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Ukrainian Foreign Ministry hits Rep. Spartz over 'baseless speculation' on Zelensky chief of staff

A spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry alleged that Ukrainian-born Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) is “​​trying to earn extra political capital” after she sent a letter to President Biden regarding the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak.

“Ukraine is deeply grateful to the United States of America for their unwavering support in the fight against Russia’s aggression. It’s hard to overestimate the political, military, and financial help Congress and President Joseph Biden’s administration provided to our country in four months of all-out war. We celebrate the personal role of the President of the United States in consolidating these efforts,” the spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, said in a post on Facebook on Saturday.

“On this background of extensive support especially contrasts the recent actions and statements of US Congresswoman Victoria Spartz,” he continued. “They are an undisclosed attempt to bring back into American politics classic narratives of Russian propaganda about Ukraine’s leadership’s seemingly ties to Russia and to drag our state into US domestic politics.”

Nikolenko was referring to a letter that Spartz sent Biden on Friday in which she asked for his administration “to brief Congress on the performed due diligence and oversight procedures related to” Yermak and warned that people both in the U.S. and abroad had concerns about the top Ukrainian official.

“As President Zelensky works very hard to build alliances with the west and our country, it is our responsibility to inform him if we might have any concerns with key people around him. It is also our obligation to the brave Ukrainian soldiers and strong Ukrainian people fighting this fight for freedom and international order for all of us,” she wrote to Biden.

Nikolenko claimed that Spartz’s comments were “cynical” and “baseless speculation.”

In a statement on Saturday, Spartz responded to Nikolenko’s Facebook post, making a series of allegations against Yermak. 

She alleged he had not properly handled peace negotiations with Moscow prior to the war, sought to prevent Ukraine from properly preparing for the conflict and delayed urgent military equipment purchases. Among other accusations, she also claimed that Yermak caused a Ukrainian operation to fail by leaking information about it to Belarus and Russia.

“I encourage the Ministry to consider my statement with the kind of seriousness these questions about Mr. Yermak demand, instead of launching ad hominem attacks as they have thus far. Ukrainians and Americans will be better served by our governments responding with due diligence – not defensive platitudes,” she said.

Spartz’s comments come amid the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine, which has raged on for more than 100 days. The Indiana Republican has visited Ukraine a handful of times during the war. 

The Biden administration announced on Friday that it would be sending a $400 million security aid package to Ukraine, featuring demolition munitions, four more High Mobility Rocket Systems and three tactical vehicles, among other items. 

Source: TEST FEED1

We need U.S. industry to counter the next global food crisis

Economic conditions are causing food supply issues worldwide, with prices at a 40-year high and increasing still. Reasons for the constraints range from anomaly to continued COVID disruption to geopolitical maelstroms, but just the same, forecast one unmistakable outcome: Without a concerted course correction, the world will stare down a generational global food crisis before the year ends.

There are multiple tiers to hunger. The United Nations estimates more than 820 million people face food instability, and nearly 300 million are unable to meet basic sustenance — the baseline caloric intake to maintain life. Every region finds itself struggling with some degree of food insecurity, and the World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization identify the most urgent shortages in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Nigeria. These states have a multitude of other issues, as well, and any escalation in food scarcity will find achieving sustainable humanitarian successes even more difficult.

Famine is a catalyst for further obstacles to prosperity, security and democratic resilience. For example, according to the World Bank’s open database on the relationship between food prices and violence, since the 1980s conflict and terrorism patterns tend to correlate with food price increases. While food insecurity is exacerbated by violence, violence rates consistently rise during and immediately following periods of price spikes.

Prior to today, food prices witnessed their highest three-year increase from 2011 to 2014. Shortly thereafter, the three-year average annual number of terrorist attacks spiked to more than 14,000, easily the highest recorded number. This data correlation also holds true for total incidents and deaths from civil unrest, war and other conflicts, and demonstrates a traceable pattern for nearly 40 years.

Assessing current conditions following this history is troubling if not outright intimidating. However, a greater understanding of the root causes of food insecurity can work to see these outcomes are not altogether inevitable. This understanding should also point to tangible solutions to reinforce the worldwide supply — because to best assist humanitarian efforts overseas, the most durable countermeasures readily exist through the agriculture and energy industries here at home.

In the United States, the building blocks of food production are under immense pressure. Over the past 18 months, energy costs overall are up more than 30 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Agriculture labor costs have increased approximately 10 percent during the same period, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which also finds agriculture employment just now closing in on pre-COVID participation rates.

Adding to production stress: Fertilizers are averaging a 30 percent price increase since March 2021, with key components like ammonia more than double their top marks during the past 10 years (from 2011 to 2014). Potash, urea, and other fertilizer ingredients are likewise high. Feeding the world is impossible without commercial fertilizers, so the sustained cost increases complete a perfect storm driven by energy, labor and regulatory impediments. The issue is only deepened by situations like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, considering Russia is the world’s top fertilizer exporter.

These are but a few of the economic factors making food production more difficult and expensive. This situation exposes threatened populations to even greater vulnerability because while agribusiness energy, labor and other costs in the U.S. have increased up to 30 percent, food prices have risen between 10 percent and 20 percent, finding a loss scenario for multiple producers nationwide and yet still creating disparity for communities abroad.  

Irrespective of politics, meeting demand on a global scale requires adjustments to foster reliable supply and the importance of U.S. energy, agribusiness, and labor in this equation cannot be understated.

Many of the immediate needs to balance this equation are manageable if but for political will, and include regulatory reform, permitting certainty, continued shipping reforms, expanded export assistance and tailored workforce training. Addressing the priorities for just one industry can advance the full supply chain, too. For example, U.S. oil and gas production remains stymied due to an inconsistent assessment and regulatory environment in federal and (some) state spaces.

Accounting for approximately 80 percent of U.S. power today, a curbed oil and gas industry hinders the agriculture, manufacturing and logistics to produce, process and transport resources worldwide. Perhaps foreign to the international aid community, these domestic policy conversations — i.e., interstate pipelines, agriculture commodity credits, or port improvements — take on new importance.

Recognizing the conditions are underway for an unequaled food supply challenge, the discussion must not only focus on cause-oriented solutions but furthermore engage and support the industry partners to maintain them. Cross-community outreach and alliances are imperative.

The common mission for countering famine is not only admirable but attainable — and more so by deliberately meeting and leveraging a U.S. private sector capable of affording the foundation toward lasting global food security.  

Ned Rauch-Mannino is s a consultant for commercial diplomacy matters. He is a former senior official having served multiple roles with the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Agency for International Development, and as co-chair for Prosper Africa.

Source: TEST FEED1

Sunday shows preview: Jan. 6 hearings resume after Cipollone interview; July 4th shooting rocks nation

The public hearings being held by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, which are set to resume this week after former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone met informally with the panel on Friday, and the aftermath of a shooting in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Ill., on July 4 are expected to dominate this week’s Sunday show circuit. 

The House select committee will be holding its next hearing on Tuesday morning. The panel has not yet formally announced who the witnesses will be. 

Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last Sunday, Rep, Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who sits on the House panel, previewed some of what the next hearing would include. 

He said it “will be focused on the efforts to assemble that mob on the Mall, who was participating, who was financing it, how it was organized, including the participation of these white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and others.”

An attorney for Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes told The Hill on Friday that Rhodes is seeking to present testimony before the House select committee and would be comfortable waiving the Fifth Amendment if his testimony is conducted in-person and live. 

The resumption of the hearings will also come days after Cipollone voluntarily met with the House panel on Friday after being subpoenaed. 

The House select committee was prompted to subpoena him after Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, gave explosive testimony that included her saying that Cipollone had told her on Jan. 6 he did not want former President Trump going to the Capitol and that later that day he had urged Meadows to take action.

“Mr. Cipollone did appear voluntarily and answer a whole variety of questions. He did not contradict the testimony of other witnesses. And I think we did learn a few things, which we will be rolling out in the hearings to come,” panel member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday.

“So I think it was a, you know, a grueling day for all involved — Mr. Cipollone and the staff and the members, but it was well worth it.”

Lofgren will appear on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Other members of the House committee will also appear on several other Sunday shows: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) will appear on ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) will appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) will appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Meanwhile, the nation is still reeling after a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park on Monday became the scene of a mass shooting that left seven people dead and many more wounded. 

Officials have charged 21-year-old Robert E. Crimo III with seven counts of first-degree murder and he could face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted. The suspect had several previous interactions with police, including in September 2019 when they responded to a family member’s report that Crimo had said he would “kill everyone” at his home.

Less than two weeks before the shooting, President Biden had signed bipartisan gun safety legislation that had come in the wake of other high-profile shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y. 

“We need to end this horror.  We need to stop this violence,” Vice President Harris said while visiting the Chicago suburb on Tuesday. 

U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who previously served as the mayor of Chicago, will appear on ABC’s “This Week.” Harris will appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) will appear on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will appear on “Fox News Sunday.”

Below is the full list of guests scheduled to appear on this week’s Sunday talk shows:

ABC’s “This Week” — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo; Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.); U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel

NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Raimondo; Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.); Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.)

CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Vice President Kamala Harris; Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.); Gov. Glenn Youngkin, (R-Va.); filmmaker Alex Holder, who made a documentary about Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.

CNN’s “State of the Union” — Govs. J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.) and Chris Sununu (R-N.H.); Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)

“Fox News Sunday” — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” — Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas); Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.); Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.); Edward Yardeni, President of Yardeni Research Inc.

Source: TEST FEED1

Let’s axe the ‘1812’ Overture once and for all

I applaud the decision of some U.S. orchestras to strike Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” from their July 4 concert programs. This musical composition is a tribute to the military might of Tsarist Russia, specifically the Russian victory over Napoleon’s invading Grande Armée at the Battle of Borodino in September 1812. When Napoleon retreated from Russia at the end of that year, Tsar Alexander I declared that, to commemorate the Russian victory, he would build a cathedral in Moscow to Christ the Savior. Construction was approaching completion in 1880 when Tchaikovsky received the commission for what became the “1812 Overture.” It had its world premiere in a tent outside the cathedral construction site in August 1882. Although the piece would make the Tchaikovsky estate vast sums of money, the composer himself admitted that his heart was never in the project and wrote: “It is impossible to tackle without repugnance this sort of music which is destined for the glorification of something that, in essence, delights me not at all.” But one can’t deny that Tchaikovsky’s brief labors produced a genuinely rousing piece of music.

Nonetheless, we should look beyond the specific situation of 2022 and expunge the “1812 Overture” from all future July 4 concerts in the U.S.

This proposal admittedly will not go down well with Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, who, when interviewed by the New York Times, argued that the Pops would play the piece this year “to celebrate independence and freedom and people who are willing to sacrifice a lot to make that happen.” In his view, the overture can remind people of “the perils of aggression.” The Russians of 1812, in his view, were the Ukrainians of 2022. The fundamental problem, in his view, is “the attempt of authoritarian powers to dominate other powers.” In Illinois, the Napierville Municipal Band kept the overture on its program, and the narrator described it as a “depiction of all victories over oppression, including our own War of 1812” and referred to the Battle of Gettysburg.

One doesn’t need a doctorate in history to see real problems with such arguments, though requiring more study of European history in high school might be helpful. Of course, Napoleon and his allies violated Tsarist Russia’s territorial sovereignty by invading and briefly seizing Moscow. Napoleon also had an authoritarian streak and was hardly a consistent implementer of the French revolutionary values of “liberty, equality, and brotherhood.” But to cast Napoleon as an oppressor intent on erasing the freedom of the Russian people, in contrast to Russia as a pure and virtuous victim of aggression, is wide of the mark.

If time machines existed and one were facing the prospect of deportation to the year 1812, any sensible person would choose Napoleon’s France over the Russia of Tsar Alexander I — especially if they were likely to end up doing agricultural labor. Russia was a repressive, absolutist, agricultural society dependent on serfdom, by which peasants were bound to the land they worked, and by extension to the owners of that land. Not quite slavery, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the Ukrainians of today are, to an important degree, descendants of people who fled to the southwestern borderlands of Russia precisely to escape serfdom.

In France, serfdom had largely expired de facto in the 1300s, and was formally abolished in 1789 during the French Revolution, along with other aristocratic privileges. Even absolutist Prussia, in a fit of reformism after its crushing defeat by Napoleon at the 1806 Battle of Jena, abolished serfdom the following year. (Russia only abolished it in 1861, not long before abolition of slavery in the U.S.)

In 1812, as in subsequent wars to this day, authoritarian Russian leaders would draw on patriotic and religious themes to induce the people to forget their misery and rally to the cause of Mother Russia. But an analogy between the Russians of 1812 and the Ukrainians of 2022 is groundless. The latter are fighting for values that Americans hold dear. In 1812 the Russian people de facto fought to preserve the dead hand of history.

In the wide swath of Continental Europe that he, for a time, liberated from repressive absolutist monarchies, Napoleon implanted systems for the rule of law and professional public administration that have remained largely in place for the last two centuries. Despite his lapse into personalistic rule, Napoleon embodied a program of modernization whose seeds survived Waterloo and the temporary restoration of European monarchies. His Russian contemporary Alexander I, on the other hand, is best remembered as the godfather of the Holy Alliance of Europe’s absolutist powers, conceived in a fit of religious mania to protect the divine right of kings and repress all expression of liberal values.

In other words, Napoleon was much closer than the Tsar to the progressive currents of the early 19^th century, currents best — if imperfectly — embodied in the new United States.

Let’s also bear in mind that, in the Atlantic theater of the Napoleonic wars, American sympathies leaned toward France, and Jefferson and Madison were visible Francophiles. During the War of 1812, the United States was de facto assisting Napoleon by tying down British military assets, though without an actual alliance.

Given all this history, it’s pretty odd that Americans would make a celebratory Tsarist anthem like the “1812 Overture” such an important feature of our national day celebrations.

One hopes that Putin will disappear from the scene and that Russia will assume less aggressive policies. Until that time, at least, we should leave the overture off our 4^th of July musical programs. Indeed, I think we simply should replace it for good with something more frankly American.

It’s a lot shorter than the “1812 Overture,” but I wouldn’t mind seeing Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” written to honor Americans fighting in World War II, as the keynote piece in our July 4 concerts.

Eric R. Terzuolo was a Foreign Service officer from 1982 to 2003. He currently teaches at American University’s School of International Service. For many years, he was on contract to the Foreign Service Institute, the professional development unit of the Department of State, with responsibility for West European area studies. Before joining the foreign service, he studied East European and Russian history at Stanford University and taught Russian history at Gustavus Adolphus and Mount St. Mary’s colleges. The views expressed here are purely personal.

Source: TEST FEED1

Harris says Democrats believed ‘certain issues were just settled’ when asked about failure to codify Roe v. Wade

Vice President Harris said that Democrats believed Roe v. Wade to be a settled issue when asked about party lawmakers’ failure to codify abortion protections into federal law over the past 50 years.

“We certainly believed that certain issues are just settled,” Harris told CBS News’s Robert Costa, in an interview that was shown on CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell on Friday and will be shown on “Face the Nation” on Sunday. 

Harris said the fact that the precedent set by Roe was not settled shows that “we are living, sadly, in real unsettled times.” 

“I think all of us share a deep sense of outrage that the United States Supreme Court took a constitutional right that was recognized, took it from the women of America,” she said. “We are now looking at a case where the government can interfere in what is one of the most intimate and private decisions that someone can make.” 

Harris said Congress needs to act to pass a law protecting abortion rights on a federal level. She also pointed to the executive order that President Biden signed on Friday to take steps to protect access to abortion. The order, however, is limited in scope, and Biden reiterated on Friday that ultimate control over the issue currently rests with Congress.

Harris also said she did not believe Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both of whom voted to overturn Roe v. Wade last month, when they said during their confirmation hearings that they considered Roe to be established precedent. 

Some senators, including Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), said they believed Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would vote to uphold Roe based on their comments during the confirmation process and were alarmed to see them vote to overturn it.

Source: TEST FEED1

Oklahoma’s planned execution spree underlines death penalty’s errors

On July 2, Oklahoma announced a plan to execute 25 inmates over the next 29 months. The first is scheduled for Aug. 25, with subsequent executions every four weeks. If Oklahoma sticks to this schedule, more than one half of the inmates currently on its death row will be dead by the end of 2024.  

The state’s planned execution spree is unprecedented in its history, but it rivals similar ones in states like Texas and Arkansas, and in the federal death penalty under former President Trump.

Turning on the spigot after a long period with no or few executions is a familiar pattern in America’s death penalty system. But in the rush to execute, whether in Oklahoma or elsewhere, errors inevitably will be made, and injustices tolerated rather than addressed.

In fact, all of the glaring errors in the American death penalty system will be horribly on view if these executions go forward — punishment of those who are disabled or mentally ill, botched executions, proceedings where legal counsel has been inadequate, and possibly even execution of those who were innocent in the first place.

Since 1976, Oklahoma is second only to Texas in the number of people it has executed. Over the course of its history, Oklahoma has executed a total of 196 men and three women between 1915 and 2022.

But in the five years between the start of 2016 and the end of 2020, it put no one to death.

Its executions were put on hold following 2014’s horribly botched execution of Clayton Lockett and Richard Glossip’s near miss in September, 2015, when state officials halted his execution after they realized that they were about to lethally inject him with the wrong drug.

Oklahoma executions resumed in 2021 when two inmates were put to death, including John Grant, who convulsed multiple times and vomited before dying in October of last year. Two other inmates have been executed so far this year.

Shortly after a federal district judge found the state’s execution protocol to be constitutional last month, Oklahoma’s attorney general requested the Court of Criminal Appeals to set the execution dates for 25 death row inmates. He urged the court to provide justice for the families whose loved ones were murdered by setting execution dates on an accelerated schedule.

Over the last 25 years, Texas set the standard for mass processing executions.

Every year, from 1997-2015, the state put at least 10 people to death. And in some years, its execution totals were in the several dozens. In 1997, for example, it averaged more than three executions a month, and in 2000, it put 40 people to death.

Texas was able to carry out executions in bulk by ignoring serious problems that plagued its death penalty system.

As a 2002 ACLU report noted, “The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for example, has forced lawyers to remain on capital cases even when the lawyers themselves expressed doubts about their ability to handle such cases. The state agency has in fact denied relief to two death row inmates whose lawyers slept through trial.” 

Moreover, the state brushed aside a disturbing pattern of racial discrimination in death sentencing. From 2009-2018, 75 percent of those sentenced to death in Texas were people of color.

Looking at a longer period — from 1973 through 2021 — 16 people who were convicted and sentenced to death were subsequently exonerated. There’s also evidence that the state may have executed several innocent people.

Turning from Texas to Arkansas, in April 2017, with its supply of lethal injection drugs about to expire and with 32 inmates still on its death row, Arkansas followed Texas’s example and announced that it would perform eight executions over an 11-day period. Though legal problems ultimately halted half of them, four were carried out as originally planned. They were all conducted with a cocktail of lethal drugs that Arkansas had never before employed.

There is evidence to suggest that one of the four people Arkansas put to death during its execution spree was likely innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. And the executions the other three, each of whom had suffered significant abuse during their lives or significant cognitive deficits, were marked by troublesome mishaps, not surprising when speed seems to be the premium.

The Trump administration offered a third example of the rush to execute in the second half of 2020 and in the run up to the start of President Biden’s term in January 2021. During that period, it put 13 people to death.

A close look shows that the federal death penalty is not reserved for the “worst of the worst.” The Death Penalty Information Center found that 85 percent of those on federal death row had “at least one serious impairment that significantly reduces their culpability, and 63 percent had two or more of these impairments.” The DPIC also reported that one-half were mentally ill, suffering from diseases such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or psychosis. Three quarters had been the victims of physical abuse and trauma during childhood; as a result, one-third had developmental brain damage or traumatic brain injury.

It is thus not surprising that a similar pattern would appear among those the feds chose to put to death: Nine of the 13 had significant intellectual disabilities, severe mental illness, and/or histories of abuse. The Trump administration executed them anyway.

Turning back to what is unfolding in Oklahoma, the Death Penalty Information Center notes that, as was the case in Texas, Arkansas and in the recent federal executions, “The prisoners slated for execution … are disproportionally individuals with serious mental health issues and significant defects in their trial and appellate proceedings. Many of the prisoners,” the DPIC said, “are severely mentally ill … At least five have brain damage. Others experienced severe trauma, received harsher sentences than less-culpable co-defendants, or had inadequate representation at trial.”

And the evidence of innocence in at least one case, that of Richard Glossip, is so strong that Republican legislators in Oklahoma have expressed reservations about executing him.

Recent history teaches that when jurisdictions rush to execute or execute in bulk, they shine a harsh light on the defects that continue to plague America’s death penalty system.

Oklahoma will be no exception.

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College and the author of “Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution.” Follow him on Twitter @ljstprof

Source: TEST FEED1

EU-UK green energy dispute sends clear message to global economy

On July 1, the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) stepped back from the brink of a trade war.

You read that correctly. The EU sued the UK at the World Trade Organization (WTO), but last week they reached an out-of-court settlement. The dispute is intriguing for several reasons. First, it’s coincidental that London’s first post-Brexit dispute at the WTO was filed by Brussels. Second, it’s ironic that the EU hit the UK over a green energy scheme that is popular across Europe. Third, Brussels argument hinges on just one legal claim, which is rare, to say the least.

But things are often more complicated than they appear at first blush.

To start, the EU’s case is about the UK’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. CfD incentivizes green energy production by paying providers of low-carbon energy more stable wholesale prices, the idea being to smooth out market volatility. But there’s a catch. UK eligibility rules were written with “local content” requirements, meaning that, if a provider were to use wind turbines, for example, the turbines would have to include a given percentage of UK inputs. Brussels insisted that this hurt EU exporters, violated WTO law and needed to be removed from the requirements of the UK’s CfD scheme.

The out-of-court settlement aims to do exactly that. It allows the UK to collect information on local content in wind turbines and other green technology but doesn’t require “any particular level of UK content” to qualify for the CfD scheme. As a result, the EU says that “there will be no need to pursue this matter further….”

Countries often reach out-of-court settlements at the WTO. In fact, the WTO encourages them. But it’s doubtful that this is the last we’ll hear about local content and green energy. That’s what makes this case so interesting. It was never just about the UK’s CfD. It was a shot across the bow of every country gearing up to spend lavishly on sourcing low-carbon energy and thinking about including local content requirements in their efforts.

To see why, consider two of the most counterintuitive things about this case. First, if the EU were just focused on the UK, it might have been expected to take the matter up under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). The TCA is the post-Brexit EU-UK trade agreement, and like the WTO, it prohibits local content requirements. The TCA has a key advantage, however, in that, unlike at the WTO, third countries can’t join in the case, and this increases the odds of an out-of-court settlement.

Second, filing the case to the WTO presented legal risks. Having decided back in 2014 that CfD schemes are legal forms of state aid, Brussels had to avoid raising questions about subsidies. That’s because defeating the UK on subsidies would likely come back to haunt Europe, if the WTO ruled that these CfD schemes are illegal under international law.

In 2011, for example, Brussels brought a WTO case against Canada’s feed-in-tariff (FIT) on renewable energy. The EU hit Canada’s FIT on local content and subsidies. The WTO ruled against the local content but didn’t resolve the subsidies. The EU’s case against the UK’s CfD wasn’t going to help in this regard. In fact, a WTO win on subsidies would have called into question Europe’s CfDs, not just the UK’s.

The most interesting thing about the UK’s first WTO case is that it’s mostly not about the UK. Many countries are gearing up to use green policies as industrial policy, not always with their trade obligations in mind. By filing its case against the UK at the WTO, rather than under the TCA, Brussels sent a clear message to other countries that warrants close attention. Don’t bet on them listening.

Marc L. Busch is the Karl F. Landegger Professor of International Business Diplomacy at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Follow him on Twitter @marclbusch.

Source: TEST FEED1

Post Roe, anti-abortion groups focus efforts on the state level

Anti-abortion groups are focusing their efforts on state legislatures in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.  

March for Life, a group that has organizes a yearly national march in Washington, D.C., against abortion, will start to focus its activism more on the state level, Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, told The Hill.  

In the next year, the group wants to double the number of state marches they have and “over the course of the next five to six years aggressively and quickly grow our state marches program to be in all 50 states,” Mancini said.  

Mallory Carroll, Vice President of Communications at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told The Hill the organization plans to focus their efforts in states where they believe they could see progress with anti-abortion legislation.  

“We’ve prioritized plans in states that we believed and are indeed are being most ambitious right away to protect unborn human life and thereby limiting abortion so women are needing more services,” she said. “The status quo is unlikely to change for women in states like California, Illinois, New York and Maryland.” 

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was a huge victory for the anti-abortion movement. The 1973 landmark decision previously hindered activists’ ability see progress on advocacy for anti-abortion laws at the state level.  

“Now, our abortion abolition work, which is to ensure complete legal protections for preborn children has even more significance because we can actually achieve that in a number of states,” Lila Rose, CEO of Live Action said.  

Democratic-led states will likely keep abortion access legal after the ruling, and some made moves before the overturning of Roe v. Wade to expand access to abortion. But, more than 10 states have already banned or heavily restricted abortion in the weeks since the court’s ruling.  

Along with targeted state efforts, anti-abortion groups say the need for education is a crucial to combat misinformation they say emerged after Roe was overturned.  

The groups say that they are looking to push back against the claim that laws that restrict abortion would criminalize miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies — a pregnancy where the fertilized egg cannot live outside the mother’s womb and could cause serious health risks for the mother.  

“Elective abortion is not treating an ectopic pregnancy. Elective abortion is not treating a miscarriage. There’s a huge need for education what what an elective abortion is,” Donna Harrison, Chief Executive Officer at American Association of Pro-Life Obsetretricians and Gynecologists, said.  

She said a vast majority of OBGYNs do not perform abortions, but they “will still be taking care of miscarriages and be taking care of ectopics like we all do.” 

When asked how to reach women and individuals who were against the overturning of Roe, anti-abortion groups believe combatting misinformation is key.  

“There’s a lot of misunderstanding now, a lot of fear,” Rose said. “Our job is to go out there with the facts, with powerful stories and connect people to resources to bring truth and light to the situation.” 

Anti-abortion groups say they will also continue to provide resources and support to women going through unplanned pregnancies, particularly targeting states passing anti-abortion laws like Mississippi and Georgia.  

We’re “working to build up connections between the pregnancy centers and other existing private and public resources that are available along a spectrum of care that women may need to help them choose life,” Carroll said.  

The groups would like to provide women with a list of items including: state investment in childcare, help in an abusive relationship, transportation, diapers and strollers.  

But amid a refocused push for anti-abortion legislation at the state level, advocates say their word isn’t done on the national front.  

Rose said each state should not have the right to make their own abortion laws, further stating that a constitutional amendment needs to enshrine anti-abortion law for the country.  

“We have the 14th amendment but it’s a matter the Supreme Court does need to acknowledge, in the future, that the right to life is not something to be decided on by democracies in different states, it’s an absolute right,” Rose said.  

This week, President Biden unveiled an executive order aimed at preserving some access abortion services, but added that Congress has the ultimate power to effect change on the issue now.  

“If you want to change the circumstance for women, and even little girls in this country, please go out and vote,” Biden said. 

Mancini says March for Life will continue to have their national march yearly as she “anticipates that our legislative battles at the federal level will be many.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Buttigieg changes residency to Michigan, husband’s home state

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has moved his residency from Indiana to Michigan and plans to register to vote there, a Department of Transportation spokesperson confirmed to The Hill. 

The spokesperson said Buttigieg made the move to Traverse City, which is located in the northern part of the state, to be closer to his husband Chasten’s parents. 

Buttigieg and his husband bought a house in the city two years ago, according to the Detroit Free Press.

“Moving to Chasten’s hometown of Traverse City allowed them to be closer to his parents, which became especially important to them after they adopted their twins, often relying on Chasten’s parents for help with child care,” the spokesperson said. 

The couple became parents last year after the adoption of their newborn twins.

Source: TEST FEED1