Biden Administration Canceled $15 Billion in Student Loan Debt During First Year in Office

Joe Price
Wed, January 26, 2022,

Image via Getty/Drew Angerer

According to a press release from the Department of Education, the Joe Biden administration has canceled $15 billion in student loan debt since he took office.

On Wednesday, the department confirmed more than 675,000 borrowers have benefitted from student loan forgiveness. This is far from all of those who have yet to qualify for loan writeoffs through programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Although Biden has now eliminated more debt in this area than any other president, the Education Data Initiative indicates over 43 million Americans still owe a total of approximately $1.75 trillion, or roughly $40,000 per student loan recipient.

The statement comes as upwards of 80 House and Senate members shared a letter urging Joe Biden to release a memo that confirms his authority to write off student debt, per CNBC. The lawmakers, who include Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren among them, also said the president should forgive $50,000 per student loan recipient. That would come with a price tag of $1 trillion, but it would cancel debt for 36 million additional students.

Last year, Biden announced his administration would extend the pause on student loan debt payments until at least May 2022. “Given these considerations, today my Administration is extending the pause on federal student loan repayments for an additional 90 days—through May 1, 2022—as we manage the ongoing pandemic and further strengthen our economic recovery,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, the Department of Education will continue working with borrowers to ensure they have the support they need to transition smoothly back into repayment and advance economic stability for their own households and for our nation.”

Prior to that pause, the Education Department paused payments four times.

Biden's Education Department just laid out its plan to make college more affordable — and it didn't include broad student-loan forgiveness

Ayelet Sheffey
Thu, January 27, 2022,

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.GREG NASH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images


Education Secretary Miguel Cardona outlined his department's priorities in a Thursday address.


One was college affordability, but broad student-loan forgiveness went unmentioned.


Cardona did cite targeted loan forgiveness along with improvements to forgiveness programs.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona outlined priorities for his department in a speech delivered on Thursday. And while college affordability was a primary focus, broad student-loan forgiveness didn't make the cut.

Cardona's first major address of 2022 laid out how he plans to address four major priorities for his department: supporting students through pandemic recovery, addressing opportunity and achievement gaps, ensuring higher education leads to successful careers, and making higher education more inclusive and affordable.

On the last item, Cardona acknowledged the soaring costs of college and how they can lead to a lifetime of student debt for some of those who seek higher education. But he stopped short of detailing a plan for broad relief.


"It is also unacceptable to be burdened with unmanageable loan debt for several decades because you chose to earn a college degree," he said during his address. "Today too many talented Americans are choosing against enrolling in higher education due to the fear of debt and the feeling that college is out of reach.

Cardona continued: "We maintain a posture of neglect when postsecondary education is out of reach for students and their families. This is un-American."

Here's how Cardona says he plans to tackle college affordability:

Continue providing targeted student-loan relief to certain groups of borrowers, adding to the $15 billion already canceled for those defrauded by for-profit schools and those with disabilities


Enacting stricter enforcement on colleges that mislead and defraud borrowers


Ensuring borrowers have loan-repayment options that match their financial circumstances


Implementing long-term improvements to loan-forgiveness programs like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and creating a strong Gainful Employment Rule to ensure borrowers have good job opportunities.

Cardona has already begun to carry out reforms to PSLF, but President Joe Biden's campaign promise of $10,000 in student-loan relief for every federal borrower went unmentioned.

Along with the $15 billion in relief Cardona referenced, Biden has also extended the pause on student-loan payments three times, with the most recent extension being through May 1. And during that time, the Education Department prepared a memo on Biden's legal ability to cancel student debt broadly using executive action — but recently released documents found White House officials saw the memo in April and are choosing not to release it.

That prompted 85 Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday to not only call on Biden to release the memo but also cancel up to $50,000 in student debt per federal borrower before payments resume on May 1. The White House responded to that letter by noting that "no one has been required to pay a single dime" in federal loans under Biden while adding that if Congress sends Biden a bill to cancel $10,000 in student debt per borrower — his campaign promise — he would be happy to do so.

It's unclear when, or if, federal borrowers will experience broad relief. When asked about the issue, Cardona has frequently said that "conversations are continuing" on the issue, but he has not commented on the student-debt memo and says he remains focused on the targeted relief he has already begun to carry out — along with ensuring everyone can access higher education.

"Students, today, with a greater sense of urgency, we re-commit to fulfill the promise to support you as you seek the education that will give you the tools to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," Cardona said. "Let's get to work."

NRC fines owner of former nuke plant for 2nd security lapse


 This photo shows the Oyster Creek nuclear plant and the large square structure that houses the reactor in Lacey Township, N.J., Feb. 25, 2010. For the second time in as many months, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has fined the owners of the former New Jersey nuclear power plant for security-related violations. The agency on Wednesday, jan. 26, 2022 said it fined Holtec Decommissioning International $50,000 for security violations at the former Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey Township. 

(AP Photo/Mel Evans, File)


WAYNE PARRY
Wed, January 26, 2022

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — For the second time in as many months, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has fined the owners of a former New Jersey nuclear power plant for security-related violations.

The agency said Wednesday it fined Jupiter, Florida-based Holtec Decommissioning International $50,000 for security violations at the former Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in the Forked River section of Lacey Township.

The plant was one of the oldest in the U.S. when it shut down in 2018.

The fine involved a company employee working as an armorer at the plant.

In an investigation that concluded in March 2021, the NRC determined the armorer “deliberately failed to properly perform required annual material-condition inspections of response unit rifles, and falsified related records.”

The plant has several fortified bunkers from which armed security staff can fight off attackers.

The NRC said the violation was the work of “a now-former security superintendent.”

The fine is separate from a $150,000 penalty the NRC imposed on Holtec in December for different security-related violations that neither the NRC nor the company would detail, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

Asked for comment by The Associated Press on Wednesday, Holtec issued the same statement it issued in December for the previous fine.

“Protecting the security and safety of the public is the number one priority of Holtec International at all our facilities,” both statements read. "We have taken steps to address the concerns and overall security performance at Oyster Creek and shared those learnings with our fleet to prevent a reoccurrence.

“The NRC has determined that the overall security program at the plant remains effective,” it read. “We take these issues very seriously and reviewed and acted on the NRC’s violation findings.”

Company spokesperson Joe Delmar said Holtec could not comment beyond its statement.

Corrective actions agreed to by Holtec include making the corporate security director a standalone position; the use of external experts to conduct independent assessments of security at Oyster Creek and other Holtec-owned decommissioning nuclear power plants; and the implementation of training and communications related to the issue, the NRC said.

Jeff Tittel, the retired president of the Sierra Club's New Jersey chapter, faulted the agency for failing to impose a more severe penalty.

“NRC really stands for ‘no real consequences,’” he said. “NRC is supposed to be the cop on the beat, and when you catch someone doing violations that could lead to catastrophic consequences and you let them off with a slap on the wrist, it sends the message that you can continue to break the rules almost with impunity.”

___

Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at https://twitter.com/WayneParryAC.

WEST VIRGINIA
Senate passes fossil fuel boycott bill; House panel OKs two bills to promote rare earth element extraction from mine water


David Beard, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.
Thu, January 27, 2022, 10:01 PM·4 min read

Jan. 28—MORGANTOWN — Legislators moved several energy-related bills on Thursday, dealing with fossil fuels and rare earth elements.

The Senate approved SB 262. It allows the state treasurer to put financial institutions that openly boycott fossil energy companies on a publicly available Restricted Financial Institution List and to refuse to enter into a banking contract with those institutions.

It requires the treasurer to notify the company of the restricted status and allow the company to appeal and demonstrate it is not engaged in a boycott. The list would be updated annually. Deposits made by the Investment Management Board are excluded, as are decisions by lenders made in the course of ordinary banking business.

Sen. Eric Nelson, R-Kanawha, praised the bill as a "sincere effort to show our strength and what we care about in our energy sector " but opposed it for financial reasons.

"What kind of message does this potentially send out, " he asked. "How can we improve capital needs in this state, not only for our energy sector but all sectors ?"

The treasurer will decide what firms go on the list, and no one knows who future treasurers will be, he said. New York and other firms may talk green energy but their portfolios have a lot energy in them. So his "no " vote reflected a cautionary standpoint.

Sen. Owens Brown, D-Ohio, also voted no. He said the bill is bad law and hypocritical, infringing on free speech and the right to boycott. "What happened to the belief in the free market ?"

Sen. Mark Maynard, R-Wayne, aired the view that drove the bill. "If we continue to allow these investment firms to dictate what industries are OK and not OK, then we'll be answering to them. West Virginia will not allow corporatism to be in our state and tell us what we can get behind or what we can't."

Sen. Randy Smith, R-Tucker, agreed. "All this is is a statement to a bully. ... If you do this, we can make a statement and not do business with you."

Sen. Mike Caputo, D-Marion, supported the bill from a different perspective. BlackRock, the investment management company, has 13 % ownership of Warrior Met Coal in Alabama, where 1, 100 miners have been on strike for a year and BlackRock hasn't budged on terms.

Meanwhile, he said, BlackRock is divesting in coal. "Not only are they divesting in coal, they're divesting in hard-working American coal miners."

The vote was 31-2 and it goes to the House of Delegates.

House Energy moved two bills dealing with rare earth elements and critical minerals.

Rare earth elements, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, as 17 metallic elements "necessary components of more than 200 products across a wide range of applications, especially high-tech consumer products, such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and flat-screen monitors and televisions. Significant defense applications include electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems."

About 97 % of the world REE production is from China, USGS says.

But, as previously reported, they can be extracted from mine drainage, as an ongoing WVU project is demonstrating.

HB 4003 is aimed to clarify ownership of the elements and critical minerals. The committee passed a substantially rewritten version that, committee counsel said, preserves the intent of the introduced version — which is to allow whoever is treating the mine drainage to commercially benefit from any extracted byproducts.

Counsel said that the new version of the bill separates how the Department of Environmental Protection may benefit from how other entities, including nonprofits such as Friends of Deckers Creek or Friends of the Cheat might benefit. DEP may only use proceeds from the sales for governmental purposes.

Delegate Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, talked about the efforts Friends of Deckers Creek and Friends of the Cheat are making to clean those waterways. "Any time we can do something to transform a waste product into an asset is a good thing, " he said.

The bill passed unanimously and goes next to Judiciary.

HB 4025 provides for a five-year severance tax exemption for extracting and producing for commercial benefit rare earth elements and critical minerals.

It also passed unanimously and goes next to Finance.

Tweet David Beard @dbeardtdp Email dbeard @dominionpost.com

Companies are showering shipping workers with perks to try to get around the labor shortage



Nicole Goodkind
Wed, January 26, 2022

Container shipping companies have had a banner year, collecting profits that industry experts call "surreal," at the same time as it's seeing a labor shortage caused by unhappy and underpaid workers. That threatens to further weaken the already precarious global supply chain—and throw those record profits into peril.

The solution appears to be lots of bonuses for the workers they do have.

Prices on consumer goods have surged to 39-year highs amid the supply chain crisis that has kept many store shelves barren and kept industry in the U.S. from achieving efficient productivity levels. But shipping container companies aren’t feeling that burden, at least when it comes to their bank accounts.


Container shipping pre-tax profit for 2021 and 2022 could be as high as $300 billion, according to Drewry, an independent maritime research consultancy, while the industry forecast for 2021 was a record-breaking $150 billion. In 2020, the industry brought in $25.4 billion, according to The Journal of Commerce. Drewry expects the industry to shoot even higher in 2022.

Some of these gains are going back to workers. Shipping lines are paying workers huge year-end bonuses, often worth three years’ of salary or more.

The world’s largest shipping lines are worried about their ability to maintain and recruit labor as jobs in the industry tend to have low pay and bad working conditions. Employees on cargo ships, known as seafarers, are isolated at sea for months, often with 15-hour work days. Labor violations are common and because there’s been difficulty getting COVID-19 vaccines to seafarers, they’re often denied entries at ports and must remain on boat, even if they are docked. A recent survey by the Standard Club found that seafarers’ happiness reached new lows in 2021.

“We heard from many seafarers, particularly those aged 35 and over, that they were not intending to return to sea once they eventually got home,” the report said. “There is likely to be a growing shortfall in seafarers in the coming years.”

The harsh conditions for seafarers, exacerbated by COVID-19, led the International Chamber of Shipping, the principal international trade association for the shipping industry, to beg governments to alleviate some of their woes.

“The impact of nearly two years’ worth of strain, placed particularly upon maritime and road transport workers, but also impacting air crews, is now being seen. Their continued mistreatment is adding pressure on an already crumbling global supply chain,” transport heads wrote in a joint open letter to world leaders. “It is of great concern that we are also seeing shortages of workers and expect more to leave our industries as a result of the poor treatment they have faced during the pandemic, putting the supply chain under greater threat.”

In the meantime, the world’s largest shipping companies are attempting to mitigate job loss by passing on some of their pandemic profits to their workers through huge one-time bonuses.

Maersk gave all of its 80,000 employees a bonus of $1,000, CMA CGM, the French shipping company, awarded bonuses equivalent to eight weeks' pay. The South Korean HMM gave workers a 7.9% raise and a bonus worth nearly six months’ pay.

Chinese shipping companies went even more extreme in their bonuses. China’s state-owned giant Cosco Shipping Holdings Co. gave out as much as 30 times their workers’ monthly salary, according to Caixin Global. Cosco’s earnings grew by 1651% to $10.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2021.

Some workers at Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp. received a year-end bonus that was nearly 40 times their monthly salary. Workers at Wan Hai, another Taiwanese shipping line, got annual bonuses equivalent to a full year’s wages plus an additional $36,079.

Ironically, the boom in profits being passed onto workers who are dismayed by COVID-related issues come from COVID-19 supply chain woes.

Those eye-popping numbers might be because container companies like Maersk are taking advantage of strong demand in ports, and raising freight prices to new highs.

As ports and terminals experience delays due to the breakdown in the supply chain, they have essentially become parking lots for ships and boxes, allowing container and shipping line companies to continue to charge fees as they wait. Soaring demand for containers and shipment, meanwhile, has led to rapid and drastic fee increases.

“To seasoned observers of the container market, typing these numbers on a page is frankly surreal” Drewry wrote in its Container Insight Weekly analysis on the industry.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Morocco tourism workers protest against border closure


The restrictions have dealt a punishing blow to Morocco's tourism sector, already suffering after two lost seasons because of the pandemic 

(AFP/FADEL SENNA) (FADEL SENNA)


Wed, January 26, 2022

Workers in Morocco's vital tourism sector protested for the second time this month on Wednesday to denounce a two-month-old border closure aimed at countering the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Nearly 200 travel industry workers gathered in front of the tourism ministry in Rabat, while local media said other demonstrations occurred in the tourist centres of Agadir and Marrakesh.

The North African country suspended all passenger flights from November 29 until at least January 31 as the highly infectious Omicron variant spread worldwide.

The restrictions have dealt a punishing blow to Morocco's tourism sector, already suffering after two lost seasons because of the pandemic.

"The closure has struck us very hard because we have had to cease operations, while our expense are still fixed," said Mimoun Azzouzi, who owns a travel agency in Temara, near the capital.

Demonstrators said they are "excluded" from a two billion dirham ($214 million) government aid programme for the sector.

Tourism accounted for nearly seven percent of GDP in 2019.

Questioned on Monday in parliament, Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said it was "important to reopen the airways just as it is important to follow the evolution of the pandemic."

About 200 industry workers threatened with bankruptcy had also protested the border closure outside the tourism ministry on January 4.

Morocco's health ministry said the peak of Omicron infections came in the week ending January 23 but they have concerns about a resurgence.

In Tunisia, also in North Africa, the government on Wednesday announced a two-week extension of a night-time curfew -- including a suspension of public gatherings -- that took effect earlier this month.

Tunisia this year has experienced an explosion of new coronavirus cases to around 9,000 per day.

hic-ko-agr/fka/bk/it/lg

Alarming Levels of Mercury Are Found in Old Growth Amazon Forest


View of an illegal dredger used to extract gold dust using mercury near Puerto Maldonado, Tambopata province, Madre de Dios region, in the Amazon rainforest of southeastern Peru, on September 01, 2019. - The Amahuaca indigenous people, who were enslaved and displaced by the rubber boom in the XIX century, are now besieged by gold miners and loggers, who already consumed thousands of rainforest hectares. (Photo by Ernesto BENAVIDES / AFP)

Catrin Einhorn
Fri, January 28, 2022

The protected old-growth forest in the Amazon of southeastern Peru appears pristine: Ancient trees with massive trunks grow alongside young, slender ones, forming a canopy so thick it sometimes feels to scientists like evening during the day.

But a new analysis of what’s inside the forest’s leaves and birds’ feathers tells a different story: The same canopy that supports some of the richest biodiversity on the planet is also sucking up alarming levels of toxic mercury, according to a study published Friday.

The mercury is released into the air by miners searching for gold along nearby riverbanks. They use mercury to separate the precious metal from surrounding sediment and then burn it off. Carried in the air, particles catch on leaves like dust and are washed onto the forest floor by rain. Other particles are sucked into the leaves’ tissue. From there, mercury appears to have transferred up the food web to songbirds, which showed levels of mercury 2-12 times as high as those in comparable areas farther from mining activity.

“The patterns were so much more stark and so much more devastating than we expected to find,” said Jacqueline Gerson, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the research as a doctoral student at Duke University. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

The findings, from the Madre de Dios region of Peru, provide new evidence of how people are altering ecosystems around the world, as species extinction rates accelerate, with little understanding of the consequences.

Scientists have long known that mercury, which is also released into the air by burning coal, is a dangerous neurotoxin to humans and animals. In aquatic ecosystems, it can easily convert into a very poisonous form called methylmercury. As big fish eat smaller ones, the mercury sticks around, accumulating up the food web. For this reason, doctors advise pregnant women around the world to avoid eating large, predatory fish like shark, king mackerel and swordfish.

In the Madre de Dios region, where illegal gold mining has surged in recent years along with the price of gold on global markets, the government declared a health emergency in 2016 after 40% of people tested in 97 villages had dangerously high levels of mercury in their systems.

Researchers have mostly focused on human exposure to mercury in rivers, lakes and oceans. They have not been as worried about it on land, since it is less likely to become methylmercury. But the sheer load of mercury going into the forest, combined with rainy conditions and soil, are leading to concerning levels of methylmercury there.

“It’s been assumed that people living in the Peruvian Amazon have been getting all their methylmercury exposure from eating fish,” Gerson said. “That may not be the case.”

The kind of gold mining that happens in the Madre de Dios region, called artisanal and small-scale gold mining, occurs in about 70 countries, often illegally or unofficially, and it is the largest source of mercury pollution in the world. It also accounts for about 20% of global gold production.

Julio Cusurichi Palacios, president of the Native Federation of the Madre de Dios River and Tributaries, a group formed by Indigenous communities in the region, said the government should combat illegal mining with enforcement but also by strengthening alternative livelihoods for Indigenous and other local people. They harvest fish, Brazil nuts, yucca and corn, he said, but need help “improving their goods, selling their goods, so they don’t fall into thinking, ‘I better go into mining, since my product doesn’t have a market.’”

For the research, Gerson and her team collected soil, leaves, forest litter and other samples at three sites near mining activity and two farther away. To collect certain leaves, they used a giant slingshot to shoot a rope with a weight into the canopy and pull branches down.

When the mercury levels came back, it was the protected old-growth site near gold mining activity that stood out. Those areas had more than 15 times as much mercury as nearby clearings, presumably because the thick canopy and vegetation caught and stored the mercury.

Shocked by the numbers, Gerson kept searching the scientific literature for examples of forests with similar levels. The only one she found was in an industrial area in Guizhou, China, polluted by mercury mining and coal burning. Some levels in the healthy-looking old-growth Amazon were even higher.

By capturing the mercury, the forests are helping to keep it out of aquatic systems, said Emily Bernhardt, a professor of biogeochemistry at Duke and co-author of the study.

“These are some of the most biodiverse forests on Earth,” Bernhardt said. “We already knew they sequester tons of carbon in their biomass and their soils, and we have now uncovered an additional, incredibly important service.”

But the service is not without cost. Mercury poisoning can affect birds’ ability to navigate and sing, and can cause them to lay fewer eggs, she noted. It can also make their eggs less likely to hatch.

Previously, scientists had assumed that the airborne mercury pollution from this kind of gold mining would have less impact locally, said Daniel Obrist, an environmental science professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell who has studied mercury in forests in the northeastern United States and the Arctic and was not involved with the Amazon study.

“It fills a very important gap in understanding what happens there with small scale mining and what the implications are,” Obrist said. “Not only for global processes, but also for local communities.”

© 2022 The New York Times Company

Democratic lawmakers press crypto mining companies over energy consumption concerns


Alexander Ryumin via Getty Images


Igor Bonifacic
·Contributing Writer
Thu, January 27, 2022,

A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachuttes has asked six crypto mining companies, including Riot Blockchain, to answer questions about the impact of their operations on the environment and cost of electricity in the US. In separate letters to the chief executives of each firm, the group asks the companies to detail how much electricity they consume, their scaling plans and any agreements they have in place with local utility companies. They have until February 10th to reply.

Lawmakers say they’re concerned about what a dramatic increase in domestic cryptocurrency mining has meant for the environment and consumers. Specifically, they cite a 2021 study from the University of California, Berkeley that estimated crypto mining in upstate New York raised annual electricity bills by approximately $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for consumers, “with little or no local economic benefit.” They also point to the fact that energy consumption related to Bitcoin mining tripled between 2019 and 2021.

“The extraordinarily high energy usage and carbon emissions associated with Bitcoin mining could undermine our hard work to tackle the climate crisis – not to mention the harmful impacts crypto mining has on local environments and electricity prices,” Senator Warren said. “We need more information on the operations of these crypto mining companies to understand the full scope of the consequences for our environment and local communities.”

The group stops short of suggesting regulatory action could be on the horizon for the industry, but clearly the effect of cryptocurrency on other parts of the economy is something lawmakers are thinking about. On January 20th, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing titled “Cleaning up Cryptocurrency: The Energy Impacts of Blockchains.” What’s more, US lawmakers have taken a more board interest in cryptocurrencies in recent months. That was on display in December when the Senate held a hearing on Stablecoins.

Warren Targets 6 More Crypto Miners for Their Energy Use


Kevin Dietsch

Aoyon Ashraf
Thu, January 27, 2022

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) expanded her inquiry of bitcoin miners’ energy usage and their environmental footprint, sending letters to six more miners on Thursday.

Warren wrote to Riot Blockchain, Marathon Digital Holdings, Stronghold Digital Mining, Bitdeer Group, Bitfury Group and Bit Digital, questioning their “extraordinarily high energy usage.”

In December, Warren, who has made environmental issues a focus of her office, sent a letter to the bitcoin miner Greenidge Generation, expressing her concerns about its high energy usage.

In the new letter, Warren and her colleagues asked each miner to detail its electricity consumption, scaling plans, agreements with electricity companies and impact on energy costs for consumers and small businesses by Feb. 10.

“The extraordinarily high energy usage and carbon emissions associated with Bitcoin mining could undermine our hard work to tackle the climate crisis – not to mention the harmful impacts crypto mining has on local environments and electricity prices,” Warren said in the letter.

The correspondence adds to a list of inquiries by lawmakers globally on the energy consumption of proof-of-work (PoW) mechanisms that reward crypto miners for validating transactions. Most recently, the U.S. held a congressional hearing to discuss the energy consumption related to the PoW. Meanwhile, the European Union's markets regulator called for a ban on the validation system, citing its energy intensity.

"We are encouraged to see that they are interested in learning more about Marathon and the broader bitcoin mining industry, and we welcome the opportunity to participate in the educational process," said Charlie Schumacher, Marathon's director of corporate communications in an email to CoinDesk. "We look forward to having a productive dialogue about the many benefits that we and the rest of our industry have for the United States," he added.

"As a company that is first and foremost tackling a legacy environmental problem left over from the coal industry, any discussion that sheds light on the impact facing Pennsylvanians in relation to their water, land and community is important to us," said a spokesperson for Stronghold Digital, a bitcoin miner who converts coal waste across Pennsylvania into power for mining operations.

Stronghold has received bipartisan support within Pennsylvania and its two facilities, Scrubgrass and Panther Creek, will convert a total of 1.25 million tons of waste coal to alternative energy annually, the company spokesperson said, adding that Stronghold welcomes any dialogue on the environmental issues with Senator Warren and her colleagues.

Meanwhile, another mining company targeted by Warren, Bit Digital, also welcomed talks with the lawmakers, noting that the company has taken a "leadership role" to achieve energy sustainability within the crypto mining sector. "We welcome this sort of high-level dialogue with policymakers in Washington and at all levels of government, and look forward to responding to this inquiry in a timely and informative manner,” said Bryan Bullett, CEO of Bit Digital.

Other three companies didn't immediately respond to request for comments.

Flush With Cash, U.S. Shale Revisits Taboo Topic: Raising Output



Kevin Crowley, David Wethe and Sheela Tobben
Thu, January 27, 2022, 

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. shale executives have finally achieved something that eluded the industry for more than a decade: the ability to turn over billions of dollars in dividends to shareholders while at the same time boosting production to tap into surging global oil demand.

The question now is just how much the shale explorers will reinvest in fresh drilling. The stakes are high for them and the entire global economy: Drill too much and they risk triggering a damaging price war with OPEC and its allies; drill too little and oil could soar to $100 a barrel and throttle growth across the world.

The next few weeks will be telling. Executives at industry heavyweights Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and EOG Resources Inc. will be pressed to reveal details on their investment plans when they report quarterly earnings. Investors cheered the frugality adopted by management teams after the pandemic-driven collapse in demand and prices, making oil stocks the best-performing sector of 2021.

Now, with Pioneer's cash flow expected to be large enough to fund dividends nine times its 2020 payout and EOG seen reporting record-high annual income, both companies are prepared to grow output up to 5%.

It’s a titanic shift from the first decade of the shale boom. Back then, companies drilled at a frenetic pace, driving U.S. output to record highs and provoking back-to-back price wars with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The result: Shale companies posted a collective $200 billion in losses, which prompted Wall Street to sour on the industry. So, when the pandemic hit and prices collapsed further, companies had no choice but to restrain drilling, dismantle rigs and fire workers.

The U.S. oil industry now has a range of options for balancing growth with shareholder returns. For example, oil at the $79 mark allows oil producers to return $50 billion of cash to investors and lift output by 2 million barrels a day, according to IHS Markit. That’s equivalent to the entire annual production of Nigeria and Venezuela combined. Or, they could return $75 billion and grow daily output by just 500,000 barrels.

“Shale can and will bounce back at some price,’’ said Raoul LeBlanc, vice president for upstream at IHS Markit Ltd. With crude fetching more than $80, the industry “can give back very large sums to shareholders and start growing again.’’

Bloomberg Intelligence expects its universe of publicly traded oil companies this year to generate a record $67.1 billion of free cash flow, the pool of money left over for dividends, buybacks and debt reduction, a 33% increase from 2021. International crude topped $90 this week for the first since 2014 and the domestic benchmark isn’t far behind.

As alluring as high crude prices are to public drillers, shareholders’ appetite for cash returns is paramount. Companies boosting their payouts have helped lure investors back to the sector, casting oil companies as the top performers in the S&P 500 Index this year and adding to outsized gains in 2021.

“Public companies won’t want to risk breaking away from their current mantra of limiting output,” said Elisabeth Murphy at ESAI Energy LLC. “It has paid off for them, so why change?”

“Shale can and will bounce back at some price.” -- IHS Markit’s Raoul LeBlanc

Production in the world’s largest shale field, the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, already is growing, having hit a new record in December. Total U.S. output is expected to reach 12.4 million barrels a day in 2023 -- 11% more than 2021 and higher than Saudi Arabia’s current production. Most of that growth is coming from closely held shale explorers who control most of the American rig fleet and are seen boosting drilling budgets by more than 40% this year, according to Evercore ISI.

“If the U.S. is adding less than a million barrels a day you’re probably going to be in a nice sweet spot,'' said Chris Duncan, an analyst at San Diego-based Brandes Investment Partners, which manages about $25 billion. Any more than that “and you’re going to have an issue with the world absorbing that.''

“The chief executives of ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum Corp. both said Monday they expect U.S. crude output to increase by about 800,000 barrels a day this year.

The urge to cash in on higher prices has been so strong that it’s luring veteran oil managers out of retirement. Take Matt Gallagher, for instance. He's a third-generation Texas oilman who formerly ran Parsley Energy Inc. before selling it for $7 billion 13 months ago.

“As things started opening back up, it was clear that there was a need for new barrels, so we’ve been in sprint mode since then,” said Gallagher, who now heads closely held Greenlake Energy Ventures LLC. “We think the timing is really good and we’ll be able to lock in healthy prices.”

Gallagher, who drilled his first well this month, is keen to emphasize that he’s learned lessons from the industry’s past failings. He’s locking in current high prices through hedging and is taking a “surgical approach” to drilling.

Developing expansion plans at his new company is “much more nimble” than at publicly traded Parsley. “Nimble is good and it’s okay for us to stop.”

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Canada’s Oil Sands Stocks Surge Even as Climate-Conscious Exit



Robert Tuttle
Thu, January 27, 2022, 1:43 PM·2 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Canada’s oil companies are outperforming their energy-producing peers as the highest oil prices in seven years brings a windfall of cash.

The combined shares of five of the largest oil sands companies have outpaced the broader S&P 500 Energy Index over the past three months, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The 25% surge comes as U.S. crude oil prices approach $90 a barrel for the first time since 2014. Benefiting from relatively low operating costs, Canadian oil sands producers including Suncor Energy Inc., Cenovus Energy Inc., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Imperial Oil Ltd. and MEG Energy Corp. have been padding their cash balances, allowing them to pay down debt faster than expected and return more money to shareholders through buybacks or increased dividends.

Canadian Natural’s net debt has dropped below its long-term target of C$15 billion ($11.8 billion) and will fall to C$12 billion by year end, while Cenovus’ net debt will fall below its C$8 billion long-term target by the fourth quarter, according to a note by Credit Suisse Group AG Analyst Manav Gupta.

Unlike shale or conventional energy companies, oil sands producers need not spend cash on constantly drilling new wells just to keep production going. Instead, they spend billions of dollars up front to build new mines or thermal well sites, but once operating, those sites produce oil at relatively steady rates for decades with little new investment. Also helping Canadian producers is Enbridge Inc.’s Line 3, a new oil pipeline that started operation in October. It has boosted their capacity to export crude to the U.S. and also allowed production to rise to a record.

Shares of the Canadian producers are rising even as companies face a torrent of environmental opposition due to the Alberta oil sands relatively high carbon emissions. The hostility has spurred divestment from major funds including Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, which said in September that it will sell billions of dollars worth of oil assets, including large equity stakes in Canada’s top crude producers.

Scientists regrow frog's lost leg
Frogs briefly treated with a five-drug cocktail administered by a wearable bioreactor on the stump were able to regrow a functional, nearly complete limb

Date:January 26, 2022

Source:Tufts University

Summary:Scientists have triggered long-term growth of legs in adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs. The frogs regrew a lost leg over months, triggered by just 24 hour exposure to a five-drug cocktail held under a bioreactor. The new legs were functional enough to enable sensation and locomotion

For millions of patients who have lost limbs for reasons ranging from diabetes to trauma, the possibility of regaining function through natural regeneration remains out of reach. Regrowth of legs and arms remains the province of salamanders and superheroes.

But in a study published in the journal Science Advances, scientists at Tufts University and Harvard University's Wyss Institute have brought us a step closer to the goal of regenerative medicine.

On adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs, the researchers were able to trigger regrowth of a lost leg using a five-drug cocktail applied in a silicone wearable bioreactor dome that seals in the elixir over the stump for just 24 hours. That brief treatment sets in motion an 18-month period of regrowth that restores a functional leg.

Many creatures have the capability of full regeneration of at least some limbs, including salamanders, starfish, crabs, and lizards. Flatworms can even be cut up into pieces, with each piece reconstructing an entire organism. Humans are capable of closing wounds with new tissue growth, and our livers have a remarkable, almost flatworm-like capability of regenerating to full size after a 50% loss.

But loss of a large and structurally complex limb -- an arm or leg -- cannot be restored by any natural process of regeneration in humans or mammals. In fact, we tend to cover major injuries with an amorphous mass of scar tissue, protecting it from further blood loss and infection and preventing further growth.

Kickstarting Regeneration

The Tufts researchers triggered the regenerative process in African clawed frogs by enclosing the wound in a silicone cap, which they call a BioDome, containing a silk protein gel loaded with the five-drug cocktail.

Each drug fulfilled a different purpose, including tamping down inflammation, inhibiting the production of collagen which would lead to scarring, and encouraging the new growth of nerve fibers, blood vessels, and muscle. The combination and the bioreactor provided a local environment and signals that tipped the scales away from the natural tendency to close off the stump, and toward the regenerative process.

The researchers observed dramatic growth of tissue in many of the treated frogs, re-creating an almost fully functional leg. The new limbs had bone structure extended with features similar to a natural limb's bone structure, a richer complement of internal tissues (including neurons), and several "toes" grew from the end of the limb, although without the support of underlying bone.

The regrown limb moved and responded to stimuli such as a touch from a stiff fiber, and the frogs were able to make use of it for swimming through water, moving much like a normal frog would.

"It's exciting to see that the drugs we selected were helping to create an almost complete limb," said Nirosha Murugan, research affiliate at the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts and first author of the paper. "The fact that it required only a brief exposure to the drugs to set in motion a months-long regeneration process suggests that frogs and perhaps other animals may have dormant regenerative capabilities that can be triggered into action."

The researchers explored the mechanisms by which the brief intervention could lead to long-term growth. Within the first few days after treatment, they detected the activation of known molecular pathways that are normally used in a developing embryo to help the body take shape.

Activation of these pathways could allow the burden of growth and organization of tissue to be handled by the limb itself, similar to how it occurs in an embryo, rather than require ongoing therapeutic intervention over the many months it takes to grow the limb.

How the BioDome Works

Animals naturally capable of regeneration live mostly in an aquatic environment. The first stage of growth after loss of a limb is the formation of a mass of stem cells at the end of the stump called a blastema, which is used to gradually reconstruct the lost body part. The wound is rapidly covered by skin cells within the first 24 hours after the injury, protecting the reconstructing tissue underneath.

"Mammals and other regenerating animals will usually have their injuries exposed to air or making contact with the ground, and they can take days to weeks to close up with scar tissue," said David Kaplan, Stern Family Professor of Engineering at Tufts and co-author of the study. "Using the BioDome cap in the first 24 hours helps mimic an amniotic-like environment which, along with the right drugs, allows the rebuilding process to proceed without the interference of scar tissue."

Next Steps in Frogs and Mammals

Previous work by the Tufts team showed a significant degree of limb growth triggered by a single drug, progesterone, with the BioDome. However, the resulting limb grew as a spike and was far from the more normally shaped, functional limb achieved in the current study.

The five-drug cocktail represents a significant milestone toward the restoration of fully functional frog limbs and suggests further exploration of drug and growth factor combinations could lead to regrown limbs that are even more functionally complete, with normal digits, webbing, and more detailed skeletal and muscular features.

"We'll be testing how this treatment could apply to mammals next," said corresponding author Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush Professor of Biology in the School of Arts & Sciences, director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts, and associate faculty member of the Wyss Institute.

"Covering the open wound with a liquid environment under the BioDome, with the right drug cocktail, could provide the necessary first signals to set the regenerative process in motion," he said. "It's a strategy focused on triggering dormant, inherent anatomical patterning programs, not micromanaging complex growth, since adult animals still have the information needed to make their body structures."



Story Source:

Materials provided by Tufts University. Original written by Mike Silver. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:
Nirosha J. Murugan, Hannah J. Vigran, Kelsie A. Miller, Annie Golding, Quang L. Pham, Megan M. Sperry, Cody Rasmussen-Ivey, Anna W. Kane, David L. Kaplan, Michael Levin. Acute multidrug delivery via a wearable bioreactor facilitates long-term limb regeneration and functional recovery in adult Xenopus laevis. Science Advances, 2022; 8 (4) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abj2164