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<p><font size="+2"><i><b>March 29, 2022</b></i></font><br>
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<i>[ Audio and text -- NPR is "shocked, shocked" to hear lies and
disinformation about green energy ]</i><br>
<b>Misinformation is derailing renewable energy projects across the
United States</b><br>
March 28, 2022<br>
JULIA SIMON<br>
On a winter night in early 2016, Jeremy Kitson gathered in his
buddy's large shed with some neighbors to plan their fight against a
proposed wind farm in rural Van Wert County, Ohio. The project would
be about a mile from his home.<br>
<br>
From the beginning, Kitson — who teaches physics and chemistry at
the local high school — knew he didn't want the turbines anywhere
near him. He had heard from folks who lived near another wind
project about 10 miles away that the turbines were noisy and that
they couldn't sleep.<br>
<br>
"There were so many people saying that it's horrible, you do not
want to live under these things,'" Kitson says.<br>
<br>
He and his neighbors went on the offensive. "I was just like,
there's got to be a way to beat 'em," he says of the developer, Apex
Clean Energy. "You got to outsmart them. You got to figure out the
science. You got to figure out the economic arguments. You got to
figure out what they're going to say and figure out how to counter
it."<br>
At the shed, according to Kitson, they agreed that part of their
outreach would involve posting information on a Facebook community
page called "Citizens for Clear Skies," which ultimately grew to
more than 770 followers.<br>
<br>
In between posts selling anti-wind yard signs and posts about public
meetings opposing local wind projects, there were posts that spread
false, misleading and questionable information about wind energy.
Links to stories about wind turbine noise causing birth defects in
Portuguese horses. Posts about the health effects of low frequency
infrasound, also called wind turbine syndrome. Posts about wind
energy not actually reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Photos of
wind turbines breaking, burning and falling — some in nearby
counties and states, but some in Germany and New Zealand. According
to 2014 data from the Department of Energy, the most recent
available, out of the then-40,000 turbines in the U.S., there had
been fewer than 40 incidents...<br>
- -<br>
For the Biden administration to hit its target of an electricity
sector free of fossil fuels by 2035, the country has to double or
triple the wind and solar power capacity it installs over the next
few years and maintain that higher level of deployments for about a
decade, says Kelly Speakes-Backman, who leads the Energy
Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.<br>
Yet every single rural utility-scale wind and solar project needs
local or state approval to get built, says Sarah Mills, who
researches rural renewable energy at the University of Michigan. And
she says it's in those often-fractious discussions about approval
that misinformation is sometimes halting and stalling the
installation of the renewables the climate needs. "At the end of the
day, if local governments are not setting rules that allow for the
infrastructure to be sited, those policies cannot be achieved,"
Mills says.<br>
<br>
<b>Misinformation gets mixed up in decisions over renewable projects</b><br>
Last year, a Department of Energy study found that setback
regulations now represent the single-greatest barrier to securing
locations for wind projects in the U.S. Setbacks limit how close
wind projects can be to buildings, and Mills says they often make
sense to reduce things such as noise and "shadow flicker," the
moving shadows and strobing sunlight that turbines can cast onto
buildings. But she says misinformation can fuel setbacks that are
more stringent than needed and sometimes act as outright bans on
renewable energy.<br>
<br>
In Ohio, setbacks and other rules associated with renewable projects
have historically been set at the state level. But in October, a new
law, SB 52, went into effect giving counties the ability to make
exclusion zones with no utility-scale wind and solar projects.<br>
<br>
Kitson, the science teacher, testified in support of the zones,
arguing that turbines negatively affect property values. He pointed
to his group's analysis comparing the lower property values in the
one local township that has wind turbines to the higher average
property values in the greater county.<br>
<br>
But Ben Hoen, a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, says his more than 15 years of research has shown that
wind turbines have little to no impact on nearby property values.
Hoen says, "We have not found evidence of property value impacts
despite studying it over multiple periods of time."<br>
Hoen does say that studies in the Netherlands and United Kingdom
have found some effects on property values, but they were far
smaller than Kitson's reference to studies showing a 20%-40%
depreciation.<br>
<br>
In about half of states, regulations around how and whether to build
rural utility-scale solar and wind are determined on the local
level, Mills says. "These local officials are not necessarily
experts in energy," she says. "And so when you have people coming
and stating things as facts, especially if there's nobody
fact-checking everything, right, it's difficult. They're certainly
making decisions based on what they're hearing."<br>
<br>
<b>Facebook groups spread misleading content</b><br>
In recent years, some of the misinformation about renewable energy
has come from former President Donald Trump, who frequently makes
misleading and false anti-wind claims at his rallies and media
appearances, including the untrue idea that wind turbine noise
causes cancer. Earlier this month, when asked about the unfolding
Ukraine crisis on a podcast, Trump immediately responded by listing
untrue ideas about wind energy.<br>
<br>
Other misleading ideas about renewable energy come from groups with
ties to the fossil fuel industry, like the Texas Public Policy
Foundation. The foundation recently released a film trailer for an
anti-offshore wind group in Massachusetts that features multiple
falsehoods, including the untrue statement that the proposed project
didn't do any environmental impact assessments and the incorrect
idea that offshore wind projects "haven't worked anywhere in the
world." The Texas Public Policy Foundation did not respond to a
request for comment.<br>
<br>
But Facebook is one of the biggest drivers of misleading content
about renewable energy, says Josh Fergen, a researcher at the
University of Minnesota Duluth. Last fall, Fergen and his colleagues
published a paper looking at the Facebook posts of Kitson's group
and another large wind opposition group, about 90 kilometers east,
fighting the Republic Wind Farm.<br>
<br>
Fergen's paper concluded that posts in the two Facebook pages were
"increasing perceptions of human health and public safety risks
related to wind by sharing news of disasters and misinformation over
health assessment risks." In June, the Ohio Power Siting Board,
whose approval was needed for the site, rejected the Republic Wind
Farm proposal citing geological concerns and the local opposition.<br>
<br>
NPR reviewed dozens of posts from anti-wind and anti-solar groups.
While some posts about climate change denial, lithium mining, and a
quote misattributed to Winston Churchill were marked as inaccurate,
there were dozens of posts with misleading information about
renewable energy that were not tagged.<br>
<br>
NPR sent Facebook a sampling of the posts from anti-renewable
community pages. Facebook spokesman Kevin McAlister said in an
emailed statement, "We take action against content that our
fact-checking partners rate false as part of our comprehensive
strategy to keep viral, provably false claims from spreading on our
apps. The examples shared with us don't appear to meet that
threshold as they have only even been shared a handful of times over
a period of several years."<br>
<br>
But Fergen says that these same types of misleading and false posts
about wind and solar energy pop up in a network of Facebook groups
around the country, feeding a conflict between rural communities and
energy developers.<br>
<br>
Leah Stokes, an associate professor of political science at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, says as resistance to wind
and solar projects spreads on social media, the dangers of
misinformation from these anti-renewable Facebook groups is growing.<br>
<br>
"It can really slow down the clean energy transition, and that has
just as dire life and death consequences, not just in terms of
climate change, but also in terms of air pollution, which
overwhelmingly hits communities of color."...<br>
- -<br>
<b>"It's about who you trust"</b><br>
Speakes-Backman says the Department of Energy is trying to do more
outreach to local communities about inaccurate ideas surrounding
utility-scale solar and wind, especially around land use and
environmental effects. "We want to make sure that we are
counteracting the misinformation that may be out there," she says.<br>
<br>
But Dahvi Wilson, vice president of public affairs for Apex Clean
Energy, says her company is finding that across the country, local
engagement is becoming increasingly difficult given community
suspicions of renewable energy.<br>
<br>
"I think for a long time, and maybe still in some places, developers
thought, 'Well, we just need to give better information. We just
need to give more information.' And it's like, 'it's so not about
that at all!'" Wilson says. "It's about who you trust and if
anybody's going to believe you if you're a company."<br>
<br>
Hoen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory says the
perception of the community engagement process regarding renewables
has real implications — even on human health. He gives the example
of shadow flicker, the moving shadows from turbines, which
opposition groups often cite when critiquing wind. A few states and
several counties have regulations limiting shadow flicker on habited
structures, commonly to about 30 hours per year, but most do not,
and wind opposition groups argue that the strobing shadows can cause
agitation, headaches, or even seizures in some individuals.<br>
<br>
Hoen says to date they have not found any evidence of shadow flicker
causing seizures, but they have found its relation to annoyance and
stress. So Hoen's group did a study asking: "As the number of shadow
flicker hours decrease, is there less annoyance? Are people less
bothered by it?"<br>
<br>
"What we found, interestingly, is that the individuals that were
annoyed by shadow flicker did not necessarily have a higher level of
shadow flicker at their home than those that weren't annoyed," Hoen
says. "And, in fact, what led to that annoyance, it appears, is
their perception of the planning process, how they felt like that
development got rolled out in their community."<br>
<br>
Given the importance of community engagement in the process of
locating wind and solar, Mills says renewable proponents need to be
careful that they aren't romanticizing the projects or providing
misleading information themselves, for example, by saying that a
wind or solar plant will bring lots of jobs to an area.<br>
<br>
"There are a lot of jobs in renewable energy. Many, many of the jobs
in renewable energy are in construction trades. And so once the
project is built, there's not tons of jobs associated with the
project," Mills says. "I think in all of this, it's important to not
sugarcoat."<br>
<br>
Anti-renewable groups have internal disputes over use of
misinformation<br>
In the last few months, more states — Washington, Iowa and Kansas —
have proposed bills to restrict rural utility-scale wind and solar.
In Kansas, these bills were proposed by state Sen. Mike Thompson,
who also introduced a bill to shut down existing renewable
projects...<br>
In one video on the anti-solar group's YouTube channel, Thompson
calls climate change "one of the biggest scams out there" and says
"carbon dioxide has no correlation with the temperature on this
planet whatsoever." That statement is false: The vast majority of
scientists agree that the climate crisis stems from greenhouse gas
emissions generated by human activity. Thompson did not respond to
requests for comment.<br>
<br>
YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez said in an emailed statement,
"In general, we don't recommend or prominently surface content that
includes climate change misinformation. Our systems are trained to
raise videos from authoritative sources, like news outlets and
experts, in search results for certain queries related to climate
change and renewable energy."<br>
<br>
Barbara Kerr is a professor of psychology at the University of
Kansas and she's a founding member of that anti-solar group in
Kansas, which opposes NextEra Energy's proposed utility-scale solar
plant in Douglas and Johnson counties. Kerr says she knows the
videos that have been featured by the group she co-founded have
misinformation.<br>
<br>
"Just horrible," Kerr says of the videos. "They are just
counterfactual and not something we should have on the website."<br>
<br>
But despite Kerr's objections, her group decided in January to keep
the videos online. "It is important to not judge, and censor
utility-scale solar content/opinions contributed by citizens. If we
become judge and jury, we are headed down the wrong path," the group
said in an emailed statement.<br>
<br>
Kerr says that while she disagrees with the misinformation used by
some in her group, she says the anti-solar coalition makes for
"strange bedfellows." "Sometimes you have to compromise," she says.
"I don't want to alienate these people. They go to the meetings in
Douglas County and Johnson County."<br>
<br>
But Dan Reuman, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the
University of Kansas, says he worries about the role misinformation
could play in the decision-making over the solar project, which he
supports. He says that while he is sympathetic to those in his
county who don't want to live near a large-scale solar plant, he
also thinks their concerns need to be weighed against the need to
mitigate climate change.<br>
<br>
"I just find it upsetting," Reuman says. "I hope that the government
doesn't make a compromise between a scientifically based position
and a misinformation-based position. Because if you're compromising
with misinformation, then there's sort of no limit to that,
right?"...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1086790531/renewable-energy-projects-wind-energy-solar-energy-climate-change-misinformation">https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1086790531/renewable-energy-projects-wind-energy-solar-energy-climate-change-misinformation</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Our military paying closer attention to the new ocean of the
Arctic ] </i><br>
<b>With Eyes on Russia, the U.S. Military Prepares for an Arctic
Future</b><br>
As climate change opens up the Arctic for transit and exploration,
Russia has increasingly militarized the region. The U.S. is
preparing a more aggressive presence of its own.<br>
March 27, 2022<br>
DELTA JUNCTION, Alaska — After parachuting into the frigid Alaska
interior, Capt. Weston Iannone and his soldiers navigated miles
through deep snow, finally setting up a temporary outpost on a
ridgeline next to a grove of lanky spruce trees that were also
struggling to survive.<br>
<br>
Darkness was setting in, the temperature had fallen below zero, and
the 120 men and women who had gathered as part of a major combat
training exercise in subarctic Alaska had not yet erected tents. The
supply line for fuel, essential to keep warm through the long night
ahead, was lagging behind.<br>
<br>
“Everything is a challenge, from water, fuel, food, moving people,
keeping them comfortable,” said Captain Iannone, the 27-year-old
company commander, as his soldiers shoveled deeper into the snow in
search of a solid foundation to put up their sleeping quarters.
“This is inherent training — understanding how far we can push
physically and mentally.”...<br>
- -<br>
Tensions have been growing in the region for years, as nations stake
claims to shipping routes and energy reserves that are opening up as
a result of climate change. Now, with the geopolitical order
shifting after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the competition over
sovereignty and resources in the Arctic could intensify.<br>
<br>
On the West Coast of Alaska, the federal government is investing
hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the port at Nome, which
could transform into a deepwater hub servicing Coast Guard and Navy
vessels navigating into the Arctic Circle. The Coast Guard expects
to deploy three new icebreakers — although Russia already has more
than 50 in operation...<br>
- -<br>
And while the United States has denounced Russia’s aggressive
military expansion in the Arctic, the Pentagon has its own plans to
increase its presence and capabilities, working to rebuild
cold-weather skills neglected during two decades of war in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The Air Force has transferred dozens of F-35 fighter
jets to Alaska, announcing that the state will host “more advanced
fighters than any other location in the world.” The Army last year
released its first strategic plan for “Regaining Arctic Dominance.”<br>
<br>
The Navy, which this month conducted exercises above and below the
sea ice inside the Arctic Circle, also has developed a plan for
protecting American interests in the region, warning that weakness
there would mean that “peace and prosperity will be increasingly
challenged by Russia and China, whose interests and values differ
dramatically from ours.”...<br>
- -<br>
The preparations are costly in both resources and personnel. While
Captain Iannone’s company was able to finish setting up tents before
midnight and survived the night without incident, other companies
did not fare so well: Eight soldiers suffered cold-weather injuries,
and four soldiers were taken to a hospital after a fire inside a
personnel carrier.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, at another recent cold-weather exercise, in Norway, four
U.S. Marines died when their aircraft crashed.<br>
<br>
Russia, whose eastern mainland lies just 55 miles across the Bering
Strait from the coast of Alaska, for years has prioritized an
expanded Arctic presence by refurbishing airfields, adding bases,
training troops and developing a network of military defense systems
on the northern frontier.<br>
<br>
With a warming climate shrinking sea ice in the region, valuable
fish stocks are moving northward, while rare minerals and the
Arctic’s substantial reserves of fossil fuels are becoming a growing
target for exploration. Boat traffic is poised to increase from both
trade and tourism....<br>
- -<br>
Two years ago, Moscow brought its own war games barreling through
the Bering Sea, with Russian commanders testing weapons and
demanding that American fishing boats operating in U.S. fishing
waters get out of the way — an order the U.S. Coast Guard advised
them to comply with. Russia has repeatedly sent military aircraft to
the edge of U.S. airspace, leading U.S. jets to scramble to
intercept them and warn them away.<br>
<br>
This month, in response to escalating international sanctions
against Russia, a member of the Russian parliament demanded that
Alaska, purchased by the United States from Russia in 1867, be
returned to Russian control — a possibly rhetorical gesture that
nonetheless reflected the deteriorating relationship between the two
world powers.<br>
<br>
For centuries, the vast waters of the offshore Arctic were largely a
no man’s land locked in by ice whose exact territorial boundaries —
claimed by the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark and
Iceland — remained unsettled. But as melting sea ice has opened new
shipping pathways and as nations have eyed the vast hydrocarbon and
mineral reserves below the Arctic sea floor, the complicated
treaties, claims and boundary zones that govern the region have been
opened to fresh disputes.<br>
<br>
Canada and the United States have never reached agreement on the
status of the Northwest Passage between the North Atlantic and the
Beaufort Sea. China, too, has been working to establish a foothold,
declaring itself a “near-Arctic state” and partnering with Russia to
promote “sustainable” development and expanded use of Arctic trade
routes.<br>
<br>
Russia has made it clear it intends to control the so-called
Northern Sea Route off its northern shore, a route that
significantly shortens the shipping distance between China and
Northern Europe. U.S. officials have complained that Russia is
illegally demanding that other nations seek permission to pass and
threatening to use military force to sink vessels that do not
comply.<br>
<br>
“We are stuck with a pretty tense situation there,” said Troy
Bouffard, director of the Center of Arctic Security and Resilience
at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Either we acquiesce to
Russia, to their extreme control of surface waters, or we elevate or
escalate the issue.”...<br>
- - <br>
The focus in recent years had been to expand diplomatic channels,
collaborating on a range of regional challenges through the Arctic
Council. That work was put on pause, however, after Russia invaded
Ukraine.<br>
<br>
In Nome, which hopes to position itself as a maritime gateway to the
Far North, there has long been evidence that a new era for the
Arctic was arriving. Mayor John Handeland said winter sea ice that
once persisted until mid-June may now be gone by early May and does
not reappear before Thanksgiving...<br>
- -<br>
The focus in recent years had been to expand diplomatic channels,
collaborating on a range of regional challenges through the Arctic
Council. That work was put on pause, however, after Russia invaded
Ukraine.<br>
<br>
In Nome, which hopes to position itself as a maritime gateway to the
Far North, there has long been evidence that a new era for the
Arctic was arriving. Mayor John Handeland said winter sea ice that
once persisted until mid-June may now be gone by early May and does
not reappear before Thanksgiving...<br>
- -<br>
“I think that our people realize that our military needs to protect
our country and our military does need to invest in a presence in
the Arctic,” Ms. Kitka said. “But it has got to be done smart.”<br>
<br>
Dan Sullivan, Alaska’s junior Republican U.S. senator, said that
while there may be little threat of a Russian invasion of Alaska,
there is concern about Russia’s military buildup in the region.<br>
<br>
“Ukraine just demonstrates even more, what matters to these guys is
presence and power,” Mr. Sullivan said. “And when you start to build
ports, when you start to bring up icebreakers, when you start to
bring up Navy shipping, when you have over 100 fifth-gen fighters in
the Arctic in Alaska, we’re starting to now talk Putin’s language.”<br>
<br>
Alaska is already one of the nation’s most militarized states, with
more than 20,000 active-duty personnel assigned to places such as
Eielson Air Force Base and Fort Wainwright in the Fairbanks area,
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, and Coast Guard Air
Station Kodiak. The Army’s large training exercise — the first
Combat Training Center rotation to be held in Alaska — took place
around Fort Greely, about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks. Alaska
is also home to critical parts of the nation’s missile-defense
system.<br>
<br>
Mr. Bouffard said the fracture in relations caused by Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine could open the door to a variety of future
problems that can only be guessed at right now. While there is no
imminent conflict in the Arctic, there could well be friction over
how Russia manages offshore waters or disputes over undersea
exploration. The United States also needs to be prepared to aid
northern European allies that share an uncertain future with Russia
in Arctic waterways, he said.<br>
<br>
That will mean being prepared for a range of potential problems. In
a separate Alaska military exercise in recent weeks, teams from the
Marines and the Army practiced cold-weather strategies for
containing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear
contamination...<br>
- - <br>
At the large Army war games exercise near Fort Greely, the soldiers
rehearsed a scenario in which paratroopers seized control of an
airfield and established operations to hold the new territory. An
opposing force then mobilized to try to reclaim the area.<br>
<br>
Portable heating elements were used to keep engines running, along
with lubricants that work in subzero temperatures. Some soldiers
used skis and snowshoes to get around, as well as snowmobiles and
small-unit support vehicles light enough to traverse deep snow.<br>
<br>
For many of the soldiers under Captain Iannone’s command, defending
the airfield meant establishing positions in remote areas with more
rudimentary means. One heavy weapons group chopped down trees by
hand and used a sled to pull a bulky I.T.A.S. weapons system to a
vantage point from which the soldiers could scan miles of landscape
below.<br>
<br>
They erected a tent with a small stove heater, shielded with a wall
of snow on all sides. They rotated in hourly shifts outside the
tents — every half-hour at night — in order to keep warm.<br>
<br>
Even then, 21-year-old Specialist Owen Prescott said he had
struggled with the bite of nighttime cold and was figuring out the
appropriate layers to wear to stay warm as temperatures neared minus
20. As he spooned some steaming food from a freeze-dried Army
ration, he said he and his colleagues were focusing much of their
attention on making sure they did not become a cold-weather casualty
before engaging on their hypothetical combat mission.<br>
<br>
“It’s just dealing with the cold, sustaining in the cold,” said
Specialist Prescott, who is from Southern California. “I’m used to
wearing shorts and flip-flops my entire life.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/us/army-alaska-arctic-russia.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/us/army-alaska-arctic-russia.html</a><br>
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</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ or it could just be one man's immoral behavior and inherent
criminality ] </i><br>
<b>How Joe Manchin Aided Coal, and Earned Millions</b><br>
At every step of his political career, Joe Manchin helped a West
Virginia power plant that is the sole customer of his private coal
business. Along the way, he blocked ambitious climate action.<br>
By Christopher Flavelle and Julie Tate<br>
March 27, 2022<br>
- -<br>
Mr. Manchin supplied a type of low-grade coal mixed with rock and
clay known as “gob” that is typically cast aside as junk by mining
companies but can be burned to produce electricity. In addition, he
arranged to receive a slice of the revenue from electricity
generated by the plant — electric bills paid by his constituents.<br>
<br>
The deal inked decades ago has made Mr. Manchin, now 74, a rich man.<br>
<br>
While the fact that Mr. Manchin owns a coal business is well-known,
an examination by The New York Times offers a more detailed portrait
of the degree to which Mr. Manchin’s business has been interwoven
with his official actions. He created his business while a state
lawmaker in anticipation of the Grant Town plant, which has been the
sole customer for his gob for the past 20 years, according to
federal data. At key moments over the years, Mr. Manchin used his
political influence to benefit the plant. He urged a state official
to approve its air pollution permit, pushed fellow lawmakers to
support a tax credit that helped the plant, and worked behind the
scenes to facilitate a rate increase that drove up revenue for the
plant — and electricity costs for West Virginians.<br>
<br>
Records show that several energy companies have held ownership
stakes in the power plant, major corporations with interests far
beyond West Virginia. At various points, those corporations have
sought to influence the Senate, including legislation before
committees on which Mr. Manchin sat, creating what ethics experts
describe as a conflict of interest.<br>
<br>
As the pivotal vote in an evenly split Senate, Mr. Manchin has
blocked legislation that would speed the country’s transition to
wind, solar and other clean energy and away from coal, oil and gas,
the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet. With the war
in Ukraine and resulting calls to boycott Russian gas, Mr. Manchin
has joined Republicans to press for more American gas and oil
production to fill the gap on the world market...<br>
- -<br>
But as the Grant Town plant continues to burn coal and pay dividends
to Mr. Manchin, it has harmed West Virginians economically, costing
them hundreds of millions of dollars in excess electricity fees.
That’s because gob is a less efficient power source than regular
coal.<br>
<br>
Mr. Manchin declined an interview request. His spokeswoman, Sam
Runyon, did not respond to detailed questions about his business
interests, and whether those interests affected his actions as a
public official. Senate ethics rules forbid members from acting on
legislation to further their financial interests or those of
immediate family members. There is no indication that Mr. Manchin
broke any laws.<br>
<br>
In the past, Mr. Manchin has repeatedly said that he has acted to
protect valued industries in West Virginia, which ranked second in
coal production and fifth in natural gas in 2020, according to
federal data. He has defended his personal business ties to the
Grant Town plant, telling the Charleston Gazette in 1996, “I did it
to keep West Virginia people working.”<br>
<br>
This account is based on thousands of pages of documents from
lawsuits, land records, state regulatory hearings, lobbying and
financial disclosures, federal energy data and other records
spanning more than three decades. The Times also spoke with three
dozen former business associates, current and former government
officials, and industry experts.<br>
<br>
The documents and interviews show that at every level of Mr.
Manchin’s political career, from state lawmaker to U.S. senator, his
official actions have benefited his financial interest in the Grant
Town plant, blurring the line between public business and private
gain...<br>
- -<br>
<b>The private company behind Mr. Manchin’s millions</b><br>
Mr. Manchin and his wife owned assets worth between $4.5 million to
$12.8 million in 2020, according to Senate financial disclosure
forms, which provide only a range with few specifics. Mr. Manchin,
who drives a silver Maserati Levante, reported dozens of assets,
including bank accounts, mutual funds, real estate and ownership
stakes in more than a dozen companies...<br>
- -<br>
But the bulk of Mr. Manchin’s reported income since entering the
Senate has come from one company: Enersystems, Inc., which he
founded with his brother Roch Manchin in 1988, the year before the
Grant Town plant got a permit from the state of West Virginia.<br>
<br>
Enersystems Inc. is now run by Mr. Manchin’s son, Joseph Manchin IV.
In 2020, it paid Mr. Manchin $491,949, according to his filings,
almost three times his salary as a United States senator. From 2010
through 2020, Mr. Manchin reported a total of $5.6 million from the
company.<br>
---<br>
In the middle of his second term as governor, Mr. Manchin handily
won a special election in 2010 to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated
by the death of Robert Byrd. From a seat on the Senate Committee on
Energy and Natural Resources, Mr. Manchin had an ability to shape
federal policy governing oil, gas and coal.<br>
<br>
He became one of the most vocal opponents to the E.P.A.’s proposed
limits on emissions of mercury and other hazardous substances from
power plants. The mercury regulations, which eventually took effect,
were particularly threatening to plants like Grant Town, because gob
generates more mercury per kilowatt of electricity when burned than
traditional coal, according to Lisa Evans, senior counsel at the
environmental advocacy group Earthjustice.<br>
<br>
Mr. Manchin also sought to protect coal plants from more stringent
regulation of coal ash, which gob-fired plants generate in higher
volumes than conventional coal-burning facilities. He sponsored
legislation in 2016 that gave regulatory authority over coal ash to
states, rather than allowing federal regulators to dictate terms.<br>
<br>
Mr. Manchin easily won a full Senate term in 2012 and re-election in
2018, and became a top recipient of campaign contributions from the
mining, oil and gas industries.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, AmBit increasingly bought its fuel from Mr. Manchin’s
company, to the point that it got 80 percent of its coal waste from
the Manchin family business in 2020, compared to one-quarter when he
first entered the Senate.<br>
<br>
Reached by phone, AmBit’s executive director, Kenneth Niemann,
agreed to answer written questions for this article but then did not
respond to them.<br>
<br>
<b>Hidden ties to large corporations</b><br>
On the surface, Mr. Manchin has a business relationship with a
single power plant in West Virginia.<br>
<br>
But determining the players behind AmBit, the owner of the Grant
Town power plant, is a bit like handling a set of Russian nesting
dolls.<br>
<br>
At various points, three major companies — Edison International, NRG
Energy and Tokyo-based Sumitomo — owned a significant share of
AmBit, through a series of holding companies that had the effect of
obscuring their involvement, records show.<br>
- <br>
And while all three companies partly owned the Grant Town plant,
which was paying Mr. Manchin, their representatives lobbied the
Senate on dozens of bills handled by the committees on which Mr.
Manchin sat, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms.
Lobbyists are not required to identify specific pieces of
legislation or name lawmakers with whom they meet.<br>
.<br>
When asked if Sumitomo or its subsidiaries had lobbied Mr. Manchin
or his staff from 2010 through 2020, Sumitomo spokeswoman Amy
Babcock said, “No, not to our knowledge.” A spokeswoman for NRG,
Laura Avant, said the company’s lobbying “was not targeted” at Mr.
Manchin during 2014 when NRG owned a stake in the Grant Town plant.<br>
<br>
Edison would not say whether it had lobbied Mr. Manchin while the
company owned part of the Grant Town plant. “Edison International
has a responsibility to work with legislators on policies that best
serve our customers,” said Jeffrey T. Monford, a spokesman for
Edison. “We abide by all rules around those communications.”<br>
<br>
Ms. Runyon, the spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin, would not say whether
Mr. Manchin had ever been lobbied by Sumitomo, NRG or Edison while
those companies owned a stake in Grant Town. “Throughout the
entirety of Senator Manchin’s public service career, he has always
been in full compliance with ethics and financial disclosure rules,”
Ms. Runyon said in a statement.<br>
<br>
Mr. Manchin’s ties to AmBit left him in a complicated position,
according to Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington
University in St. Louis who specializes in government ethics. He was
in a position to help craft, support or block legislation that
affected Edison, NRG or Sumitomo. At the same time, through their
ownership of the Grant Town plant, those companies had influence
over decisions that could affect Mr. Manchin’s income.<br>
<br>
Mr. Manchin’s case demonstrates the need to tighten ethics rules,
Ms. Clark said. “We care where the income stream comes from,” she
said. “What you don’t want is essentially members of Congress to own
companies that then become methods or mechanisms for the Sumitomos
of the world to get in good with members of Congress.”<br>
- -<br>
In 2020, Mr. Manchin’s power reached new heights.<br>
<br>
Mr. Biden was elected president in part on a promise to address
climate change. Making good on that pledge hinges on moving
legislation through a Senate that is split 50 Republicans to 48
Democrats and their two Independent allies. With Republicans
unanimously opposed to most legislation introduced by Senate
Democrats, any single Democrat can stop a bill by withholding
support.<br>
<br>
Last summer and fall, Mr. Manchin blocked the spending bill that
contained Mr. Biden’s climate proposals, which had included
penalties for power companies that did not reduce their coal use.
But as those negotiations were underway in Washington, a different
dispute was unfolding in West Virginia — one that may have affected
Mr. Manchin’s incentives for ultimately opposing the federal climate
bill.<br>
<br>
For years, AmBit had warned that tighter greenhouse gas regulations
could shutter the Grant Town plant. The company said it needed cash
partly as a cushion against any new government limits on pollution.
Last May, AmBit asked Mon Power to cancel the remainder of its
contract, which expires in 2036, in exchange for a payment from Mon
Power of as much as $200 million or more. That would allow Mon Power
to find another source of electricity, maybe at a lower cost, and
AmBit could try to find another customer for electricity from its
Grant Town plant.<br>
<br>
The stakes for Mr. Manchin were high. Grant Town was the only
remaining power plant in his state that burned gob. If new federal
climate rules put Grant Town out of business, his company would have
no other potential customers for its waste coal.<br>
<br>
Mon Power refused the request for a buyout. So AmBit turned to the
Public Service Commission, asking it to force Mon Power to
reconsider. In November, just as discussions between Mr. Manchin and
the White House over the climate bill were reaching their peak, the
commission held a hearing in Charleston to consider AmBit’s request.<br>
<br>
In a filing to the commission, Richard J. Halloran, a founder and
owner of AmBit, said that failing to get a buyout “will give us less
protection against the anti fossil fuel (coal) sentiment and
legislation and taxation.” (Mr. Halloran declined to comment.)<br>
. .<br>
The commission’s chairwoman, Charlotte R. Lane, expressed
skepticism, noting that just a few years had passed since the
commission had granted the company its latest rate increase. “Now
you’re back,” Ms. Lane said, according to the transcript. “I am
somewhat perplexed at what you are doing.”<br>
<br>
On Dec. 29, the commission rejected AmBit’s request, and with it the
chances of a financial buffer against tighter climate rules for Mr.
Manchin’s most important customer.<br>
<br>
Ten days before the Public Service Commission announced its
decision, Mr. Manchin said in a statement that he could not support
the president’s bill, effectively dooming it.<br>
<br>
Ms. Runyon, the spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin, did not directly
respond to a question about whether Mr. Manchin’s ties to Grant Town
influenced his decision to oppose the bill. “From the beginning,
Senator Manchin has clearly articulated the reasons he could not
support [the legislation] — rising inflation, the global pandemic
and geopolitical unrest around the world,” Ms. Runyon said in a
statement.<br>
<br>
But among the reasons Mr. Manchin gave at the time was the bill’s
effect on the power sector.<br>
<br>
“We have invested billions of dollars into clean energy technologies
so we can continue to lead the world in reducing emissions through
innovation,” Mr. Manchin said in December. “But to do so at a rate
that is faster than technology or the markets allow will have
catastrophic consequences.”<br>
<br>
The statement made no mention of Mr. Manchin’s ties to Grant Town.<br>
- Kitty Bennett, Dionne Searcey and Steve Eder contributed
reporting.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/climate/manchin-coal-climate-conflicts.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/climate/manchin-coal-climate-conflicts.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<i>[ Food stress expected to rise ] </i><br>
<b>Complex Models Now Gauge the Impact of Climate Change on Global
Food Production. The Results Are ‘Alarming’</b><br>
Climate change is a "threat multiplier," making hunger emergencies
worse. Advanced modeling shows that crop yields could plummet,
faster than expected.<br>
By Georgina Gustin - March 27, 2022<br>
- -<br>
And while famine and malnutrition are complicated problems, in the
decades since these models began to examine the projected impact of
global warming on food production, it’s become increasingly clear
that climate change is a “threat multiplier,” making hunger
emergencies worse. In some cases it could be the primary cause. <br>
<br>
Nearly 1 billion people went hungry or were malnourished last year
and that number is projected to rise this year...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032022/climate-change-food-production-famine/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032022/climate-change-food-production-famine/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Plan ahead folks ]</i><br>
<b>Large fires becoming even larger, more widespread</b><br>
Their frequency has tripled in some parts of the U.S., a team of
environmental scientists found<br>
By Erin Blakemore 3-27-2022<br>
Each year, thousands of wildfires burn millions of acres in the
United States.<br>
<br>
Fire season may be a reality in many places around the country. But
the threat is spreading to areas once relatively unscathed by
wildfires, a new study suggests.<br>
<br>
In the journal Science Advances, a team of environmental scientists
found that fire frequency has tripled in some parts of the United
States — and that in the 2000s, wildfires grew up to four times the
size of fires in previous decades.<br>
<br>
The scientists studied data from Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity,
a federal interagency program that tracks burn severity over time in
the United States. The data spans from 1984 to 2018 and covers more
than 28,000 fires over 1,000 acres in size in the West and 500 acres
in size in the East.<br>
<br>
Since 2005, the analysis shows, fire frequency grew nationwide. In
the East and West, fires became twice as frequent, and they became
four times as frequent in the Great Plains. As frequency grew, so
did acreage, with the average size ballooning. In 2018, 2½ times
more acreage was destroyed in the West each year compared with the
previous two decades. The number rose 178 percent in the East.<br>
<br>
These fires were different from earlier ones: They were bigger and
were more likely to occur together. And the regions susceptible to
fire grew along with fire frequency.<br>
<br>
The team attributes the change to drought, but humans are also to
blame: Human-caused climate change has dried out many areas, and 84
percent of the fires were started by humans and not other factors
such as lightning strikes.<br>
<br>
Americans need to “rethink our priorities,” the researchers write,
participating in a challenging and ongoing conversation about how to
address the changing fire outlook.<br>
<br>
But for now, the outlook is grim, says William Travis, deputy
director of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Earth Lab and a
co-author of the paper. “More large fires plus intensifying
development mean that the worst fire disasters are still to come,”
he says in a news release.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/03/27/wildfires-increasing-frequency-climate-change/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/03/27/wildfires-increasing-frequency-climate-change/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ The news archive - to a time when we learned to look two months
ahead ]</i><br>
<font size="5"><b>March 29, 2016</b></font><br>
The New York Times reports:<br>
<blockquote> "Deadly summer heat waves in the eastern United States
may be predictable nearly two months before they occur, giving
emergency planners and farmers more time to prepare, scientists
reported on Monday."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/science/heat-wave-predictions-weather.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/science/heat-wave-predictions-weather.html</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
More information from daily summaries <br>
--------------------------------------- <br>
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