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Mass. Gov. signs order protecting reproductive health care providers who serve out-of-state residents

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) on Friday signed an executive order to implement legal protections for reproductive health care providers who serve out-of-state residents. 

Baker, a rare Republican who supports protecting abortion rights, said in a release that he was “deeply disappointed” in the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which made abortion a federally-protected right.

He said he signed the order in response to the court’s decision and the subsequent and expected actions of numerous states to ban or severely restrict access to abortion. 

“In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, it is especially important to ensure that Massachusetts providers can continue to provide reproductive health care services without concern that the laws of other states may be used to interfere with those services or sanction them for providing services that are lawful in the Commonwealth,” Baker said. 

More than a dozen states have trigger laws on the books that would criminalize abortion either immediately upon Roe v. Wade being overturned or shortly after. Since the court’s ruling on Friday morning, about half of those states’ bans have already gone into effect. 

State governments placing bans or severe restrictions on abortion could lead to a greater number of residents of those states seeking to travel to other states where the procedure is legal.

The release states that the order also prohibits any executive agency from aiding another state’s investigation into anyone receiving or providing reproductive health services that are legal in Massachusetts. 

Abortion is legal in the commonwealth up until the 24^th week of pregnancy, and physicians may perform an abortion after that if the life of the mother is at risk or if the fetus is not expected to survive outside the womb. 

The order also protects Massachusetts health care providers from being in jeopardy of losing their licenses based on out-of-state charges. The commonwealth will also not cooperate with any extradition requests from other states pursuing criminal charges against anyone who received or performed reproductive services in Massachusetts. 

“We are proud of the Commonwealth’s history of ensuring access to reproductive health care, and will continue to do so,” Lt. Governor Karyn Polito (R) said in the release.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden’s plan to cancel student debt will send inflation skyrocketing

The Biden administration may soon decide to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for borrowers.

This proposal is another sign that the administration is deeply out of touch. It is an unfair handout that would cost an immense amount of money, drive inflation, and benefit affluent elites over low- and middle-class families. The American people need relief, not policies that will worsen their already-abysmal conditions to line the pockets of the liberal elite.  

The existing Biden administration moratorium on student loan repayments, which has been extended numerous times, has already cost taxpayers $130 billion. Canceling $10,000 in debt for each borrower would cost a whopping $373 billion.

The national debt and federal spending are already out of control. In 2020, the U.S. government spent over $6 trillion, while in 2021, the U.S. spent $6.82 trillion, or 30 percent of the economy. The U.S. now holds about $243,000 of debt per taxpayer and the Congressional Budget Office projects that U.S. interest costs will triple within the next decade, accounting for 12 percent of the entire federal budget.

In 2021, U.S. interest payments on its debt alone cost roughly $2,600 per household.    

Democrats argue that the massive cost of canceling student loan debt doesn’t matter because it would stimulate the economy by giving borrowers more money to spend.

 In reality, this plan would cost the government far more than it would provide stimulus. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget conducted an analysis finding that for every dollar the government would spend on student loan forgiveness, as little as 3 cents and at most 27 cents of economic activity would be produced.    

This reckless spending will inevitably make inflation even worse than it already is.   

The federal government is flooding the economy with so much money that demand is growing too fast for production to keep up. In May, inflation hit another 40-year high at 8.6 percent. Inflation is now costing American households an extra $460 a month.   

Low-income households are disproportionately harmed by inflation. This is because low-income Americans spend a much higher percentage of their income on basic goods. Under high inflation, higher-income households cut back on luxury goods, while low-income households can’t cut out much of their spending, as their spending is primarily on necessities like housing and groceries. High-income households can “stock up” on these goods while prices are cheap.   

Not only would this policy hurt low-income Americans by exacerbating inflation, but it would also be fundamentally unfair to them. Many low-income Americans do not have significant student loan debt because they decided not to go to college or took a cheaper route via community college due to the high cost of tuition.   

Millions of Americans served in the military to receive free education, worked long hours to put themselves through school instead of going into debt, or were proactive in paying off their debt. All these sacrifices were made by people who could only work with the information they had: if they took out loans, they would be held to their contractual obligations. 

Not only were these Americans deprived of a certain amount of upward mobility that comes with high education, but now they’re being told that their sacrifices were futile.   

Who benefits, then? Primarily, the elite.   

The Brookings Institution described those who would benefit most from student debt forgiveness as “higher income, better educated, and more likely to be white.” The top 20 percent of households currently hold $3 in student loan debt for every $1 of debt held by the bottom 20 percent of earners. About 75 percent of student loan repayments come from the top 40 percent of earners.   

Even after spending billions to cancel debt and deeply harming the economy in the process, this policy may actually worsen the student loan crisis for future generations. For starters, the primary driver of high tuition prices has been the federal government’s subsidization of college. If the government decides to further subsidize education costs, this will motivate colleges and universities to charge students even more in tuition.   

Further, canceling student debt will signal to future borrowers that their debt, too, will be canceled at some point. College students will be incentivized to take on as much debt as they wish, as they expect no consequences.

Existing borrowers with remaining balances may stop making payments in hopes that more of their debt will be canceled in the future. This would be radically unsustainable.   

Americans are worried about how they’re going to afford their next meal and transportation to and from work. A handout to wealthy elites should be completely off the table, especially when those handouts come at the expense of those suffering under surging prices. This policy is a slap in the face to working families.

Isabelle Morales is policy communications specialist at Americans for Tax Reform.

Source: TEST FEED1

LIST: Most dangerous fireworks in the US

(NEXSTAR) — While the Fourth of July is always a good time for a get-together with family and friends, Independence Day can also present some dangers when Americans light up the fireworks.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission‘s latest report says there were an estimated 15,600 firework-related injuries resulting in hospital treatment in 2020. There were also 18 fireworks-related deaths, CPSC says.

Twelve of the 18 deaths happened when fireworks were misused. CPSC also said the 18 deaths “should be considered a minimum” for 2020, seeing as reporting had not been completed by the time CPSC findings were published.

While information on device types can’t be completed, seeing as many victims may not report which devices they were injured by, CSPC breaks down injuries by device type with the information available.

Rockets – 600 injuries

Firecrackers – 1,600 injuries

Other devices (Roman candles, sparklers, fountains, multiple tube) – 2,400 injuries

Unknown – 5,300 injuries

Injuries also occur when commercial fireworks (the kinds used for an approved fireworks show) are used for non-commercial purposes by individuals. These are often called “illegal” fireworks, since they’re illegal for the public to use.

Among the most dangerous things that can happen when dealing with fireworks is altering them. You should never add or subtract any material to/from a firework.

Additionally, multiple deaths reported in 2020 involved fireworks being set off in places where they’re not intended to be set aflame, like moving vehicles.

The CPSC says 66% of all the estimated fireworks-related injuries in 2020 happened between June 21 and July 21. There was also a particularly large spike in fireworks injuries in 2020, overall, perhaps due to the pandemic. Typically, the number of fireworks injuries jumps or falls by a 2,000+/- margin from year to year. But from 2019 to 2020, there was a 5,600-injury increase.

Overall, there were 136 fireworks-related deaths between 2005 and 2020.

Dangerous as they may be, firework sales are big business each year. WalletHub estimates show Americans spent over $1.5 billion on fireworks in 2020 alone.

Source: TEST FEED1

The right to travel to seek an abortion in a post-Dobbs world

The news was bleak in Friday’s Supreme Court holding in Dobbs v. Jackson, and I am not here to tell you otherwise. But the opinion itself contains a few glimmers worth analyzing. One is from Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a concurring opinion: “For example, may a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no, based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.”  

The right to travel has not been adumbrated extensively in case law. With respect to international travel, it received a bump of attention during COVID-19, when some Americans were forced to quarantine out of the country until they could produce negative COVID tests; and also when, at the beginning of the pandemic, some governors sought to ban interstate travel from states deemed to be “COVID hotspots” — a futile exercise that was soon abandoned. Almost no case law emerged.    

More generally, the right of Americans to travel interstate in the United States has never been substantially judicially questioned or limited. In 1941, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional California’s restriction upon the migration of the “Okies” — whose travails are famously documented in the John Steinbeck classic, “The Grapes of Wrath.” Justice William O. Douglas referred to “the right of free movement” as “a right of national citizenship,” and the rights of the migrants were upheld under the Commerce Clause.

The Privileges and Immunities Clause protects the rights of U.S. citizens, who are each also the citizens of a state, against discriminatory treatment under the law of a different state. In a 1985 case, the Supreme Court found that the Privileges and Immunities Clause prohibited discrimination against a nonresident except where (i) there is a substantial reason for the difference in treatment; and (ii) the discrimination practiced against nonresidents bears a substantial relationship to the state’s objective. In deciding whether the discrimination bears a close or substantial relationship to the state’s objective, the court has considered the availability of less restrictive means.

The 1999 case of Saenz v. Roe provides further elaboration: Justice John Paul Stevens asserted that the right contains three components: (1) the right to enter and leave another state; (2) the right to be treated as a welcome visitor when temporarily present in another state; and (3) the right to be treated like other citizens of that state for those travelers who elect to become permanent residents.

A right to travel also has been theorized based on the dormant Commerce Clause, which prevents states from discriminating against or unduly burdening interstate commerce.

The baseline, then, is that freedom of movement within and between states is constitutionally protected.

Twenty-six states are likely to ban abortion now that Dobbs has been decided. Thirteen have enacted trigger laws that would outlaw abortion as soon as Roe was reversed; one state, Oklahoma, banned abortion in May, in advance of the Dobbs ruling. For women and girls seeking this health care, the options are limited: self-administered abortion or medication abortion (which are criminalized under some of the new statutes) or travel to a state that still has legal abortion.

In 2017, an average of 8 percent of patients left their state of residence for abortion care, according to a study published in The Lancet. But drill down further, and the data show that in 12 states, more than a quarter of patients traveled out of state. In four states — Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina and Wyoming — more than half of patients left their state, the study found. New restrictions likely will most seriously impact those already suffering insufficient access to health care, including low-income individuals; Black, Latina and Asian patients; young people; and LGBTQ individuals. But states with welcoming policies, such as Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York, likely will receive unprecedented numbers of visitors seeking care. A number of businesses have announced that they will assist employees seeking abortion care, setting up a conflict with states, including Texas, that have threatened to ban them from doing business in the state.

Now, some states are already acting to interfere with the right to travel out of state for reproductive services — both to shut it down as an option for abortion seekers, and to protect it.

In Missouri, a bill introduced in December, and modeled on S.B. 8, the Texas “bounty” law, would allow prosecution not only for a person who aids another to obtain an abortion in Missouri, but also who aids another to travel to a state in which abortion is legal. The proposed law has dubious criminal law underpinning — it posits that a criminal conspiracy can be based on behavior that is legal in the state where it occurs, and not in the state where the traveler resides, stretching the idea of long-arm jurisdiction.     

At the other end of the spectrum, citing the Massachusetts Constitution’s protection of reproductive rights, Gov. Charlie Baker on signed an executive order designed to shield Massachusetts-based health care providers from liability for providing services to abortion-seekers from out of state, prohibiting extradictions, and protecting records from disclosure to states with criminal penalties against abortion seekers, allies and service providers.

What extraterritorial jurisdiction courts will uphold post-Dobbs is yet to be determined. It’s a sad exercise to go back to pre-Roe and Roe-adjacent cases, but back we must go to Bigelow v. Virginia, where Justice Harry Blackmun, writing for the majority of the court, reversed the 1971 conviction in Virginia of a Charlottesville editor whose newspaper advertised reproductive health services offered in New York. In that 1975 case, the Supreme Court stated that a “State does not acquire power or supervision over the internal affairs of another State merely because the welfare and health of its own citizens may be affected when they travel to that State.”

Even if home states have some extraterritorial powers with respect to their citizens, they do not have the power to prohibit them from engaging in activities in host states that are permissible for the host states’ citizens. Professor Seth Kreimer has advanced this view, relying in part on Bigelow. Professor Lea Brilmayer argues that with regard to issues about which there are sharp moral disagreements among states, such as abortion and the right to die, the structure of the federal system clearly compels the priority of the territorial state, and this priority typically invalidates the residence state’s claim to regulate.

To do otherwise, she argues, would allow preemption of one state’s law by another, a horizontal preemption not recognized in federalism.

It is pretty clear that the question of extraterritorial prosecution, along with many other issues, such as abortifacient by mail, use of personal data in aid of prosecutions, and interference with psychiatric crisis counseling, will be duked out in the courts in long, protracted battles. Far from getting the courts out of the business of being referees on abortion, Friday’s ruling does the opposite. It’s time to start researching the pre-Roe case law.

Meryl J. Chertoff is the executive director of the Georgetown Project on State and Local Government Policy and Law (SALPAL) and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law.

Source: TEST FEED1

Roe v. Wade ruling injects new urgency into midterms for Democrats

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade catapulted the issue of abortion rights directly into the midterms campaign on Friday, with Democrats seeking to put the issue front and center. 

Democratic candidates up and down the ballot issued their reactions in a slew of statements following the decision, while the party’s national campaign apparatus rolled out a website designed to “help voters channel anger into action and organize with local coordinated field campaigns.” 

While issues like rising inflation, crime and the flow of migrants over the U.S. southern border have dominated campaign rhetoric on the GOP side, Democrats are hoping to use the high court’s decision to galvanize their own bases.

“This fall, Roe is on the ballot. The right to privacy is on the ballot,” President Biden said at a press conference following the decision’s release on Friday.  

Democrats and abortion rights advocates point to what they say is conservatives’ goal to ban abortion nationwide. 

“They won’t give up unless voters stop them. The stakes in November’s midterm elections are higher than ever for reproductive health and rights, including abortion,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement on Friday. 

In swing states and districts across the country, Democratic candidates rolled out their own statements hitting their Republican opponents over the issue. 

In Wisconsin, Senate candidate and Lt. Gov.  Mandela Barnes (D) called for the filibuster to be abolished so Roe could be “the law of the land.” Fellow Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Alex Lasry also called for the filibuster to be abolished, accusing Republicans of “embracing extremism.” 

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Senate nominee and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) drew a clear contrast with his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz on the issue. 

“I will protect abortion rights. Dr. Oz will take them away. It’s that simple,” Fetterman said. 

In Texas, which has an abortion trigger law that will go into effect within the next month, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke released a video calling for voters to support his campaign amid news of the ruling. 

“We have to focus on the way in which we are going to overcome this,” O’Rourke said. “The only way to do this is to win political power. 

At the House level, Democratic candidates and incumbents also issued reactions leaning into the issue. 

Incumbent Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), who is facing a contentious election bid in the commonwealth’s 2nd congressional district, condemned the decision along with Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) announcement that he will seek a 15-week abortion ban following the decision. 

“And there it is,” Luria tweeted. “Republicans in Virginia have a plan to remove existing protections for women to make decisions about their body.” 

Over in Texas’ 15th congressional district, Democratic nominee Michelle Vallejo released a statement calling for Roe v. Wade to be codified into law. 

“We need representatives that will codify Roe V. Wade and advocate every single day for our right to choose,” Vallejo. “I will do everything in my power as the next congresswoman from TX15 to be a champion for Texas women and families.”

The issue is also poised to play a role in competitive state legislature races, like in Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia and North Carolina. 

“Republican majorities in these state legislatures are in for a rude awakening when they start taking away people’s rights,” said Vicky Hausman, co-founder of Forward Majority, a Democratic group that works elect Democrats to state legislatures. 

“We see a great deal of outrage driven by this decision and that outrage is happening exactly where Democrats need to be winning in these key districts that present a path to a majority in state legislatures,” she continued. 

Former Vice President Mike Pence seemed to confirm those concerns when he called for a nationwide abortion ban on Friday. 

“Having been given this second chance for Life, we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land,” Pence said in a tweet. 

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also rolled out a statement exclaiming “Life wins!” 

“As this debate now returns to the states and the American people, we know there is still much work ahead. Republicans will continue to advocate for life, uphold the law, and stand against an extreme Democrat Party’s pro-abortion agenda,” McDaniel said. 

However, other Republicans are signaling they intend to stay laser-focused on their messaging regarding inflation, crime,and the border. 

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling returns the issue of abortion to the states and allows voters to decide whether they agree with Democrats’ extreme support for taxpayer-funded late term abortion,” said Samantha Bullock, spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. 

“This ruling does nothing to change the fact that voters’ top concerns are rising prices, soaring crime, and the disaster at the southern border,” she continued. 

Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano downplayed the ruling, saying in a statement that Democrats want to use the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe to distract voters from issues that matter more to them. 

“People in this area and in my part of the state across the border here are struggling to make ends meet and they don’t care about those issues over there,” Mastriano, who’s up against Democrat Josh Shapiro, said. “They want to have security. They want crime to be down. They want to be able to put food on the table and gas in their cars.” 

Democrats say they are keenly aware of the role other issues, like inflation, are playing in campaign discourse, but argue that abortion access is an economic and health care issue. 

“We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” said Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford (D), who also serves as co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association. “This is an important issue. It is not something that takes second seed to any of the other issues and nor do other issues take second seed to this.” 

Anti-abortion organizations are signaling they want to play a leading role in the midterms. 

On Thursday, the conservative anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America launched a $2 million digital ad buy in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin for two weeks.

“This is going to be hugely mobilizing for pro-life Americans, who have now seen the fruition of their past political engagement, especially the last 10 years when we’ve focused heavily on Senate races and the White House to give us this court,” said Mallory Carroll, vice president of communications at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. 

“We’re talking to pro-life Americans, who don’t always vote in non-presidential election years, and people we’ve identified as being persuadable, so the infamous women in the suburbs, Hispanic voters, Black voters, [and] traditional Democratic voting groups,” she continued. 

But Democrats and abortion rights groups are pouring in money as well. In April, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund announced a $16 million paid media campaign “to educate and increase urgency around the abortion access crisis facing the country.”

“This is more than a Democratic issue,” Ford said. “You have several folks who are Republicans and Independents who support a right to an abortion and who I think will be concerned about the fact that the Supreme Court has now for the first time in our country removed a constitutional right.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Why we must nationalize Big Oil

During the financial crisis in 2008, the federal government protected the economy by bailing out companies it considered “too big to fail.” Normally, the government protects the economy from companies that are too big to exist. Companies that prevent competition by dominating an industry are called monopolies. The Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission use federal anti-trust laws to break them up.

But what should the government do about companies that use deception to dominate a market to the detriment of the economy and the long-term welfare of the American people? What should it do when an industry repeatedly violates the public trust?

In other words, what shall we do about the oil industry? By covering up its knowledge that its products are destabilizing the climate, funding a denial campaign and pressuring Congress not to address global warming, big oil should have lost its social license to operate long ago.

Instead, it has used its influence and cash to sustain billions of dollars in annual taxpayer subsidies (nearly $6 trillion for fossil fuels in 2020) and cut-rate permits to extract oil and gas from public lands. For years, these practices suppressed the ability of clean substitutes like solar and wind energy to compete. More recently, the industry has opposed carbon pricing, which would correct market signals by better reflecting the actual social and environmental costs of carbon fuels.

The American people also underwrite the industry by sacrificing their health to air pollution, suffering through economic recessions triggered by spikes in oil prices and losing the services of degraded or destroyed ecosystems. Those “subsidies” cost more than $635 billion annually, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

To discourage Congress from supporting President Biden’s climate-action agenda, the six biggest oil and gas companies spent nearly $120 million on 746 lobbyists last year, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. As of April, they spent almost $50 million on campaign contributions to candidates in this year’s elections. To burnish their image despite, oil companies spent $10 million on Facebook ads in 2020. The five largest companies spent $36 billion to promote themselves from 1986 to 2015, peaking when Congress nearly passed a carbon-pricing bill in 2010.

The International Energy Agency says the world’s path to net-zero carbon by 2050 includes no new oil and gas fields or coal mines beyond those already committed last year. Nevertheless, the industry reportedly plans scores of new oil and gas projects that would push global carbon emissions beyond the limits of the Paris climate accord.

Clear and present damage

The U.S. Energy Information Administration says if current energy policies continue, fossil fuels will still dominate America’s energy mix in 2050, crude oil production will set records, and natural gas exports will drive the production of that fuel. The nation’s cost would be $2 trillion a year by 2100, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  Climate-related weather disasters in the U.S. have already cost $765 billion in the last five years, including $145 billion last year.

Big Oil has made a show of concern. In 2021, 12 of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies pledged to achieve “net-zero emissions” in their operations. However, research soon found “the industry’s magnitude of investments and actions does not match discourse” and “accusations of greenwashing appear well-founded.”

What should the federal government do? First, it should acknowledge that the quickest and most effective way to stabilize the climate is not to waste more time trying to decarbonize carbon fuels; instead, it should facilitate a shift to genuinely clean and renewable energy.

Second, it should fix America’s energy market by eliminating policies that distort price signals. With prices that accurately reflect full lifecycle benefits and costs, renewable resources would advance more quickly because they are free, inexhaustible, ubiquitous and naturally clean.

Third and most important, the government should nationalize Big Oil. That would allow the government to manage the industry’s drawdown, a process the private sector is ignoring. A coalition of climate-action groups showed the world’s 60 largest banks financed nearly $4 trillion in fossil energy projects over the last five years, investments that could be stranded and lead to more requested taxpayer bailouts when the carbon bubble pops.

“If ever there was an industry that merited nationalization, the fossil fuel industry is it,” columnist and podcaster Thom Harman writes. A significant number of analysts agree.

What is nationalization?

A government nationalizes an industry when it takes control and manages it. The U.S. government has done this many times, including in 1989 to rescue the savings and loan industry and in 2008 when it bailed out banks, investment houses and insurers.

“The United States has a long and rich tradition of nationalizing private enterprise, especially during times of economy and social crisis,” researcher Thomas Hanna notes. Since World War I, the federal government has nationalized railroads, telegraph and telephone networks, arms manufacturing, gold markets, military aircraft production, coal mining, steel mills, airport security, mortgage companies, automakers, the production of other raw materials, and even more than a dozen foreign-owned companies.

“We will likely need to take over and decommission the large fossil fuel extraction corporations that are both one of the leading causes of climate change and one of the primary institutional impediments to addressing,” Hanna concludes.

In one scenario, the federal government could buy a controlling interest in the three most dominant oil companies, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Conoco. The cost would be around $350 billion, a trivial amount compared with unmitigated climate change or the $5 trillion the government spent on COVID-19 relief, the nation’s defense budget this year ($778 billion), or fossil fuels’ $630.5 billion annual damages to public health and the environment.

The federal government typically nationalizes companies to save them. In this case, it must nationalize Big Oil to save us all from a future we don’t want.

William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs, and he also served as special assistant to the department’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Becker is also executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, a nonpartisan initiative founded in 2007 that works with national thought leaders to develop recommendations for the White House as well as House and Senate committees on climate and energy policies. The project is not affiliated with the White House.

Source: TEST FEED1

Blinken: State Department ‘fully committed’ to reproductive health in wake of Roe

Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a rare statement commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, committing to protecting reproductive health services for State Department staff and others around the world. 

Blinken issued his statement late Friday evening while in Europe attending summits on global food security prior to joining President Biden for meetings with the Group of 7 (G7) nations on Saturday.

The secretary said in his statement that he usually avoids commenting on Supreme Court rulings, but the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has “raised understandable questions and concerns across the world and within our workforce.”

“So let me be clear: under this Administration, the State Department will remain fully committed to helping provide access to reproductive health services and advancing reproductive rights around the world. And this Department will do everything possible to ensure that all our employees have access to reproductive health services, wherever they live,” he said in the statement. 

The Supreme Court’s announcement on Friday to overturn the 1973 ruling of Roe v. Wade, which constitutionally guaranteed a woman’s right to access abortion, sparked an outpouring of emotion from supporters and detractors in the U.S. and across the globe.

Biden said the court was leading the country down an “extreme” path and said he would protect access to FDA-approved contraception and medication to end early pregnancies, as well as protect women who will travel across state lines to access abortion services.

U.S.-allies abroad also reacted with shock at the ruling, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling the court’s decision “a big step backward” and that it “will have an impact on people’s thinking around the world.” 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the overturning of Roe “horrific” and French President Emanuel Macron tweeted that “abortion is a fundamental right for all women.” 

The U.K., Canada and France are part of the G7, which also includes Germany, Japan and Italy. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden heads to Europe amid domestic woes

President Biden is heading to Europe, leaving a nation in turmoil over abortion rights to take on dueling missions abroad: find ways to lower food and gas prices while keeping allies unified in their pressure campaign against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Biden’s meetings over the next week with the Group of Seven (G-7) nations and NATO allies will be largely focused on addressing Moscow’s continued bloody assault on Ukraine and the global economic shocks stemming from the invasion, though issues at home threaten to overshadow his time overseas.

It’s hardly the first high-stakes overseas trip Biden has embarked on since taking office last year, but comes at a time of stark domestic unrest. The Supreme Court ruling striking down the constitutional right to an abortion will demand much of the White House’s attention, even as Biden seeks to project U.S. strength and leadership on the world stage.

While the president has succeeded thus far in uniting allies around a common approach to punishing Russia and aiding Ukraine, the trip will present a pressing test of his ability to keep countries unified as the war stretches into its fifth month with no sign of a resolution.  

“It will be, I think, very important for the president to drive that message of we’ve got to stay together on this and we’ve got to continue to support Ukraine in every way we can,” said Rose Gottemoeller, a former deputy secretary general of NATO. “Even with these economic crises gathering force right now.”

Ukrainian President Zelensky is expected to deliver remarks virtually at both the G-7 and NATO summits. Ukraine has been pressing for more heavy weaponry to fight back against the Russians amid the bombardment in the Donbas. 

Biden on Thursday released the third tranche of assistance for Ukraine just this month, a $450 million package that includes four more advanced rocket systems as well as patrol boats and ammunition. U.S. officials have said they are committed to providing Kyiv the military and economic tools it needs to push back and strengthen its position if a negotiating table with Moscow becomes an option.

Both summits will require member states to confront sped-up challenges of food security, climate change, battling disinformation and strengthening democracies. The war has contributed to upward pressures on both energy and food prices, exacerbating global inflation amid the ongoing pandemic. 

“I’m doing everything I can to blunt the Putin Price Hike and bring down the cost of gas and food,” Biden tweeted on Wednesday. “I led the world to coordinate the largest release from global oil reserves in history, and I’m working to get 20 million tons of grain out of Ukraine to help bring down prices.”

The White House has been intently focused on bringing down gas prices at home and finding ways to reduce European dependence on Russian energy. Just this past week, Biden called on Congress to pass a federal gas tax holiday to lift the burden on American consumers.

“There is a lot to talk about,” said Daniel Fried, former U.S. ambassador to Poland and an expert at the Atlantic Council.

Biden is scheduled to head first to the Bavarian Alps in Germany to attend the meeting of G-7, which includes the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Speaking on a phone call with reporters ahead of the trip, a senior Biden administration official said that the president would participate in seven working sessions focusing on issues including climate change, infrastructure, energy security, the global economy and Ukraine.

The official said the leaders plan to roll out “concrete” proposals to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war and show support for Ukraine, but it’s unclear what shape those will take.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies are weighing a price cap on Russian oil imports that proponents say could help reduce Russian profits while allowing oil to flow to countries that are dependent on it.

China imports of crude oil from Russia soared by 55 percent in May compared to the same time last year, Reuters reported, and India has imported 34 million barrels of discounted Russian oil since Moscow launched its Ukraine invasion on Feb. 24.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the G-7 meeting, after participating in virtual meetings hosted by Beijing for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit.

The G-7 meeting will take place as the United Nations is quietly trying to negotiate with Russia, Ukraine and Turkey on a way to allow shipments of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports that have been under Russian blockade for weeks.

Amanda Sloat, senior director for Europe on the National Security Council, said that Ankara was part of “food security conversations,” during a conference hosted by the Atlantic Council on Wednesday.

“Certainly there’s challenges that we’ve been public about, but I think Turkey has also tried to play a constructive role on Ukraine,” she said.

Biden will leave Germany for Madrid early next week to attend his fourth NATO summit as president, where the debate around Sweden and Finland joining the alliance is likely to take center stage.

The U.S. and other allies praise the two Nordic countries as model applicants to NATO while at the same time giving credence to Turkey’s concerns with their membership: that individuals associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, are not fully banned by Stockholm and Helsinki.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said following his visit in Ankara this week that it’s not clear whether Turkey’s issues with Finland and Sweden can be resolved by the time of the Madrid summit.

“If Turkey is asking, for example, for extradition of Swedish citizens, that’s going to be a matter of Swedish law. And I’m not sure that that’s something that Sweden can agree to without their legal process being exercised,” King told reporters. 

Some experts believe that Biden may need to get more directly involved in persuading Turkey to drop its objections. Ultimately, the U.S. may need to make concessions to Turkey in the form of F-16 fighter jets in order to persuade Ankara to allow the Finnish and Swedish bids to move forward.

The White House has not specified whether Biden plans to meet one-on-one with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“Where the president can be effective is really probably if at the summit meeting there is some last minute intercession, interaction with Erdoğan that is needed to bring a deal home, then he would participate in that phase,” Gottemoeller said. “He is saved for the big action.”

Senior officials including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have engaged with Turkish counterparts over the past several weeks, and while they haven’t divulged specific plans for U.S. concessions, they have expressed confidence about the path forward.

John Kirby, who serves as National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said Thursday that the discussion was largely trilateral — among Turkey, Sweden and Finland — but made clear the U.S. is willing to get involved as necessary.

“We’re confident that they’re going to be able to get there,” Kirby said, while declining to predict a timeline.

The NATO members are also expected to make new commitments to bolster force presence on its eastern flank to protect the Baltic states and Poland amid escalating Russian aggression in the region. And for the first time, the alliance will rally around a new strategic concept that mentions China, a nod to the growing threat posed by Beijing.

The NATO meeting will be an “extraordinary summit,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), co-chair of the Senate NATO-observer group, said this week, pointing to the expanding alliance and outreach to Asia-Pacific partners to counter China’s global ambitions.

“This is an extraordinary summit, let alone that we have two nonaligned nations wanting to join and adding 830 miles of a border with Russia, but we have Pacific Rim countries coming, because where there’s an increasing acknowledgement to NATO that China is a threat, and to have them at the summit is historic,” Tillis said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Source: TEST FEED1

Electric cars are unaffordable for many Americans. Biden is trying to impose them anyway

On June 17, President Biden hosted a Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF), the third such meeting held by Biden during his presidency.

At the forum, which was held virtually, representatives from more than 20 governments (including China, the United Kingdom, India and Japan) discussed “urgent energy and food security concerns.”

Participants also outlined their commitments to battle climate change, including pledges to “reduce methane emissions, speed the commercialization of critical technologies, put more zero-emission vehicles on the road, decarbonize ocean-based shipping, and increase fertilizer efficiency and alternatives.”

According to a fact sheet published by the White House about the forum, at the event President Biden once again reiterated his commitment to dramatically increase the number of zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) on America’s roadways, especially electric cars.

Earlier this year, Biden announced that his administration has set a goal for half of all new light-duty vehicles sold in 2030 to be ZEVs, including “battery electric, fuel cell electric, and plug-in hybrid vehicles.”

At the Major Economies Forum, the Biden administration said that the U.S. government will achieve this ambitious plan by imposing far-reaching regulations that will force car companies to sell more electric and other “green” vehicles. Some of these regulations have already been put in place.

“To advance this goal in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation have, working closely together, finalized stronger vehicle standards through 2026 and are now considering ambitious standards to at least 2030,” a White House statement noted.

Biden’s policy forcing manufacturers to produce zero-emissions vehicles will raise the cost of owning and driving a car, hurting lower- and middle-income families the most.

Zero-emissions vehicles remain expensive for many, and the purported financial benefits associated with owning one are much lower than some people think. This may explain why a study released in 2021 found that Americans considering an electric vehicle purchase have an average household income of $150,000, more than double the U.S. median income.

There are several reasons electric vehicles are more expensive to own than traditional gasoline-powered cars, but the biggest is the purchase price. The average price of a new electric vehicle sold in February 2022 was $60,054, compared to $45,596 for all vehicles. But these figures are somewhat misleading, because the average cost of all vehicles includes expensive electric cars too. Further, these figures fail to show that it’s possible to purchase used gasoline-powered cars for much less than most of the lower-end electric vehicles available.

For example, a review of used cars available on the popular online retailer Carvana shows that in the Atlanta metropolitan area, the most affordable used electric vehicle available with a model year of 2018 or newer is about $50,000, and most are well above $60,000. Conversely, there are hundreds of used traditional vehicles for sale for less than $20,000.

Advocates for Biden’s plan to impose zero-emissions vehicles claim that these price differences are mostly offset by the costs associated with running these cars. For example, a recent NBC News report claimed that “energy costs” are “where EVs have a clear and growing advantage.”

“For example, the new Volkswagen ID.4 SUV, which starts at about $40,000, gets 250 miles per charge,” the NBC News report claimed. “With the average residential customer paying about 14 cents per kilowatt, it costs roughly $11 to fully charge the battery. Also, some customers qualify for discount charging rates. A comparable VW Tiguan SUV, which starts at about $26,000 and gets 26 mpg, would cost about $38 to fill up at $4 a gallon. If you drive 12,000 miles a year, you could expect to spend around $550 to power the ID.4, compared to $1,900 for the Tiguan.”

Arguments such as these are common but deceptive. For starters, there are many gasoline-powered SUVs that perform better than the 26-mpg vehicle included in the example used by NBC News. For instance, the 2022 Nissan Rogue averages 33 mpg, and the 2022 Toyota Highlander, a non-plug-in hybrid, gets 36 mpg. And there are dozens of non-SUVs that perform even better. A 2022 Honda Civic is rated at 42 mpg on highways.

Further, although the national average electricity cost is about 14 cents per kilowatt, as NBC rightly reports, electricity prices vary substantially by region. In many parts of the United States, electricity prices are much higher than 14 cents per kilowatt.

In New England, the average cost of electricity is 24.5 cents per kilowatt. In California, the largest state by population, the average cost is 26.71 cents per kilowatt. And these costs would be higher if half of all Americans were using electric vehicles, because electricity consumption would necessarily skyrocket.

Once you factor in all of these considerations, it becomes clear that in many regions of the United States, including many of the most-populated areas, the everyday cost of using a gasoline-powered car is equal to or lower than an electric vehicle.

It is also important to keep in mind that gasoline prices are at historic highs. In May, the average retail price of gasoline was $4.54. In May 2020, when President Trump was president, the average price of gasoline was $1.96. If President Biden were to embrace pro-energy reforms, including policies that would substantially increase domestic oil and gas drilling, there’s no reason why energy prices couldn’t fall to Trump-era levels, especially once the conflict in Ukraine ends.

It is likely that electric vehicle manufacturers will continue to decrease the cost of production for EVs in the coming years. But if the government were to allow a truly free and fair marketplace and embrace common-sense energy policies, gasoline-powered cars would remain the more affordable option for many years to come, perhaps even many decades.

The Biden administration knows this, but, in the end, it will pursue whatever course is required to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, regardless of how painful it is for American families.

Justin Haskins (Jhaskins@heartland.org) is director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute and a New York Times bestselling author.

Source: TEST FEED1