Biden rule would give organic chickens access to outdoors


Pete and Gerry's organic eggs are seen at the Safeway store in Wheaton Maryland

Tue, August 9, 2022 
By Leah Douglas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday proposed a U.S. rule requiring farms to give egg-laying chickens access to the outdoors in order to earn the label "organic," closing loopholes but potentially giving companies up to 15 years to comply.

The long-awaited proposal, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, would eliminate loopholes that have let some of the biggest egg producers claim the federally administered "organic" label by installing open-air porches on henhouses in lieu of providing access to pasture.

"Today marks the first significant movement on organic animal welfare in years," said Tom Chapman, CEO of the Organic Trade Association.

Giving chickens access to pasture rather than confining them to henhouses is considered more humane treatment.

The USDA said the rule would better align the organic program with consumer expectations.

"This is about animal husbandry practices, animal welfare and leveling the playing field," USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Jenny Moffitt said in an interview. "The goal of this is to have unambiguous standards."

The rule now faces a 60-day public comment period before it can be implemented.

Former President Barack Obama's administration in 2016 pursued a similar rule that went into effect in 2017. That rule was opposed by the largest U.S. organic egg producer, Michigan-based Herbruck's Poultry Ranch, and key farm-state Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and was withdrawn under Obama's successor Donald Trump later in 2017.

The egg industry opposed the Obama-era rule, arguing it would raise the cost of eggs. Larry Sadler, vice president of animal welfare for egg industry trade group United Egg Producers, said the group did not yet have a position on the Biden administration's proposal.

Stabenow, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, called the new rule important but said she would "continue to encourage the USDA to allow the necessary flexibility in production."

The Obama-era rule had allowed for a five-year implementation period. The USDA now is seeking comment on whether companies should be given 15 years.

"A 15-year timeline is kicking the can too far down the road," said Erik Drake, CEO of New Hampshire-based organic egg company Pete and Gerry's that already allows its hens access to pasture.

(Reporting by Leah Douglas; Editing by Will Dunham)

China withdraws promise not to send troops to Taiwan if it takes control of island

Wed, August 10, 2022
By Yew Lun Tian

BEIJING (Reuters) -China has withdrawn a promise not to send troops or administrators to Taiwan if it takes control of the island, an official document showed on Wednesday, signalling a decision by President Xi Jinping to grant less autonomy than previously offered.

China's white paper on its position on self-ruled Taiwan follows days of unprecedented Chinese military exercises near the island, which Beijing claims as its territory, in protest against U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit last week.

China had said in two previous white papers on Taiwan, in 1993 and 2000, that it "will not send troops or administrative personnel to be based in Taiwan" after achieving what Beijing terms "reunification".

That line, meant to assure Taiwan it would enjoy autonomy after becoming a special administrative region of China, did not appear in the latest white paper.

China's ruling Communist Party had proposed that Taiwan could return to its rule under a "one country, two systems" model, similar to the formula under which the former British colony of Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

That would offer some autonomy to democratically ruled Taiwan to partially preserve its social and political systems.

All mainstream Taiwanese political parties have rejected the "one country, two systems" proposal and it enjoys almost no public support according to opinion polls. Taiwan's government says only the island's people can decide their future.

A line in the 2000 white paper that said "anything can be negotiated" as long as Taiwan accepts that there is only one China and does not seek independence, is also missing from the latest white paper.

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council condemned the white paper, saying it was "full of lies of wishful thinking and disregarded the facts" and that the Republic of China - Taiwan's official name - was a sovereign state.

"Only Taiwan's 23 million people have the right to decide on the future of Taiwan, and they will never accept an outcome set by an autocratic regime."

The updated white paper is called "The Taiwan Question and China's Reunification in the New Era". The "new era" is a term commonly associated with Xi's rule. Xi is expected to secure a third term at a Communist Party congress later this year.

Taiwan has lived under the threat of Chinese invasion since 1949, when the defeated Republic of China government fled to the island after Mao Zedong's Communist Party won a civil war.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian; Editing by Robert Birsel and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Xi Jinping may use Pelosi's visit to Taiwan to 'create a new normal': Expert

Yaseen Shah

Mon, August 8, 2022

Tensions in the Taiwan Strait are escalating following Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week. China’s military conducted a series of military drills over the weekend – 66 planes and 14 warships were spotted around the island on Sunday, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry.

Susan Shirk, UC San Diego Researcher Professor and 21st Century China Center Chair, described the political and social implications of Speaker Pelosi’s visit.

“It’s quite possible that Xi Jinping has taken advantage of the Pelosi visit to mobilize support for himself and to kind of create a new normal in which Chinese military planes and ships and other gray zones, even Coast Guard vessels, will be pressing Taiwan,” Shirk told Yahoo Finance Live.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has expressed heavy opposition to the Speaker’s visit. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Pelosi’s actions a violation of the One-China principle and affirmed there was “no room” for Taiwan independence. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China also imposed sanctions on Pelosi and her immediate family members on Friday.

These measures come ahead of President Xi’s unprecedented third term and the 20th National Congress of the CCP this November. According to Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) research fellow David Sacks, Xi does not want to risk looking weak, which is why China is taking a harsh stance on Pelosi’s visit.

“This is about demonstrating the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities to put a blockade around Taiwan, squeeze Taiwan, until it agrees to, you know, potentially what they would like to see is until it agrees to reintegrate with the mainland,” Shirk added.

Shirk warns that some multinational firms operating in Asia could experience economic blowback in the future.

“Chinese consumers are much more nationalistic, so consumer-facing businesses really do have to make a choice here. If the China market is important to them, they have to be sensitive to these political considerations and how they talk about Taiwan,” Shirk said.

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at right reacts to Chen Chu, the President of the Control Yuan and Chair of the National Human Rights Commission, during a visit to a human rights museum in Taipei, Taiwan on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meeting leaders in Taiwan despite warnings from China, said Wednesday that she and other members of Congress in a visiting delegation are showing they will not abandon their commitment to the self-governing island. (Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AP)

Candybar maker Mars Wrigley issued an apology to China on Friday for implying Taiwan was a country. Moreover, Chinese companies have distanced themselves from the Pelosi controversy for fear of retaliation from the Chinese government.

Shirk also noted that Pelosi’s visit put Democrats in a tough position ahead of the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

“It was [a] very odd thing for a Democratic Speaker of the House to put a Democratic President, President Biden, in an extraordinarily difficult position by deciding to go to Taiwan now. The president didn’t have complete control over the Speaker’s decisions, of course, and I think was reluctant to try to constrain her because there are many other politicians who would criticize the Biden administration for caving in to China. So it's certainly not good for the Democratic prospects in the mid-term or in 2024."

Biden and his party have an uphill battle to fight. Recent CBS News/YouGov polling data show Democrats losing control in the House, and potentially the Senate this fall. The president’s approval rating has also plummeted to 39.6%, and a new CNN poll indicated that 75% of Democrats support nominating someone other than Biden for the 2024 presidential bid.

Yaseen Shah is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @yaseennshah22

U.S. completely fails to make the list of Top 10 places to live

Chris Morris
Mon, August 8, 2022

Here’s the bad news…the U.S doesn’t rank in the Top 10 best places to live in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Index. Here’s the good news…it’s not one of the worst, either.

The rankings, which factor in culture, health care, education, infrastructure, and entertainment, put Vienna at the top of the list, after the Austrian city fell to 12th place last year. Vienna had topped the list in 2018 and 2019 as well.

Canada, though, might have the most to brag about. The northern neighbor to the U.S. had three cities in the Top 10.

Here’s how the 2022 rankings sorted out:

Vienna, Austria


Copenhagen, Denmark


Zurich, Switzerland


Calgary, Canada


Vancouver, Canada


Geneva, Switzerland


Frankfurt, Germany


Toronto, Canada


Amsterdam, Netherlands


Osaka, Japan, and Melbourne, Australia (tied)

A summary of the report notes that two U.S. cities showed big shifts in the past year. Los Angeles was one of the cities with the biggest gains on the list, jumping from 55th place to 37th. Houston, however, dropped from 31st to 55th.

As for the worst places to live? Those tend to have serious safety or social issues. (Kyiv, which has formerly been ranked, was excluded from the 2022 report due to the ongoing Russian invasion.)

Here’s where the Economist Intelligence Unit suggests you avoid living:

Tehran, Iran


Douala, Cameroon


Harare, Zimbabwe


Dhaka, Bangladesh


Port Moresby, PNG


Karachi, Pakistan


Algiers, Algeria


Tripoli, Libya


Lagos, Nigeria


Damascus, Syria

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Montana Supreme Court upholds ruling blocking abortion restrictions

Olafimihan Oshin

Tue, August 9, 2022 

Montana’s Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that temporarily blocks further restrictions on abortion.

Planned Parenthood in a statement Tuesday announced that the Montana Supreme Court blocked three separate laws that were enacted during the state’s legislative session last year from taking effect.

One of the laws would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, while another would have created numerous barriers to medication abortion, and a third would have implemented a mandatory ultrasound offer and documentation requirement for those seeking an abortion.

A district court in September blocked those three laws from taking effect. Planned Parenthood’s Montana chapter filed the initial lawsuit challenging them.

“We are pleased that the Montana Supreme Court ruled today to uphold the preliminary injunction put in place by the District Court in the fall. This means that three anti-abortion laws remain unenforceable, including a 20-week ban,” Planned Parenthood of Montana’s chapter president and CEO, Martha Stahl, said in a statement.

“The Court upheld the Armstrong decision, which the State had requested be overturned, and abortion remains legal in Montana, protected by our constitutional right to privacy. This is a victory for our right to make personal medical decisions, free from the interference of government,” Stahl added.

The decision in Montana comes after Kansas voters last week soundly rejected an effort by Republicans in the state to strip abortion rights from the Kansas Constitution.

Last month, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled that abortion services in the state could resume, blocking the state legislature from enforcing its so-called trigger ban.

Tamil Nadu: 12th Century idol stolen from temple found in US after 50 years

Tue, August 9, 2022 

The Parvati idol was first reported missing from the Nadanapureshwarar Sivan temple in 1971

A statue that was stolen in 1971 from a temple in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has been traced to New York, police say.

The 12th Century idol of Hindu goddess Parvati was found at the Bonhams Auction House, they said.

Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house which is headquartered in London.

A senior police official said the Tamil Nadu police's Idol Wing has "readied papers" to bring the idol back.

Over the past few years, India has amplified efforts to bring back idols and other artefacts which were stolen or smuggled from temples.

In February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that "more than 200 precious idols" have been successfully brought back to India since 2014.

In 2020, the UK returned three bronze sculptures stolen from a Tamil Nadu temple more than 40 years ago to the Indian government.

One of the most stunning pieces returned in the past few years was a bronze Nataraja idol, which shows the Hindu god Shiva in dancing form. The statue, which was priced at $5.1m (£4.2m), was more than 900 years old and had been bought by the National Gallery of Australia in 2008.

The Parvati idol from Tamil Nadu that the police recently found was first reported missing from the Nadanapureshwarar Sivan temple in 1971.

Investigation began in 2019 after a temple trustee filed a police complaint. The investigation was led by the Idol Wing of the Tamil Nadu police, which traces missing artefacts.

The idol, which measures about 52cm in height, was one among five idols missing from the temple.

Police said this idol is valued at $212,575 (£175,914). It shows the goddess in a standing position, wearing a crown of rings kept atop each other.

The patterns in the crown are repeated in the necklaces, armbands, girdle and garment, embellishing the bronze texture, the police description said.

"The sculpture is a testament to the technical genius of the artist, epitomizing the confident and time-honoured aesthetic canon of the Chola empire," the Idol Wing said in a statement. The Chola empire ruled last parts of southern India from the 10th Century to the 13th Century.

Police sought the opinion of an expert to compare a photograph of the idol with the one on sale at Bonhams Auction House.

"Therefore, we are entitled to claim ownership of the idol as India is a party to UNESCO'S World Heritage Convention, 1972," they said.

Bonhams has not issued a statement yet.

The Moonstone

by

 

Wilkie Collins

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.202518

'The Sacrifice Zone': Myanmar bears cost of green energy


DAKE KANG, VICTORIA MILKO and LORI HINNANT
Mon, August 8, 2022

The birds no longer sing. The fish no longer swim in rivers that have turned a murky brown. The animals do not roam, and the cows are sometimes found dead.

The people in this northern Myanmar forest have lost a way of life that goes back generations. But if they complain, they, too, face the threat of death.

This forest is the source of several key metallic elements known as rare earths, often called the vitamins of the modern world. Rare earths now reach into the lives of almost everyone on the planet, turning up in everything from hard drives and cellphones to elevators and trains. They are especially vital to the fast-growing field of green energy, feeding wind turbines and Tesla engines. And they end up in the supply chains of some of the most prominent companies in the world, including General Motors, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Tesla and Apple.

But an AP investigation has found that their universal use hides a dirty open secret in the industry: Their cost is environmental destruction, the theft of land from villagers and the funneling of money to brutal militias, including at least one linked to Myanmar’s secretive military government. And as demand soars for rare earths along with green energy, the abuses are likely to grow.


“This rapid push to build out mining capacity is being justified in the name of climate change,” said Julie Michelle Klinger, author of the book “Rare Earths Frontiers,” who is leading a federal project to trace illicit energy minerals. “There’s still this push to find the right place to mine them, which is a place that is out of sight and out of mind.”

The AP investigation drew on dozens of interviews, customs data, corporate records and Chinese academic papers, along with satellite imagery and geological analysis gathered by the environmental non-profit Global Witness, to tie rare earths from Myanmar to the supply chains of 78 companies.

About a third of the companies responded. Of those, about two-thirds did not or would not comment on their sourcing, including Volkswagen, which said it was conducting due diligence for rare earths. Nearly all said they took environmental protection and human rights seriously.

Some companies said they audited their rare earth supply chains; others didn’t or required only supplier self-assessments. GM said it understood “the risks of heavy rare earths metals” and would source from an American supplier soon.

Tesla did not respond to repeated requests for comment, and Mercedes said they contacted suppliers to learn more in response to this story. Apple said “a majority” of their rare earths were recycled and they found “no evidence” of any from Myanmar, but experts say in general there is usually no way to make sure.

Just as dirty rare earths trickle down the supply chains of companies, they also slip through the cracks of regulation.

In 2010, Congress required companies to disclose the origin of so-called conflict minerals — tantalum, tin, gold and tungsten. But the law does not cover rare earths. Audits are left up to individual companies, and no single agency is held accountable.

The State Department, which leads work on securing the U.S. rare earths supply, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. But experts say the government weighs the regulation of rare earths against other green goals, such as the sales and use of electric vehicles. Rare earths are also omitted from the European Union’s 2021 regulation on conflict minerals.

The United States offshored its rare earths mining to China in the 1980s because of environmental and cost issues. China’s leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, declared rare earths China’s answer to “oil in the Middle East.”

For decades the industry prospered. Then, stung by public criticism, officials in Beijing declared war on the country’s dirty industries — including rare earths mining.

As mines in China shuttered, ore prices rose. Thousands of miners streamed across the border to neighboring Myanmar, home to some of the world’s richest deposits of what are known as heavy rare earths.

“It reminds me of the European colonial attitudes towards Africa,” said an industry analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid damaging ties with the Chinese government. “You just can’t be relying on third-world-type mining practices in a dictatorship like Myanmar. It’s not sustainable.”

Guo, a Chinese miner who did not want to use his full name to talk freely, recounted primitive working conditions in Myanmar, including clouds of mosquitoes and nights spent burning logs in ramshackle cabins. The miners dug hundreds of feet deep with shovels and their bare, callused hands.

“I’m only responsible for digging the mountain up and selling it,” Guo said. “The rest is none of my business. … We just see if we can make money. It's that simple."

There is a name for what Myanmar has become: A “sacrifice zone,” or a place that destroys itself for the good of the world.

The sacrifice is visible from the air, in toxic turquoise pools that dot the landscape covered by mountain jungles just a few years ago. Since rare earth clays in Myanmar are soft and near the surface, they can easily be scooped into these pools of chemicals. Satellite imagery commissioned by Global Witness showed more than 2,700 of these pools at almost 300 separate locations.

A villager who lives along a river some 15 miles from the center of the mining sites said his wife used to catch and sell fish. Now the few they can catch make them ill.

“There are no fish along the creek, not even small fishes,” said the villager, who asked to be anonymous for his safety. “Everything went extinct.”

Militias are rampant in these northern forest frontier areas, including at least one tied to the military-backed Border Guard Force. The Myanmar military or Tatmadaw is under international sanctions for human rights abuses after it seized power last year. That means the rare earths money it gets from the militia may be fueling a violent crackdown against civilians. The Myanmar military and militia leaders did not respond to requests for comment.

For Dong, a Chinese miner, the hundreds of dollars he hands to the armed men lining the roads in Myanmar are the price of doing business. He is under no illusions about the damage from acids so strong that they corrode the shovels of his bulldozers and excavators.

“This stuff is unbelievable,” he said. “It’s definitely polluting.”

In the meantime, villagers protest in one area in northern Myanmar where the black cardamom and walnuts still grow – for now.

“They are mining rare earth everywhere and we are no longer safe to drink water,” a villager said. “There is nothing to support the children. Nothing to eat.”

___

AP researcher Si Chen and AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

_____

This early 2022 photo provided by Global Witness shows a border fence separating Pangwa in the Kachin state of Myanmar and China. Rare earths imports from Myanmar grew nearly a hundredfold in just the three years since 2015. By 2018, they made up nearly three-fourths of China’s heavy rare-earth-rich clay ore supply, according to the latest statistics available. (Global Witness via AP)More

An author who helped Donald Trump ghostwrite his book speculates Trump may have taken White House documents to one day sell as presidential memorabilia



Cheryl Teh
Tue, August 9, 2022 

A man who helped Trump write a book has a theory on why Trump may have taken White House documents.

Charles Leerhsen thought Trump may have taken documents to sell as "presidential memorabilia."

"If there's a grift to be grifted, he's gonna grift it," Charles Leerhsen told Newsweek.

An author who once helped Trump write some of his books has a theory on why the former president could have taken some documents from the White House.

Charles Leerhsen, who worked with the former president in the 90s on his book, "Surviving at the Top," weighed in on the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago on Monday.

The FBI search is thought to be over material that Trump may have brought to his Florida residence after leaving the White House. The National Archives asked the DOJ in February to investigate whether or not Trump broke the law by taking government records from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.

Leerhsen wrote on Facebook his theory about why Trump could have taken documents.

"As a former Trump ghostwriter (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) I feel obligated to point out that Trump may have taken documents that he intended to sell as presidential memorabilia," Leerhsen said.

Speaking to Newsweek, Leerhsen said that he had seen how Trump earned his money even before going into politics, adding that the former president is not above "groveling." Leerhsen acknowledged, per Newsweek's reporting, that he did not know what Trump may or may not have taken, but speculated that pieces of paper he signed or collectible items could be things the former president may have wanted to keep.

"If there's a grift to be grifted, he's gonna grift it," Leerhsen told Newsweek. "He has this very basic sense that he might be able to pawn it off on someone."

He added that he once had a "firsthand sense" of Trump's "avariciousness and his personality."

"Like everyone else, I watched things get worse and spiral out of control," Leerhsen told Newsweek.

Leerhsen and representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Europe's energy crisis has gotten so bad that French power stations are being allowed to break environmental rules as a fresh heatwave looks set to cause more chaos

Beatrice Nolan
Tue, August 9, 2022 

French power stations are reportedly being allowed to break environmental rules to stay open.Guillaume Souvant/AFP/Getty Images

French power stations are reportedly being allowed to break environmental rules to stay open, per Bloomberg.

The waiver is in place until September and will potentially breach national environmental standards.

Europe's prolonged hot weather is putting a further strain on energy supplies.

The European energy crisis set into motion by the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows no signs of abating and looks to deepen further in coming weeks as record heatwaves hit the continent.

In France, the crisis is so bad that power stations are being permitted to break environmental rules to stay open as the country struggles to maintain national energy supplies, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) granted a temporary waiver allowing five nuclear plants across the country to dispense more than the authorized amount of hot water into rivers, the news agency reported.

The waiver, reportedly in place until September, allows Electricite de France to keep the energy plants operating amid national pressure on supply.

Electricite de France did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

In France, rivers and waterways are used to cool power plants. Under the current environmental rules, nuclear plants must reduce or stop output when river temperatures reach a point at which use by the plants may harm the environment, per Bloomberg. That provision is being temporarily halted.

Europe's prolonged high temperatures are putting further pressure on the bloc's already strained energy supplies.

The River Rhine, one of the continent's most important rivers, is drying up amid the record-breaking summer heatwaves, Insider reported last month. The river is currently at its lowest level in at least 15 years, making moving goods — including coal and gas — in container ships down the river a challenge.

Northwest and central Europe are set for even more hot weather in the coming weeks. Temperatures in the UK, France, and Germany are expected to soar on Friday, with some estimates predicting highs of 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the week.

The demand for cooling systems such as fans and air conditioning in the heat puts even more pressure on Europe's energy supplies.

In a further issue for European energy supplies, Norway has also threatened to ration international electricity exports if domestic needs are not met, per The Guardian.

Water levels in southern Norway have been so low that the government has said it may need to prioritize its own citizens ahead of international customers, the news outlet said.

U.S. coal plants delay closures in hurdle for clean energy transition


Alliant Energy's coal plant in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, U.S. on the shore of Lake Michigan

Tue, August 9, 2022 
By Timothy Gardner

SHEBOYGAN, Wisc. (Reuters) - Travel brochures in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, tout the town’s beaches on Lake Michigan as the Malibu of the Midwest. But pages of glossy photos leave out a feature of the landscape: a coal-fired power plant on the shore that will remain open until mid 2025 instead of closing this year as planned.

Alliant Energy Corp's Edgewater coal-fired plant in Sheboygan is one of at least six across the country that this summer have announced delays or potential delays to their planned closures, citing concerns about energy shortages.

A key culprit: renewable energy deployment, which was meant to replace these coal plants, has taken a hit in recent months because of COVID-19-related supply chain hiccups. Utilities say import tariffs on solar panels imposed by U.S. Commerce Department make it hard to keep up with robust power demand.

In addition to the closure delay of its 400 megawatt (MW) Edgewater plant in Sheboygan, Alliant's 1.1 gigawatt Columbia Energy Center in Portage will close by June 2026, a delay of about 18 months.

WEC Energy Group Inc has delayed the closure of remaining units at its 1,135 MW Oak Creek power plant near Milwaukee for up to 18 months until May 2024 and late 2025.

Indiana's NiSource Inc blamed solar project delays of up to 18 months for its postponing the shutdown of the 877 MW Schahfer coal plant for two years until 2025.

In Nebraska, the board of the Omaha Public Power District will vote on Aug. 18 on whether to keep the 645 MW North Omaha plant open until 2026, a delay of up to three years, due to siting delays and backlogs in studies in switching to natural gas and solar.

And in New Mexico, PNM Resources Inc delayed the closure of a unit at the San Juan plant by three months until September, as drought threatened hydropower supplies and heat boosted power demand.

When burned, coal emits more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than any other fossil fuel. It also releases nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, precursors to haze and smog that harm human lungs and hearts.

All of the companies said that despite the delays, and potential delays, they will meet their long-term voluntary goals on carbon emissions and that scrubbers and other pollution devices have removed most of the criteria pollutants of their emissions.

Holly Bender, a senior director of energy campaigns at the Sierra Club environmental group, said the delays do not portend a resurgence in coal use. Nearly 360 U.S. coal plants have shut or plan to shut in recent years, compared with about 170 plants that remain active, according to the organization.

Rather, Bender said, the delays serve a "warning sign of the failure to plan for the kind of clean energy growth that is needed."

President Joe Biden's goals of cutting U.S. carbon emissions 50% by 2030 from 2005 levels and decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 will likely depend on even more shutdowns of coal plants.

Biden's emissions plan will get a lift if the U.S. House, as expected, follows the Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democrats-score-big-wins-climate-drugs-with-430-billion-us-senate-bill-2022-08-08/, which analysts say will cut emissions about 40% by 2030 by giving market certainty on hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits and incentives.

The U.S. coal industry has been slammed by a surge of cheap natural gas, declining prices for renewables, and regulations cracking down on pollution that causes direct health issues and threatened ones on carbon dioxide. Coal generated about 20% of U.S. electricity last year, down from about 50% in 2006.

But cutting emissions further will not be easy.

"It's imperative that we increase accountability on utilities, regulators, and planners to ensure ... the transformation of our power sector off coal," Bender said.

NOT HELPING THE PROBLEM

Estimating the health effects of coal plant emissions on people in exact areas is difficult as their high smokestacks disperse pollution into the wind. Pollution from vehicles and industry also harm air quality.

Still, like many densely-populated, industrial U.S. areas, parts of Sheboygan county have been out of compliance for revised U.S. ozone standards since 2018, while all of Milwaukee county has been out of compliance since then, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

And coal plants, even if they are in areas that are in compliance with federal standards, can contribute to health problems, said Tracey Hollaway, an air quality scientist at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"It's still affecting the air of people far downwind," she said about the delays. "Keeping these facilities open is not helping the problem."

It is an open question whether the delays are a harbinger of more to come. But coal market players see at least temporary opportunities.

Joe Craft, the chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners, the third largest U.S. coal producer, told analysts this month that plants staying open is "going to bode well for us."

Strength in U.S. and European coal markets should drive Alliance's year-over year margin growth from now through 2024, Craft said.

Ted O'Brien, managing partner and chief commercial officer at Oluma Resources, a Pittsburgh-based marketer of the fuel, said nobody believes coal plants will stay open in perpetuity, but the delays could at least extend the life of mines.

"Maybe this does give coal staying power to maintain its corner in the broader U.S. energy mix," O'Brien said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Marguerita Choy)

Four insights into Manchin’s deal on the Mountain Valley Pipeline

The West Virginia senator gets the Biden administration and top congressional Democrats to back the pipeline. Here’s how.

by Dwayne Yancey

August 3, 2022


U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia. Official portrait.

Tuesday was the trade deadline in Major League Baseball and we saw the usual flurry of deals, including at least one that wasn’t just called the proverbial blockbuster but a “blockbuster for the ages” – that being slugger Juan Soto going from the Washington Nationals to the San Diego Padres.

The classic trades at the trade deadline go like this: A team that’s in contention feels it’s just one or maybe two players away from being able to make a World Series run. It looks to some out-of-contention team that has a star player, perhaps one near the end of his contract. The lower-placed team may figure the player won’t re-sign anyway, so if they don’t trade him now, they’ll get nothing in return when he leaves as a free agent at the end of the season. In return, the top team, desperate for talent now, even if only on a short-term basis, is happy to trade away some minor league prospects or sometimes the proverbial “player to be named later.” The top team gets help to win now; the lower team gets a youthful infusion of players who a few years from now may help it turn around. Someday that top team may regret losing those prospects but, for now, it feels no pain whatsoever, just the glory of immediate victory.

We can see examples of this several ways. One is in how the Minnesota Twins, one game ahead of the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Central, shipped four minor leaguers to the Baltimore Orioles for their closer. Another is how the Nationals sent Soto and Josh Bell to the Padres for six players – three current big leaguers and, most importantly, three of San Diego’s top minor league prospects. The final example is how top Democrats in Washington traded support for the Mountain Valley Pipeline in return for U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s support for a broader package dealing with climate, energy and health care issues that they are promoting as an anti-inflation measure. (We know it’s an anti-inflation measure because it’s called the Inflation Reduction Act.)

Last week, the West Virginia Democrat surprised Washington when he announced he would support what The New York Times has called “a landmark climate bill” – not something the fossil fuel-friendly Mountain State senator is usually associated with. Now, we know why: CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post have all reported that top Democrats – the Times specifically cited President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the deal-makers – agreed to Manchin’s demand that they support the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Mountain Valley Pipeline. Courtesy of MVP.

In effect, the Mountain Valley Pipeline – which would run from 303 miles from northwestern West Virginia to Chatham, where it would connect with other pipelines – is that “player to be named later.” Biden, Schumer and Pelosi are like a contending team. They need to win now and will give up almost anything to get Manchin’s vote. For them, the Mountain Valley Pipeline is like some minor leaguer – important to somebody (in this case Manchin) but not a big name to them. If that’s what it took to secure the vote of one of the Senate’s most unreliable Democrats, trading support for some pipeline that’s not in their states and probably not top of their minds was probably an easy thing to do.

CNN reports that a one-page summary of the deal, which it obtained, says the Biden administration and top congressional Democrats will “require the relevant agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and give the D.C. Circuit jurisdiction over any further litigation.” That latter provision is important because right now, the pipeline has been stymied by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals; presumably the D.C. Circuit might look more favorably on the pipeline.

Some environmental groups, which have been fighting the pipeline since it was first proposed in 2014, see this as a grievous betrayal. They felt they might have even been on the verge of winning. The pipeline is mostly completed (there’s debate about how much of it is completed; some opponents question the 94% figure the developer cites) but has been stymied by lack of certain permits and a series of unfavorable court rulings. The pipeline operator recently said it would need four more years to finish the project. Opponents have openly hoped the project would simply run out of money. Now this.

There’s much irony here. Originally, there were two natural gas pipelines proposed to run from nearly the same place in northwestern West Virginia into Virginia. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, led by Dominion Energy and Duke Energy, was announced first, with much fanfare. Then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe joined Dominion executives in making the announcement. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy. You, too, can be a donor and have no say in news decisions.) By contrast, McAuliffe sent out a mere press release to endorse the MVP. Initially, much of the environmental opposition was concentrated on the ACP. When I was with The Roanoke Times, I pointed out that there seemed to be some geographical bias at work: Environmental groups were keen to line up against a pipeline that went near hoity-toity Charlottesville and Albemarle County but seemed a lot less interested in one that went through Southwest Virginia.

Despite that, if you had to bet back in 2014 on which pipeline would get closer to the finish line, you’d have easily bet on the one backed by two major utilities. Instead, Dominion and Duke eventually pulled the plug on the ACP and, in time, more environmental groups rallied to oppose the MVP – although that pipeline never achieved the national notoriety of, say, the Keystone XL Pipeline or the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Now the Mountain Valley Pipeline is finally getting its name mentioned on the national stage, just not in a way that opponents had hoped. There are multiple lessons here, none of which will bring any comfort to opponents.The political math is not on the side of those who oppose the pipeline. Democrats could have nominated a presidential candidate in 2020 who was against fracking, the way that most natural gas comes to the surface, but they did not. (It’s also unclear whether such a candidate would have won the presidency.) All we know is that Democrats nominated Biden, who is clearly more open-minded about such things, and even he barely won. He also has terrible poll numbers right now and desperately needs some wins – and, at least from the Democratic point of view, this bill would be a big win. Democrats also don’t have a majority in the Senate. At best they have a 50-50 split. Democrats hate being so dependent on Manchin because he is so far out of the current Democratic mainstream, but this is the price they must pay for not being able to elect Democratic senators in 2020 in North Carolina and Maine. One Republican strategist told The Washington Post: “Manchin holds all the cards here, and this is his ante.” This is as clear an example of political muscle as you’ll see. Manchin had some leverage here and used it. If the alternative is no bill, no one should be surprised that Democratic leaders did what they could to get Manchin on board and agreed to his terms.

Political deals often involve uncomfortable compromises that outrage the purists on either side. On Monday, I wrote about the CHIPS-Plus Act that Congress recently passed, specifically the provision that calls for the federal government to establish at least 20 federal technology hubs around the country that will get showered with federal research dollars. I wrote about how groups in both Southwest and Southside have expressed interest in promoting their regions for one of these hubs and how Southwest, in particular, might have a pretty good chance of winning. I also pointed out the irony of how the U.S. representatives for those two regions – Bob Good for Southside, Morgan Griffith for Southwest – both voted against the bill, even though the communities they represent were making plans to try to benefit from it. Griffith said there were too many unpleasant things in the bill for his taste.

A few years ago Griffith colorfully described the legislative process this way: “An analogy I like to use for the legislative process invokes candy apples and toads. Legislation rarely includes only things I like – the candy apples – or omits the things I really dislike – the toads. Considering whether to support a bill usually means weighing whether there are enough candy apples to cover up the bad taste of a few toads.” I think the prospect of federal technology hub is a pretty tasty candy apple but Griffith feared too many toads in the mix. Tastes (and pain thresholds) vary.

Same thing here, just with a different bill and for those on a different part of the political spectrum: The Mountain Valley Pipeline is the toad that Democrats apparently have to eat if they want Machine’s support for the candy apple of that landmark climate bill. (Manchin, and Republicans, don’t see the pipeline as a toad at all, of course. They see it as necessary energy infrastructure, and they see natural gas as a lot cleaner than other fossil fuels, but I’m trying to explain this for Democrats who are aghast at this deal.) In any case, top Democrats here are more eager to cut a deal that involves some toads than Republicans have been. Purists and pragmatists will read very different things into that.

All politics is local, part one. We’ve all heard that. Here’s the obverse: It’s easier to make tough deals involving somebody else’s sacrifice. Would Schumer have been so keen for this deal if the Mountain Valley Pipeline ran through New York? Would Pelosi have gone along if it went through San Francisco? Probably not, right? It’s a lot easier for those at the national level to be more dispassionate about the deal than those who are closer to the actual pipeline. The Washington Post quoted some on the left who seemed OK with the Mountain Valley-Pipeline-for-Manchin’s vote deal. “We must pass the Inflation Reduction Act if we want to get on track to cutting carbon pollution in half by a decade,” said one California-based energy expert. “Without this legislation we don’t have a pathway to get there; with it, we have a fighting chance. There are provisions I don’t agree with, but we have to be clear-eyed: Failure is not an option right now. We have to get climate investments over the finish line.”

The Post also pointed out that “Democrats’ climate provisions would dwarf the impact of the West Virginia pipeline, in terms of their impact on emissions. The firm Energy Innovation found that greenhouse gas emissions would fall by as much as 41 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 with the bill.” The pipeline might generate carbon emissions at a scale of 26 power plants, but some see that as a necessary tradeoff if they’re going to achieve the larger goal. Others are simply horrified that there’s any concession. I notice that it’s those on the ground who are the loudest in opposition to this deal. “Residents of every Appalachian and environmental justice community deserve to benefit from ambitious and transformative climate policy, and we firmly oppose any approach by Congress that sacrifices frontline communities as part of a political bargain,” said Jessica Sims, Virginia field coordinator of Appalachian Voices. Just as nobody asked those minor league prospects if they wanted to get traded away, nobody in Washington asked Appalachian Voices if they were OK with this deal – and nobody will.

4. All politics is local, part two. Now for the more conventional interpretation of this maxim. Some see Manchin as a shill for the fossil fuel industry. There’s a whole internet out there where you can read whatever you like about Manchin, but, whatever his motivations, this pipeline is a much bigger jobs generator in West Virginia than it is in Virginia. In Virginia, it’s basically passing through. Roanoke Gas will buy some of the gas and says that will help lower gas prices in the Roanoke Valley. (Critics dispute this.) McAuliffe backed both pipelines initially because he said manufacturers needed natural gas so if Virginia wanted more manufacturers, then it needed more natural gas pipelines. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, in a recent letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, essentially made the same argument, plus a few more. You can certainly argue there’s some indirect job creation in Virginia out of the pipeline but in West Virginia there’s definite direct job creation out of pumping natural gas out of the ground and sending it on its merry way. It’s also been a job sector that’s been declining. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that gas extraction jobs peaked in West Virginia in August 2014 at 2,822 and last year dipped to 1,890. No one should be surprised that Manchin is trying to cut a deal that would help boost employment in the state he represents. You can make the case that Manchin should be more supportive of renewable energy, and cutting deals to get more solar jobs and more wind jobs in his state instead, but that’s not how he rolls. Again, see point one. Manchin wouldn’t matter so much if the Senate math were different.

This deal isn’t law yet. It needs at least 60 votes in the 50-50 Senate, which means it needs at least 10 Republicans, who might like the provisions to speed up energy projects, but some Democrats might yet defect. (The main bill needed only 51 votes, which is why Manchin’s vote was critical, but this side deal requires 60). We’ll see. One thing is certain: We saw some classic dealing in Washington with the baseball team. We also just saw some with the Mountain Valley Pipeline.