Showing posts with label RENWABLE ENERGY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RENWABLE ENERGY. Show all posts

Thursday, May 14, 2020

POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: PATRICK launches new PAC — BOSTON sees first day without VIRUS death — RESTAURANTS want to fully open in JUNE








 
Massachusetts Playbook logo

By Stephanie Murray

GOOD MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS.

PATRICK LAUNCHES NEW PAC — A few months after ending his presidential campaign in February, former Gov. Deval Patrick is launching a new political action committee today aimed at supporting progressive Democratic candidates and grassroots organizations. The TogetherFund PAC will focus on "practical, pragmatic change rooted in social justice," Patrick says.

"I'm launching this as a way to have a platform to advocate for progressive values on behalf of candidates including Vice President Biden and candidates for the Senate and the House, especially in swing districts," Patrick told me over the phone. The former governor is social distancing at his home in the Berkshires.

"This is about more than this cycle," Patrick continued. "I think it's going to be the next several cycles that are especially consequential."

The PAC received an initial contribution from Reason to Believe, the super PAC that supported Patrick’s short-lived bid for president earlier this year, to assemble a Boston-based staff. Patrick is working on a consultant basis with strategist Doug Rubin, who served as chief of staff in the Patrick administration, and is inking a deal with another consultant in President Barack Obama's orbit. Patrick hasn't spoken with Obama about his new PAC, but said the former president encouraged him to stay involved in politics.

"He's encouraged me to stay engaged and stay active, and at a time like this, everybody has to do what they can to come off the sidelines, and this is what I think I can do," Patrick said.

When it comes to Biden, Patrick said he has been urging the former VP to present a forward-thinking vision in the race against President Donald Trump.

"I've known the vice president for a long time. I have a tremendous respect for him. And I've said this to him. I think in many ways, his long list of qualifications notwithstanding, his empathy is right on time. And the more the campaign lets that come through, the stronger it will be," Patrick said.

"I and others have been pushing his policy team to lean forward. What we don't need right now, as comforting as it might seem to some of us, is to leave the impression that we need to go back to what we used to do at a time before this president. There was a lot of unfinished work before President Trump and it's just gotten worse," Patrick added.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: VIDOT RAISES NEARLY $7,000 — Chelsea City Councilor Damali Vidot has raised nearly $7,000 in the week since she announced her Democratic primary campaign against state Rep. Dan Ryan.

When Vidot launched her campaign last Thursday, she raised $2,000 during a digital launch event attended by around 1,000 people. Vidot previously served as council president, and she appeared on MSNBC last month to discuss the impact the coronavirus has had on Chelsea.

Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget for the Playbook? Get in touch: smurray@politico.com.

TODAY — Massachusetts First Lady Lauren Baker and Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Rosalin Acosta speak at a webinar on coronavirus resources for businesses hosted by WeWork. Rep. Ayanna Pressley joins a Massachusetts Restaurant United online meeting with Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio and others. Sen. Ed Markey and Revere Mayor Brian Arrigo host a coronavirus livestream. Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, who is running for congress, joins a Mass Peace Action town hall.

Rep. Joe Kennedy III questions Dr. Rick Bright during a congressional hearing, then testifies on behalf of vote-by-mail at a virtual legislative hearing. Kennedy holds a tele-townhall with Dr. Supriya Rao. Rep. Katherine Clark and New York Rep. Grace Meng speak at an online town hall with the Greater Malden Asian American Community Coalition. Rep. Lori Trahan hosts a coronavirus tele-town hall.

 

JOIN TODAY - WHY IS THE INCARCERATION RATE OF WOMEN RISING? Women are the fastest-growing segment of the incarcerated population in the United States, increasing at a rate nearly double that of men over the past 35 years. Join Women Rule Editorial Director Anna Palmer today at 3 p.m. EDT for a virtual conversation with April Grayson, campaign surrogate and statewide coordinator for the Young Women's Freedom Center; Scott Budnick, founder of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC); and Emily Ratajkowski, model, actress and activist. Learn about the challenges women face behind bars and how they fit into the criminal-justice reform movement. Have questions? Submit yours by tweeting it to @POLITICOLive using #AskPOLITICO. REGISTER HERE.

 
 
THE LATEST NUMBERS

– “Massachusetts health officials announce 174 new coronavirus deaths, 1,165 new cases,” by Tanner Stening, MassLive.com: “Health officials on Wednesday announced that another 174 Massachusetts residents have died of coronavirus, bringing the total number of fatalities to 5,315. Officials also confirmed another 1,165 new cases of the virus, bringing the statewide total to 80,497. There were 8,536 new tests conducted on Wednesday, for a total of 410,032 carried out since the outbreak began.”

DATELINE BEACON HILL

– “‘Not a virus to be trifled with,’ Baker says, as governor holds firm on slow return; coronavirus deaths top 5,300,” by Danny McDonald, Boston Globe: “Days before Massachusetts is slated to begin to reopen its economy, Governor Charlie Baker insisted Wednesday that a deliberate, phased approach, underpinned by the continued expansion of COVID-19 testing, is the best path toward a new normal, as the state’s coronavirus death toll topped 5,300.”

– “Restaurateurs lobby Baker to open at full capacity in June,” by Gintautas Dumcius, Boston Business Journal: “A group of roughly 100 Massachusetts restaurant owners and related hospitality businesses is pushing Gov. Charlie Baker to allow the industry to open at full capacity in June. Noting that the hospitality industry has seen half of its 300,000-person workforce laid off as the economy shut down to slow the spread of coronavirus, the group said 60,000 of those jobs may never return.”

– “Educators Tell Mass. Lawmakers Of Remote Learning Frustrations And Budget Worries,” by Carrie Jung, WBUR: “Concerns about budgetary and technological gaps dominated the conversation between Massachusetts educators and lawmakers on Wednesday. Speaking during the Education Committee's first remote oversight hearing since schools closed down due to the pandemic, Massachusetts Education Commissioner Jeff Riley said about 9% of state students don't have reliable internet access, and 15% don't have exclusive access to a device.”

– “Boston Chamber of Commerce: Crucial details are missing in Baker’s phased reopening plan,” by Jon Chesto, Boston Globe: “The Baker administration earlier this week tried to give the business community some guidance about what a reopened economy would look like. For at least one prominent business group, however, there are still too many unanswered questions. The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce issued a policy brief on Wednesday afternoon identifying several key details its members want to see fleshed out in Governor Charlie Baker’s reopening plan, which is expected to be released on Monday.”

– “Lawmakers seek money to bury COVID-19 dead,” by Christian M. Wade, CNHI News: “As the death toll from the coronavirus in Massachusetts rises above 5,300, some families are struggling to pay for burials, say lawmakers who have proposed a $5 million fund to help cover the expenses. A bipartisan proposal, backed by nearly a dozen lawmakers, would provide individual grants of up to $1,500 for qualifying families to offset the cost of a burial related to COVID-19.”

– “What It’s Like to Be a Massachusetts Contact Tracer,” by Spencer Buell, Boston Magazine: “Former Boston nurse Celia Gillis really wanted to get off the sidelines. So in April, the Martha’s Vineyard resident joined the ranks of Massachusetts’ ambitious contact tracing program, an initiative that has served as a model for the rest of the country as states try to track the spread of the virus and notify anyone who may have been exposed. It’s not an easy job, nor is it straightforward.”

FROM THE HUB

– “Mayor Walsh Says Boston Had First Day Without A COVID Death Since Early March,” by Esteban Bustillos, WGBH News: “Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said Wednesday that Boston reported its first day without new deaths from COVID-19 since early March when no new deaths were reported on Monday. ‘Definitely we're seeing a gradual decrease and we're seeing some positive news out of our hospitals. A decrease in emergency rooms for COVID as well,’ he said.”

– “Coronavirus SNAP benefits automatically en route to all Boston Public Schools families,” by Sean Philip Cotter, Boston Herald: “All families with children in the city’s public and charter schools are on track to receive $28.50 a week in SNAP benefits per child amid the coronavirus pandemic. The program is through the federal Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer initiative, which was authorized by the large COVID-19 relief package passed last month, and is also available to all families in the rest of the state with children who qualify for free or reduced lunches in school.”

– “Coronavirus in Massachusetts: Chelsea, Brockton rates still lead town-by-town breakdown,” by Sean Philip Cotter, Boston Herald: “Chelsea, Brockton and other smaller Massachusetts cities continue to have the highest rates of coronavirus cases as Gov. Charlie Baker’s stay-at-home order expires next week. Chelsea, which has continued to make local and national headlines with its sky-high rate, now has 2,412 cases, or 6,404 per 100,000 residents. Brockton, which has a similarly dense, low-income urban center, now has 3,429 cases, for a rate of 3,490 per 100,000.”

– “Harvard Medical School says incoming students will learn online; UMass Medical School will hold classes on campus,” by Jeremy C. Fox, Boston Globe: “Students entering Harvard Medical School this fall will learn remotely to help avoid spreading the novel coronavirus, while returning students will likely have access to at least some on-site research and clinical facilities, administrators announced Wednesday.”

– “Under Financial Stress, Pine Manor College To Join Boston College,” by Max Larkin, WBUR: “Pine Manor College will enter into an ‘educational partnership’ with Boston College, after the pandemic-related closures stretched its finances to a breaking point. A memorandum of understanding between the two schools paves the way for Boston College to take on all of Pine Manor's assets — including their leafy, 45-acre campus in Chestnut Hill — as well as their liabilities.”

– “Boston is planning to repurpose streets for pedestrians during the coronavirus outbreak,” by Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com: “With vehicle traffic dramatically reduced in Boston, officials are looking to make better use of the city’s streets during the coronavirus outbreak. During a Boston City Council hearing Tuesday night, Boston’s top transportation planner said the city is preparing to expand sidewalks into driving lanes in certain places ‘later this month’ in order to make more space for pedestrians and cyclists.”

THE OPINION PAGES

– “Congress must act on child care crisis,” by Rep. Katherine Clark, CommonWealth Magazine: “Child care is an essential component of our national economic infrastructure, as fundamental as our roads and bridges. Just ask any parent performing essential services during the pandemic, or any mom or dad juggling kids and working from home. Ask any parent in America and they will tell you that quality, affordable child care has always been hard to find, but the coronavirus has pulled back the curtain on the fragility of our child care system that has for too long been undervalued and underfunded.”

WARREN REPORT

– “Elizabeth Warren most likable among women contenders for Joe Biden’s VP pick, Democrats say in new poll,” by Benjamin Kail, MassLive.com: “According to a recent poll, the Massachusetts progressive has an edge over some of the top contenders after waging a year-plus presidential campaign known for its host of policy plans, selfie lines and a Nevada debate performance that many credit with pulverizing Michael Bloomberg’s near-billion-dollar campaign.”

FROM THE DELEGATION

– “US Rep. Richard Neal: Vote-by-mail no substitute for in-person elections; seeks ‘magnifying’ glass on plans for proxy voting in House,” by Jim Kinney, Springfield Republican: “The coronavirus pandemic will change the way the public votes with more vote-by-mail and the way lawmakers — especially in the U.S. House of Representatives — vote. But U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, urged caution on both fronts Wednesday during a wide-ranging news conference in support of a $3 trillion coronavirus response bill that he and his follow House Democrats introduced Tuesday.”

– “Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren introduce bill to offer refunds for canceled airline travel,” by Michelle Williams, MassLive.com: “A new bill introduced in the Senate would mandate airlines offer full cash refunds for canceled tickets instead of future travel credits. The bill, titled Cash Refunds for Coronavirus Cancellations Act of 2020, was introduced Wednesday by both of Massachusetts senators, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and California Sen. Kamala Harris.”

KENNEDY COMPOUND

– “Joe Kennedy III Wants You to Know He’s More Than Just a Name,” by Michael Damiano, Boston Magazine: “On a normal day, the meeting hall in Middleton’s Flint Public Library is so empty and quiet, you can hear a bookmark drop. On a chilly afternoon in early February, though, the room looked like it had suddenly become the hottest spot in town, packed to capacity with politically engaged baby boomers eagerly awaiting an appearance by Massachusetts’ political man of the moment: Joe Kennedy III.”

IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN

– “Mass. emission strategies all up in air,” by Bruce Mohl, CommonWealth Magazine: “The company selected by Massachusetts to build a power line delivering large amounts of hydro-electricity from Quebec into the regional power grid at Lewiston, Maine, is asking a judge to block a voter referendum on the project. Avangrid, the corporate parent of Central Maine Power, which has won a series of approvals for the project from state regulators, said in a court filing that holding a referendum on a decision by the state’s Public Utilities Commission would violate the state constitution.”

ABOVE THE FOLD

— Herald: “CALL TO ARMS,” — Globe: “A middle ground on reopening," "Baker still stressing a phased approach.”

FROM THE 413

– “As a precaution against coronavirus, MassMutual, one of state’s largest employers, to keep offices closed through at least August,” by Michelle Williams, MassLive.com: “Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., one of the largest employers in Massachusetts, will keep its offices closed through the summer. CEO Roger Crandall announced the decision during an all-staff meeting. Employees will return to their offices no earlier than the beginning of September.”

THE LOCAL ANGLE

– “Yarmouth officials see trouble ahead with draft beach rules,” by Christine Legere, Cape Cod Times: “Proposed beach rules likely to get a green light from the governor before the Memorial Day kickoff to summer have Yarmouth officials worried about the challenges the coming season will pose. The public won’t like the guidelines they may have to follow because of the threat of the coronavirus, the officials say, and it could cause tempers to flare.”

– “New Bedford, Southcoast to expand testing for large workplaces, at-risk areas," SouthCoast Today: “Mayor Jon Mitchell and Southcoast Health have announced that, together, they are expanding a program to reach more at-risk areas and essential workers with COVID-19 testing. The program is based on a joint pilot effort undertaken earlier this month to test commercial fishing crews on the New Bedford waterfront using the Southcoast Mobile Health Van for on-site, targeted COVID-19 testing, officials said.”

– “City manager pleads for better mask use,” by Steven H. Foskett Jr., Telegram & Gazette: “City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. on Wednesday made an appeal for tighter adherence to state and local requirements on face coverings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Augustus said his office and other city departments have been fielding calls from residents reporting that the face covering requirements in place are not being universally followed, or that the coverings are not properly worn - covering somebody’s mouth but not their nose, for example.”

– “South Shore first responders wind down coronavirus parades,” by Joe DiFazio, The Patriot Ledger: “It was fun while it lasted. As the state begins to open up and looks to transition out of coronavirus restrictions, South Shore police and fire departments are beginning to wind down birthday and celebration parades. For the last several weeks, parades celebrating healthcare workers, birthday parties, anniversaries and other milestones have seen police cars and fire trucks driving by, but departments say they have to get back to work .”

TRANSITIONS – Maya Getter joins Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ office as director of advance and scheduling. Tweet.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY – to Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts; Lucy Martirosyan, Samuel Greer, Jeffrey Barrett, Playbook’s chief foodie correspondent Alycia DiTroia and Sophia Nigro, who turns the big 1-3!

NEW EPISODE: H-O-R-S-E – On this week’s Horse Race podcast, hosts Steve Koczela, Jennifer Smith, Maeve Duggan and Stephanie Murray discuss the state’s plans to reopen, and a recent poll of Massachusetts nurses. Special guest Enes Kanter of the Boston Celtics talks about the future of the NBA. Subscribe and listen on iTunes and Sound Cloud, or watch on Facebook.

Want to make an impact? POLITICO Massachusetts has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Bay State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause you’re promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness among this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: jshapiro@politico.com.

 

POLITICO Magazine Justice Reform: The Decarceration Issue, presented by Verizon: Over the past decade, the longstanding challenge of criminal-justice reform has emerged into the spotlight with a new twist: Both Republicans and Democrats are onboard. But if both parties want to lower the incarceration rate, why are our jail and prison populations still so high? The latest series from POLITICO Magazine works to answer this important question and take a deeper look into what it will take to make progress in the policy and politics of justice reform. READ THE FULL ISSUE.

 
 
 

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Friday, May 8, 2020

RSN: Bill McKibben | Big Oil's Reign Is Finally Weakening






 

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Bill McKibben | Big Oil's Reign Is Finally Weakening
The removal of the former ExxonMobil C.E.O. Lee Raymond as the lead independent director of JPMorgan Chase's board is a climate-activist victory. (photo: Getty)
Bill McKibben, The New Yorker
McKibben writes: "On some long-distant day when some as-yet-unborn historian sits down to write the story of climate change - the story of the greatest crisis humans ever faced - it's possible that they'll choose an anecdote from this past week as a way into the story."

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, it understandably didn’t get much notice, but JPMorgan Chase announced on Friday that Lee Raymond will no longer serve as the lead independent director of the world’s largest lender to the fossil-fuel industry.

I’ve told the backstory at much greater length here, but, briefly: Raymond was a key Exxon executive from the nineteen-eighties onward—the years when the company was one of the most profitable in the world. (If you want a full account, read Steve Coll’s majestic “Private Empire.”) Those were also the years when Exxon’s scientists discovered—before it was publicly an issue—that climate change was real and dangerous, and when Exxon’s executives decided to join with others in the industry to cover up that truth. Raymond gave the single most audacious speech of the era, telling a World Petroleum Congress audience in 1997, on the eve of the Kyoto climate talks, that the planet was cooling, and that it made no difference if we acted then or waited a quarter century.

Raymond retired from Exxon as C.E.O., in 2005, having earned a reported six hundred and eighty-six million dollars; in his retirement, his job was to help run the board at Chase. Advocates have urged Chase to remove him as lead independent director because of his climate-denying past, and last month the New York City comptroller, Scott Stringer, joined the fight, pledging to vote the city pension fund’s Exxon shares against Raymond; he persuaded the New York State comptroller and the Pennsylvania state treasurer, in turn, to join him. One can only speculate, but this clearly put pressure on giant investors such as BlackRock, who have been making climate-friendly noises; in any event, as the Financial Times reported, Chase has removed Raymond from his position, though he remains on the board.

The effect is probably practical and definitely symbolic—Raymond’s removal ratifies the notion that, after a decade of relentless campaigning by activists, Big Oil is no longer quite as big. It’s true that, in the same week, much of the industry got the bailout that it had been asking for from Washington. But that was scant cause for celebration: the International Energy Agency released new numbers, predicting that global oil demand would drop nine per cent this year. As economists at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis pointed out, the fossil-fuel sector really faces long-term solvency problems, not just short-term liquidity woes. Demand growth had been slowing in recent years, as regulatory pressure began to mount, as a result of all that activism, and as renewable energy got cheaper. Even before COVID-19 really bit, Exxon had been “humbled,” according to Bloomberg Businessweek, becoming a “mediocre” company. Now it seems entirely likely that we have seen peak oil demand, a moment that the oil companies had predicted wouldn’t come for decades. Here’s the energy analyst Kingsmill Bond’s precis: “If demand for fossil fuels bounces back in 2021 by half the amount it fell in 2020, and grows at 0.5% a year, it would take 8 years to get back to where the industry started. And in the meantime, the renewable energy revolution has not stopped.”

This process will accelerate in places where governments rebuild their economies with Green New Deals, and lag in places where a move back to private cars combines with cheap gas prices to keep the S.U.V. era alive a little longer. But the key point is that, as the industry flags, so will its political power. “The ability of the industry to dictate to governments will weaken,” Bond said, “and the capacity of incumbents to frustrate the growth of renewables will reduce.” Exit Lee Raymond, stage right.

Passing the Mic

Vanessa Hauc took over in March as the anchor of Telemundo’s weekend newscast, but she didn’t give up her other role, leading the Spanish-language network’s environmental-investigative unit for its remarkable program “Planeta Tierra.” She’s also notable for the fact that, in February, she was the first climate journalist chosen to ask questions at a Presidential debate.

Every poll shows that Latinx Americans are the group most concerned about climate change in the country—why?

The climate emergency is affecting everyone on the planet, but not equally. It disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable populations—women, children, and minorities, among them Latinos. Here in the U.S., half of our community lives in the twenty-five most polluted cities in the country, and in neighborhoods that are close to factories and refineries with high levels of pollution. Latino children are forty per cent more likely to die from asthma than non-Latino white children. Our communities work in sectors that are directly impacted by heat waves and extreme-weather events, like agriculture, construction, and landscaping. For us, the climate emergency is a reality affecting not only where we live but where we work. Still, I see my community as a powerful force of change. We care deeply about the environment. Our connection with nature is ancestral—it’s in our DNA. I still remember my trips to the market with my grandmother, in a small town in Colombia, where all the fruits and vegetables were organic and sold to us by local farmers. I remember she didn’t use a plastic bag but a costal, a bag made of dry leaves to carry practically anything. Many of my dresses first belonged to my sisters. I then passed them on to my cousins in Peru. We walked when we could, we shared rides, and food was the center of family gatherings. We feasted around my grandmother’s delicious recipes from Peru.

Many Latino families are like that. We recycle by nature. We believe in conservation, and no food will go to waste in our homes. We are a community that is ready to act on the climate emergency and that wants to be a part of the solution. The challenge we face is to insure that those communities have a platform and the necessary resources and information to work on solutions and live sustainable lives.

What are the other issues that really draw a strong response on “Planeta Tierra”?

“Planeta Tierra” shines a light on the greatest challenges we are facing today, from plastic pollution to the loss of biodiversity and deforestation. But we frame our stories on solutions. We look for the stories of people who are making a difference. For example, entrepreneurs who are rethinking their way of doing business and creating more sustainable products. We interviewed a fashion designer in Mexico who is creating leather from the leaves of nopal, a traditional Mexican vegetable. We also ran a story about a factory that is producing plastic out of avocado seeds. We recently highlighted the work of women who are redesigning our food systems to make it healthy for us and for the planet, too. The story of our changing planet can feel overwhelming. Many of us have felt paralyzed in front of the magnitude of the challenge it presents. Therefore, as a journalist, my job is to inform my viewers about our changing climate in the most rigorous and scientific way. But, as an environmentalist, my job is also to give them hope, to empower them to be part of the solution, to offer the tools and information they need to really be agents of change.

Climate School

If there is one essay from the weeks of pandemic I wish I could make everyone read, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s offering on The New Yorker’s Web site. No novelist has engaged as long or as successfully with the climate crisis. (Anyone who loves Gotham should immediately buy Robinson’s “New York 2140.”) Speaking of our quarantine, he writes that “we realize that what we do now, well or badly, will be remembered later on. This sense of enacting history matters.” But, he continues, thanks to global warming “we’ve already been living in a historic moment. For the past few decades, we’ve been called upon to act, and have been acting in a way that will be scrutinized by our descendants.”

It’s true that coal, oil, and gas use have fallen as we locked down, but the interesting thing may be that they’ve fallen so little. As the Grist reporter Shannon Osaka points out, even with economies at an unprecedented idle, emissions are only slated to fall by five or six per cent. The NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt explains: “People focus way, way too much on people’s personal carbon footprints … without really dealing with the structural things that cause carbon dioxide levels to go up.” Every life, even in quarantine, uses lots of energy for light and heat. And if you’re binge-watching at all hours? According to one U.K. study, “The energy generated from 80 million views of the thriller Birdbox is the equivalent of driving over 146 million miles and emitting over 66 million kg of CO2.”

Thirty-two environmental organizations signed a letter to the asset-management firm BlackRock asking that it divest its holdings in Drax, which operates the biggest wood-burning power plant in the U.K. Rita Frost, a spokeswoman for the Dogwood Alliance in the southeastern U.S., where much of that wood is cut, said, “We witness the social and environmental impacts of the biomass industry first hand. If BlackRock is classifying this as sustainable investment, we urge them to think again.”

Here’s a really illuminating piece on the rocky but still remarkable progress that Germany has been making toward renewable power. Dan Gearino really explains what may be the most complex and hopeful energy story on the planet.

Scoreboard

Solar power just keeps getting cheaper, especially if you have a large, hot desert to work with: the latest bids for a giant array in Abu Dhabi show the price continuing to drop toward an almost unbelievable one cent per kilowatt-hour.

A new study of tree mortality last month concluded: “forests are in big trouble if global warming continues at the present pace. Most trees alive today won’t be able to survive in the climate expected in 40 years,” because “the negative impacts of warming and drying” are already outpacing any fertilizing effect from extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. “We really need to be able to hear these poor trees scream,” an Australian researcher said. “These are living things that are suffering. We need to listen to them.”

Warming Up

On the list of people who have willingly paid a price for their climate activism, few rank much higher than Tim DeChristopher. He was sentenced to two years in federal custody, for falsely bidding on Utah oil and gas leases as a protest. I will never forget visiting him in a high-desert prison on the California/Nevada line. He sent along this song, “Brother,” by the Los Angeles folk rockers Lord Huron. If it works for him, it’s probably useful.



 
READ MORE


The Arbery family. (photo: CNN)
The Arbery family. (photo: CNN)


Father and Son Charged With Murder of Black Jogger Ahmaud Arbery
Joe Jurado, The Root
Jurado writes: "On Tuesday, video was released showing the graphic shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery. As the video went viral, public outcry intensified with many outraged that the men responsible hadn't been arrested or faced any charges."
READ MORE


The Takoma Park Post Office. (photo: Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
The Takoma Park Post Office. (photo: Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)


Top Republican Fundraiser and Trump Ally Named Postmaster General, Giving President New Influence Over Postal Service
Josh Dawsey, Lisa Rein and Jacob Bogage, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "A top donor to President Trump and the Republican National Committee will be named the new head of the Postal Service, putting a top ally of the president in charge of an agency where Trump has long pressed for major changes in how it handles its business."


The Postal Service’s board of governors confirmed late Wednesday that Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman who is currently in charge of fundraising for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, will serve as the new postmaster general.

The action will install a stalwart Trump ally to lead the Postal Service, which he has railed against for years, and probably move him closer than ever before to forcing the service to renegotiate its terms with companies and its own union workforce. Trump’s Treasury Department and the Postal Service are in the midst of a negotiation over a $10 billion line of credit approved as part of coronavirus legislation in March.

The confirmation came after The Washington Post asked for comment on the decision.

Trump has indicated he wants the Postal Service to dramatically raise fees for delivering packages for customers such as Amazon in exchange for tapping the line of credit. Trump has long argued that Amazon doesn’t pay the Postal Service enough, a charge the agency has fiercely contested. (Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, owns The Post.)

“Louis DeJoy understands the critical public service role of the United States Postal Service, and the urgent need to strengthen it for future generations,” Robert M. Duncan, chairman of the board of governors, said in a statement.

“Postal workers are the heart and soul of this institution, and I will be honored to work alongside them and their unions,” DeJoy, who will start June 15, said in a statement.

The White House declined to comment.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service, denounced the move as a reward by Trump to a “partisan donor.”

“The Postal Service is in crisis and needs real leadership and someone with knowledge of the issues,” Connolly said. “This crony doesn’t cut it.”

After criticizing the agency for years, Trump has been consolidating his influence lately. Three Republicans and one Democrat sit on the board of governors after the vice chairman, David Williams, a Democrat, resigned last week.

The departure came after Williams told confidants he was upset that the Treasury Department was meddling in what has long been an apolitical agency and felt that his fellow board members had capitulated to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s conditions for the $10 billion line of credit, according to four people familiar with Williams’s thinking.

Williams did not respond to a request for comment.

Democrats have urged the Postal Service to hold firm with Treasury over the terms of the loan, betting they could win more money for the agency in another round of legislation and threatening the Trump administration with taking the risk of disrupting mail service.

But in recent days, the Postal Service’s board has appeared open to some of the Trump administration’s terms, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations. The precise terms could not be learned.

“[Williams’s] main frustration is that he felt the Treasury Department was interfering in an apolitical board and an apolitical agency,” said one person who spoke with him.

A Treasury Department spokesman declined to comment.

DeJoy will be the first postmaster general in two decades who did not rise through the agency’s ranks. He would have to navigate a financially fraught agency while also working with its powerful labor unions, among the last ­public-sector unions left with significant clout in contract negotiations with the government.

In part because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Postal Service is projecting a $13 billion revenue shortfall by the end of the fiscal year in September.

Trump has for years seized on the rates the Postal Service charges companies like Amazon to deliver packages. The business of package delivery has proved increasingly vital to the service’s finances as first class mail has deteriorated, and Trump has contended the agency charges Amazon and other companies too little.

The Postal Service has rejected those accusations, arguing it is charging competitive rates in an environment where it squares off against UPS, FedEx and even Amazon’s growing delivery service.

Megan Brennan, the current postmaster general, who announced her retirement late last year, had clashed with the Trump administration over its efforts to take more control over postal finances and operations. Trump had urged her early in his tenure to increase fees for Amazon and other companies.

The announcement of Brennan’s successor comes at a tumultuous period for the Postal Service, whose already shaky financial footing has grown weaker during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump, responding to a report in The Post in April, threatened to block the $10 billion Postal Service loan unless officials dramatically raised shipping prices on online retailers.

“The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump said publicly last month in the Oval Office. He called for the agency to quadruple its shipping prices. Many analysts warn that if the Postal Service did that, it would put itself at a massive disadvantage in the marketplace.

DeJoy, a North Carolina native, has played a prominent role in Republican politics, particularly since Trump won the presidency in 2016. He has given more than $2 million to the Trump campaign or Republican causes since 2016, according to the Federal Election Commission, including a $210,600 contribution to the Trump Victory Fund on Feb. 19. He has given more than $650,000 to the Trump Victory Fund and more than $1 million to the RNC.

DeJoy was tapped as the finance chairman for the RNC convention in August and has worked in recent months with Katie Walsh, a top Republican operative, to orchestrate the event.

An RNC spokesman declined to comment.

DeJoy’s wife, Aldona Wos, is vice chairman of the president’s Commission on White House Fellowships and is Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Canada. She previously served as ambassador to Estonia in the George W. Bush administration.

DeJoy has donated more than $157,000 to Republican candidates, committees and super PACs since the start of the year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Duncan, the current chairman of the Postal Service’s board of governors, served as RNC chairman from 2007 to 2009. He was confirmed in 2018 after being appointed by Trump.

DeJoy is the owner of a real estate and consulting firm in North Carolina after having served as chairman and CEO of New Breed Logistics, according to his family’s foundation page. New Breed was sold to XPO Logistics. He is a longtime donor to Republican causes, according to FEC records.

Under the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus relief passed in March, the Treasury Department was authorized to lend $10 billion to the Postal Service, which says it may not be able to make payroll and continue mail service uninterrupted past September.

Mnuchin rejected a bipartisan Senate proposal to give the Postal Service a bailout amid the negotiations over that legislation.

Brennan, with the consent of the board of governors, went to Congress to ask for a direct bailout of more than $89 billion to stave off pandemic losses and other long-running accumulated debts.

Top Treasury officials were furious at the request, according to a person with knowledge of their frustration.

The coronavirus pandemic has rapidly exacerbated years of revenue losses for the agency as it struggles to adapt to a digital age amid a decline in first-class mail.

Postal officials have said mail volume is down by a third during the pandemic and continuing to decrease as businesses scale back solicitations and advertisements. Package volume is up, but not enough to cover the other losses, the officials say.


 
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Joe Biden. (photo: AP)
Joe Biden. (photo: AP)


A Top Democrat Says the State Department Has Sent Republicans Thousands of Pages for Their Biden Investigation While Ignoring Democratic Requests
Emma Loop, BuzzFeed
Loop writes: "The State Department has continued to turn over thousands of pages of records to Republican senators investigating former vice president Joe Biden and Ukraine during the coronavirus outbreak, prompting outcry from the top Democrat on one of the committees running the probe."


“It is wholly inappropriate for the State Department to dedicate its limited resources to voluntarily complying with Republican requests,” Sen. Ron Wyden wrote.


In a letter to the State Department on Wednesday, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said the department has provided Senate Republicans with more than 4,000 pages of records — including 1,000 pages in early April as the coronavirus crippled the country and halted some government work.

Meanwhile, Wyden says the department has neither produced any of the documents he requested nearly three months ago nor “communicated with [his] office in any way about the request.”

“It is wholly inappropriate for the State Department to dedicate its limited resources to voluntarily complying with Republican requests without also making a good faith effort to respond to Democratic requests,” Wyden wrote in the letter, which his office provided to BuzzFeed News.

The letter adds to Wyden's criticism of the Trump administration’s willingness to cooperate with the Republican-led inquiry and underscores the tension between Republicans and Democrats involved in the probe.

In February, Wyden accused the Treasury Department of prioritizing Republicans' requests for records over those from Democrats in Congress, which led Republicans to accuse the senator of leaking sensitive information. The next month, former president Barack Obama privately condemned the investigation, BuzzFeed News first reported on Tuesday.

“Glad to see Sen. Wyden agrees that despite Pres. Obama’s assertions, congressional review of federal agency records in the interest of government oversight is worth pursuing,” Taylor Foy, a spokesperson for Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, said in a statement Wednesday. “There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, and every senator has an obligation to ask questions they deem important. That said, it is wrong to leak details of ongoing investigations, as Senate Democrats have done repeatedly.”

Wyden has previously accused Grassley and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson — the other Republican leading the investigation — of trying to hurt Biden’s presidential campaign against President Donald Trump, whose calls for Biden to be investigated were at the heart of the impeachment inquiry against him. But Grassley and Johnson have maintained that they’re conducting legitimate oversight into whether the Obama administration’s policy toward Ukraine was improperly affected by Biden’s son Hunter serving on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian energy company.

Grassley and Johnson first requested documents on Hunter Biden from the State Department in November, as their investigation took hold. On Feb. 20, two weeks after the Senate acquitted Trump in two articles of impeachment, the department “voluntarily produced” more than 3,000 pages of records to Johnson and Grassley, Wyden’s letter said. On April 8, the department sent an additional 1,000 pages in response to the Republican requests, he wrote.

“Since the State Department's initial production, the United States has become embroiled in a devastating global pandemic,” Wyden said. “To date over 70,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 1 million have been infected. The pandemic has disrupted the lives of nearly every American and over 30 million Americans find themselves unemployed. The pandemic has also limited the operations of the State Department, and some services are only available for Americans ‘with a qualified life-or-death emergency.’”

Wyden’s letter renews his request from February, which demanded a wide range of records on the relationship between the Obama and Trump administrations, as well as people cited in the impeachment inquiry. Wyden said the State Department shouldn’t respond to additional Republican requests until his request is fulfilled.

Wyden also said the records that the department has turned over so far were only from the Obama administration, and that responsive Trump-era documents should be included in the productions, too.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Wyden’s letter noted that the National Archives has also turned over thousands of pages of Obama administration records in response to a request from Grassley and Johnson — a request that Obama criticized but ultimately approved. Wyden said the records included “voluminous spreadsheets and guest lists from official White House events.”

“All that said, nothing I have seen affects the conclusion that U.S. policy toward Ukraine — policy that Chairman Johnson wholeheartedly supported — did not change while Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma,” Wyden said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

But Republicans are continuing their work. As part of the inquiry, Johnson and Grassley have asked a range of individuals — from former State Department officials to a Democratic lobbying firm — for documents and interviews. It’s unclear when those interviews might occur, with the coronavirus complicating the process. One potential witness, speaking on background to BuzzFeed News, said their communications with committee staffers have continued, though it has been “slower and more sporadic” than before.

Johnson has also said he plans to issue an interim report on the investigation sometime this summer. Asked about that report, an aide said Democrats will “be prepared to correct the record if necessary,” warning that they wouldn’t “allow the Senate to be used to advance foreign election interference efforts.”


 
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Big businesses working with America's prison system are still making money despite the coronavirus crisis. (photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
Big businesses working with America's prison system are still making money despite the coronavirus crisis. (photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)


As Many Companies Struggle During Pandemic, America's For-Profit Prisons Are Thriving
Robin McDowell and Margie Mason, Associated Press
Excerpt: "As factories and other businesses remain shuttered across America, people in prisons in at least 40 states continue going to work. Sometimes they earn pennies an hour, or nothing at all, making masks and hand sanitizer to help guard others from the coronavirus."
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Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gestures as he leaves the federal police headquarters in November 2019. (photo: Getty)
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gestures as he leaves the federal police headquarters in November 2019. (photo: Getty)


Brazilian Court Upholds 17-Year Sentence Against Lula Da Silva
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Brazil's Federal Court of the Fourth Region Wednesday upheld the 17-year prison sentence handed down in November against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva."
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Nuclear waste stored in underground containers at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls. (photo: Keith Ridler/AP)
Nuclear waste stored in underground containers at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls. (photo: Keith Ridler/AP)


Critics Alarmed by US Nuclear Agency's Bid to Relax Rules on Radioactive Waste
Daniel Ross, Guardian UK
Ross writes: "The federal agency providing oversight of the commercial nuclear sector is attempting to push through a rule change critics say could allow dangerous amounts of radioactive material to be disposed of in places like municipal landfills, with potentially serious consequences to human health and the environment."


Nuclear Regulatory Commission keen to allow material to be disposed of by ‘land burial’ – with potentially damaging effects



“This would be the most massive deregulation of radioactive waste in American history,” said Dan Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nuclear industry watchdog non-profit, about a proposal that would permit “very low-level” radioactive waste to be disposed of by “land burial”.

Currently, low-level radioactive waste is primarily disposed of in highly regulated sites in Texas, Washington, South Carolina and Utah. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) also provides exemptions allowing “low-level waste” to be dumped in unlicensed disposal sites, but these exemptions are given only rarely, and are conducted with strict case-by-case protocols in place.

The proposed “interpretive” rule change relaxes the rules surrounding how radioactive materials would be disposed of in unlicensed disposal sites “significantly”, said Hirsch.

“If you dump radioactive waste in places that aren’t designed to deal with it, it comes back to haunt you. It’s in the air you breathe, the food that you eat, the water you drink,” he added.

In an email, David McIntyre, an NRC spokesperson, explained that the rule would apply only to a “small subset” of very low-level waste, and that the agency would not allow such disposals “if we felt public health and safety and the environment would not be protected”.

But major sticking point, say experts, concerns how the term “very low-level waste” is not defined by statute or in the NRC’s own regulations.

The NRC describes low-level wastes as contaminated materials like clothing, tools, and medical equipment. According to McIntyre, the radioactivity of “very low-level waste” is just above background. “The radioactivity level of very low-level waste is so low that it may be safely disposed of in hazardous or municipal solid waste landfills,” he wrote.

Nevertheless, “background doesn’t mean it’s safe,” said Diane D’Arrigo, radioactive waste project director for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, who added that the interpretive rule’s loose language “opens the floodgates” for nuclear waste to be disposed of “as if not radioactive”.

The proposal caps the maximum annual “cumulative dose” to a person from the radioactive wastes dumped into unlicensed sites to 25 millirems – the same limit the NRC uses for highly regulated waste disposal sites. That measurement, said D’Arrigo, is a “projected” amount that can be manipulated through modeling.

Experts point out that the nuclear industry has long sought cheaper ways to dispose of its wastes. As the nation’s fleet of nuclear power plants continues to age, and as more of them approach retirement, some of the decommissioning funds set up to safely dismantle the reactors are proving inadequate.

“The NRC regulations are in effect a cost-benefit analysis,” explained Rodney Ewing, a professor of nuclear security at Stanford University. “It’s been a common trend to look for waste streams that, if separated out, they could be disposed of in less expensive ways.”

Some environmentalists fear the rule change will also disproportionately impact low-income, marginalized communities who are more likely than their wealthier neighbors to be situated near solid waste landfills.

According to Caroline Reiser, nuclear energy legal fellow with the Natural Resources Defense Council, if the proposal is successfully passed, then the issue could end up in court.

“Once it starts getting implemented, that’s when the real fights end up happening,” she said.


 
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