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DOE awarding $540 million to ramp up clean energy research

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) announced Thursday it will grant 54 universities and 11 national labs over $500 million to conduct research on clean energy technologies and low-carbon manufacturing, ranging from direct air capture to carbon storage and sequestration. 

The move comes on the heels of the passage of President Biden’s historic Inflation Reduction Act, which aims to significantly cut emissions by 2030. By 2050, Biden hopes to have a net-zero emissions economy. 

The new funds allotted by the DOE will be spread across institutions in 34 states and Washington D.C. 

“Meeting the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious climate and clean energy goals will require a game-changing commitment to clean energy — and that begins with researchers across the country,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in a statement. 

New research projects “will strengthen the scientific foundations needed for the United States to maintain world leadership in clean energy innovation, from renewable power to carbon management,” Granholm added. 

Carbon dioxide emissions resulting from fossil fuel use are a significant driver of climate change.

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Universities receiving the federal funds include the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; and Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, among others. 

“I’m excited to see this nearly $1.5 million award heading to Dartmouth to invest in cutting-edge scientific research around commercial solar technologies,” said U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire in a statement.

“This research will help position the U.S. to transition to a clean energy economy and net zero carbon emissions. Time is of the essence to combat the climate crisis, and New Hampshire continues to lead in innovative clean technologies and solutions.”

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado and Ames National Laboratory in Ames, Iowa are among the federal laboratories also receiving funds. 

A large portion of the money, $400 million, will go towards establishing and maintaining 43 Energy Frontier Research Centers, while these projects will study multiple topics including energy storage and quantum information science.

Funding for some teams will also be directed towards advancing the Department’s Energy Earthshots Initiatives which focus on solar nuclear energy technologies, energy storage and carbon capture.

Projects selected to receive the funds were decided on through a competitive peer review process.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump receiving legal advice from conservative activist Tom Fitton: report

Former President Trump has been receiving legal advice related to his retention of presidential records from the head of Judicial Watch, a conservative legal activist group, CNN reported Friday. 

Trump began taking calls from Tom Fitton, the president of the group, soon after the National Archives confirmed it obtained 15 boxes of records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property earlier this year.

The Archives reportedly asked the Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate after it received the boxes, some of which contained classified information. 

Fitton told Trump that providing the boxes to the Archives was a mistake and the records belonged to Trump, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. 

Fitton said Trump should not provide any additional records if the Archives came back for more. He reportedly cited a 2012 case that Judicial Watch was involved in that he said gave Trump the authority to do what he wanted with records from his time in the White House. 

One source told CNN that Trump requested Fitton brief his attorneys on the legal argument. 

Trump has repeatedly maintained that he has fully cooperating with investigators seeking to reclaim the records. But Fitton increasingly began convincing him that he should have control over the records he possessed, according to CNN. 

The Hill has reached out to representatives for Trump and Fitton for comment. 

The report comes as an affidavit that the FBI used to establish probable cause that a crime was being committed is set to be publicly revealed Friday. A federal judge ruled that the DOJ must release a redacted version of the affidavit by noon. 

The DOJ had argued that the affidavit’s full release could compromise its investigation.

Source: TEST FEED1

The monkeypox mistake the US government won’t stop making

For those of us at the forefront of the public health response to monkeypox, there was an overwhelming sense of whiplash watching the federal government roll out its new vaccine dose-sparing strategy earlier this month. This latest move is intended to finally get the country ahead of the virus — except it repeats the same strategic error we’ve seen time and again: it fails to fund implementation.

Since the earliest days of the monkeypox outbreak, sexual health clinics have been on the front lines, meeting patients’ needs and providing equitable care. They have worked tirelessly to stretch their shoestring budgets to provide testing, treatment and vaccines — even taking referrals from less-equipped primary care providers and seeing patients who have been turned away elsewhere. But the federal government has not provided the necessary funding to maintain these services that are critical to combating infectious disease outbreaks like this one.

We should have been able to contain monkeypox — it was detected early and already had tests, a safe vaccine and an effective treatment. But a chronically underfunded public health system, often lacking even basic supplies like testing swabs and syringes and depleted by two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic, failed this most basic test.

So, as federal health officials continue to tout their response to the outbreak in press conferences, clinics across the country are pleading for help and patients are suffering the consequences. It did not have to be this way. 

The strategic move to stretch our current supply of Jynneos, the safest vaccine for monkeypox, is just the latest example in this trend. The concerns over the safety and efficacy of this approach are real but equally concerning is the failure to consult the affected communities to implement this strategy in a way that builds trust and provides adequate resources. It involves a complex injection method that requires specialized training, unique supplies and new handling procedures — and there is little margin for error. However, thus far, there have been no resources or additional training provided to implement the new strategy.

Again and again, the government’s most meaningful steps to address this crisis have failed to make a difference to the patients who need them most because of a lack of funding. 

When the government first made the small supply of the Jynneos vaccine available, patients trying to register for an appointment quickly learned that the supply was depleted in minutes. Inside clinic walls, providers reached into their already overstretched budgets to create what new appointments they could, triage patients and reassign staff to deliver vaccines. Later, when the government finally relented to public pressure and expanded access to vaccines, it still failed to provide the dollars to clinics to deliver the doses quickly — stranding desperate patients, yet again. 

Similarly, when the federal government last month announced partnerships with private commercial laboratories like to ease the backlog of tests, clinics were forced to make difficult choices about whether to continue using the free, public labs or utilize commercial labs, the latter of which would require them to either pass on costs to patients — who are often uninsured — or eat the costs themselves. Many clinics have chosen the path with the least hurdles, opting to use the public labs.

And in recent weeks, as doctors raised issues with accessing the one available treatment for monkeypox, TPOXX, due to the extensive amount of paperwork the federal government requires to be filled out for each patient — 124 pages to be exact — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance to shorten the forms but didn’t provide clinics with the resources to provide tests or submit paperwork.

The pattern is unmistakable — but it is fixable.

With over 15,000 confirmed cases, we can’t afford to let monkeypox become endemic in the U.S. The new emergency declaration and federal monkeypox coordinators are promising steps toward righting the ship of this outbreak response. 

But the bottom line remains: Patients and communities won’t start to feel the full benefit of the strides the administration has worked hard to make until the federal government provides funding to implement its strategy. Absent that, we will see history repeat itself in slow motion with predictable outcomes as case numbers spiral and patients wait in pain.

David C. Harvey is the executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.

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Zuckerberg tells Rogan Facebook suppressed Hunter Biden laptop story after FBI warning

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week told popular podcaster Joe Rogan that Facebook did limit stories on the newsfeed related to the New York Post story about President Biden’s son, Hunter, and his laptop after warnings from the FBI, but defended the law enforcement agency as a “legitimate institution.”

Zuckerberg said on an episode of Rogan’s podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” that was uploaded on Thursday, that the FBI reached out to his company ahead of the 2020 presidential election to warn them to take note of potentially polarizing content. This warning came after Russia used social media platforms, including Facebook, to post content intended to be polarizing ahead of the 2016 election. 

Zuckerberg said he took the warning seriously. He said the social media platform did not ban people from sharing the Post’s story, but it took action to limit how often the story appeared on feeds. 

The Post reported shortly before the 2020 election that the FBI obtained a laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden as part of a federal investigation into him. 

Former President Trump and some of his allies seized on the report at the time as showing evidence that Hunter was involved in questionable business dealings while his father served as vice president. Some of the emails on the laptop have since been confirmed as authentic, but no wrongdoing from the president or his son has been confirmed. 

The investigation into Hunter Biden reached a critical juncture last month as prosecutors weigh whether to bring any charges, CNN reported. 

Zuckerberg said he did not remember if the FBI specifically mentioned the Post’s story in its warning.

He said he does not want Facebook to be the “ministry of truth” in deciding what is considered misinformation.

His defense of the FBI as “legitimate” comes as many conservatives have criticized the agency for conducting a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida earlier this month. Some Trump allies have called for defunding the FBI as a result.

Source: TEST FEED1

Women to watch when you’re worried

With former President Trump dominating the news due to government investigations, scandals, indictments and a range of nefarious sounding accusations, it is important to remember that the United States government has talented people at all levels, across multiple agencies, working, night and day, to keep us secure. 

And, by the way, many of them are women you usually hear little about but who should give you great comfort.

Consider the new nominee to head the U.S. Secret Service, Kim Cheatle, selected by President Biden to be the director of any agency under intense scrutiny. 

Cheatle is no stranger to public service, or to the U.S. Secret Service specifically. She has served at the agency for 27 years, including a stint on Biden’s security detail when he was vice president. The only other woman to lead the Secret Service was Julia Pierson, who served during the Obama administration.

Cheatle, who also has corporate experience, will have her hands full in government. Scandals have plagued the Secret Service for years.

In Congress, the House investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. capitol has led to charges that the Secret Service lost or deleted critical text messages. Congress has issued a subpoena for the text messages. The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has launched a criminal probe into the missing texts.

Also on Cheatle’s plate will be recent Secret Service incidents involving charges that agents behaved inappropriately overseas. In May, when President Biden traveled to South Korea, two Secret Service employees, while off-duty, got into a confrontation with local South Koreans, leading to them being placed on administrative leave and having to return home to the United States.

In July a Secret Service employee working in Israel before Biden’s visit there was sent home after being briefly arrested by the Israeli police in what the U.S. agency called “a physical encounter.”

The other bubbling new story is the continued security saga at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, where highly classified documents have been seized in an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department after a complaint by the National Archives, which is responsible for storage of presidential documents. Questions about how Secret Service agents guarding Mar-a-Lago conducted themselves during the raid, and whether they will have to testify, will undoubtedly involve the new Secret Service director.

Speaking of documents and the U.S. National Archives, meet Debra Steidel Wall, an American archivist who took over as the acting head of the National Archives in May after the head archivist stepped down following a decade of service.

Wall has spent much of her career at the National Archives — over 25 years, including as its chief of staff and deputy archivist in charge of managing and transforming the agency.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s keeper of records conducted by the U.S. federal government, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill or Rights. The public can order copies of those, along with congressional records, federal court decisions and Census materials.

Wall is leading a federal agency that typically avoids scandals but is now caught up in likely the biggest national security story of the year — the handling (or mishandling) of hundreds of documents that former President Trump removed from the White House and stored on his private property despite repeated requests by the Archives to return them to the public domain.  

Having been unable to secure their return from an intransigent former president, the Archives turned to the Justice Department for help, leading to an FBI search and retrieval mission to seize boxes and bring them back to the Archives, where they belong. Now the matter is in court.

Wall finds herself engaged in an assignment that could involve major damage to intelligence sources and methods used in Special Access Programs. Those documents are now being reviewed and redacted for release to the public and assessed for national security damage given that they include materials marked “sensitive compartmented information,” meaning they must be viewed in secure government facilities. Legal decisions are pending regarding how much the public will see of the predicate for the affidavit filed in this case that led to a search warrant in the first place.

Summers are supposed to be slow. But security crises, like those facing Kim Cheatle and Debra Steidel Wall, are part of the job, regardless of the season. 

The same is true for America’s top diplomat at the United Nations, another powerhouse woman, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. She is a career foreign service officer whose life story reads like a profile in courage. Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield came back to public service at the U.N. after retiring from a 35-year career, including as director general of the Foreign Service and service in Liberia, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria and Jamaica, among other countries.

Today she is dealing with the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine six months ago has led to a trail of death, destruction and the dislocation of hundreds of thousands of people across Europe and the world. This week the United States sent yet another major assistance package to Ukraine — nearly $3 billion in weapons and aid just as the Russian side is increasing its force levels, bombing civilian train stations and keeping a nuclear plant near Kyiv on high alert. 

Thomas-Greenfield will have to steer U.S. diplomacy through a complex institution with close to 200 member states with differing national objectives.

Rest easy, readers. A dangerous world is in good hands with this trio of strong, experienced, professional women.

Tara D. Sonenshine is the Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice in Public Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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The Hill's Morning Report — Biden kicks off midterms as ‘a choice’

President Biden on Thursday kicked off his party’s drive to get Democratic candidates elected in November with a national message warning that Republicans are taking away reproductive and voting rights while bowing to special interests, extremists and the toxic influence of former President Trump.

“What we’re seeing now, is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” the president told a crowd of donors outside Washington in a Maryland suburb before a subsequent rally. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”

In 2020, Biden told voters his mission was to save the middle class while uniting the country. Two years later as president, the question is whether he can save his party while overcoming voters’ pessimism that the country is on the wrong track.

“This fall will be a choice between these two visions,” he said as a heckler momentarily interrupted his remarks. “In 18 months, COVID no longer controls our lives. A record number of Americans are working. … Businesses are growing.”

The president, who shared his stage with Wes Moore, Democrats’ candidate for governor in Maryland, raced through a script packed with references to conservative blockades in Congress, “climate deniers,” “MAGA Republicans” and Big Pharma. “They lost,” he shouted.

Biden is viewed by some Democrats as an awkward standard-bearer, in part because a majority of Americans disapprove of his performance amid high prices, an exhausting pandemic and relentless partisanship. Some in his party hope he hangs up his political career after one term. Some are not hiding their disinterest in his help as they campaign.

Biden’s message: Think again. “Things are beginning to change a little bit,” he told supporters on Thursday. “We’re heading in the right direction.”

Until a few weeks ago, Republicans were optimistic they could flip the House, send Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) packing, and tilt control of the Senate in their favor next year. But as Election Day approaches, the GOP concedes it has a case of political jitters as Biden and congressional leaders tout their newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act and its historic climate change provisions and drug pricing pluses. At the same time, record-high gasoline prices have fallen, and states’ restrictive abortion laws are mobilizing female voters to think about keeping Democrats in power in Washington. 

Biden’s job approval has inched up to 44 percent, the highest it’s been in a year, according to a Gallup survey released on Thursday (The Hill). 

The president and many Democratic candidates are opting to revive some of the same themes they successfully used in 2020. It’s a risk, since midterms are usually a referendum on the party in power in the White House. Most of America says the nation is on the wrong track. It’s Biden’s job before Nov. 8 to persuade them otherwise.

Heading into the 2010 midterms, former President Obama also attempted to nationalize the off-year stakes to help Democratic candidates. His job approval was 45 percent. His party lost 63 House seats and control of the lower chamber and barely held onto a Senate majority after a loss of six seats. Obama glumly called it a “shellacking” the day after the elections. Biden remembers those results, and also the script.

“If you want to know what will happen if the other party takes over Congress, all you’ve got to do is take a look at what they’ve done the last 18 months,” Obama told a Miami audience at a Democratic National Committee event almost exactly a dozen years ago. “On issue after issue, they’ve sided with special interests over the middle class. They voted to give tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas. … We’ve got to start asking, what’s good for America?”

Similarly, former President Clinton in 1994 responded to Republicans’ nationalized campaign for divided government with a narrative about Democrats’ achievements in Washington. His job approval at the time was 39 percent. He accused conservatives of being “out there with all their pie-in-the-sky schemes and all their no-saying and now a lot of their denial about what they did and didn’t do when they were up here. We have a record.” 

“These elections can be our friend,” he told his party during a September 1994 fundraiser.

The result, however, was a “Republican sweep” in which Clinton’s party lost 52 House seats (plus two in special elections earlier that year) and eight Senate seats. The GOP captured the House majority for the first time in four decades, gained 12 governorships and regained control in 20 state legislatures.      

For the next 75 days, Biden, 79, will test the campaign messages he knows by heart in search of winning results. He’ll make his pitch on Sept. 9 in red-state Ohio, where there’s an open Senate race and a groundbreaking for a new Intel semiconductor plant. He’ll also raise some campaign money in New York City on Sept. 19 while he’s there for a United Nations speech about uncertainties in the rest of the world.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Establishment Democrats crow after latest victories.

▪ The Cook Political Report: Red wave looks more like a ripple.

▪ The New York Times analysis: Biden steps back onto the campaign trail.

▪ Split Ticket: Temperature check: U.S. Senate.

▪ Politico: Mehmet Oz shifts strategy in Pennsylvania as his campaign ails.

▪ The Associated Press: Herschel Walker skips details in bid to oust Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).

▪ The Hill: Democrats clash over side deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), raising shutdown risk.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ MORE IN POLITICS

A federal magistrate judge on Thursday said he will release a redacted version of the affidavit that led him to greenlight a warrant to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. 

Judge Bruce Reinhart made the decision days after he called on the Justice Department (DOJ) to propose redactions for the document, having fretted that they could ultimately render a public release of the affidavit “meaningless.” However, Reinhart said in his order that the proposed redactions are sufficient, as the DOJ made compelling points to leave sealed information, including witness identities and details about the investigation’s “strategy, direction, scope, sources and methods.”

“I find that the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit,” Reinhart wrote, adding that he decided it was “the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire affidavit.”

Reinhart ordered prosecutors to file a public version of its redacted document by noon.

Prosecutors have argued that the document’s release would compromise the department’s probe as it is in its “early stages” (The Hill).

While the wait is on for the unsealed affidavit, the former president faces a deadline in federal court today, as he must sufficiently explain why he wants a special master to review the government documents taken from his Florida property on Aug. 8. The documents, which include batches that are considered “classified” by the FBI as part of the National Archives’ case that he removed materials that are not his to keep (CNN).

▪ CNN: Inside Trump’s public bravado and private resistance over Mar-a-Lago documents.

▪ Politico: Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows ordered to testify in Fulton County probe of Trump election overturn efforts.

▪ The New York Times: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) seeks to keep distance from Trump inquiry. 

▪ The New York Times: Florida pair pleads guilty in theft of diary of Ashley Biden, daughter of the president.

The Hill’s Niall Stanage asks how Anthony Fauci, 81, went from a national icon to one of its most divisive figures. In the early days of the pandemic, Fauci’s approval rating was near 80 percent and media headlines proclaimed the infectious disease expert in charge of the government’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as “America’s doctor.” 

Leading to his decision to depart government in December, Fauci has often been asked about the impact of polarization on public health and on his approach to public messaging during the pandemic. Is he the victim of political forces outside his control, or were there missteps that contributed to the change?

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ STATE WATCH

Those who live in four more GOP-led states – Idaho, Tennessee, Texas and North Dakota – this week experience the beginning of “trigger laws” restricting abortion rights, while litigation continues in some cases. Of the four states, all but North Dakota already had anti-abortion laws in place that largely blocked patients from accessing the procedure. Many clinics that provided abortions have either stopped offering those services or moved to other states where abortion remains legal. The Associated Press updates current situations in the four states.

➤ ADMINISTRATION

The largest student loan forgiveness plan in U.S. history, announced at the White House on Wednesday, also leaves plenty of questions as borrowers try to navigate the administration’s new policies. Here are five of the biggest questions (The Hill).

▪ CNN: How an indecisive Biden finally made his mind up on student loan debt.

▪ Jim Tankersley, The New York Times: Biden student loan plan squarely targets the middle class.

The Pentagon on Thursday issued a massive overhaul of its policy related to preventing the deaths of civilians in U.S. military operations. A 36-page plan, laid out by the Department of Defense, ​​titled the “Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan,” calls for sweeping changes in military planning, training, doctrine and policy for all future conflicts, according to Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesman. 

Ryder noted to reporters that the idea is to install at all operational levels individuals “who are trained to have an understanding of civilian harm, the aspects of civilian harm mitigation, and operational planning,” from the outset of any mission (The Hill). 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the plan earlier in the week.

“We will ensure that we are well prepared to prevent, mitigate and respond to civilian harm in current and future conflicts,” Austin wrote of the plan. “Importantly, this plan is scalable and relevant to both counterterrorism operations and large-scale conflicts against peer adversaries” (The New York Times).

CNN: U.S. carries out additional airstrikes in Syria following rocket attack that injured US troops.

The Health and Human Services Department today is facilitating a flight from Europe and the Netherlands to the United States to deliver the equivalent of 862,000 eight-ounce bottles of baby formula for use under medical supervision. The shipment of Nestlé Health Science Alfamino Infant and Alfamino Junior formula and SMA Nutrition Althéra specialty formula products from Switzerland and the Netherlands will be flown to New York City and moved by truck to Plainfield, Ind., for distribution, the White House announced on Thursday. 

OPINION

■ What Democrats should do if they somehow win in November, by Jamelle Bouie, columnist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3R8WJMT

■ California’s plan to ban new gas-powered cars is misguided, by Henry Olsen, columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3Kog6PD

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session. It will reconvene on Sept. 13.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session during its summer recess, which ends Sept. 6.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Briefat 9:30 a.m. Biden will mark Women’s Equality Day by dropping by a Roosevelt Room gathering at 11 a.m. with state and local elected officials where the focus is scheduled to be reproductive health care. The president will depart the White House at 1:55 p.m. for his Delaware home and remain there over the weekend.

Vice President Harris has no public events. She departed Hawaii on Thursday and is in Los Angeles.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 12:45 p.m.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at 10 a.m. EST delivers a much-anticipated speech at the annual economic forum held in Jackson Hole, Wyo., sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Economic indicator: The Bureau of Economic Analysis at 8:30 a.m. reports on U.S. consumer spending in July. With high inflation as a backdrop, the data will get a lot of attention.

🖥  Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://thehill.com/hilltv, on YouTube and on Facebook at 10:30 a.m. ET. Also, check out the “Rising” podcast here.

ELSEWHERE

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a major buildup of troops on Thursday in an apparent effort to replenish forces fighting in Ukraine. The move to increase the number of troops by 137,000, or 13 percent, to 1.15 million by the end of the year came amid chilling developments on the ground in Ukraine, including fears of a nuclear catastrophe and missile strikes aimed by Russia on Wednesday against civilians (The Associated Press). 

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant controlled by Russia in Ukraine was temporarily cut off from the electrical grid for the first time on Thursday, forcing a momentary blackout in the surrounding areas after a power line was damaged. Moscow is using the plant as a base from which to launch attacks (The Associated Press). 

Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency, who plan to enter the plant before Sept. 5, will be given wider latitude than initially sought. IAEA officials had originally planned to try to ensure that enriched-uranium stockpiles had not gone missing from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant during the course of the six-month war. The inclusion of security and safety experts will allow the IAEA to potentially perform a forensic evaluation of shelling against the plant, which could be used to hold attackers responsible (Bloomberg News and Yahoo News). 

The Associated Press: IAEA mission seeks to visit the Zaporizhzhia plant.

Mykhail Podolyak barely flinched as air raid sirens wailed in Kyiv, signaling incoming Russian missiles. Sitting in his office at the heavily fortified presidential administration building in Ukraine’s capital, the adviser to the head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said the sirens have become a normal part of life six months into the war with Russia. “We’re getting used to this new lifestyle — we are used to the wailing sirens now, and to the bombardments because the Russian Federation is mostly aiming at the civilian population and civilian infrastructure,” he said through a translator during an interview with The Hill’s Laura Kelly.

▪ The Hill: Here’s every weapon the U.S. has supplied to Ukraine with $13 billion.

▪ Daily Beast: Friends of Kremlin critic and international businessman Dan Rapoport do not believe he died on Aug. 14 as the result of a suicide leap off a building in Washington, D.C.

▪ Reuters analysis: China’s navy begins to erase the imaginary Taiwan Strait median line.

➤  POX, PANDEMIC & HEALTH

Cases of monkeypox globally fell 21 percent in the past week, according to a report  from the World Health Organization on Thursday. Europe’s outbreak might be ebbing but cases in the Americas show a “continuing steep rise,” according to the organization. “In Latin America in particular, insufficient awareness or public health measures are combining with a lack of access to vaccines to fan the flames of the outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. In late July, he declared the unprecedented spread of monkeypox to dozens of countries to be a global emergency (The Associated Press). 

🎾 Novak Djokovic will not compete in the U.S. Open, ending his Grand Slam season because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19. The Wimbledon champion and 21-time Grand Slam winner is barred under U.S. foreign travel restrictions from entering the country for the tournament, which begins Monday in New York, without being vaccinated. “Sadly, I will not be able to travel to NY this time for US Open,” Djokovic wrote, adding that he would “keep in good shape and positive spirit and wait for an opportunity to compete again” (The Associated Press).

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,043,089. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 389, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏👏👏 It’s time to give an extended round of applause to our Morning Report Quiz winners! This week’s puzzle marked today’s 102nd anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment handing women the right to vote.

Here’s who came through the winner’s circle this week: Stanley Wasser, Harry Strulovici, Patrick Kavanagh, Pam Manges, Ki Harvey, Len Jones, Randall S. Patrick, Joan Domingues and Steve James.

They knew that roughly 26 million women were handed the ability to vote in the 1920 presidential election after the amendment was certified.

Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, marking the completion of the ratification process.

Women’s Equality Day was established in 1973. 

Finally, Mississippi, having rejected the amendment in early 1920, became the 48th and last state to certify it in 1984.

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver. Follow us on Twitter (@alweaver22 & @asimendinger) and suggest this newsletter to friends!

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Biden faces calls to let Vindman twin retire as colonel

President Biden is facing calls to allow Col. Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who alongside his twin brother Alexander blew the whistle on former President Trump’s July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to retire with the title of colonel. 

Vindman was promoted to colonel in March of last year by Biden after his career was sidetracked by a bad review — something the Defense Department’s inspector general later determined was likely a reprisal for his involvement in expressing concerns over Trump’s actions on the phone call.

But to officially retire as a colonel, one must hold the rank for three years. 

Lawyers Defending American Democracy, which wrote the letter to Biden, said the move would have significance beyond a formal title. 

“In granting this waiver, you will reinforce a critical message: those who stand up with courage for the constitution and the rule of law will be rewarded, and retaliation will not be tolerated,” they write. 

Two days after Trump was acquitted of impeachment charges over his dealings with Ukraine in the Senate, both Vindman brothers were escorted out of the White House. Their promotions to colonel were delayed. While Alexander Vindman retired, Eugene Vindman received a career-damaging negative performance review from a superior who, one year earlier, had praised him as one of the best military lawyers and officers he had ever worked with. 

Eugene Vindman is set to retire this coming Wednesday. 

“His one goal, as he faces a retirement he would not have chosen had his career not been thwarted, is to retire with the rank of Colonel. This would require, by statute, that you approve a waiver of the requirement that he serve three years in rank prior to retirement; he has served more than a year as Colonel. A waiver would not raise his pension, rather, it would provide him with only the honor and recognition due for his service to the country,” the letter adds. 

The group has gotten 5,000 signatures on its letter, which was sent to Biden late Thursday.

“There are military heroes. There are legal heroes. Then there are those like Colonel Vindman who are both. He deserves to retire with the rank that he has so well earned,” Norm Eisen, an attorney who served as co-counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment. 

Legal scholar Lawrence Tribe is also backing the effort. 

“Eugene Vindman, like his brother, Alex, is a profile in courage. He blew the whistle on a president who tried to extort a foreign leader and got impeached for it. We should award Eugene his rank in retirement and honor ourselves by doing so. This is about who we are as a country. Do we honor heroes who stand up for the rule of law, or do we watch in silence while they walk away without our thanks?” he said in a statement to The Hill. 

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP targets powerhouse Wall Street firms over investments meant to fight climate change

Republicans are fighting against a social movement in the financial sector meant to address systemic issues like climate change.  

Governmental initiatives in Florida, West Virginia and Texas are targeting powerhouse Wall Street firms that they say are engaging in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, which they view to be harmful to their states’ economies. 

Letters dated Aug. 10 were sent out this month by the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs to Wall Street firms Blackrock, Vanguard, Institutional Shareholder Services and State Street, asking for details about the companies’ ESG practices and how they could affect the state’s public pensions, including retirement funds for teachers and state employees. 

The letter to Blackrock requested “all documents and communications relating to the actual or potential effects of ESG integration practices on the financial outlook, risk/return profile, performance, or profitability of any of your funds, portfolio companies, or institutional accounts of ESG integration practices.” 

Texas State Affairs Committee Chairman Bryan Hughes (R) said in an interview with The Hill that numerous public pension funds, endowments and retirement accounts could all be affected by ESG investing practices. 

“The Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the Employees Retirement System of Texas, all of our university endowment funds and various other pension funds, as well as the millions of investors who are trusting these firms with their 401(k)s, and then of course all the Texas companies that are being bullied and being manipulated by these firms – for all those reasons, this is important for the Texas legislature to do something about,” he said. 

“The people of Texas are finding out that a handful of Wall Street firms are using other people’s money to push a narrow agenda and we’re pushing back,” he said. 

While ESG doesn’t have a hard and fast definition, it generally aligns with the United Nations’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), a massive international program of environmental and social equality objectives agreed to by all of the U.N.’s 193 member states, including the U.S. 

“As of December 2020, over two thirds of the world’s GDP was being generated in places with actual or intended ‘net zero by 2050’ targets, covering over half of the world’s population and emissions,” a write-up on the latest SDG status report from the U.N.’s statistics agency says, referring to the goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions, which are produced in abundance by the fossil fuel industry.  

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that “the main human activity that emits CO₂ [carbon dioxide] is the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) for energy and transportation.” 

Fossil fuels are a major industry in Texas, where oil and gas make up more than a third of the state’s economy, according to Texas Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick.  

A representative for Blackrock indicated that the company had received the letter requesting documents and “[plans] to respond” but did not provide further details. 

“Blackrock does not boycott fossil fuels – investing over $100 billion in Texas energy companies on behalf of our clients proves that,” the company said in a statement, adding that “elected and appointed public officials have a duty to act in the best interests of the people they serve. Politicizing state pension funds, restricting access to investments, and impacting the financial returns of retirees, is not consistent with that duty.” 

Fossil fuels are also a big industry in West Virginia, where coal mining has long played a leading role in the state’s economy. Similar moves by state officials there have also gone after ESG investing. 

“There is a campaign that’s being waged through ESG on multiple fronts – rating agencies, asset managers, the big banks. They’re all pushing their agenda through our capital markets,” West Virginia state Treasurer Riley Moore (R) said in an interview with The Hill.  

“It’s coercive capitalism and a distortion in the marketplace. They are pushing policies they can’t achieve in the ballot box, and they’re using the power of their capital to achieve their goals by other means.” 

“All of this is tied to the fossil fuel industry,” he added. 

In July, West Virginia blacklisted Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Blackrock, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo by adding them to the state’s list of restricted financial institutions. They wouldn’t be removed until they had “ceased all activity that boycotts energy companies,” according to a proclamation signed by the treasurer. 

“I’m the tip of the spear on this, but there’s an army behind me. Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee. Their own lists will likely come out this year or next. There are fifteen states with upcoming legislative sessions. We are proud to be leading, but we are not the only ones. We are looking also at proxy voting on our pension boards,” Riley said. 

On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) banned ESG investing from the state’s pension funds, voting for a resolution mandating that investment decisions “must be based only on pecuniary factors [which] do not include the consideration of the furtherance of social, political, or ideological interests.” 

“We are reasserting the authority of Republican governance over corporate dominance and we are prioritizing the financial security of the people of Florida over whimsical notions of a utopian tomorrow,” the governor said in a Tuesday statement. 

While ESG may be in the crosshairs of Republicans, it’s not clear that the financial initiative from multinational corporations is making any difference when it comes to fighting the causes of climate change. 

The U.N.’s latest SDG report found that fossil fuel emissions rebounded to a record high in 2021 as the global economy bounced back from the coronavirus pandemic, wiping out pandemic-related declines. 

The report found that “With the phasing out of COVID-related restrictions, demand for coal, oil and gas increased. Consequently, energy-related emissions for 2021 rose by 6 percent, reaching their highest level ever and completely wiping out the pandemic-related reduction seen in 2020.” 

Economists aren’t certain that market dynamics and targeted investment practices are even capable of dealing with climate change. Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern wrote in 2007 that “greenhouse gas emissions are externalities and represent the biggest market failure the world has seen.” 

“Emissions are not ordinary, localized externalities. Risk on a global scale is at the core of the issue,” he wrote in an academic paper. “These basic features of the problem must shape the economic analysis we bring to bear; failure to do this will, and has, produced approaches to policy that are profoundly misleading and indeed dangerous.” 

Still, the trend of ESG in the private sector appears set to continue. 

A March report from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance said recent proxy voting seasons, which are the times when activist investor shareholders can make their moves to influence how companies are run, was “unpredictable” and  “unprecedented, with record support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social issues, growing opposition to director elections, and significant support for governance proposals.” 

“Major institutional investors, especially those with large passive index funds, have embraced these shifts toward a focus on ESG and a multistakeholder model, and that is coming through in their support for E&S [environmental and social] shareholder proposals,” the school’s report said. 

Source: TEST FEED1

The Memo: As Fauci bows out, public health experts lament ‘venom’ of attacks

Dr. Anthony Fauci is preparing to leave the public stage — but health experts are worried the toxic atmosphere that tailed him will hang around for years to come.

Opinions of Fauci among the general public cleave along partisan lines, but most experts think he did about as good a job as anyone could in managing a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. 

They worry that the unremitting personal attacks he faced are emblematic of a broader, sneering tone toward scientific expertise and advice.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown Law who specializes in public health, has known Fauci for almost half a century and considers him a friend. 

“He has got caught in the rabid politicization of American culture,” Gostin lamented, “and he has got caught right in the crosshairs of the COVID culture wars these past years.”

Gostin, who said he shared Fauci’s dismay at the “venom” of some of the attacks, also expressed concern about the general climate surrounding science, which seems unlikely to change after Fauci leaves government service in December. 

“Public health and science itself has been pilloried. There is an enormous fatigue, resignation and sheer exhaustion in the entire scientific community. People are quitting their jobs, or when they are keeping their jobs, they are keeping their heads down,” he said.

It’s striking to think of how different things seemed just a couple of years ago.

At the outset of the pandemic in early 2020, Fauci was largely seen as a reassuring national presence. The White House briefings he led became required viewing for many Americans as COVID-19 took hold.

A New Yorker magazine article in April 2020 carried a headline about how Fauci had become “America’s doctor.” The story noted that Fauci’s approval rating in one poll was close to 80 percent.

In time, however, he would be lambasted as a “disaster” by then-President Trump, the sixth of seven presidents he served; he would require a personal security detail to protect him and his family from numerous threats; and he would become one of the leading targets of conservatives in general.

On Wednesday, two days after Fauci announced he would soon end his 38-year stint as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told an Orlando rally, “Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has frequently crossed swords with Fauci over the specifics of U.S. funding for research in Wuhan, China, complained that if the scientist had been “a family doctor in Peoria,” then the allegedly baleful effects of his advice would have affected only “the people foolish enough to choose him as a doctor.”

“Once you put him in charge of the world, it all trickles down,” Paul added, according to a series of tweets from NBC News reporter Kate Santaliz.

Conservative media figures have piled on too. 

Megyn Kelly, complaining about an equivocal answer Fauci give about whether he would comply with a hypothetical subpoena from Republicans in Congress, told her podcast listeners on Wednesday , “F— you, Dr. Fauci.”

Given commentary like that, it’s no surprise that 80 percent approval ratings are a thing of the past.

An Economist-YouGov poll in June found 43 percent of Americans viewed Fauci favorably, but 41 percent viewed him unfavorably. Among Republicans, he was viewed favorably by just 18 percent and unfavorably by 70 percent.

Fauci’s defenders don’t claim that he has been omniscient or infallible. 

In the pandemic’s earliest days, he argued against the need for the general public to wear masks, later changing his tune dramatically. 

The pros and cons of other initiatives, notably the widespread shuttering of schools, will be debated for years, perhaps decades — though in that case, Fauci has noted that he himself spoke of the need to try to minimize negative impacts on children.

Even so, most people in the public health sphere note, firstly, that Fauci was faced with an almost impossible task: Trying to communicate clear messages about a new and deadly virus about which much was unknown. 

Secondly, they say instances where recommendations changed — such as on mask-wearing — demonstrate scientists doing exactly what they’re supposed to do: incorporate new information into their views.

“Changing guidance is the bedrock of sound public health policy,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore City Health Commissioner. “When new research comes out, the guidance would change accordingly, or when circumstances change, the guidance would also change.”

For figures such as Wen, the kind of attacks aimed at Fauci — and at her, as she became a prominent media presence during the pandemic — are far from abstractions.

On Tuesday, a Texas man was sentenced to six months in prison for threatening Wen. Prosecutors said the man, 52-year-old Scott Eli Harris, was outraged by her backing for COVID-19 vaccines and sent her a message threatening she would be shot. 

In the message, Harris allegedly claimed to be an Army veteran and a sniper, according to a CBS News report.

On Thursday, charges were unsealed in another case where a man allegedly threatened Wen.

Earlier this month, a West Virginia man received a three-year prison term for emailing a death threat to Fauci.

“It’s really hard,” Wen told this column. “We are trying to do our jobs, we are trying to advise our patients about how they can keep themselves and their families safe … [and] we are threatened with our lives and worried about our own families.”

Threats aside, the sheer intensity of the divide around Fauci disconcerts plenty of political experts too.

“It is one of the best exhibits of just how deep this polarization is, because you take someone who would not normally be viewed through a political lens, and instead that seems to be almost the only way he is viewed,” said Grant Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School.

“He is a folk hero among Democrats and a milder version of Satan among Republicans.”

Fauci, who is 81, has said that it is time to “pursue the next chapter of my career.”

But the nation won’t so easily close the book on the currents that have swirled around him during COVID.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

Source: TEST FEED1