1% of Americans to take advantage of a tax break for them, that they have no risk at all and they get to take the lowest tax rate?” Manchin told a local West Virginia radio host last week. “So we got rid of that.”

On Wednesday, Manchin said he wanted an explanation from Sinema.

“I just want someone to explain. I can’t understand it,” he told Fox News of her reported opposition. He did not suggest tightening the loophole was make-or-break: “I’m sure [Sinema] has a reason, and I want to hear more about it.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), perhaps the Senate’s leading proponent of taxing the wealthy, has worked with Sinema to craft compromise proposals in the past.

“Americans understand that the tax code has been twisted and manipulated to protect the richest among us, and they’re sick of it,” she told HuffPost. “Narrowing the carried interest provision is something that makes the code just a little fairer. And we should hang on to it.”

The overall package gets most of its cash from stricter IRS enforcement, and from instituting a 15% corporate minimum tax, which aims to block large companies from zeroing out their tax bills with credits and deductions. It spends about $300 billion reducing the deficit, and $370 billion on clean energy and climate change projects. It also gives Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs and funds subsidies for Obamacare.

On Tuesday, Sinema discussed the legislation with the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, two groups who oppose all of the tax hikes in the legislation.

Her business-friendly positioning has paid dividends for her campaign account: In 2021 alone, she received more than $144,000 in donations from industry groups that lobbied against closing the carried interest loophole. More recently, she took in $100,000 from Wall Street and $50,000 from pharmaceutical companies in the second quarter of 2022 alone.

“We can only assume that she’s been motivated by the money they’re donating to her campaigns,” one former Sinema staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity because they still work in Democratic politics, told HuffPost. “I knew she was always trying to be an atypical Democrat. She wants to be Arizona’s new maverick. I never thought she would just toe the party line. But throwing away campaign promises you made and snubbing your nose at the people who got you elected, that makes you the opposite of a maverick. It makes you a corporate shill.”

Igor Bobic contributed reporting.

MSNBC Host Succinctly Nails Problem With America's Most Outrageous Tax Loophole

Ed Mazza

Tue, August 2, 2022 

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle said there’s one tax loophole that nearly everyone on both sides of the aisle says should be closed. Yet, they’ve done nothing about it for years.

That may soon change as the deal struck last week between Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) could finally close what’s known as the carried interest loophole.

“Carried interest is a share of the profits that private equity or hedge fund managers take as compensation. It’s a performance fee,” Ruhle explained on MSNBC on Monday night. “And under existing law, this money earned by these executives ― a tiny group of the most highly compensated businesspeople on Earth ― they get taxed at a capital gains rate of just 20 percent.”

That is half the typical tax rate for other high-income earners.

“SO WHY DOES IT STILL EXIST?” she tweeted:

Watch her fuller explanation of the loophole ― and the one Democratic senator who might block closing it ― below. The clip also includes a conversation with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

A race to save fish as Rio Grande dries, even in Albuquerque

Wed, August 3, 2022 


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — On a recent, scorching afternoon in Albuquerque, off-road vehicles cruised up and down a stretch of dry riverbed where normally the Rio Grande River flows. The drivers weren't thrill-seekers, but biologists hoping to save as many endangered fish as they could before the sun turned shrinking pools of water into dust.

For the first time in four decades, America's fifth-longest river went dry in Albuquerque last week. Habitat for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow — a shimmery, pinky-sized native fish — went with it. Although summer storms have made the river wet again, experts warn the drying this far north is a sign of an increasingly fragile water supply, and that current conservation measures may not be enough to save the minnow and still provide water to nearby farms, backyards and parks.

The minnow inhabits only about 7% of its historic range and has withstood a century of habitat loss as the nearly 1,900 mile-long (3,058-kilometer) river was dammed, diverted and channeled from Colorado to New Mexico, Texas and northern Mexico. In 1994, the U.S. government listed it as endangered. Scientists, water managers and environmental groups have worked to keep the fish alive for three decades — as required by the Endangered Species Act — but the efforts haven't kept pace with demand for water and climate change.

Years of drought, scorching temperatures and an unpredictable monsoon season are zapping what's left of its habitat, leaving officials with little recourse but to hope for rain.

“They're adapted for a lot of conditions but not to figure this out,” said Thomas Archdeacon, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in charge of a program to rescue the fish. “When you have flow one day and no flow the next for miles, they don’t know how to get out of that.”

When parts of the river dry out, officials use hand nets and seines to pull fish from warm puddles and relocate them to still-flowing sections of the river. The minnow's survival rate after being rescued is slim — just over 5% — due to the stress of warm, stagnant water and being forcibly relocated.

Still, leaving the fish in the pools is a certain death sentence, said Archdeacon. He and the other biologists drove over miles of dried riverbed to where the water picked up again — at the outflow of a sewage treatment plant. Only a handful of the 400 rescued fish would survive, with their best chance swimming through treated sewage.

Over the years, the government has bred and released large numbers of silvery minnows, but for the species to recover, it always comes down to habitat, officials say.

And few options remain to get significantly more water into the river.

“Climate change is coming at us so fast right now that it’s outstripping those tools that we developed over the last few decades,” said John Fleck, a water policy researcher at the University of New Mexico.

Historically, one way to send more water into the river has been to release it from upstream reservoirs. But this year, New Mexico has been unable to store extra water because of a downstream debt it owes Texas as part of a compact. Deep into the driest period the West has seen in 1,200 years, the river wasn't replenished by rainstorms that came in June.

“The timing and the placement of the storms weren't in the right place to keep the river flowing,” said Dave Dubois, New Mexico's state climatologist.

To keep more water in the Rio Grande, the state and irrigation districts are offering to pay farmers to leave fields unplanted, but so far, few have opted in. In New Mexico, small-scale farming is the norm and many farmers water their fields with centuries-old earthen canals that run through their backyards, maintaining the land for cultural reasons, too.

By fallowing their fields, farmers would help save water for the minnow and alleviate the debt to Texas. But officials say that in one key district on the river, only 5% of land was left fallow this year.

“We need more people to do it,” said Jason Casuga, chief engineer for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. But the program is just in its second year, and farmers want to grow crops, Casuga said.

For the past four years, Ron Moya has farmed about 50 acres (20 hectares) of hay and produce near Albuquerque. A retired engineer, Moya said he answered a calling to work the same land that generations of his family had cultivated before him. Last year, Moya left 10 acres (4 hectares) of his plot unplanted in exchange for several thousand dollars, but said he wouldn’t do it this year — even though he was offered more money — because he wanted the moisture to keep the soil on his farm alive. Moya is skeptical that fallowing alone will achieve much.

“There’s people whose livelihood depends on growing their hay. That’s what they know. Can you imagine the whole valley being fallowed? That just seems silly,” he said.

Nor is there much water to squeeze out of New Mexico's biggest city, Albuquerque. Like other Western metropoles, the city of roughly 563,000 has dramatically cut its per-capita water use, from about 250 gallons (946 liters) per day in 1994 to to 119 gallons (450 liters) in 2019, according to data provided by the city's water utility. Albuquerque also uses groundwater and water from the Colorado River.

According to Mike Hamman, New Mexico's state water engineer, “the low hanging fruit has already been picked in Albuquerque, so now it gets a little harder."

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Brittany Peterson And Suman Naishadham, The Associated Press

Illinois gets a foot of rain, the U.S.'s 3rd 1,000-year rain in 1 week

Ben Adler

·Senior Editor

Wed, August 3, 2022 

The United States saw its third 1-in-1,000-year rain in a week on Monday night and Tuesday morning, as southern Illinois was drenched by 8 to 12 inches of rain in 12 hours. An area just south of Newton, Ill., recorded 14 inches of rainfall in just 12 hours, according to the National Weather Service. Thunderstorms brought damaging winds and heavy rainfall through midafternoon on Tuesday.

Heavy rain events such as this are becoming more common due to climate change.

The NWS office in Lincoln, Ill., received about 20 reports of flooding on Tuesday as roads turned into rivers. Several flash flood warnings were issued in the region.

Roughly 30,000 customers of CenterPoint Energy in the Evansville, Ill., area lost power on Tuesday, and more than 2,000 were still without power as of noon Central time on Wednesday.

The extraordinarily heavy rain in Illinois comes on the heels of similar events in Kentucky and Missouri. Record-breaking rainfall caused flash flooding in the St. Louis area last Tuesday, trapping cars, closing roads and causing at least one death. Last Thursday, rural areas of eastern Kentucky were flooded after receiving up to 14 inches of rainfall. The death toll, at the most recent count, stood at 37.

Although more rain actually fell in Illinois on Tuesday morning — a foot in the area southeast of Springfield, Ill., for example — the flooding was worse in St. Louis because urbanized areas are more heavily paved and less able to absorb water.

One-day observed precipitation on Tuesday. (National Weather Service)

All three inundations are considered 1,000-year rain events because the amount of rain that fell during such a short window has only a 0.1% chance of happening in any given year.

But that was before climate change. Due to rising concentrations of heat-trapping gases, mainly from the combustion of fossil fuels, the global average temperature has increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. With each degree Celsius of increased temperature, the air can hold 7% more moisture. Therefore, unusually heavy rains are becoming more frequent and severe.

This is especially true in the already-wet Northeast and Midwest. Last year, the Detroit area got 6 inches of rain in June and 8 inches in August, flooding basements and cars, and Hurricane Ida dumped more than 3 inches of rain on New York City in just one hour, resulting in flooding that killed 11 people and shut down the subway system.

Academic studies have shown that extreme rainfall and flooding will get worse in the future, especially if climate change continues unabated.

Wet'suwet'en chiefs arrive in Six Nations for 'landmark discussions,' starting 18-day tour

Wed, August 3, 2022 

Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council secretary Hohahes Leroy Hill speaks to reporters, standing in front of the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs who were visiting Tuesday. (Bobby Hristova/CBC - image credit)

Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs weren't surrounded by the towering pine trees and snow-capped mountains found in northern B.C., but they still found a feeling of familiarity while standing outside a traditional longhouse on Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario on Tuesday.

The traditional chiefs met with Haudenosaunee Hereditary Chiefs to discuss common ground and spread awareness about their battle for land sovereignty back in B.C.

"We view these landmark discussions as not just discussions but real action-oriented, real logical starting points … toward something that's going to be working for all of us," said Hereditary Chief Woos of the Grizzly House with the Gidimt'en Clan in B.C. (who is also known as Frank Alec).

"We need to spread a message of peace and unity."

The visit to Six Nations of the Grand River is Day One of an 18-day trip that will stop in Indigenous communities near Sarnia (Aamjiwnaang First Nation), Montreal (Kahnawà:ke and Kanehsatà:ke) and Winnipeg, among others.

It was the first time in an estimated 35 years or so the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs have come to Six Nations.

The trip's purpose is to build solidarity between Indigenous communities and raise awareness about shared concerns over land and the consent process.

The pipeline conflict

In northern B.C., some members of Wet'suwet'en Nation are occupying a Coastal GasLink construction site.

The proposed $6.6-billion, 670-kilometre pipeline will deliver natural gas from the Dawson Creek area in northern B.C., heading west near Vanderhoof to a liquefaction facility in Kitimat. It's part of a $40-billion LNG Canada project.

The province and all 20 elected First Nations councils along the route, including Wet'suwet'en elected council, approved the construction — but Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs said the project needed their consent too.

They said elected councils are responsible for only the territory within their individual reserves, which were created through the Indian Act.

But the hereditary chiefs say they are following Wet'suwet'en law that predates colonization and the Indian Act, meaning they assert authority over the broader 22,000 square kilometres of traditional territory that the pipeline would cross.

Protests and rail blockades across Canada, including one in Hamilton, took place in early 2020 in support of the hereditary chiefs.

In late June of this year, members of the Wet'suwet'en Nation sued the RCMP and Coastal GasLink for alleged harassment by police and private security.

In July, the Crown announced criminal contempt charges against 19 people including prominent Haudenosaunee activist Skyler Williams, who has made several trips from Six Nations to the western territory as an allied land defender.

'We're reconnecting' say Indigenous groups

Cayuga Snipe Chief Deyohowe:to (also known as Roger Silversmith) with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council said despite Chief Woos and others being half a country away, both nations are fighting different kinds of development that affect land sovereignty.

Six Nations saw 1492 Land Back Lane — the occupation of a housing development in nearby Caledonia, Ont., that resulted in the cancellation of the project in July.

"When the chiefs told me here back in their own territory they can still drink the water out of their streams...here we can't do that," Chief Deyohowe:to said.

"The people who can make this change, they're not doing it."

They all called on the federal government to listen to their concerns and act accordingly.

Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council secretary Hohahes Leroy Hill said he hopes the tour will lead to change.

"We're reconnecting and we're trying to find ways to support one another and speak with a united voice," he said.

The next stop on the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs's tour is Aamjiwnaang First Nation, near Sarnia, Ont.

Alberta NDP to march in this year's Calgary Pride parade, UCP 'excluded,' caucus says

Wed, August 3, 2022 

The Alberta NDP in the 2015 Calgary Pride parade. (Rachel Maclean/CBC - image credit)

The Alberta NDP will be marching in this year's Calgary Pride parade on Sept. 4 — the first to be held since 2019 — but the caucus of the governing UCP say they've been excluded from this year's event.

Political parties were banned from participating in the parade in 2019 after a blind jury found only the Alberta NDP would pass their requirements to take part.

Rather than just allow the one party to join, the organization issued a blanket ban.

"The organization underwent some pretty extensive community engagement both with community stakeholders and with representatives of political parties," said Calgary Pride manager of communications Brit Nickerson in an interview on the Calgary Eyeopener.

"Their recommendations were that political parties should be allowed to participate but go through a slightly more rigorous process."

This year, the organization is requiring anyone who wishes to participate in the parade to submit an application, Nickerson said, as they don't have enough room to allow everyone to take part.

"They're asked … to state their party's formal and public position on the 2SLGBTQ community, to describe any initiatives for the gender and sexually diverse community, any initiatives for other marginalized folks," Nickerson said.

"And we've asked them to outline any actionable steps towards reconciliation with Indigenous communities."

The identity of the each respondent was redacted before their answers were handed to an 11 member jury, representing different intersections of the community, for approval.

Kate Adach/CBC

In a statement, Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said their application was approved, adding the party is proud to be considered an ally.

"The fight for human rights is never truly over and with new threats emerging south of the border it is even more important that we take a stand and show our pride," she said.

"At the end of the day, love wins."

UCP caucus 'excluded'

In the case of the UCP caucus, the application did not get approved, according to director of communications for the United Conservative Caucus of Alberta, Tim Gerwing.

"We're disappointed that Calgary Pride organizers have chosen to exclude Alberta's largest political party, and the countless Albertans who identify as members and supporters of it, from an event that highlights representation, inclusion and diversity," he said.

"As disappointing as it is to see so many Albertans excluded from this event for political reasons, Alberta's United Conservative Caucus will continue to ensure that Alberta is the best place in the world to live, work and start a family, regardless of who a person loves or how they express their gender identity."

This isn't the first time the UCP's application has been rejected. In 2017, Calgary Pride asked the organization to take a workshop before being allowed to participate.

Nickerson emphasized the organization's jury is blind and members did not know which party's application they were assessing. Each submission requires a 50 per cent vote to move forward — the UCP application did not meet that criteria.

Rachel Maclean/CBC

Each applicant has 48 hours to appeal the decision, but Nickerson said the UCP caucus did not contest it. The organization has also tried to reach out to the party to provide feedback on their submission, which Nickerson said they won't discuss publicly at this time.

When asked whether the organization's application process might be exclusionary, Nickerson said they don't want anyone to feel left out.

"This process was put together after a lot of public stakeholder and community engagement, and the roundtable actually included quite a few active politicians," Nickerson said.

"We do have limited space … folks who are maybe not permitted to march in the parade are absolutely welcome in Pride in other ways. They're welcome to attend the parade and the festival. They're more than welcome to volunteer."

Calgary Pride received four applications from political parties but would not say more on which ones applied or received approval.

Alberta NDP slams UCP, ex-finance minister for big COVID-19 bonus to health chief


Wed, August 3, 2022 



EDMONTON — Alberta Opposition Leader Rachel Notley says the United Conservative Party government, particularly former finance minister Travis Toews, must bear the responsibility and fallout for the record-setting six-figure bonus payment to the chief medical officer of health.

Notley said Wednesday she isn’t passing judgment on whether the payout to Dr. Deena Hinshaw is merited.

But she said the payout has to be set against a government that, at the same time, was trying to cut the pay of front-line health workers in collective bargaining during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is jaw dropping to me that they would then turn around and offer up a 60 per cent bonus to someone who had — by her own admission — chosen not to completely exercise her authority and (instead) hand over decision-making power to an incredibly ill-informed cabinet,” Notley told reporters in Calgary.

The CBC, gleaning information from the government’s sunshine salary list, reported Monday that Hinshaw received a bonus of almost $228,000 for COVID-19 work in 2021 — the highest such cash benefit payout to any provincial civil servant since the list went public six years ago.

That figure, on top of her regular salary, put Hinshaw’s pay at more than $591,000.

Unions, including the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees have, like Notley, lambasted the payout as a travesty given the concurrent government steps to reduce pay and jobs in front-line health care.

Notley also said Toews’ claim he didn’t know about the payment cannot be believed.

“If it is true, then it is demonstrative of someone who has no business being finance minister in any government, and certainly not leading in government,” she said.

“There’s just no way that this should have happened under his watch.”

Toews is one of seven contenders seeking to replace Premier Jason Kenney, who announced he will soon be resigning the leadership after gaining a lacklustre 51 per cent support in a party leadership vote.

He and two other candidates left cabinet to avoid a conflict of interest during the race.

Christine Myatt, Toews’ spokesperson, responded to Notley in a statement.

"Mr. Toews did not authorize or approve this payment. In fact, he was not aware it was made. It appears this bonus was paid out by the public service without ministerial sign off,” said Myatt.

“Mr. Toews believes that Albertans expect their tax dollars to be spent wisely and with the greatest oversight.

“That is why he has promised to change the rules to ensure this does not happen again."

Toews’ campaign team tweeted out Wednesday a graphic stating that no new bonuses would be authorized without a cabinet minister’s explicit authorization.

The payout has reopened public divisions and debate over Hinshaw and the government’s handling of the pandemic and the health restrictions it imposed to combat the spread of the illness.

Kenney and Hinshaw have been criticized for acting too late in multiple waves of the pandemic. Hinshaw has also been criticized for not exercising more authority under emergency legislation, but instead subordinating her role to one of cabinet adviser rather than independent decision maker.

The issue threatens to become a wedge topic in the leadership race, with candidates such as former Wildrose party leaders Danielle Smith and Brian Jean wooing the section of the party base that bitterly resented vaccine mandates and other government-mandated restrictions.

“(The slogan) ‘we’re all in this together’ didn’t mean what we thought it did," Smith wrote on Twitter Monday. "Albertans are rightly stunned and outraged they gave Dr. Hinshaw a $228K COVID bonus."

Smith has promised that if she wins the Oct. 6 vote to replace Kenney, she will not impose any such restrictions again.

Jean wrote on Twitter on Monday: “While Albertans were losing businesses, while our health system was collapsing under mismanagement, the people on the Sky Palace balcony signed off on an all-time record bonus.”

Sky Palace referred to Kenney, Toews and others, being caught on camera having drinks and ignoring gathering rules while on the balcony of the Federal Building, near the legislature, during COVID-19.

It has come to symbolize the one-rule-for-us, another-for-them criticism of Kenney’s administration during COVID-19.

Alberta Health has said Hinshaw was paid as per a long-standing policy and financial calculation tied to emergencies.

The payout was one of the COVID-19 bonuses paid to 107 employees in management totalling $2.4 million.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 3, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

UCP leadership candidates at odds over Alberta public health official pay bonuses

Tue, August 2, 2022 

Some UCP leadership candidates who served in cabinet said they had no knowledge of cash bonuses awarded to Alberta's chief medical officer of health and other managers for their work during the pandemic. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press - image credit)

Several UCP leadership candidates who served in cabinet posts say they didn't know about the pandemic cash bonuses awarded to Alberta's chief medical officer of health and 106 other managers.

Leadership hopeful Travis Toews' spokesperson, Christine Myatt, said the former finance minister didn't authorize or have knowledge of a nearly $228,000 cash bonus paid to Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw in 2021.

Myatt referred further questions to the government.

Fellow leadership contender and former Community and Social Services Minister Rajan Sawhney also said via email she was not part of the decision and is "unfamiliar with the specific circumstances involved."

She, like many candidates, has pledged to hold a public inquiry into the Alberta government's response to COVID-19. Sawhney said this would include the roles played by health officials.

Leadership hopeful Leela Aheer, who was shuffled out of cabinet in July 2021, said the Alberta government owes the public an explanation of how the additional $2.4 million in pandemic pay given to 107 managers was calculated.

She worries those civil servants are being unfairly targeted for a decision beyond their control.

"We need to make sure that people understand what we're doing and why," Aheer said. "The reason the public is outraged right now is they don't understand."

Government spokespeople have not answered questions about who approved the additional pay.

The government has said the bonus pay was determined using a formula the public service commission uses to compensate managers for excessive overtime during public emergencies.

CBC News reached out to Rebecca Schulz for a response but, at the time of publishing, hadn't received a response.

Leadership hopefuls who weren't in cabinet scoffed at the idea the former ministers were unaware of the expense.

"Cabinet has made two years of bad decisions," MLA and leadership candidate Brian Jean said. "And this is one more of the latest insults. Cabinet needs to explain how this happened. All the money comes from the same place."

Independent MLA Todd Loewen, who is also seeking party leadership, is also pledging to hold an investigation into pandemic management if party members chose him as leader. He said in a video posted on Facebook on Tuesday that managers receiving bonus pay doesn't make him feel any better about the government's choices.

Danielle Smith called the bonuses "tone deaf."

"It is now clear we weren't all in this together, as many were making big bucks off the crisis. Our frontline health-care workers, including our doctors and nurses, pushed themselves to the brink. It's a slap in the face to each of them," she told CBC News via text.

Party members are slated to choose a new leader Oct. 6.

Unions say bonuses insulting to front-line workers

Meanwhile, the leaders of unions representing Alberta healthcare workers reacted with frustration and anger to news of the manager bonus pay.

The Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA), which represents nearly 30,000 health-care workers, has just inked a contract that gives around 20,000 Alberta Health Services workers a one per cent pay increase in 2020-21. It's part of a total 4.25 per cent raise over four years.

HSAA website

To see Hinshaw receive 63 per cent more pay in the same year is "insulting," HSAA president Mike Parker said Tuesday.

Parker contrasted the expense with government arriving at the bargaining table seeking wage rollbacks as high as 11 per cent for some workers.

"The only reason the system was still operating was that our folks kept coming to work and staying extra. Doing more," he said.

The ranks of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees include 55,000 health-care workers, such as laundry, housekeeping, and food services workers and maintenance staff.

Union vice-president Bonnie Gostola says those workers are in the midst of voting on a new contract that includes no new pay for 2020-21 and modest increases for the following two years.

She said it was a struggle to get "pennies" from the government in negotiations, even after all their efforts during the pandemic.

"I was very insulted for our members, and many others in health care," Gostola said.

Worried by prescription drug prices? Idaho’s ‘Hero of Main Street’ has big pharma’s back

The Editorial Board

idahostatesman.com
Wed, August 3, 2022 

John Sowell/jsowell@idahostatesman.com


U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo recently touted his receipt of a “Hero of Main Street” award from the National Retail Federation. Representing such small, local businesses as Walmart, the NFR’s decision to give the award to Crapo should assure everyday Idahoans that he has their back.

But look at Crapo’s legislative activities in the last few months, and they are dominated by the concerns of Wall Street — specifically the pharmaceutical industry, a lucrative campaign donor.

Part of the Inflation Reduction Act — a deal between Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, that can become law with only 50 votes — would direct the federal government to begin negotiating prices on certain drugs that constitute a huge chunk of federal entitlement spending. Currently, the federal government — the largest bulk purchaser in the world — simply pays whatever price pharmaceutical companies set.

Crapo has been working hard to undermine these efforts for months, as Salon noted in a piece published last week.

He has been bragging about these efforts. Crapo told Burgess Everett, Politico’s congressional bureau chief: “There are many Byrd objections. And we’re going through line by line, literally, making objections.”

“Byrd objections” are procedural efforts to prevent a bill from being able to pass by a simple majority vote. That is, Crapo is breaking his back to make sure that a drug prices bill needs 60 votes to pass, rather than being able to move forward with a simple majority.

This action seems to be at odds with Crapo’s longstanding political messaging.

Crapo has been grousing about the growing federal deficit (but only at times when a Democrat is in the White House; he grows silent when his party is in leadership) for decades now. But the very provision he is working to undermine would not only harm consumers but harm deficit reduction. The Kaiser Family Foundation notes that negotiating prescription drug prices is estimated to reduce the annual deficit by $288 billion — without raising taxes or cutting programs.

So what gives?

There could be ideological reasons Crapo could oppose negotiation on prescription drug prices. Maybe he actually believes, as he says, that it is “socialism” for companies to have to negotiate with the federal government on prices. It seems that to Crapo, capitalism means companies dictate prices, and taxpayers pay whatever they ask.

But there may be simpler reasons for Crapo’s stance.

For example, Crapo’s passionate efforts to kill an incredibly modest prescription drug price bill might have something to do with the tens of thousands in campaign contributions he’s raked in from pharmaceutical companies in the last few months. A recent report by Accountable.us noted that Crapo got about $20,000 from the industry between October and December 2021.

The tale of Crapo’s senatorial career seems to follow campaign donations pretty closely.

Look into the history of Idaho’s senators, and you find a long list of people who made their way into positions where they could appropriate federal funds. Such a position offers a lot of ways to do good for Idahoans on Main Street, where so many are employed in positions that rely on federal appropriations or that are tied to federal lands.

Instead of that career path, Crapo decided early on to head up the banking committee. Idaho has a very small banking sector, so he can’t do much for his home state with this position, but it is essentially a guarantee that the deepest pockets in Washington want him on their side. So year after year, banks and Wall Street firms of all sizes rewarded him handsomely.

He next set his eyes on the Finance Committee, where he is now the ranking member and which promises more of the same. He is expected to become chair the next time Republicans control the Senate.

Crapo never has to worry about coming home to raise money on Main Street. His Wall Street war chest is big enough to bury any challenger. Whose hero is he really?

Statesman editorials are the unsigned opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members Johanna Jones, Maryanne Jordan and Ben Ysursa.

Taiwan crisis to wreak havoc at ports and disrupt one of world’s busiest shipping lanes


Matt Oliver
Wed, August 3, 2022 

taiwan coast china military drills

Rising tensions over Taiwan threaten to make global supply chain issues even worse as China carries out live-fire military exercises off the island’s coast.

As Beijing prepares a major show of force, ships headed for the Taiwan Strait have been warned to expect port delays, traffic jams and on-the-spot searches, as well as a higher risk of accidental collisions. It threatens days of disruption in one of the world’s busiest maritime crossroads.

“We are telling our clients that there is a substantial threat to the safety of the vessel and crew,” said Casper Goldman, an analyst at maritime intelligence company Dryad Global.

“That is not necessarily because of a compromise of security coming from the live-fire exercises but rather from the issues associated with rerouting and ship traffic density.”

Some shipping companies have already begun diverting tankers around the bustling trade route, according to reports, while others are assessing their options.

The strait, through which half the global container fleet has passed this year, is expected to remain open but ships have been ordered to avoid areas where China’s military is operating.

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives - 

TAIWAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS/REUTERS

Beijing’s four-day display of air and naval firepower will run from Thursday to Sunday, in six different locations surrounding Taiwan.

The demonstration is in response to a visit to the self-governing island by Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives. China’s communist government lays claim to Taiwan and has reacted angrily to Ms Pelosi’s pledge of support for the Taiwanese.

Mr Goldman said ships seeking to pass through the strait should expect long waits at ports and traffic jams at sea.

“There’s a likelihood that ships will be delayed and it will put a bigger strain on an already-strained global supply chain,” he said.

“It's four days, it's a long period of time to have those areas shut off, so it is quite significant.”

He also warned that the number of ships forced to sail around the military exercises would increase the risk of unintentional collisions, as well as on-the-spot searches of vessels by jittery Chinese naval forces.

“The Taiwan Strait is one of the most dense straits in the world, so we are advising people to ensure that they maintain a close watch and prevent collision with other vessels,” he said.

Mr Goldman added that he did not expect China’s military to go beyond the exercises, because any further escalation of tensions could harm the country’s own economy, which is already suffering from draconian “zero-covid” policies.

A UK shipping source said most tankers would face delays of a few days at most, which was not uncommon for an industry that regularly has to plan around extreme weather such as typhoons.

However, they added that it would still cause delays at ports and add to the costs of shipping companies if they were forced to divert cargo around the strait.

There were 308 containerships, tankers and bulkers headed for Taiwan on Wednesday, according to ship tracking firm VesselsValue, with 60 scheduled to arrive when military drills are taking place.

Soren Skou, chief executive of Danish shipping giant Maersk, said disruption would cause major problems in the freight market.

“The Taiwan Strait is one of the most busy straits in the world,” he told analysts on Thursday. “So obviously, if it were to close, it would have a dramatic impact on shipping capacity in the sense that everybody would have to divert around Taiwan and add to the length of voyages, and that would absorb a significant capacity.”

The threat of disruption comes as a report found delivery times on shipped goods had improved year-on-year for the first time since the pandemic began.

Consultancy Sea Intelligence said schedule reliability – the percentage of ships making arrivals and departures on time – improved by 3.6 percentage points to 40pc in June, breaking a trend since the start of the year. Vessels are still arriving more than six days late on average.