DISPATCHES

NET NEUTRALITY ELIMINATED.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially ended Net Neutrality (4/23), scraping the regulations from the Federal Register and hastening the introduction of a corporate-controlled internet, Luke Barnes noted at ThinkProgress.

The final ruling ends the Obama-era regulations, which prohibited Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast and Verizon from slowing down or blocking access to certain websites. Instead the FCC chose to end the public-utility regulation of the internet and “restore the light-touch regulatory scheme that fostered the internet’s growth, openness and freedom.”

In February Senate Democrats tried to stop the FCC’s deregulation by introducing a motion of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which could have allowed Congress to nullify the FCC’s proposal with a simple majority — but they were unable to pass the legislation.

Under the new rules, the FCC has also passed the authority to regulate broadband to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This is important not only because the FTC possess less understanding of broadband issues than the FCC but it also doesn’t have the power to make any new rules — giving corporations even more freedom to dictate how the internet is run.

By restoring the “light-touch regulatory scheme,” FCC chairman Ajit Pai has said that consumers will “benefit from greater investment in digital infrastructure which will create jobs, increase competition, and lead to better, faster, and cheaper internet access.”

The reality however is that the FCC’s repeal will drastically tip the scales of the internet in favor of some of America’s most powerful companies, strangling the ability of tiny start-ups to create the next Facebook, Skype or Google by pitting them against corporate behemoths. Big ISPs also have a history of trying to stifle access to competitor products — in 2012, for instance, the FCC fined Verizon $1.25 million when it asked Google to remove applications that allowed users to skirt a $20 Verizon tethering charge.

But while net neutrality is gone at the federal level, there is still some hope for the principle in the states. Attorneys general in 23 states plus D.C. have filed a lawsuit challenging the repeal, while over 30 states, most recently Alaska, have begun legislation to preserve their own statewide net neutrality.

Meanwhile on a grassroots level, locally-owned broadband networks are giving options for fast, cheap internet to individuals in rural or low-income networks. Kentucky, for instance, is moving forwards with ambitious plans to build a state-wide fiber-optic cable network designed to provider cheaper internet to rural areas. The Equitable Internet Initiative has also begun to build high-speed internet in low-income areas of Detroit.

“Washington and the big telecoms are letting us down,” Mark Howell, chief information officer in the town of Concord, Mass., wrote in the Washington Post. “But local leaders can protect people’s rights and expand access to quality Internet with municipal broadband.”

RENEWABLE ENERGY MILESTONES REACHED. More than a year into the Trump administration, it can be easy to focus on the cascading scandals and anti-environment policies pushed by the president and his cabinet. But despite the administration’s anti-regulatory agenda, Natasha Geiling noted at ThinkProgress renewable energy is still breaking records both in the US and around the world, thanks to rapidly declining costs of renewable energy technology.

Here are five renewable records celebrated on Earth Day.

• California solar. With its sunny climate and environmentally-focused policies, California has long been a leader for solar energy in the US. But in March of 2018, the state broke a solar record when the California Independent System Operator — which manages the flow of electricity for 80% of the state — saw an all-time record for peak demand of electricity met by solar energy: 49.95% on March 4, up from the previous peak of 47.2% set on May 14, 2017.

The state broke another solar record the next day, producing 10,400 megawatts of solar power on California’s main power grid — a 500 megawatt increase from the previous record.

• No coal in England. Britain — birthplace of the Industrial Revolution — made historic strides toward a greener power grid in April, when it went more than two days without using coal to produce electricity, something that hadn’t happened for 136 years.

According to the Independent, the 55-hour stretch marked the longest that the country had gone without using coal power since Britain’s first coal-fired power plant opened in London in 1882.

Instead of using coal-fired power, the country relied on a mix of renewable energy and nuclear power. Wind power produced the most electricity, followed by nuclear, biomass, solar, and hydro.

The coal-free stretch came just weeks after the United Kingdom broke a record for total electricity generated by wind power — 14 gigawatts.

Still, renewable energy in the UK faces a potentially precarious future, after investment fell 57% in 2017 — the largest investment drop in any country in the world.

• Portugal’s renewable excess. In March, Portugal made headlines for producing more renewable energy than the country consumed. The country’s renewable energy production for the month was 4,812 gigawatt hours, 4.3% more than the country’s electricity consumption for the month of 4,647 gigawatt hours. It managed that feat even as electricity consumption increased 9.7% over last year.

Portugal still used some fossil fuel-powered energy for electricity in March, though renewables accounted for some 86% of the country’s consumption. It also went 70 hours during March where renewable energy was the sole source of electricity. The country primarily relied on wind and hydropower, which accounted for 42 and 55 percent of Portugal’s electricity needs, respectively, throughout the month.

• United States record in 2017. Despite the Trump administration’s promise to revitalize the domestic coal industry and spur fossil fuel production both inland and offshore, 2017 marked an important year for renewable energy — especially solar and wind power — in the US.

For the first time in history, in March and April of 2017, wind and solar provided more than 10% of all US power, according to a report released in November by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

• Renewable energy just passed a major milestone in the US. Renewable energy has making notable strides particularly in red states. According to an analysis released last week by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota — all states that voted for Trump in the 2016 election — all produced more than a third of their electricity from wind turbines. In Texas, the nation’s leading producer of wind power, wind can now provide more electricity than coal.

Despite federal policies aimed at undermining renewable energy research and technology, cities and states continue to move forward with aggressive renewable energy targets. According to the Sierra Club, 59 cities, eight counties, and one state (Hawaii) have all committed to goals of 100% renewable energy.

• Record-breaking around the world. But it’s not just the US that is seeing major, historic strides for renewable energy. Globally, the world installed a record amount of solar energy technology in 2017 — 98 gigawatts, which was more than the total amount of installed coal, nuclear, and gas capacity combined.

The increase in installed solar technology was driven largely by China, which installed 53 gigawatts — more than half the global total — and invested some $86.5 billion in solar technology. China has pledged to invest $360 billion in solar technology by 2020.

TRUMP’S BIG IDEA FOR HEALTH INSURANCE EXCLUDES MATERNITY CARE AND BARELY OVERS ADDICTION TREATMENT. The Trump administration’s “affordable alternative” to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is short-term health plans, but a new Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) study published (4/23) shows just how bare-bones this coverage actually is.

A KFF review of short-term health health plans offered on two large private insurance websites, eHealth and Agile Health Insurance, in 45 states and Washington, D.C. shows these plans rarely, if at all, pay for essential coverage: no plans cover maternity care; 43% do not cover mental health services; 62% do not cover substance use disorder treatment (both alcohol and other drugs); and 71% do not cover outpatient prescription drugs.

KFF found that seven states — Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, and Utah — did not cover any of the four aforementioned benefits. In five states, short-term plans aren’t offered on these websites, primary because of state laws that regulate these plans.

The country is current facing multiple public health crises, including the worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world and the deadliest drug epidemic in US history. And short-term health plans, a favorite GOP policy, could exacerbate this. As HuffPost’s Jeffrey Young writes, “The Republican Party’s brightest idea for how to fix [the health care system]? Make health insurance worse — is to free up access to insurance that does not cover maternity care and hardly covers addiction or mental health services.”

Short-term plans have been around for a long time and predate the ACA. These plans aren’t meant to be a long-term insurance option, but simply cover gaps between coverage — like for a person in between jobs, waiting for health benefits to kick in.

In February, the White House released a proposal to permit people to purchase these plans for up to 364 days, rather than the current three-month limit. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is also requesting comment on whether to make these plans renewable. The comment period for this proposed rule ended (4/23).

With the requirement that individuals have ACA-compliant health plans or face a tax penalty gone as of 2019, it’s possible more people will purchase short-term plans, says KFF. The Trump administration told reporters that anywhere between 100,000 to 200,000 people would desert ACA-compliant plans for short-term health plans, but most experts believe this is a conservative estimate. The Urban Institute estimates 4.3 million people will purchase short-term plans next year, with more than half (2.7 million) abandoning comprehensive health plans.

The Trump administration argues that these plans provide people a more affordable option — but this only accounts for monthly premiums. While premiums for short-term plans are cheaper than the cheapest ACA plan (priced at 20% or less), this isn’t the only insurance expense — and short-term plans don’t protect consumers from extremely high cost sharing costs. There isn’t a set out-of-pocket limit; meaning, cost sharing in a short-term plan can be, for example, effectively capped at $20,000 per person compared to an ACA-mandated cap of $7,350. This is particularly concerning given the lack of benefits covered in short-term health plans.

TRUMPISM TAKES DEREGULATION TO NEW DEPTHS. The Trump administration has seemed intent on rolling back Obama-era regulations, Charles P. Pierce noted at Esquire.com (4/23), but recently they went back to Wilson-era regulations, as they are relaxing a century-old law to protect birds, issuing guidance that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act should not be used to hold people or companies accountable for killing birds they didn’t intend to kill.

“In an opinion issued [4/11[ to federal wildlife police who enforce the rule, the Interior Department said ‘the take [killing] of birds resulting from an activity is not prohibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act when the underlying purpose of that activity is not to take birds.’ For example, the guidance said, a person who destroys a structure such as a barn knowing that it is full of baby owls in nests is not liable for killing them. ‘All that is relevant is that the landowner undertook an action that did not have the killing of barn owls as its purpose,’ the opinion said, according to the Washington Post.

Pierce noted, “Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, negotiated by President Woodrow Wilson and King George V of Great Britain at a time when whole species of birds were vanishing so that ladies could have fine plumes on their hats, you would be liable for killing these birds even if you didn’t set out to do so that morning. Not now, though.”

The law will no longer apply even after a catastrophic event, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that destroyed or injured up to a million birds. After an oil spill, Interior would pursue penalties under the Natural Resources Damage Assessment program that is not specific to birds. In the past, “the department has pursued MBTA claims against companies responsible for oil spills that incidentally killed or injured migratory birds. That avenue is no longer available.”

In 2013, British Petroleum’s criminal guilty plea resulted in the company paying $4 billion. The plea included a misdemeanor charge of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, for which it paid at least $15,000 for violating the treaty, but also agreed to serve five years probation for the violation. And it also agreed to pay $100 million to the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund for wetlands restoration and conservation projects in Gulf states designed to benefit migratory bird species and other wildlife and habitat affected by the oil spill.

Finally, Pierce noted the New York Times (4/21) ran a deep dive into the life and career of Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and discovered that, not only is Pruitt a finger-puppet for the extraction industries, and not only would he personally bite the head off an endangered animal for ideological purposes, he also has spent most of his public life as one of the great freeloaders in the history of the Republic.

The Times reported that a lobbyist said after a 2003 gathering, Pruitt — then a state senator who had a modest legal practice and a state salary of $38,400 — reached out to her. He wanted to buy her showplace home as a second residence for when he was in the state capital. “For those ego-minded politicians, it would be pretty cool to have this house close to the capitol,” said the lobbyist, Marsha Lindsey. “It was stunning.” Soon Pruitt was staying there, and so was at least one other lawmaker, according to interviews. Pruitt even bought Lindsey’s dining room set, art and antique rugs, she said. A review of real estate and other public records shows that Pruitt was not the sole owner: The property was held by a shell company registered to a business partner and law school friend, Kenneth Wagner, who now holds a top political job at the EPA, where Pruitt, 49, is the administrator.

Pierce notes that “Pruitt rose through the ranks of the modern Republican party long before he came on the radar down at Camp Runamuck. He was the very model of a modern major conservative. None of the 2016 contenders would have blinked at hiring him, and watching the Senate Republicans baby him through the confirmation process was proof enough of that. Scott Pruitt is James Watt [Ronald Reagan’s first secretary of the interior] without the tasteless humor, and Republicanism is Trumpism with an inside voice, and has been for a very long time.”

GOP FARM BILL ATTACKS HEALTH, NUTRITION, ENVIRONMENT. House Republicans passed a farm bill with minimal input from Democrats that cuts food assistance, rolls back environmental protection and guts fundamental safeguards. Among the literal poison pills in the bill, Joan McCarter noted at DailyKos (4/20), it would expose endangered species to toxic pesticides, exempting them from the Endangered Species Act and direct the Environmental Protection Agency to ignore their impacts, and family farmers don’t like the bill, either. Senate Dems may have more of a say in the bill.

“This Farm Bill is a sick joke. It gives polluters and special interests the keys to the castle, while environmental safeguards are thrown in the ditch,” said Brett Hartl of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Farmers don’t want to poison our waters, kill our wildlife, and reduce our national forests to clearcuts. This is another low for this Congress, which is already the most anti-conservation in history.”

Colin O’Neil, legislative director of the Environmental Working Group, added, “I’m not sure there’s anything the pesticide industry had on their wish list that didn’t make it into this Republican farm bill. … The environmental and human health effects of pesticide exposure and pesticide use are extremely well-established [including] increased cancer risk, damage to children’s brains and the nervous system of children and growing fetuses, lower sperm counts and fertility issues, as well as acute effects like nausea, diarrhea and vomiting” for the farm workers using the pesticides.

The bill also changes nutrition requirements for the school lunch program for low-income kids, so that canned, dried, or frozen fruit and vegetables can be substituted for fresh produce that is currently required. That’s often the only fresh produce poor children get. “Taking away those fresh fruits and vegetables at school and substituting them with canned or dried foods,” says Dr. Jenny Abrams, a Washington-based doctor and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, “is taking away those rich vitamins and minerals we all need on a daily basis, and especially kids when they’re growing and developing.”

The bill also guts the Clean Water Act, allowing toxic pesticides to run off into rivers and streams; cuts out scientists at the US Fish and Wildlife Service in decisions the US Forest Service makes about projects that could impact endangered species; doubles the amount of forest service acreage the agency can approve for clearcuts under “categorical exclusions” for things like insect infestation and disease outbreaks; creates 10 new categorical exclusions to allow clearcutting without any public input or environmental review for projects up to 6,000 acres; and removes “extraordinary circumstances” protections under the National Environmental Policy Act, “allowing the Forest Service to approve destructive projects without further review even if sensitive species are present or the project is within a wilderness area.”

And it was done entirely without input from Democrats on the committee. Ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee’s Nutrition Subcommittee, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) blasted his Republican colleagues in the bill’s markup (4/18). “Last Thursday—just six days ago—was the first time I saw even one word of the nutrition title,” he said. “To the best of my knowledge, it was the first time any Democrat on the Nutrition Subcommittee saw any of the language. Is that how this process is supposed to work, Mr. Chairman? How could any of you with a straight face, defend this process?”

His committee held 23 hearings over the past two and a half years, he said, and “[n]ot a single one of our 90 witnesses suggested any of the controversial provisions have been included in this partisan Farm Bill. How could anybody in good conscience vote for this?”

McCarter noted, “They can vote for it because it advances their agenda of taking help away from poor people and letting corporate America rape the land. They’re not going to let a little thing like representative democracy get in their way.”

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), ranking Democrat on the committee, told Politico, “Breaking up the long-standing, bipartisan, urban-rural farm bill alliance is a dangerous and unproductive step that will only sow division and jeopardize both this and future farm bills.”

Perhaps most shockingly, this Farm Bill would eliminate the hugely popular Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), which pays farmers to take lands out of production and has to reject more than half of the applicants every year.

“This Farm Bill insults all the work farmers and advocates have been undertaking to advance sustainable agriculture,” says Tara Ritter, who authored the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy’s response to the draft. “Funding is cut or completely eliminated for many programs that small farmers, organic farmers, and business owners need to thrive.

National Farmers Union (NFU), the nation’s second largest general farm organization, opposes the legislation as it passed out of committee, as it fails to provide an adequate safety net to family farmers and consumers, fails to support the long-term sustainability of family farms and ranches, and fails to ensure fair and diverse markets for farmers and ranchers.

“This bill is wholly inadequate for providing family farmers with the resources they need to endure the worst decline in the farm economy in decades,” said NFU President Roger Johnson. “Congressional leadership’s directive to withhold any additional support has hamstrung the committee’s ability to address the six-year, 50% drop in net farm income. This bill lacks the improvements needed to provide sufficient farmer and consumer safety nets, it upends programs that improve sustainability, and it removes programs that aid the growth of fair and diverse markets for family farmers. Farmers Union is also deeply disappointed in the partisan nature of the House Farm Bill deliberations thus far. We urge members of Congress to make significant improvements to the bill prior to its passage.”

ROMNEY FINISHES SECOND IN SENATE NOMINATION BATTLE. Former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney not only didn’t get the nomination to run for the US Senate at the state Republican convention April 21, Romney got 49.12% of the vote, a close second to state Rep. Mike Kennedy, who casts himself as a conservative outsider and got 50.88% of the vote, so they’ll be matched in a June 26 primary. The winner will face the winner of a four-candidate Democratic primary, probably Jenny Wilson, a Salt Lake County councilwoman, for the seat being given up by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), who was first elected in 1976.

Romney’s failure to secure the GOP nomination highlights continued struggles facing the party’s mainstream, Kyla Mandel wrote at ThinkProgress (4/22).

“After launching his Senate campaign in February, Romney has been meeting with delegates across the state. And his campaign has been trying to cater to conservatives by toning down his past criticism of President Trump. Throughout his Utah tour he has sought to emphasize that he agrees with Trump’s policies but takes issue with some of his extreme rhetoric.

“At one point during the 2016 campaign Romney billed himself as a ‘Never-Trumper’ during a speech in which he called the presidential nominee a ‘fraud’ and a ‘cheat.’ Romney has also criticized Trump’s response to Charlottesville, saying the president’s comments at the time caused ‘racists to rejoice.’”

After previously saying he wouldn’t accept an endorsement from the president, in February Romney happily accepted Trump’s support for his Senate bid.

And during a Republican event at the end of March, Romney said he is more conservative on immigration than the president is — a position which doesn’t match his previous statements.

“I’m also more of a hawk on immigration than even the president,” he told the event’s audience. “My view was these DACA kids shouldn’t be allowed to stay in the country legally.”

On April 21, Romney told CNN he didn’t know yet whether he would support Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, leaving him room to promote himself as an independent voice for Utah.

Romney will head into the June primary with substantially more money than his competitor — at the end of March he had $1.1 million compared to Kennedy’s $257,000.

LARGE NUMBER OF AMAZON WORKERS RELY ON FOOD STAMPS. Over the past year, US cities and states have been tripping head-over-heels in an effort to be the host of the next Amazon headquarters. Last year, New Jersey approved an incentive package that would give Amazon tax breaks worth $7 billion if it moved to Newark. Philadelphia has offered $2 billion in tax exemptions over 10 years, Georgia $1 billion, and Maryland a whopping $8.5 billion.

But while state lawmakers continue to one-up each other in the race to host Amazon’s new HQ, a very different picture has emerged at the lower rungs of the company, where warehouse employees are so underpaid that they already incredibly reliant on state subsidies to survive, Luke Barnes noted at ThinkProgress (4/20).

According to the New Food Economy, Amazon ranks high on the list of employers with massive numbers of employees enrolled in SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps). In Ohio, around one in 10 Amazon employees uses SNAP; in Pennsylvania, about one in nine. In Arizona, nearly one in three Amazon employees is enrolled in the food stamp program.

Later this year, Amazon will start accepting food stamps for online grocery orders, from which it stands to benefit enormously as one of the nation’s top retailers. That means the company will be the recipient of government assistance (in the form of tax breaks and incentives) while its own workers are forced to rely upon that same program to survive.

Amazon, it’s worth noting, is set to effectively monopolize e-commerce by 2021. Its CEO, Jeff Bezos, is worth around $112 billion.

The Intercept noted that, in addition to being a top SNAP recipient, Amazon’s median employee pay was only $28,446 — 9% less than the industry average and well below the US living wage.

An Amazon spokesperson told ThinkProgress “Amazon is proud to have created over 130,000 new jobs last year alone. These are good jobs with highly competitive pay and full benefits. In the US, the average hourly wage for a full-time associate in our fulfillment centers, including cash, stock, and incentive bonuses, is over $15/hour before overtime. That’s in addition to our full benefits package that includes health, vision and dental insurance, retirement, generous parental leave, and skills training for in-demand jobs through our Career Choice program, which has over 16,000 participants.”

GLOBAL WARMING THREATENS COASTAL PROPERTY BUBBLE. The trillion-dollar coastal property bubble is ready to burst as global warming-driven sea level rise and storm surges threaten more and more property with flooding.

We are now seeing “a pricing signal from climate change” in the relatively depressed prices for the coastal property most at risk for flooding, as Harvard real-estate professor Jesse Keenan told the Wall Street Journal (4/20).

Keenan is the lead author of a new study of Miami single-family homes that found the “rates of price appreciation in the lowest elevation” homes “have not kept up with the rates of appreciation of higher elevation” homes since about 2000. That is, the homes along Miami’s coast most at risk from climate change are seeing their value drop over time compared to homes less at risk of flooding.

A second, broader study, “Disaster on the Horizon: The Price Effect of Sea Level Rise,” found that “Homes exposed to sea level” are being priced 7% lower than homes that are the same distance from the beach, but that are less exposed to flooding.

The study, which used Zillow data from around the country, concluded that the pricing gap between riskier homes and safer homes was being driven by the “more sophisticated investors.” For that group, the gap is about “11% and has increased over time, coinciding with the release of new scientific evidence on the extent and timing of ocean encroachment.”

GA. RALLY DISAPPOINTS WHITE SUPREMACISTS. The town of Newnan, Ga., population 38,000, was supposed to represent the greatest gathering of American white supremacists since last year’s event in Charlottesville, Va. — a rally that drew some 1,000 supporters and resulted in the death of one counter-protester.

Newnan, though, saw an altogether different turnout, with counter-protesters and law enforcement both significantly outnumbering the neo-Nazis in attendance. According to Slate, some 700 law enforcement officers oversaw the rally, presenting a “massive militarized police presence” to counter the event, hosted in Greenville Street Park.

All told, only a few dozen neo-Nazis and white supremacists attended the rally, which was organized by the National Socialist Movement. According to the *Atlanta Journal-Constitution*, the NSM “anticipated between 50 and 100 people, but it appeared Saturday that only a couple of dozen of them showed up.”

The rally, unlike last year’s events in Charlottesville, was largely peaceful, with no injuries reported. Newnan Police Chief Douglas “Buster” Meadows told USA Today that he was “very relieved” and “so proud of the community.” The rally ended, as Slate reported, as “much ado about nothing.”

Still, as Huffington Post reporter Christopher Mathias found, the rally wasn’t without its moments of tensions — especially when it came to the police presence at the event. As Mathias witnessed, at least one officer “pointed what seemed to be a modified AR-15 at the faces of counterprotesters, none of whom appeared to be armed.” Police also arrested 10 counter-protesters. (Casey Michel, ThinkProgress)

From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2018

Populist.com