South Africa: Budget - Decision Not to Raise the Sugar Tax "Puts Profits Ahead of People" Say Activists

@ParliamentofRSA / Twitter
South African Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana delivering the Budget Speech to the National Assembly plenary held at the Cape Town City Hall, February 22, 2023.

By Daniel Steyn

"Difficult operating environment for the sugar industry" cited by Finance Minister as reason

Health activists demonstrating in Cape Town for a rise in the tax on sugary drinks were disappointed by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana's announcement in his Budget speech that the tax would be frozen for two years. Godongwana said this was "due to the difficult operating environment for the sugar industry from the impact of flooding and social unrest."

The tax on sugary drinks was first introduced in 2018 to reduce consumption. The tax is imposed on drinks with more than 4g of sugar per 100ml. Research from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2021 showed that it has been effective in reducing the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks.

HEALA, a coalition of organisations focused on nutrition, organised a flash mob in the Cape Town city centre ahead of the Finance Minister's Budget Speech on Wednesday, advocating for an increase in the sugary drinks tax. They want the tax to be increased from 11% to 20%, following the guidance of the World Health Organisation.

The flash mob was part of HEALA's "Less Sugar, More Life" campaign, and featured school pupils from Cape Town in a dance.

"We don't even notice how much sugar we are drinking in sugary drinks and it's harmful to our health. I want other young people to know that it's dangerous," said one of the dancers, Enkosi Stofile.

"The announcement by the Finance Minister, coupled with ineffective increases on other health taxes such as alcohol and tobacco, is a direct attack on the lives of millions of people at risk of serious health conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer," said Nzama Mbalati, HEALA's Programmes Manager.

Mbalati said there was no rationale for the decision to maintain the rate of tax on sugary drinks. "This decision is not in the interest of ordinary people. Instead, it puts profits ahead of people."

About 10,000 new cases of diabetes are reported in South Africa each month, according to the International Diabetes Federation. Up to 70% of women and 39% of men are obese or overweight. Sugar is a cause of obesity and tooth decay, and is linked to a range of other non-communicable diseases. The national budget for 2023, tabled by Godongwana in parliament today, includes a R200-million reduction in health spending this year.

Before the budget speech, News24 reported that the South African Sugar Association said 6,000 jobs could be lost if the tax was increased. SASA also said 9,000 jobs had already been lost since the levy was introduced.

However, in the aftermath of a fraud scandal at Tongaat Hulett, South Africa's largest sugar producer, in 2018, 5,000 workers were served with retrenchment letters.

Disclosure: Community Media Trust does work for HEALA. GroundUp was once a project of Community Media Trust and still has a close relationship with Community Media Trust.

Read the original article on GroundUp.

Godzilla egg? Japan baffled by large sphere washed up on its shores

FEBRUARY 22, 2023
ByAMANDA LEE

Officials inspecting a large ball of unknown origin on a beach in Hamamatsu on Wednesday.

Reuters

Residents and the authorities in Japan are baffled after a mysterious, large metal sphere was found ashore earlier this week.

The sphere, which is about 1.5m wide, was spotted on a beach in Hamamatsu, a coastal city in Japan’s main island of Honshu.

It was seen by an unidentified local man, who alerted the police after noticing the unusual object on Enshuhama beach.

The authorities arrived at the beach, and the bomb squad was called in to investigate the sphere.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK released footage showing two officials on the beach looking at the russet sphere, which appears to be rusty and made of metal.

The authorities have cordoned off the area and took X-rays of the sphere. They have said that it is not a bomb and does not pose a threat. However, its origins remain unknown, and it will be removed from the beach soon.

The Guardian reported that photographs of the object have been sent to the Self-Defence Forces and Japan Coast Guard for further examination.

An unidentified runner told NHK that he was surprised by the commotion as the sphere had been on the beach for quite some time.

“That ball has been there for a month. I tried to push it, but it wouldn’t budge,” said the man.

The sphere has been dubbed “Godzilla egg”, “mooring buoy” and “from outer space” by local residents in Hamamatsu. Others said it resembled something from the popular Japanese manga series Dragon Ball and believed it was an unidentified flying object that had fallen from the sky.

The TV footage of the sphere also prompted speculation on social media after Japan said it “strongly suspected” several Chinese spy balloons had been spotted over its territory in recent years.

On Wednesday, Japan expressed its concerns to China about suspected surveillance balloons spotted over its skies at least three times since 2019 — an allegation it first made last week. Beijing denies claims of espionage.

Both countries’ defence ministers met on Wednesday (Feb 22), in the first senior bilateral security dialogue in four years. Both sides agreed to work towards launching a communications hotline this spring.

The discovery of the sphere also comes amid the spotting of objects in various locations since the US shot down what it said was a spy balloon earlier in February. The balloon was seen over Montana and raised concerns as the US government tracked its path over the country. It was shot down off the coast of South Carolina and recovered in the Atlantic Ocean.

Syria earthquake: Did EU, US sanctions stop aid deliveries?

Cathrin Schaer
February 21, 2023

On social media, calls to lift sanctions on Syria and expedite earthquake aid have gone viral. But are those calls genuine?

The young Syrian woman has tears in her eyes. "We have no electricity, we have no gas, we have nothing," she cries angrily into the camera. "And then the earthquake happened … not a single person tried to help us. Don't let the media fool you," she pleads, and shows a graphic of airspace over Syria as part of her video.

The graphic indicates that no planes with aid for earthquake survivors had yet landed in her country, a day after the devastating earthquake which hit northern Syria and south-eastern Turkey on February 6.

Syria needs help, the young woman, who identifies herself as Patricia, a student from Damascus, rages into the camera.

But even before she had flashed the air traffic graphic on her TikTok video, which got more than 5 million views and over 240,000 mostly sympathetic comments, it had gone viral on various social media platforms. Most of those showing the graphic almost all used a variation of this hashtag: #StopSanctionsOnSyria.

Patricia's widely viewed TikTok video is an excellent example of the confusion and emotion surrounding the topic of sanctions on Syria. As frustration about delays in aid and equipment reaching parts of earthquake-hit Syria have grown, many observers asked whether sanctions were to blame for the deadly hold up.

Some asking this question genuinely want to know how they can help. Others, say critics of the authoritarian Syrian government headed by dictator Bashar Assad, are cynically using the natural disaster.

There was certainly an increase in the use of Syria sanctions-related hashtags after the earthquake, say researchers at the Syrian Archive, which uses online verification to track war crimes in Syria. "But there's no certainty as to whether these hashtags are deliberate [and part of a government-sponsored campaign] or organic," a spokesperson for the Syrian Archive told DW. "Just a general desire to help saw a lot of people participating in it. But it's also clear that this campaign is welcomed by the Syrian government."

Slow delivery of aid to northern Syria: DW's Mohamad Chreyteh

01:03

That aspect of it "is very deliberate," Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow and Syria expert at US thinktank, the Washington Institute, told DW. "The regime and its supporters are using it [the earthquake] as an excuse to call for the lifting of all sanctions on Syria."

That's despite the fact that the opposition-controlled area of Idlib — the part of northern Syria that likely paid the highest price for delays, in terms of survivors who could have been rescued but perished — is not subject to sanctions imposed on the Syrian government anyway.

"Those areas have not been under the control of the Assad regime in over a decade," Tabler pointed out.
Missing context

That kind of context is missing in a lot of the content on social media. For example, in her TikTok video, Patricia from Damascus never talks about why there are international sanctions on Syria in the first place.

Sanctions were imposed on Syria by European countries and the US after the Assad regime sparked a civil war by brutally cracking down on peaceful anti-government demonstrations during the so-called Arab Spring, starting 2011. Twelve years later, the Syrian government, now in control of much of the country again, wants to rehabilitate its image and regain access to international markets.

In northern Syria, underequipped local volunteers, the White Helmets, undertook search and rescue alone

 K. Rammah/AA/picture alliance

Nor does Patricia mention the revised cybercrime law introduced by the Syrian government in April 2022 that means it is dangerous for ordinary Syrians to publish or post anything that might be critical of the government. As the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy reported in a legal analysis of the revised law, the Syrian government also has a special security branch "to monitor published social media posts and other digital communications."

The air traffic graphic that TikTok's Patricia and many others presented online is also misleading. As a result of the conflict, the airspace over Syria has been out of bounds for most civilian carriers since 2015. Air traffic over Syria looks the same almost every day, incoming earthquake aid or not.

What is the truth about sanctions on Syria?

As many of the sanctioning governments were quick to point out, sanctions have always exempted humanitarian aid.

"I categorically reject the accusations that EU sanctions have any impact on humanitarian aid," the EU's crisis management commissioner, Janez Lenarcic, said shortly after the earthquake.

The German foreign office has also stressed that sanctions never applied to humanitarian aid, or even things like heavy machinery that could be used to move rubble.

"Don't fall for the narrative being spread by certain actors who are trying to further their own interests in these very difficult times," a German foreign office spokesperson warned during a recent press conference. "The current catastrophic situation is being exploited politically."

Sanctions in a gray zone

All of this is not to say that sanctions on Syria do not have some detrimental effect.

"I don't question that sanctions have negative impacts on human rights," Karam Shaar, a political economist and expert on Syrian sanctions, told DW previously. "Nobody can argue that. But we should be talking about the context and the rest of the story, too."

For example, Shaar noted, one of the biggest issues for many ordinary Syrians inside and outside the country has been the problem of sending money in and out of Syria. Sanctions are supposed to cut the Assad regime off from international banking but in effect, they've also made life very difficult for ordinary Syrians.

On February 9, the US government issued General License 23, which should go some way toward remedying this. It "authorizes for 180 days all transactions related to earthquake relief that would be otherwise prohibited by the Syrian Sanctions Regulations."

This week, the US commerce department also said it would help expedite exports to Syria that could be helpful in recovery efforts, such as telecommunications and medical gear, portable generators and water purification or sanitation equipment.

On February 15, the UK issued two additional licenses too. "UK sanctions do not target humanitarian aid, food, or medical supplies," the British government noted. But, its statement added, it recognized that some aspects of some sanctions might be impractical in a crisis. The new licenses would "make it easier for aid agencies to operate in Syria without breaching the sanctions that target Assad's regime."

EU member states have reportedly been discussing temporary changes to sanctions too.

Two more border crossings from Turkey into northern Syria only opened over a week after the earthquake.

Keeping a closer eye on sanctions

Shaar, the Washington Institute's Tabler and other analysts agree that sanctions and exemptions need more monitoring and regular evaluation.

"The problem is not with sanctions as a policy tool, but with the way they are implemented in Syria and other countries, and the lack of resources dedicated to making them effective," Shaar argued in a January op-ed for the Atlantic Council thinktank .

Tabler noted that a lack of careful evaluation could cause problems with the new US exemption, General License 23. It will run for six months rather than the customary three, he said, and the definition of what is "earthquake relief" remains very broad.

"And the Assad regime has a horrible track record with diverting aid," Tabler told DW. "I know the unintended effects that sanctions can have and I also know that people are suffering and we need to get them relief. But opening up in this way allows for abuse," the former special adviser on Syria for the US State Department explained.

 

Anger about the delayed arrival of aid into northern Syria has been growing since the February 6 earthquake

Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images

In this case, Tabler suggests carefully checking on earthquake damage and what needs reconstruction, then ensuring the newly enabled cash flow into Syria is actually going towards that, rather than being siphoned off by the Assad government, which could use it to either enrich itself or fund further attacks on its opponents.

Sanctioning countries have the technology and ability to be able to do this kind of monitoring, Tabler stated. "But the question is one of political will."

Edited by: J. Wingard

UK Firms stick to four-day week after trial ends

PublishedShare

Image caption,

On her day off Faye bakes to relax

By Simon Read, Lucy Hooker & Emma Simpson

Business reporters, BBC News

Faye Johnson-Smith thought it was too good to be true when her boss said she could have every Wednesday off without a cut in her pay.

Her firm was taking part in a six-month trial, testing the costs and benefits of a four-day week on full pay.

Like most of the workers involved, Faye felt healthier and happier as a result of working shorter hours.

But at the end of the trial almost all the 61 employers involved were also keen to keep the new work pattern.

The scheme, which took place between June and December 2022, involved organisations across the UK from a brewery to a fish and chip shop, software developers to recruitment firms.

A report assessing its impact has found it had "extensive benefits" particularly for employees' well-being.

Its authors argue it could herald a shift in attitudes, so that before long we could all see a mid-week break or a three-day weekend as normal.

• The workers getting 100% pay for 80% of the hours

Faye works as a supervisor for Citizen Advice in Gateshead where around 200 staff took part in the scheme.

She says having the extra day off gives her time to "recover and recuperate".

As a result, she arrives back at work "ready to hit the ground running" and, she reckons, achieves as much, if not more, in her four days than she used to in five.

Her colleague, Bethany Lawson, says she finds her team easier to manage now most of them are on a four-day week, leaving her more time to get on, and she also finds she can push herself a little bit further after a day to "reset".

Image caption,

Being told she could work a four-day week felt like winning the lottery, says Bethany

But for a four-day week on full pay to work across the economy, employers will need to see productivity gains.

Workers will need to create the services and products in four days that they were creating in five, to make enough money to pay a full week's wages.

That kind of productivity growth has proved an intractable challenge for the UK economy. It has fallen behind many other rich nations in the amount of value created per worker in recent years, with competing explanations for why, and how that might be fixed.

The report's authors argue that although the trial was amongst organisations that volunteered to join, and were therefore more likely to make it work, the results make a strong case for a shorter working week.

"We don't have a firm handle on exactly what happened to productivity, but we do know that on a variety of other metrics, whether we're talking about revenue, [workforce] attrition, self-reports of productivity, employee well-being and costs, we had really good results," says Juliet Schor, from Boston College, one of the academic institutions behind the trial, alongside the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

While most of the companies taking part said they were happy with productivity and performance outcomes, only 23 provided financial data covering revenues, and that showed revenue had broadly stayed the same over the six months of the trial.

But of the 61 companies that took part, 56 said they would continue with the four-day week, at least for now, while 18 said the policy was a permanent change.

Tyler Grange, an environmental consultancy which has six offices across England, is one of those fully embracing the new pattern.

Simon Ursell, its managing director, admits the first month of the trial was "a bit white knuckle".

He didn't want to simply compress into four days the work that was being done in five, because that would put staff under too much pressure, he says.

IMAGE SOURCE,TYLER GRANGE

Image caption,

Staff at Tyler Grange are now on a permanent four-day week work pattern

Instead the plan was to remove unnecessary meetings, travel and admin. But in the end it was the staff themselves who found the efficiencies required.

"Fundamentally, if you give people this incredible incentive of a whole day of their time a week, they are going to work really hard to make it work," he says.

Now, he says, his staff are doing 2% more in four days than they used to do in five. The team is happier. Absenteeism has shrunk by two-thirds and applications to work at Tyler Grange are flooding in.

Those results reflect the overall findings of the report: that staff were much less inclined to call in sick, and more inclined to stay with their employer, reducing recruitment costs and making it more worthwhile training staff.

The results are not as clear-cut for every organisation, however.

Citizens Advice in Gateshead, where Faye works, is not yet ready to commit to a permanent four-day week.

Chief executive Alison Dunn says the charity found many benefits to the shorter working week, including less burn-out amongst its staff, who are under a lot of pressure in the current cost-of-living crisis.

"It has absolutely worked in the majority of the business," she says.

"But there are some areas of the business where the jury is still out as to how effective it will be."

It has proved harder to make efficiencies at the contact centre, which was already heavily monitored with tough targets to meet. There, Citizens Advice has had to shoulder the cost of hiring extra staff to allow for the four-day week pattern.

Ms Dunn hopes the extra investment will eventually be offset by a reduction in costs around recruitment, retention and sickness but, it's still "a work in progress" she says, with a review due in April.

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/four-day-week-could-real-214819460.html

Boston College Economist and Sociologist Juliet Schor joins Yahoo Finance Live to break down the results of a United Kingdom study on four-day workweeks.

1933

Southern Baptists oust Saddleback Church over woman pastor


 Pastor Rick Warren speaks during the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Tuesday, June 14, 2022. On Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023, the Southern Baptist Convention ousted its second-largest congregation — Saddleback Church, the renowned California megachurch founded by Warren — for having a woman pastor. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

PETER SMITH
Tue, February 21, 2023 at 12:58 PM MST·6 min read

The Southern Baptist Convention on Tuesday ousted its second-largest congregation — Saddleback Church, the renowned California megachurch founded by pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren — for having a woman pastor.

The vote by the convention's Executive Committee culminates growing tension between the nation's largest Protestant denomination — which officially opposes women as pastors — and a congregation whose story has been one of the biggest church-growth successes of modern times.

The committee cited Saddleback's having “a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of pastor," an allusion to Stacie Wood, wife of the current lead pastor of Saddleback, Andy Wood.

But the controversy began in 2021, when Warren ordained three women as pastors, prompting discussions within the denomination about possibly expelling the megachurch.

Warren retired last year after more than 42 years at Saddleback. He made an emotional speech in June 2022 at the Southern Baptists’ annual convention in Anaheim, standing by his ordination of women. He told delegates who debated the issue, “We have to decide if we will treat each other as allies or adversaries.”

But the Executive Committee took the vote Tuesday without public discussion after meeting in executive session.

It voted to approve a recommendation from the denomination's Credentials Committee that Saddleback be deemed “not in friendly cooperation with the Convention" — the terminology used for ousting a church. While Southern Baptists' statement of faith officially opposes women as pastors, each congregation is self-governing, so the main enforcement mechanism is to oust it from membership.

The Executive Committee's motion said that Saddleback “has a faith and practice that does not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith, as demonstrated by the church having a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of pastor.”

In a statement late Tuesday, the church didn’t indicate whether it planned to exercise its right to appeal the decision at the Southern Baptists' next annual meeting, scheduled for New Orleans in June.

“We love and have always valued our relationship with the SBC and its faithful churches,” Saddleback elders said in a statement. "We will engage and respond through the proper channels at the appropriate time in hopes to serve other like-minded Bible believing SBC churches. Meanwhile, we remain focused on following God’s leadership to love and serve our church family and the communities around our campuses."

Mike Keahbone, an Executive Committee member and Oklahoma pastor, said an appeal “appears likely.”

“This was the heart of the room; to let the messengers (delegates) of the SBC decide,” Keahbone tweeted Tuesday.

With its main campus in Lake Forest, south of Los Angeles, Saddleback Church has grown over four to 14 locations in Southern California, with an average weekly attendance of 30,000. There are four international campuses —in Hong Kong, Germany, the Philippines and Argentina.

Wood told The Associated Press last year that the Bible “teaches that men and women were given spiritual gifts by God.” His wife has served as teaching pastor for Saddleback.

“The church should be a place where both men and women can exercise those spiritual gifts,” Wood said. “My wife has the spiritual gift of teaching and she is really good. People often tell me she’s better than me when it comes to preaching, and I’m really glad to hear that.”

The Executive Committee also voted to oust five other congregations -- four over the issue of women as pastors and one over the issue of sexual abuse.

When Southern Baptists last updated their official statement of belief — The Baptist Faith and Message — in 2000, they added this clause: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

The five churches ousted for having women as pastors “have been valued, cooperating churches for many years, and this decision was not made lightly,” Committee Chairman Jared Wellman said in a statement. "However, we remain committed to upholding the theological convictions of the SBC and maintaining unity among its cooperating churches.”

Warren, with a social media following in the millions, has written multiple books, including the widely successful “The Purpose Driven Life.” In 2005, Time magazine named Warren one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World,” and he delivered the invocation at President Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009.

The church grew from a startup by Rick Warren and his wife, Kay Warren. With his charisma and easy, informal preaching style, Warren attracted thousands to the megachurch. Over the past decade, Warren also launched an ambitious plan to expand the church’s reach across Southern California as well as globally, a vision his successor has promised to complete.

Warren, in a tweet, said he and Kay would “respond to #SBC in OUR time & way thru direct channels" such as social media and newsletters.

Warren remains listed as founding pastor on the Saddleback website.

The SBC has in recent years authorized the ouster of churches that don't conform to its statement of faith. This includes churches with women pastors, LGBTQ-inclusive polices, support for racism or failure to respond adequately to child sexual abuse, such as employing offenders as pastors.

In some cases, the committee has ousted churches for allegedly failing even to cooperate in answering to such allegations, as reflected in some of the motions approved on Tuesday.

It deemed Freedom Church in Vero Beach, Florida, to be not in friendly cooperation “based on a lack of intent to cooperate in resolving concerns regarding a sexual abuse allegation." The denomination has been roiled by allegations in recent years of sexual abusers remaining in ministry, prompting the convention to vote for stricter policies. A task force focused on the issue this week announced the hiring of a firm to oversee a new database of credibly accused ministers.

Freedom Church's pastor, Richard Demsick, told the AP that the SBC has sent conflicting messages to the church. In a letter to national, state and local Southern Baptist entities, church leaders disputed any allegation of abuse, asked for additional information and said they planned to appeal any ouster.

The Executive Committee ousted New Faith Mission Ministry of Griffin, Georgia, and St. Timothy’s Christian Baptist in Baltimore, citing their “lack of intent to cooperate in resolving a question” arising from the churches having women senior pastors.

And it ousted Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and Calvary Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, both for having female lead pastors, indicating they have a “faith and practice” at odds with the convention's.

The SBC has 13.7 million members, but has seen net declines over more than a decade in members and baptisms, its key metric for spiritual vitality.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Scientists develop ‘spontaneous’ antidote to toxic fumes from building fires

Vishwam Sankaran
Tue, 21 February 2023 

Scientists develop ‘spontaneous’ antidote to toxic fumes from building fires


Researchers have developed a “breakthrough” synthetic compound that they say could potentially be used as a fast-acting antidote against toxic fumes in building fires.

The study, published on Monday in the journal PNAS, has demonstrated that the compound – hemoCD-Twins – is a “very effective,” “rapid” antidote against carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) poisoning in mice models.

Both CO and HCN gases from burning materials in building fires can be fatal upon inhalation.

These compounds have been shown to bind strongly to the blood molecules hemoglobin, cytochromes, and iron containing compounds known as “hemes”, and block normal respiration.

When an individual is exposed to toxic fumes containing these compounds, it can be impossible to remove them from the body, especially when there is simultaneous CO and HCN poisoning.

This creates significant challenges in saving the lives of those exposed to toxic gases in building fires, scientists say.

Now, researchers, including those from Doshisha University in Japan, have shown that their new “breakthrough” synthetic compound captures CO very strongly and scavenges cyanide in saline solution.

It was also demonstrated to result in an 85 per cent survival rate and rapid recovery in mice.

Apart from showing an immediate antidotal effect, a high degree of safety, and storage stability, researchers say the compound also exhibited very low toxicity and rapid elimination via urinary excretion.

“This antidote will limit damage from gas poisoning caused by sudden fires and can be tested for the treatment of various symptoms caused by gas poisoning,” study co-author Hiroaki Kitagishi from Doshisha University said in a statement.

In 5–10 years, scientists hope to complete non-clinical and clinical trials to show that hemoCD-Twins can be incorporated in ambulances, emergency hospitals, and other facilities.

“This way, future generations will have no need to fear sudden fire gas poisoning. We will proceed with non-clinical and clinical trials in cooperation with medical doctors in order to implement this compound as a therapeutic agent in the world,” Dr Kitagishi said.

Why a pipeline project in Houston is raising concerns over environmental racism

Nada Hassanein, USA TODAY
Tue, February 21, 2023 

Days before the new year, Angela King woke up to a nauseating scent of rotten egg wafting through her neighborhood in southwest Houston.

The smell was a reminder of how close she lives to a storage facility bearing 300,000 gallons of liquid propane. And now, CenterPoint Energy plans to install natural gas pipeline transmission lines 4 feet underground. Initial construction will be just 50 feet from her home, King said.

King has lived in Southwest Crossings, a mostly Black and brown neighborhood, for two decades, and she and her neighbors have protested the construction, fearing for their health and safety. Propane and natural gas are highly flammable and come with risks of leaks, fires and explosions at facilities and pipelines.

And their neighborhood – situated in the energy capital of the nation – isn’t alone.

Evidence shows that throughout the U.S., communities of color are more likely to be burdened by various industry infrastructure, disproportionately jeopardizing the health of Black and brown people. Experts say Houston and the pipeline project are microcosms of the nation’s persistent environmental racism that subjects people of color to hazards.

Angela King poses for a portrait at her home in Southwest Crossings in Houston, Texas. CenterPoint Energy plans to install a natural gas pipeline transmission lines 4 feet underground in her neighborhood with initial construction just 50 feet from King's home.

Black people are 75% more likely to live near industrial facilities in “fence line” communities, according to Fumes Across the Fence-Line, a 2017 Clean Air Task Force and NAACP report on air pollution from oil and gas facilities.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has taken an unprecedented approach to center environmental justice as part of its agenda to acknowledge how industry, climate and disaster has a disproportionate impact on communities of color.

The administration has launched efforts across multiple federal agencies, which includes the Justice40 Initiative that aims to invest 40% of federal climate, housing, clean water and other benefits in historically underserved communities.

And last month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was awarding $100 million in environmental justice grants to communities overburdened by pollution.

The investments couldn't be more urgent for communities like King’s Houston, which was the subject of the widely cited environmental justice study by Robert Bullard, founder of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. The study, published 40 years ago, found waste disposal facilities were more likely to be in Houston’s Black communities.

And last year, the U.S. Justice Department started an investigation into the city for illegal dumping of solid waste in Black and Hispanic communities.

The “genesis of environmental justice research was in Houston," said Joan Casey, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Washington and the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. "Now we're in 2023, we're still having this same conversation. This is the way that we've operated in the United States for a very long time.”

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Gas stove ban: Are natural gas stoves actually a 'hazard'?

What is propane? And why are pipelines dangerous?

Propane, which is derived from natural gas and oil refining processes, is considered a cleaner, low-carbon fuel when used to heat and cool buildings and for transportation, among other uses. But in high concentrations, it can cause suffocation and cardiac arrest. Natural gas can also cause suffocation, as well as gas poisoning.

Acute dangers are the biggest concerns. Because propane is heavier than air, when released it settles lower to the ground than natural gas, which leads to increased risk of ignition, fire and explosion. Even a small leak can pose a high risk of fire.

Natural gas is almost entirely methane gas, which contributes significantly to climate change.

CenterPoint told local media the smell King and her neighbors woke up to around Christmastime wasn’t a leak but a part of normal operations.

In response to a USA TODAY inquiry about the incident, a spokeswoman said that the company is "committed to the safe, reliable operations of our energy systems" and that "communication with the communities we have the privilege of serving is a top priority for our company."

Still, King fears future accidents.

Last year, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration reported 10 deaths and 24 injuries from pipeline incidents across the U.S.

Over two decades, an average of 640 incidents occur each year. Incidents are defined as leaks that result in at least $122,000 in property damage, gas loss of at least 3 million cubic feet, injury, death or emergency shutdown, according to federal regulations.

In 2011, a CenterPoint Energy gas line in Minneapolis exploded. No one was injured, but vehicles were destroyed and the city filed a lawsuit against the company.

In 2018, dozens of homes in northeast Massachusetts were destroyed and one man was killed in a natural pipeline explosion. Pressure readings showed 12 times normal standards, and the Leonel Rondon Pipeline Safety Act, named after the victim, was passed in 2020 in hopes of increasing safety standards.

SOLUTIONS: Millions of homes have lead paint, harming kids of color

What's happening in Houston?

Texas is the top producer of natural gas in the country and has the most crude oil refineries of any state. The Houston metro area has more than 180 pipeline transmission systems.

Southwest Crossings residents have held protests at the site and have been pushing back since 2020, when King said homeowners were first notified of the storage facility project.

But residents say that COVID-19 interfered with timely correspondence and that the letters were in English despite many residents being Spanish speakers. Hispanic people make up more than 60% of the community, and roughly a third of residents are Black, according to estimates from the U.S. Census American Community Survey.

The company said it sent letters again the next year. And in July 2022, King received a letter from the company asking for her easement along with a $9,000 compensation offer for pipeline construction 50 feet from her fence. Two months later, she received a notice that the company would begin construction by eminent domain.

She worries for her son and two middle-school-aged nephews who live with her and the schools and churches in the subdivision.

"It makes me feel ignored, as if I am not even a human – that they're walking all over me as if I do not matter. That my voice is nonexistent," said King, 55, who is medical billing and coding worker.

She and community activist Brittney Stredic, 28, have met with city officials and the company to demand detailed safety plans. They’ve started a petition and website to spread awareness of their concerns.

CenterPoint said it has several safety strategies in place at the storage facility, and it shared them with residents. Those plans include an alarm system; smoke, gas and flame detection; and emergency shutdown protocols.

The pipeline project is set to be completed by the end of the year. The company proposes to install the pipelines at least 4 feet underground.

“We are following federal code to install the pipeline to meet or exceed the requirement established for this type of installation,” the company told USA TODAY in a statement. “CenterPoint Energy representatives have participated in multiple community meetings and have attempted to meet via phone and/or face-to-face with all the area residents.”

But Stredic said she felt the plans didn’t consider the neighborhood she has called home her whole life.

“To me, there was never a consideration about the community that they were placing it in,” she said. “That endpoint is a business.”

A spokesperson for CenterPoint Energy said the system will traverse many neighborhoods, "both affluent areas and underprivileged areas."

"Regardless of the location in our service territory, our decisions when evaluating new construction projects or system enhancements are based on several key criteria: If CenterPoint Energy owns the property or has easement rights; proximity to area that will be served by our equipment or facility; technical and existing natural gas distribution system design considerations as outlined previously; and optimization of our system operations. We do our best to treat all our customers fairly and equitably," spokesperson Alejandra Diaz wrote.

City officials referred comments to CenterPoint Energy, but a spokeswoman confirmed the city "was made aware of the residents' concerns."
Residents’ concerns ‘based on science’

Experts say residents’ fears reflect the reality of a wide range of environmental hazards disproportionately faced by communities of color across the nation.

In a study published last year in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, Casey and a team of researchers found that formerly redlined neighborhoods were twice as likely to be oil and gas well sites and showed how federal policies continue to fuel structural racism.

“Their concerns are based on science. I wouldn't want this facility in my neighborhood,” Casey said.

Ryan Emanuel, an environmental justice expert and hydrologist at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, has studied natural gas pipelines and their locations in relation to communities. The Great Plains are home to Indigenous communities often subjected to oil and gas industry infrastructure, but Emanuel also studied the issue in states like North Carolina, where he found a quarter of all American Indians in the state lived within the area of the Atlantic Coast pipeline project plan that folded in 2020.

In another study published in 2021 in the journal GeoHealth, Emanuel and his team found that counties with higher social vulnerability factors such as low income also had greater pipeline densities.

Researchers mapped pipelines and social vulnerability. Natural gas gathering and transmission pipelines in the mainland U.S., with social vulnerability index shown for each U.S. county. Yellow indicates high social vulnerability. One Alaska county is included in the statistical overview of the results but is not shown here.

“Those are places that don't have the ability to deal with disaster, public health issues or have limited resources to recover when things go wrong. These are the communities that are saddled with more of this harmful and polluting infrastructure,” he said.

Though that study focused on interstate natural gas pipelines, Emanuel said the findings echo the larger issue.

"It's a bigger picture that's related to the decisions that we make about energy and public participation in decision-making process,” he said. “It's not a collection of anecdotes. This is the result of our public policies and corporate policies, frankly, over many decades.”

Reach Nada Hassanein at nhassanein@usatoday.com or on Twitter @nhassanein_.