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On The Money — Travelers prepare for hectic holiday weekend
Airline cancellations are racking up as travelers gear up for a busy holiday weekend. We’ll also look at Chairman Powell’s most recent comments on the global economy and Wall Street’s stock market worries for the second half of the year.
But first, read about the top takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries.
Welcome to On The Money, your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. For The Hill, we’re Sylvan Lane, Aris Folley and Karl Evers-Hillstrom. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.
Nation braces for chaotic travel this holiday weekend
Americans are headed into an ugly Fourth of July travel weekend, with 1,800 flights canceled already this week and days left to go.
Airlines are struggling to meet surging demand after pandemic lockdowns and amid pilot and staffing shortages, but they are also accusing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of not having adequate staffing and failing to provide a plan on personnel ahead of the summer holiday.
Consumer groups and the Biden administration, however, are blaming the airlines, which won tens of billions of dollars in stimulus payments during the coronavirus pandemic as flights dried up. The government argues the handouts should have allowed the airlines to keep themselves fully staffed as passengers returned.
- The bickering signals that everyone is expecting a difficult holiday weekend as many Americans seek what are in some cases their first real vacations since 2020 or 2019.
- The FAA levied rare criticism against airlines, indicating that Americans won’t accept issues stemming from staff shortages because carriers received $54 billion from Congress to keep their workers employed.
- Airlines say that pandemic relief only covered 77 percent of payroll costs, and they were forced to reduce staff when federal aid temporarily lapsed in late 2020.
The background: Going into this summer, carriers trimmed their flight schedules to lessen cancellations and blunt the impact of soaring fuel costs. That could help prevent a total meltdown, but the limited number of seats available will make it difficult for travelers to find a replacement flight if their trip is delayed or canceled.
Karl, Alex Gangitano and Zach Schonfeld have more here.
A FRAZZLING PLACE I NEVER KNEW
Powell: Global economy is in a ‘new world’
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in a Wednesday speech said the global economy has entered a “new world” when it comes to inflation, while insisting the Fed would stick to its goal of keeping inflation at a 2 percent annual hike.
Powell said the low inflation era after the 2008 financial crisis is over and that new economic forces have led to higher inflation, creating challenges for the world’s central banks.
- “The last 10 years were, so far, the height of the disinflationary forces that we’ve faced, and really it goes back to before the global financial crisis, but since the global financial crisis, we’ve had very low inflation in the United States,” Powell said at a central banking forum in Portugal.
- “That world seems to be gone now, at least for the time being.”
The Hill’s Tobias Burns explains why here.
SUMMER DRUBBING
Wall Street braces for turmoil
The stock market is set to close out a brutal month of losses as Wall Street braces for a rocky second half of the year.
- All three major U.S. stock indexes — the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite — reached bear market status in June, falling at least 20 percent from record highs set toward the start of the year.
- While stocks sank gradually for much of 2022, the sell-off accelerated in June amid deepening concerns about the economy.
“We were just kind of finding our way along the bottom, and then in June that semblance of a bottom fell out. I think that was a real psychological turn for investors,” said Callie Cox, an investment analyst at eToro, an online investing platform.
“Inflation isn’t under control and markets haven’t quite found their footing yet. June felt like a reality check in a way, and it was a reality check for a situation we didn’t fully understand,” she continued.
The background: After cruising through record highs through 2021, stocks drifted lower throughout the spring as the Federal Reserve ramped up its efforts to fight inflation. Economists were hopeful that inflation had peaked in March, in sync with the Fed’s first interest rate hike, and would finally come down after reaching 40-year highs.
But as inflation steamed ahead through May and June, the Fed accelerated its attempts to cool off price increases while also boosting the risk of a recession.
Sylvan breaks it down here.
THINGS ARE LOOKING UP?
Two-thirds of small business owners expecting higher revenue despite inflation concerns
Two-thirds of small businesses expect to increase their revenue over the next year and 43 percent plan to hire more staff, the highest figures in two years, according to a survey from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and MetLife.
The report found that small businesses are the most optimistic they’ve been since the start of the pandemic, despite growing concerns about the impact of red-hot inflation. Forty-four percent of small businesses cite inflation as the biggest challenge, up from 33 percent last quarter, according to the survey, which was conducted April 29-May 17.
- “Historic inflation is top-of-mind and deeply troubling to small businesses right now,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president of small business policy Tom Sullivan said in a statement, noting that consumer demand remains strong despite rising costs.
- Economists say that consumers are likely to spend less as higher costs eat away at their earnings. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates to fight inflation is already slowing down the U.S. economy, which shrank 1.6 percent in the first quarter, and raising borrowing costs for businesses.
Karl has more on this here.
Good to Know
A member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over concerns about data harvesting.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who was appointed by former President Trump, said the app poses national security threats, adding to the growing backlash from Republicans after BuzzFeed reported earlier this month that employees of TikTok’s parent company in China have access to private data on U.S. users.
Here’s what else we have our eye on:
- New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) sued 10 “ghost gun” manufacturers on Wednesday, alleging the companies sold tens of thousands of parts to New Yorkers that were used to create illegal, untraceable guns.
- Snapchat revealed on Wednesday that it will now offer Snapchat+, a subscription plan providing a collection of “exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features” for $3.99 a month.
- More than 70 percent of Americans surveyed in a new poll support temporarily suspending federal and state gas taxes as the country grapples with high inflation and lingering supply chain issues.
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising parents and caregivers not to use neck floats for babies after one child died and another was hospitalized.
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Hillicon Valley — App stores urged to remove TikTok
An official at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has asked that Apple and Google remove TikTok from their app stores over privacy concerns.
In other news, Norway’s public and private sector websites were temporarily down on Wednesday following a cyberattack that targeted the country’s national data network.
This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar, Chris Mills Rodrigo and Ines Kagubare. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.
FCC commissioner joins TikTok backlash
A member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over concerns about data harvesting.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who was appointed by former President Trump, said the app poses national security threats, adding to the growing backlash from Republicans after BuzzFeed reported earlier this month that employees of TikTok’s parent company in China have access to private data on U.S. users.
In letters to Apple and Google, shared by Carr on Tuesday, he said TikTok’s “pattern of conduct and misrepresentation regarding the unfettered access that persons in Beijing have to sensitive U.S. user data” puts the app “out of compliance” with the companies’ app store policies.
“Therefore, I am requesting that you apply the plain text of your app store policies to TikTok and remove it from your app stores for failure to abide by those terms,” he wrote.
Norway hit with cyberattack in latest hack
Norway’s public and private sector websites were temporarily down on Wednesday following a cyberattack that targeted the country’s national data network, forcing it to suspend online services for several hours.
Sofie Nystrøm, head of the Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM), said a criminal pro-Russian group seemed to be behind the hacks, adding the attacks “give the impression that we are a piece in the current political situation in Europe,” according to The Associated Press.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said he believed the distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack had not “caused any significant damage,” the AP reported.
SWING STATE VOTERS SUPPORT APP STORE REGULATION
Most swing state voters believe that Congress hasn’t done enough to regulate Big Tech, according to a poll from the Coalition for App Fairness, which is pushing for legislation to crack down on tech giants.
The poll found that 69 percent of likely voters surveyed in eight swing states disapprove of the job lawmakers have done regulating tech giants, and 68 percent said that the Silicon Valley firms have too much power.
The coalition, whose members include app developers such as Epic Games and Spotify, released the poll as it lobbied lawmakers to pass the Open App Markets Act, a bipartisan bill that would block Apple and Google from favoring their own apps in searches and stop them from preventing users from using third-party app stores.
BITS & PIECES
An op-ed to chew on: Democrats need a united front against GOP attempts to regulate social media
Notable links from around the web:
Police Are Looking to Algorithms to Predict Domestic Violence (The Markup / Colin Lecher)
You scheduled an abortion. Planned Parenthood’s website could tell Facebook. (The Washington Post / Tatum Hunter)
Unsettled: The Afghan refugee crisis collides with the American housing disaster (The Verge / Makena Kelly)
One more thing: Subscriptions hit Snap
Snapchat revealed on Wednesday that it will now offer Snapchat+, a subscription plan providing a collection of “exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features” for $3.99 a month.
“This subscription will allow us to deliver new Snapchat features to some of the most passionate members of our community and allow us to provide prioritized support,” Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, said in a press release.
New features include the ability to pin your close friend as a BFF and to customize the app’s icon.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Pat Cipollone
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has subpoenaed former White House counsel Pat Cipollone after public pleas for him to testify before the panel.
“The Select Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney said in a statement.
“While the Select Committee appreciates Mr. Cipollone’s earlier informal engagement with our investigation, the committee needs to hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in other congressional investigations.”
“Any concerns Mr. Cipollone has about the institutional prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony,” they added.
The subpoena follows testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, that Cipollone raised legal concerns over former President Trump’s plans to march to the Capitol and that he repeatedly insisted the White House do more as the violent attack was unfolding at the Capitol.
Cipollone met with the committee’s investigators in April but did not sit for a formal recorded deposition.
Cipollone would be a big get for the committee and the second White House official to testify publicly.
He is also uniquely positioned to weigh in on Trump’s state of mind and his personal awareness of various schemes to keep him in power.
Cheney reasserted her public call for his testimony under oath as recently as Wednesday morning.
“As we heard yesterday, WH counsel Pat Cippollone had significant concerns re. Trump’s Jan 6 activities,” she wrote on Twitter.
“It’s time for Mr. Cippollone to testify on the record. Any concerns he has about the institutional interests of his prior office are outweighed by the need for his testimony.”
DEVELOPING
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Watch live: Liz Cheney speaks at Reagan Library in California
The event is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET.
Watch the live video above.
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Supreme Court's gun proliferation ruling masquerading as constitutional interpretation
For more than 100 years, New York has had a gun safety law that bars the concealed carry of a firearm without a permit and requires good cause to obtain the permit. Studies show laws such as New York’s and the six other states have saved lives.
The Supreme Court struck it down anyway last week in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The decision is deeply flawed. The court ignores the plain language of the Second Amendment and the historical tradition, which it says it is bound to follow. And the decision makes no sense as a matter of policy. It will leave our nation materially less safe.
There is no sugarcoating the fact that studies show ending such laws leads to many more unnecessary gun deaths and injuries, as this decision does. But that is apparently of no consequence. The decision does not even mention those studies. It does not say a word about the increasing gun violence or its countless victims. Even Heller, the 2008 case that established (many would aptly say “invented”) the constitutional right to carry a firearm for self-defense at home, said, “We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns[.]” Now, in contrast, when the problem is so much worse, Justice Samuel Alito goes out of his way to chastise the three dissenters for reminding us of the awful carnage.
In its haste to expand the Second Amendment, and limit the ability of federal and state governments to enact gun safety measures opposed by the gun rights groups, the court violates its own fundamental rule of judicial restraint. Chief Justice John Roberts explained in the recent Dobbs decision that it is established practice “not to formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied.” But the majority, including Roberts, does just that in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The question presented by the NRA affiliate in its brief was “Whether the State’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.” If the court was true to its word and actually respected the historical tradition, the answer should have been easy. The court explains that the scope of the Second Amendment, as applied to the states, should be based on the understanding in 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted.
Well, as the court also acknowledges, and Heller said, “the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.” The Bruen majority also concedes that “In the early to mid-19th century, some States began enacting laws that proscribed the concealed carry of pistols and other small weapons.” Concealed carry simply was not barred by the Second Amendment. If the court was true to its word and actually respected historical tradition, it should have stopped there and denied the NRA affiliate’s appeal.
The New York law also requires a good cause permit for those who want to carry a firearm openly — like the cowboys of the Wild West wearing pistols in their holsters in the movies. But there was no need for the court to consider that aspect of the law because the petitioners did not apply for open carry licenses. The court addresses it anyway, and it ruled “the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”
That ruling is untenable, particularly for the six-member majority who repeatedly proclaim they apply the text of the Constitution and are not sitting as an unelected legislature making political decisions. The Second Amendment actually says, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It does not mention “self-defense” or concealed carry. Both are simple concepts. If either was the purpose or object of the Second Amendment, it would have been easy enough to say so. Instead, the framers said the purpose was a “well-regulated Militia” that was “necessary to the security of a free State.” Maybe that is why the majority opinion does not even quote the full one sentence text of the Amendment.
The majority writes that “reliance on history to inform the meaning of constitutional text” is “more legitimate, and more administrable,” than allowing judges “to make difficult empirical judgments” about “the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions,” because of their “lack [of] expertise in the field.” That is a convenient excuse to ignore the evidence that gun safety measures save lives. But it is incorrect.
Judges make judgments of this sort. They have no less expertise to do so than to weigh the historical evidence. The Bruen dissent points out that true historians have shown Heller was wrong about the purported “history” on which it grounded its assertion that the Second Amendment creates a right to have a handgun at home in the first place.
But the majority does not address that. Although those justices revisit precedent when it suits them, Heller’s misinterpretation of the Second Amendment, and its mistaken cherry-picking of the historical evidence, are for them apparently sacrosanct.
The majority’s explanation of historic tradition is as unpersuasive as Heller’s. Ironically, it tries to distinguish relevant statutes as being designed to prohibit bearing arms “in a way that spreads ‘fear’ or ‘terror’ among the people.” But that is exactly what the New York law is designed to do. What law-abiding citizen does not feel fear and terror at the prospect of thousands of people walking the streets of New York carrying concealed firearms. Most would prefer open carry, if they had to choose, so they could stay as far away as possible. The Deputy Police Commissioner of New York City said the court’s ruling could turn New York into the “wild, wild East” and that “The mayor, the police commissioner, and every police officer has a grave concern that putting more guns on the streets of New York is not going to come to a good end.”
But the court’s solution to the fact that there are already so many guns in this country is to have still more. The Second Amendment, whose purpose was to permit the states to have militias to protect the security of the states, will instead become a mutual destruction pact that undermines the security of the states.
Gun rights groups, including the NRA, now even more emboldened, will likely try to eliminate other gun safety laws and regulations. But they should remember that a court that so easily ignores precedent when its membership changes can do so again and restore the Second Amendment to what the framers actually wrote and the historical tradition actually requires.
Michael J. Dell, a New York City resident, was a founding director of Americans for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine. He co-authored an amicus brief for the American Medical Association, the Medical Society of New York, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in support of New York’s concealed carry law.
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Targeting road safety could save more than 500K lives per year, study finds
Reducing speed limits and implementing road safety interventions could save nearly 540,000 lives worldwide each year, a new study has found.
The full enforcement of measures that target speed, drunk driving, helmet wearing and seatbelt use could save about 43,000 lives in the U.S. alone, according to the study, published by the Lancet in a series of road safety reports on Wednesday.
More than 22,000 U.S. lives could be saved by restricting speed and more than 5,100 through interventions on drunk driving, while another 14,000 and 2,400 lives could be preserved by improving the use of seatbelts and helmets, the study determined.
“People everywhere continue to be at great risk of injury and death unless current road traffic strategies are changed to put protections in place,” co-author Adnan Hyder, of the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, said in a statement.
An estimated 1.35 million people lose their lives each year and more than 50 million individuals are injured or disabled following road traffic incidents, the authors noted.
Focusing on strategies to control hemorrhage and early resuscitation is most likely to save lives, followed by interventional radiology to control bleeding, the study found.
“Although strengthening trauma systems is the ultimate goal, clinical and simple health system interventions are a practical starting point to save lives sooner,” co-author Junaid Razzak, of Weill Cornell Medical Center, said in a statement.
Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. Send us tips and feedback: Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Not on the list? Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox daily!
Today we’ll explore how activists in Flint, Mich., are pressing forward despite a disappointing ruling on the city’s 2014 water crisis, followed by a big step forward in one campaign to pull heat-trapping gases out of the atmosphere.
Despite setback, Flint water activists press on
After the Michigan Supreme Court dismissed charges against several state officials over the 2014 Flint Water Crisis, residents remain adamant in their quest for justice.
“As a pastor, as a community servant, I am confident that eventually the facts will come out and those people who need to be held accountable will be held accountable,” Alfred Harris Sr. of Saints of God Church in Flint told NBC affiliate WEYI.
What was the Flint water crisis? The inadvertent contamination of the city’s water supply in April 2014 caused widespread anger — and eventual indictments.
- The contamination occurred after Flint’s drinking water source changed from Detroit’s water network to the adjacent Flint River.
- That resource was not properly treated, and corrosive river water damaged the city’s pipes, causing the discharge of lead into Flint’s drinking system.
- A year and a half later, Flint returned to Detroit’s water system.
Complicated court case: Nine officials, including former Gov. Rick Snyder (R), faced criminal charges in connection with the crisis through a one-man grand jury, announced by Michigan’s solicitor general in January 2021.
Why were the charges dismissed? Michigan’s Supreme Court decided on Tuesday that the charges were improper because the grand jury consisted of a single judge, our colleague Zack Budryk reported for The Hill.
- State laws “do not authorize that one-man grand jury to issue an indictment initiating a criminal prosecution,” the court wrote in a 6-0 decision.
- Snyder is due to testify separately in a lawsuit against two firms that advised the city of Flint during the crisis, Budryk reported.
The case may not be over: “The Citizens of Flint should know that these cases are not over. Public commentary to the contrary is presumptive and rash,” Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud said in a statement, adding she plans to still pursue the case.
Local politicians weigh in: While expressing disappointment with the ruling, Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley (D) stressed that there are still a few defendants awaiting trial on the civil side, in an interview with local station ABC 9.
“This is another devastating blow, but we will continue to press forward — press forward advocating strongly for the residents of this community, to be able to get some level of resolve,” Neeley said.
Carbon removal’s major scale-up
Construction began Wednesday on what could become the world’s largest facility for pulling planet-warming gases out of the atmosphere, the companies responsible for the site announced this week.
- Carbon removal partners Carbfix and Climeworks are building a new “Mammoth” plant in Iceland that they say would allow them to trap 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
- The companies have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to pull the gas from the atmosphere and store it in rock underground.
Big step amid giant plans: The pair described Mammoth as a key step toward their goal: A fleet of facilities that could filter a gigaton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere per year by 2050.
- While still a trivial amount of annual greenhouse gas pollution, that would represent a tenfold increase over the companies’ existing capacity, they said.
- They were able to expand thanks to $650 million in investment raised in May, according to Climeworks.
We covered their Orca site — which uses geothermal energy to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it to stone — earlier this month.
How the tech works: Carbfix and Climework’s model relies on plentiful supplies of low carbon energy and underground rock to turn carbon dioxide into rock.
- At the pilot facility by the Hellisheiði geothermal power plant near Reykjavik, Iceland, Climeworks pulls air through batteries of fans — running on clean energy — that trap carbon dioxide in a filter.
- The trapped greenhouse gasses are then dissolved in hot water and sent to Carbfix, which injects it into subterranean deposits of porous volcanic rock where it gradually turns to stone.
But these factors — while plentiful in Iceland — are rarer elsewhere in the world.
CARBON REMOVAL REMAINS ON FRINGES OF CLIMATE FIGHT
While Mammoth’s carbon-trapping capabilities would be much greater than those of the past plant, the new site would only be able to remove a tiny fraction of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions.
Fossil fuel burning and other polluting activities released the equivalent of about
36 gigatons in 2021, according to data from the International Energy Agency.
- That number would represent a nearly 28,000-fold increase over the capacity of the new plant.
- It’s also 36 times the annual capacity of that 1 gigaton fleet of carbon moving machines that the partnership proposes to have ready by 2050.
Mammoth job: If fossil fuel burning continues until 2050 at last year’s rates — a possibility most scientists consider disastrous — then that 1 gigaton fleet will be up against 1,000 gigatons of atmospheric carbon dioxide in need of removal.
- This is why a major criticism of carbon removal technologies is that they distract effort and investment from other methods of avoiding emissions, according to The Washington Post.
- “When we came up with the method of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, many people said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, let’s not waste our time with that,’” Climeworks cofounder Jan Wurzbacher told CNBC.
Still necessary: But “negative emissions” — pulling greenhouse gases from the atmosphere — will be necessary to remove the climate-disrupting legacy of 20th- and 21st-century emissions, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change.
Nations meet in Lisbon to stop ocean exploitation
Delegates from more than 20 nations are gathering in Lisbon this week to formulate a declaration that will focus on restoring ocean health and defending it from exploitation, The Washington Post reported.
- “Sadly, we have taken the ocean for granted, and today we face what I would call an “Ocean Emergency,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told participants at the U.N. Ocean Conference opening session earlier this week.
- Guterres called upon nations to “turn the tide,” citing issues of global heating, sea-level rise, ocean acidity and the inundation of low-lying islands.
Who is attending the talks? Several U.S. officials are at the meeting in Lisbon, including climate envoy John Kerry, according to the Post.
Meanwhile, the U.S., Britain and Canada are planning to launch an alliance that will improve oversight of fisheries and “hold bad actors accountable,” the Post reported, citing a White House fact sheet.
Hurdles: Referring to previous failures to agree on a blueprint for protecting the open seas from exploitation, Guterres blamed the “egoism” of certain nations that have prevented progress, according to Reuters.
The day before the summit began, the secretary-general also apologized to the Ocean Conference Youth Forum on behalf of his generation for being “slow or sometimes unwilling to recognize that things were getting worse and worse.”
Moving forward, the U.N.’s special envoy of the ocean, Peter Thomson, told Reuters he was confident that an agreement would be reached this year, despite ongoing challenges such as deep-sea mining.
“I’m very sure we are going to get there,” Thomson said.
Business pledges underscore deforestation issue
Nestle and Unilever are on track to cut deforestation out of their supply chains by the end of 2025, company executives wrote in a statement published on Wednesday.
What’d they say? The companies announced that ending deforestation — a major problem in the production of soya, palm oil, cocoa and other tropical commodities both firms use — is essential if they’re going to meet their carbon reduction goals.
- “The food sector makes up about 37 percent of global emissions, and when you look at deforestation it really has kind of an outside climate impact,” Niamh McCarthy of nonprofit Climate Advisers told Equilibrium.
- Candy-making Nestle competitor Mars has estimated that 42 percent of its emissions come from “land use change,” which is broadly similar to deforestation.
Getting out ahead: Nestle and Unilever took this step as banks — particularly in Europe — are beginning to worry about funding deforestation through their investments, McCarthy noted.
“Unless we end deforestation, achieving net zero is impossible,” the CEOs wrote.
Waste Wednesday
Denver’s trash-pricing plan aims to get households composting and recycling, electric garbage pickup in Des Moines and federal funding for products made from crop waste.
In Denver, trash costs but recycling is free
- Denver will begin charging for trash pickup in 2023 while leaving recycling and composting collection free, CBS News reported. “The more you recycle or compost, the less you throw away, the less your fee is going to be, so it really incentives the behaviors that we want,” a spokesperson for the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure told CBS.
Electric garbage truck comes to Des Moines
- The City of Des Moines, Iowa, will be buying a $700,000 electric-powered garbage truck — at about 2.8 times the price of a standard model, local CBS affiliate KCCI News reported. The city’s 35 existing garbage trucks use almost half of its diesel fuel supply, even though they make up only 5 percent of the municipal fleet, according to KCCI.
Federal money to develop new products from farm waste
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture is offering $10 million in grants to farmers looking to develop new “bioproducts” from agricultural and farm waste, Secretary Tom Vilsack announced. The program, funded through the bipartisan infrastructure law, directs USDA to collaborate on such studies with research universities, the agency said.
Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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NotedDC — White House faces growing pressure over air travel
Democrats are pressuring the Biden administration to fine airlines amid pilot and staff shortages, with thousands of canceled flights heading into a busy travel season.
Airlines are struggling to meet demand amid turning tides from the pandemic, our colleagues report for The Hill, and the White House is facing growing pressure from politicians to fine airlines for delays.
John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s Democratic candidate for Senate, is calling on the Department of Transportation to fine airlines up to $27,500 per passenger for every flight where “they knew they didn’t have the staff to fly.” Fetterman argues the government “has a responsibility to hold these airlines accountable.”
Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote letters to 10 major domestic airlines, urging them to address their schedule issues for the rest of the summer. They also asked them to provide information by mid-July on how many flights were delayed and canceled and how many passengers received refunds.
And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) addressed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday, asking him to act against airlines, such as fining them for delays and for scheduling flights they know they are unable to staff. Buttigieg said in mid-June his agency could act against airlines that don’t meet consumer-protection standards.
Some context: Airlines blame the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for not providing a plan on personnel ahead of the summer, but the FAA and Biden administration argue that the $54 billion in pandemic relief funds should have allowed them to beef up their personnel.
Many lawmakers also noted that under former President Obama, the DOT enforced restrictions on how long a plane could sit on the runway without getting fined.
Welcome to NotedDC: Your guide to politics, policy and people of consequence in D.C.
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Biden officials brace for next Supreme Court rulings
The Supreme Court is poised to hand down decisions on two consequential cases for the Biden administration on Thursday, the last day of its term:
West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency
The Supreme Court is likely to weaken the EPA’s ability to regulate emissions from power plants, undermining the Biden administration’s agenda to fight climate change.
If the court rules against the EPA — following recent controversial decisions on guns and abortion — expect protests to sprout up around D.C. and other major cities.
- Potential implications from the ruling, via The Hill’s Rachel Frazin
- Something to watch: Climate youth group Sunrise Movement D.C. plans to protest in front of the court on Thursday with other protest groups like Shut Down DC and Arm in Arm, organizer Mike Warburton tells NotedDC.
Biden v. Texas
The court will rule on whether President Biden can end a Trump-era immigration policy, known as the “remain in Mexico” rule, that forces asylum-seekers from Mexico to remain at the border while their applications are being processed.
- The Hill’s John Kruzel reports that under Trump, more than 70,000 asylum-seekers were returned to Mexico under the policy. Previously, they were allowed to apply for asylum while staying in the U.S.
- In the background: The ruling comes on the heels of 50 migrants found dead in a tractor-trailer near San Antonio, which Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told Politico Wednesday has reignited stalled immigration reform talks.
BYE, BYE, BREYER
Justice Stephen Breyer has made it official: He’s leaving the Supreme Court on Thursday at noon after it wraps up its current term.
- The justice, who has been on the high court since 1994, when he was nominated by then-President Clinton, has been a key part of the liberal wing.
- He’ll be replaced by Ketanji Brown Jackson, who will become the first Black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the high court.
You can watch a livestream of Jackson’s swearing-in ceremony on the Supreme Court’s website at noon on Thursday. Read more about Breyer’s retirement here
Alex Wagner set for new prime-time perch
NBC News sees Rachel Maddow’s prime-time cutback to host a podcast and focus on other long-term gigs for the network as a risk — but one it hopes pays off.
- “It’s a great case study in sort of this proliferation of platforms,” NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde said this week at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
- The Hill’s Dominick Mastrangelo writes that her shift signals that NBC is willing to pour more energy into streaming and audio ventures that haven’t been successful for other major networks like CNN.
Alex Wagner, a journalist and MSNBC political analyst, will replace Maddow four nights a week (Maddow will still host on Mondays at 9 p.m. Eastern).
- A big question: Will Wagner be able to draw as large of an audience as Maddow? That’s something MSNBC likely wrestled with, given Maddow drew in some of the biggest ratings in cable news.
- MSNBC President Rashida Jones offered a sneak-peek to The New York Times into what Wagner’s show won’t look like: “This is not a show where our hair is on fire and we’re yelling past each other, and we’re creating these manufactured moments of tension.”
MORE WASHINGTON MOVES
The Hill’s Karl Evers-Hillstrom has a weekly roundup of where people are moving in the lobbying world (and you can send us your professional updates, too!).
Here are some highlights:
- Geoff Freeman will be the next president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association
- Paul Sass will be joining Cassidy & Associates, leaving his role as Republican staff director for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
- Andrew Usyk joined Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP as a policy director
- Michael Held joined WilmerHale as a partner in the firm’s securities and financial services department.
- Kelly Hitchcock joined Invariant LLC as a director working with the firm’s financial services and tax clients
- Christopher Gaspar, most recently the director of government affairs at Textron Inc., joined BAE Systems as a director of government affairs.
DC restaurants added to the top US wine list
A familiar D.C. eatery is on Wine Spectator‘s newly released list of Grand Award winners, noted for “extraordinary” wine service: Fiola, the upscale Italian joint just steps from the National Mall. (You can find all the U.S. Grand Award winners here.)
Nearly 50 other D.C.-area restaurants are honored for their wine selections, including several added this year and found here.
Wine Spectator’s editorial team hosted guests and top winemakers at the Ronald Reagan Building earlier this month.
Scooters around the Capitol? It’s complicated.
D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) scored a win for residents who like sledding on Capitol grounds in the snowy winter months, but the push for allowing scooters around the complex faces continued hurdles.
Scooters, while not an uncommon sight at the Capitol, are technically banned from the area. That won’t be changing anytime soon under an appropriations bill that the House has advanced.
“I am pleased with the victories for D.C. in this bill,” Norton said in a statement Thursday. “However, I am disappointed that the report accompanying the bill continues to support the existing ban on electric scooters at the Capitol complex.”
That’s it for today. Stay with TheHill.com for the latest and recommend NotedDC to others: thehill.com/noted. See you next week!
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Republicans dismiss Hutchinson testimony, pointing to factual disputes
Former President Trump’s most vocal defenders in the House are working to undercut former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive testimony at Tuesday’s Jan. 6 Select Committee hearing, calling it “hearsay” and pointing to disputes over facts she presented.
Hutchinson, who was an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, relayed fly-on-the-wall firsthand knowledge of conversations between Trump and top officials.
Those included Trump wanting to get rid of magnetometers outside his Ellipse rally to let in more of the crowd, that potential plans were discussed for Trump to travel to the Capitol on the 6th, and aides saying Trump was aware of “Hang Mike Pence” chants and thought he deserved it.
But there are disputes over other portions of her testimony, most notably the second-hand allegation that Trump lunged for the steering wheel of the car a Secret Service agent was driving away from the Ellipse rally when the Secret Service refused to take him to the Capitol building.
“The sham Committee’s star witness is already discredited less than 24 hours after her testimony. It was all hearsay. This is the Russia hoax playbook. Democrats’ media allies are simply repeating their outrageous and evidence-free accusations,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind), who was originally selected to be ranking member on the committee before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) vetoed the choice.
Twitter accounts for the House Republican Conference and House Judiciary Committee Republicans fired off rapid response reactions to the hearing in real time, dismissing it and tearing down Hutchinson’s testimony.
“It’s literally all hearsay evidence,” the House Judiciary GOP said.
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) also tweeted live reactions to the hearing and the disputes that followed, alleging that the committee lied.
“I spent nearly 30 years trying cases in an adversarial court system designed to ferret out truth. Liz Cheney knows how it’s supposed to work, but she humiliated herself and the rest of this sham committee yesterday out of uncontrollable spite for Trump,” Bishop told The Hill in a statement.
Hutchinson testified that Tony Ornato, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, told her on Jan. 6 that Trump was so angry that the Secret Service would not take him to the Capitol building after the ellipse rally that he reached for the steering wheel and that Robert Engel, the special agent in charge for Secret Service on Jan. 6, grabbed Trump’s arm to stop him. Engel was in the room as Ornato told the story, she said.
But soon after the hearing ended, several news outlets reported that Engel and Ornato disputed that, and were willing to testify that Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) in a radio interview Wednesday called the anecdote “almost inconceivable,” insisting that he would have previously heard about Trump lunging for the steering wheel if it had happened.
Later, former Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann disputed that a handwritten note Hutchinson said she had written was actually written by him, ABC News reported. The note was a draft statement for the president that never went out. “Anyone who entered the capitol illegally without proper authority should leave immediately,” it said, with “illegally” crossed out.
Ben Willimson, a longtime adviser to Meadows who also worked in the White House on Jan. 6, pushed back on Hutchinson’s characterization of Meadows as apathetic about protests at the Capitol.
“I’ve worked for Mark Meadows for 7 years — any suggestion he didn’t care is ludicrous. And if the committee actually wanted answers as to that question, they could’ve played my interview where I outlined to them how Meadows immediately acted when I told him of initial violence at the Capitol that day,” Williamson said in a statement.
A spokesman for Meadows also added that he had not sought a pardon from Trump, as Hutchinson said.
The Jan. 6 Select Committee did not respond to a request for comment about the disputes, but Hutchinson is defending her testimony.
“Ms. Hutchinson stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday, under oath, to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” legal counsel for Hutchinson said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
The disputes, though, are dominating Republicans’ public responses to Hutchinson’s testimony.
“It looks like, you know, one more day of salacious headlines, and already today, we’re seeing Secret Service agents saying, ‘That didn’t happen,’” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Wednesday morning on Fox News, adding that he had only seen some excerpts of the hearing. “This is why Pelosi set this up from day one to be a partisan committee, a witch hunt, just to keep going after Trump. Not to get facts, she kicked Republicans off the committee. She didn’t want the facts.”
The committee highlighted during the hearing that Hutchinson had worked for both Scalise and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), but did not note that those stints were internships several years ago. Scalise’s office declined to comment about his relationship to Hutchinson, and Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
While the most vocal House Republicans on Hutchinson’s testimony are critical of her, a large number are not publicly responding to the revelations from the testimony at all. Several House GOP members who have previously expressed that some of the Jan. 6 committee’s testimony has been powerful, or who have expressed sharp criticism of Trump, did not respond to requests for comment.
Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who voted in favor of a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission but against the select committee, said in an ABC News interview Tuesday that Hutchinson came off as an “extremely credible witness,” but lamented that there were no Republican-appointed members on the committee to push back a little or ask questions. He pointed to the anecdote about Trump reaching for the steering wheel a “perfect example of, ‘wait a minute, I want to know more.’”
“I think that was very sobering, what we heard about what happened in the president’s automobile,” Curtis said.
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US places $3.2 billion order for updated COVID-19 vaccines for fall
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that is paying $3.2 billion for 105 million doses of an updated Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for a fall campaign, pending Food and Drug Administration sign-off on the new formula.
The order is a major step in the administration’s efforts to move forward with a new vaccination push this fall, in a bid to blunt a renewed COVID-19 surge when the weather turns colder in much of the country.
The updated vaccine is expected to target the omicron variant, with the goal of providing improved protection.
The new doses are expected to begin to be delivered “as soon as late summer 2022 and continue into the fourth quarter of this year,” Pfizer said in a news release.
The Biden administration is using money that it was forced to cut from other areas of its COVID-19 response after Congress did not act on the administration’s request for new funds.
The administration warns that it has had to cut money from important areas like maintaining testing capacity and doing research on improved vaccines, such as “pan-coronavirus” shots that work on multiple variants.
The White House is still pushing for more money from Congress, but prospects on Capitol Hill are not looking particularly hopeful amid a continued stalemate. Republicans have pushed back on the urgency for the funds.
The order placed on Wednesday, though, will ensure the country is not completely lacking in updated vaccines for the fall.
“We look forward to taking delivery of these new variant-specific vaccines and working with state and local health departments, pharmacies, health care providers, federally qualified health centers, and other partners to make them available in communities around the country this fall,” said Dawn O’Connell, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services.
An FDA advisory committee on Thursday gave the green light to updating vaccines for omicron, though there are still more steps in the approval process.
Uptake of even a first booster dose, which is currently recommended for everyone aged five and older, has been lagging, an indication that not everyone will want an updated booster this fall.
About 105 million people have received their first booster dose, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures.
Source: TEST FEED1